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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) - DVD **½/**** Image A Sound A Extras C starring Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, David Kelly, Helena Bonham Carter screenplay by John August, based on the novel by Roald Dahl directed by Tim Burton by Walter Chaw The first hour is so obsessively faithful to the Roald Dahl source material that I was lulled into believing that Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was going to be a classic, a magnificent return to form for the dark fantasist who, once upon a time, denied Edward Scissorhands a happy ending, and let the Headless Horseman come back for the little kid under the floorboards. The set design of little Charlie's hovel on the edge of an industrial town is stunning--a throwback to the German Expressionism of Burton's Vincent and, in its canted walls, the best of its kind since The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Thus the tragedy and the irony of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's return to earth is that its ultimate mediocrity has a lot to do with the addition of a worthless backstory that draws it closer to Burton's auteur tendencies and away from Dahl's cruel, austere master plots. Burton's loner-punk heroes (Edward Scissorhands, Bruce Wayne, Pee-Wee, Ichabod Crane, Ed Wood), see, live alone or in a metaphor for isolation, divorced from their horror-legend father figures (Vincent Price, Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi, now Christopher Lee) and largely failing to hide their disfigurements while struggling to achieve a semblance of "ordinariness" in their familial relationships. (Even the demon Beetlejuice has a moment where he throws his arms around his victims and yells, "C'mon, we're simpatico here!") At their core, Burton's films are by and large hopeful--bittersweet or piquant, they're consistently portraits of misfits with dreams. But until Big Fish and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, they hadn't been trite or, perish the thought, fearful. Continue reading "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) - DVD" » Posted in 2000s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Directors: Tim Burton, DVD, Family, Fantasy | Permalink The Rodgers & Hammerstein Collection (1934-1965) - DVD *½/**** Image B Sound B Extras B+ starring Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Richard Haydn, Eleanor Parker screenplay by Ernest Lehman directed by Robert Wise THE KING AND I (1956) ****/**** Image A Sound A Extras A starring Deborah Kerr, Yul Brynner, Rita Moreno, Martin Benson screenplay by Ernest Lehman, based on Margaret Landon's play "Anna and the King of Siam" directed by Walter Lang SOUTH PACIFIC (1958) *½/**** Image A+ (Theatrical) A (Roadshow) Sound B Extras C+ starring Rossano Brazzi, Mitzi Gaynor, John Kerr, Ray Walston screenplay by Paul Osborn, based on Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener directed by Joshua Logan CAROUSEL (1956) **/**** Image A Sound A Extras C starring Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones, Cameron Mitchell, Barbara Ruick screenplay by Phoebe and Henry Ephron, based on the Ferenc Molnár's play "Liliom" directed by Henry King LILIOM (1934) ****/**** Image B Sound B Extras B+ starring Charles Boyer, Madeleine Ozeray, Robert Arnoux, Roland Toutain screenplay by Robert Liebmann, dialogue by Bernard Zimmer, based on the play by Franz (a.k.a. Ferenc) Molnár directed by Fritz Lang STATE FAIR (1945) ½*/**** Image B- Sound B- Extras A starring Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine screenplay by Oscar Hammerstein II, based on the novel by Philip Strong starring Pat Boone, Bobby Darin, Pamela Tiffin, Alice Faye screenplay by Richard Breen; adaptation by Oscar Hammerstein II, Sonya Levien, Paul Green directed by José Ferrer OKLAHOMA! (1955) ***/**** Image A (CinemaScope) C (Todd-AO) Sound B+ Extras B- starring Gordon MacRae, Gloria Grahame, Shirley Jones, Gene Nelson screenplay by Sonya Levien and William Ludwig directed by Fred Zinnemann by Walter Chaw God, The Sound of Music is so freakin' nice. Nazis are the bad guys, no controversy there; raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens--have you no heart, man? But when I like Rodgers & Hammerstein--and I like them quite a lot, truth be wrenched--I like their ambiguity, their irony, their goddamned fatalism in the face of eternal romantic verities. Consider the animal (jungle?) heat of "Shall We Dance," cut off like a faucet by the fascistic abortion of The King and I's secondary love story; or the persistence of love despite abuse and abandonment in Carousel; or the slapdash kangaroo court that justifies love in Oklahoma!. This is all so much more than the slightly shady (and ultimately redeemed) shyster of The Music Man--this is reality in the midst of the un-, sur-, hyper-reality of the musical form. Yet what The Sound of Music offers up is a military man shtupping an ex-nun with no corresponding sense of fetishistic eroticism. How is it that the two most popular adult Halloween costumes engaged in naughty Alpine sexcapades could be totally free of va-va-va-voom? It's so relentlessly wholesome that of course it's the most beloved artifact of its kind in the short history of the movie musical: If you're of a certain age, the plot of the thing is almost family mythology, resurrected every holiday like a dusty corpse at a decades-long Irish wake gone tragically awry. That ain't a grin, baby, it's a rictus. Continue reading "The Rodgers & Hammerstein Collection (1934-1965) - DVD" » Posted in ****/****, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Best Picture (Academy Awards), Comedy, Docudrama, Drama, DVD, Family, Fantasy, Musical, Romance, War, Western | Permalink The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) */**** starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Henson, Tilda Swinton screenplay by Eric Roth, based on the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald directed by David Fincher by Walter Chaw Based on an evergreen F. Scott Fitzgerald short story that had the decency to be a short story, David Fincher's extravagant, OCD-extruded The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is less one of this year's astounding ruminations on loss, regret, melancholy, and the ephemeral nature of love than it is a remake--tonally, structurally--of Forrest Gump. It highlights just how good, how complex and ambitious, Coppola's similar Youth Without Youth is--and it clarifies, if clarification were needed, how a high-concept becomes a gimmick without a core of gravity to keep it from spinning off into butter. The picture is thick with exploitive gestures, from its comic-relief mammy all the way through to Hurricane Katrina being used as the catastrophic backdrop that lends...what, gravitas?...to the melo-tragic love story that is the end-all of its Titanic framing story. How best to unite an ossified granny with her long-lost love than the mass-drowning and general devastation of a lot of people who don't matter one iota to our central drama? It's not deplorable in the traditional sense, I guess, but it's so saccharine and dumbed-down that it's aggressively offensive anyway. Benjamin Button painfully articulates everything subtle, melancholic, and beautiful about stuff like Synecdoche, New York, A Christmas Tale, and The Wrestler in broad pronouncements for the slowest students in class. When dealing with existential matters, it's best not to go the Celestine Prophecy/Jonathan Livingston Seagull route with platitudes and easy solutions to thorny, baseline questions about what it is to love, to age, to die. There's a scene in the film, probably more than halfway through, where one character says to the other that things pass too quickly and, more, isn't that a shame. A little later, those same two hold each other in front of a mirror and one says he'd like to remember how they are, right at this moment, as time plays its tricks on our affections. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is Fincher's own Se7en, except it shows the head in the box. Continue reading "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)" » Posted in 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Theatrical | Permalink | Comments (0) starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Amy Adams screenplay by Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon directed by Zack Snyder by Walter Chaw Marrying the worst parts of Zack Snyder with the worst parts of Joss Whedon (who stepped in to complete the film after Snyder had a family tragedy), DC's superhero team-up dirge Justice League shambles into unnatural half-life with a message of apocalyptic doomsaying presented now without puke filters, so that it looks like a movie my mom watches on her television with the motion-smoothing turned on. The same trick has been attempted with a script burdened by Whedon's patented hipster-ese, which went stale about halfway through "Buffy"'s run, let's face it. The Flash's non sequiturs (Whedon's suggesting he's autistic (which isn't funny)), Aquaman's hearty, get-a-haircut bro-clamations ("I dig it!" and "Whoa!" and so on)--all of it is so poorly timed that it's possible to become clinical about what happens when a punchline is grafted onto a piece at the eleventh hour, and it doesn't help that no one in this cast is known for being even remotely funny or glib. Jason Momoa is a lot of things; Noël Coward ain't one of them. When Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) shakes her head bemusedly (I think) and says warmly (I guess), "Children. I work with children," you get that sick, embarrassed feeling that happens when you're watching a person you want to like succumb to flop sweat and overrehearsal. Continue reading "Justice League (2017)" » Posted in 2017, Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Superhero, Theatrical | Permalink Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009) **/**** starring John C. Reilly, Ken Watanabe, Josh Hutcherson, Salma Hayek screenplay by Paul Weitz and Brian Helgeland, based on the "Cirque du Freak" series of books by Darren Shan directed by Paul Weitz by Ian Pugh Maybe it's a cop-out to dismiss Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (hereafter The Vampire's Assistant) with that banal X-meets-Y idiom ("Twilight collides with The Golden Compass!"), but what other choice does one have? Three weeks before little brother Chris continues the Twilight saga, Paul Weitz gets the ball rolling on another vampire property based on another popular series of novels for young adults--and getting the ball rolling is more or less all he does. It's a handy parallel to Chris's own The Golden Compass in the sense that you're expected to immerse yourself in a fantasy world where no one does anything of particular note and nothing is accomplished. People are bitten, people are transformed, and the fulfillment of legends is foretold--but when the credits roll, can you say you've actually seen anything? In its own laborious foundation-laying, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone still managed a dreaded brush with Voldemort; what does The Vampire's Assistant have to offer? Willem Dafoe and Ken Watanabe under pounds of latex--made up to look like Vincent Price and Incredible Hulk nemesis The Leader, respectively--standing around, making bold pronouncements with the implied message that they'll have more to do if the powers-that-be greenlight the next instalment. Continue reading "Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009)" » Posted in 2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Ian Pugh, Fantasy, Teen, Theatrical, Thriller | Permalink Telluride '17: The Shape of Water ***/**** starring Sally Hawkins, Doug Jones, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins screenplay by Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor directed by Guillermo del Toro by Walter Chaw I watched Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water in a packed auditorium in Telluride, CO as a torrential rainstorm pounded the roof of what is, outside of the festival, an ice-skating rink, perched there with a park in front of it, the headwaters of the San Miguel to one side and the mountains to the other and all around. As the main character, cleaning lady Eliza (Sally Hawkins), turned on water for her bath, the cascading cacophony in the theatre joined in with a warm insularity I always equate with the Mandarin term for "cozy": two words that mean, or at least sound like they mean, "warm" and "noisy." The Shape of Water is like that, too, a gothic romance in the new del Toro style (after Crimson Peak, which, for me, was more noisy than warm, but mileage varies), which del Toro introduced as the evocation of a fantasy he had as a child upon watching Creature from the Black Lagoon in which the Creature falls in love with the girl and they live happily ever after. That's it, and were that truly it, The Shape of Water would be an instant classic rather than an acquired taste, perhaps--a future cult classic, certainly, that is forgiven for its odd digressions while justly-celebrated for its audacity. It's a triumph when it focuses in on the essential loneliness of misfits (the melancholic, Romanticist engine that drives del Toro's Hellboy movies), but in a subplot involving Russian spies, it becomes for long minutes time spent away from what works in favour of time spent with what doesn't. When del Toro has allowed intrusions like this in the past (see: his early masterpieces The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth), it's been up to us to infer the connection between his dark fables and his political concerns. Here he brings the subtext into text at a cost to the "warm/noisy" coziness of his work. For del Toro, insularity is a strength. Continue reading "Telluride '17: The Shape of Water" » Posted in 2017, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Espionage, Fantasy, Film Festivals, Horror, Romance, Telluride, Telluride 2017, Thriller | Permalink The Dark Tower (2017) starring Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Taylor, Jackie Earle Haley screenplay by Akiva Goldsman & Jeff Pinkner and Anders Thomas Jensen & Nikolaj Arcel directed by Nikolaj Arcel by Walter Chaw If I cared or knew one thing about Stephen King's revered Dark Tower series, I'd probably really hate this movie in exactly the same way I initially hated Francis Lawrence's Constantine. I was a devotee of the Vertigo sub-line of DC comics through the early-'90s--the one that produced titles like Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman", Jamie Delano's "Animal Man", Grant Morrison's "Doom Patrol", and Delano/Garth Ennis's "Hellblazer", which of course formed the basis for Lawrence's picture. But I don't. Care about The Dark Tower, that is. For all that King once meant to me as a kid, it and The Stand were two of his epics I could never get into. I missed the window on Tolkien, too. And in not caring and in my complete ignorance, I like Nikolaj Arcel's The Dark Tower about as much as I like Constantine now, not needing the four or five years to come to terms with how it doesn't jibe with images and rhythms I'd conjured in my jealous nerd-dom. (I maintain, however, that if they were going to make Constantine a Yank, they should've cast Denis Leary.) In The Dark Tower, the main hero is a kid named Jake (Tom Taylor) who, one day, discovers that all those crazy dreams he's been having, which have led to all those creepy-kid drawings plastering his bedroom walls, are TRUE. Why won't you listen to Jake, adults? Obviously modelled after the kid in Last Action Hero, Jake dreams of a dark tower that is not Idris Elba that is under attack by the evil Man in Black, who is not Johnny Cash but is named Walter and is played by Matthew McConaughey. My favourite moment in the film is when Walter shows up in Jake's parents' kitchen, frying something on the stove, explaining apologetically that where he's from, there's no chicken. Continue reading "The Dark Tower (2017)" » Posted in 2017, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi, Stephen King, Theatrical, Western | Permalink Beauty and the Beast: Special Edition (1991|2002) [Platinum Edition] - DVD *½/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B screenplay by Linda Woolverton directed by Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise This review was popular for its contrarianism, but to my current thinking it's insubstantial and hurries through the movie to get to the DVD; I'd like to take another crack at it someday.-Ed. (6/14/17) by Bill Chambers Disney solidified the comeback of 2-D animation after the success of The Little Mermaid with Beauty & the Beast, a throwback to the fairytale reimaginings that defined the studio in its heyday. Uncle Walt himself had, in fact, kicked around the idea of adapting the "song as old as rhyme" during his reign but threw in the towel when he couldn't figure out a way to sustain kiddie interest in what is, in its classical tellings, the story of a monster and a hottie who dine together in the evenings. Continue reading "Beauty and the Beast: Special Edition (1991|2002) [Platinum Edition] - DVD" » Posted in 1990s, 2000s, Animated, Authors: Bill Chambers, Disney, DVD, Family, Fantasy, Musical, Romance | Permalink Bandolero! (1968); Myra Breckinridge (1970); Mother, Jugs & Speed (1975); One Million Years B.C. (1966) - DVDs BANDOLERO! **/**** Image A Sound B starring James Stewart, Dean Martin, Raquel Welch, George Kennedy screenplay by James Lee Barrett directed by Andrew V. Mc Laglen **/**** Image A Sound A- Extras A+ starring Mae West, John Huston, Raquel Welch, Rex Reed screenplay by Michael Sarne and David Giler directed by Michael Sarne MOTHER, JUGS & SPEED ***/**** Image B+ Sound B starring Bill Cosby, Raquel Welch, Harvey Keitel, Allen Garfield screenplay by Tom Mankiewicz directed by Peter Yates by Walter Chaw Very much the product of its time, Andrew V. McLaglen's Bandolero!, the last of the three westerns the director made with Jimmy Stewart, appeared in 1968, the same year as the end of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Western cycle (Once Upon a Time in the West) and alongside such seminal generational discomfort flicks as Rosemary's Baby and Night of the Living Dead. And while it's not nearly so good as McLaglen/Stewart's devastating Civil War idyll Shenandoah, Bandolero! is still better than it probably should be, saved by its above-the-line talent. With Raquel Welch as a freshly widowed Mexican woman ("I was a whore when I was 12--my family never went hungry"--and so it went in Welch's career) and a good, if woefully miscast Dean Martin as Stewart's no-account, bank-robbin' outlaw brother, the picture is a border film, the basis in many ways for Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove and one that contents itself with tepid character melodrama unfolding at a snail's pace along the road to Ensenada. Continue reading "Bandolero! (1968); Myra Breckinridge (1970); Mother, Jugs & Speed (1975); One Million Years B.C. (1966) - DVDs" » Posted in 1960s, 1970s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Crime, Drama, DVD, Esoterica, Fantasy, Romance, UK, Western | Permalink starring Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Annabelle Wallis, Russell Crowe screenplay by David Koepp and Christopher McQuarrie and Dylan Kussman directed by Alex Kurtzman by Walter Chaw It took me a while but it finally clicked about an hour into Alex Kurtzman's hilarible The Mummy that the whole thing wasn't a really bad movie, but a really bad videogame in bad-movie form. It has the same alternating cadence of leaden exposition drop, interminable and hideously- animated/performed cut-scene, and standard FPS-strictured gameplay culminating in a boss fight. Envisioned as the launch for Universal's "Dark Universe" franchise (in which the pantheon of classic Universal Monsters are given gritty action reboots, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen-style), it finally functions as a first-generation "Resident Evil" port in which the dialogue, for what it's worth, was written in Japanese, translated into English, and performed by 64 pixels stacked on top of each other. Awkward doesn't begin to describe the desperation with which all involved try to seductively reveal/hide their Dark Universe™ Easter eggs while hobbling from one big, button-geeking, CGI-hobbled moment to the next. Look, behind those dust zombies: it's Dr. Frankenstein's lab! Continue reading "The Mummy (2017)" » Posted in 2017, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Fantasy, Horror, Theatrical, Tom Cruise, Zombie | Permalink **½/**** starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Danny Huston screenplay by Allan Heinberg directed by Patty Jenkins by Walter Chaw Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman gets it. I knew it the instant Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), stationed in a trench on the Western Front some time in the last days of the Great War, decides not to let people she could be saving die, and climbs into the poignantly-named "No Man's Land." "No Man's Land," right? But maybe a woman's. The fight choreography isn't very good here, but the film is less about that than it is about why we fight. It asks that question a lot. At the moment of crisis, once Wonder Woman realizes who she is and defines herself as a hero, she declares that she fights for love. It's more courageous to say something like that, baldly and unashamedly, in this, our age of sophisticated, sardonic, superior detachment. That's why I cried when she climbs into battle in an unwinnable conflagration, because, you know, this is the DC movies harking back to the Christopher Reeve Superman to present us with a nostalgic view of superheroes, from when they cared a lot about us. When they fought for love and not Byronic self-actualization or to avenge some petty slight. When our heroes believed in us, more than we believe in ourselves. When they were, in fact, the best version of who we wanted to be. Continue reading "Wonder Woman (2017)" » 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) [Special Edition] + Atlantis: Milo's Return (2003) - DVDs ***/**** Image B- Sound A- Extras A+ starring Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Paul Lukas, Peter Lorre screenplay by Earl Felton, based on the novel by Jules Verne directed by Richard Fleischer ATLANTIS: MILO'S RETURN *½/**** Image C+ Sound A- Extras D+ screenplay by Thomas Hart & Henry Gilroy & Kevin Hopps & Tad Stones & Steve Englehart & Marty Isenberg directed by Victor Cook, Toby Shelton, Tad Stones "Climb aboard the Nautilus...and into a strange undersea world of spellbinding adventure! Kirk Douglas, Paul Lukas and Peter Lorre star as shipwrecked survivors taken captive by the mysterious Captain Nemo, brilliantly portrayed by James Mason. Wavering between genius and madness, Nemo has launched a deadly crusade across the seven seas. But can the captive crew expose his evil plan before he destroys the world?" --DVD liner summary for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Bill Chambers The trained seal is impressive, but enough about Kirk Douglas. Disney's epic live-action adaptation of the Jules Verne novel, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea proves three things over the course of its thick running time: that director Richard Fleischer (the man who brought us Fantastic Voyage, the film that inspired Innerspace) was a gifted special-effects marshall--20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is still eye- popping/fooling forty-nine years after its release; that James Mason essayed the cinema's definitive Bligh archetype; and that there's always some asshole in a striped shirt in submarine movies. (Here it's Douglas's scurvy harpoonist Ned Land.) What's surprising is how prosaic the film can be with so many assets in place, i.e., Mason, the Seussian interiors of the Nautilus, head-hunters, an enthralling killer squid, a seal with the charisma of Fred Astaire, and an especially vein-popping Douglas. Continue reading "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) [Special Edition] + Atlantis: Milo's Return (2003) - DVDs" » Posted in 1950s, 2000s, Action, Adventure, Animated, Authors: Bill Chambers, Disney, DVD, Family, Fantasy, Sci-Fi | Permalink War Gods of the Deep (1965)/At the Earth's Core (1976) [Double Feature] - DVD War-Gods of the Deep The City Under the Sea ½*/**** Image A Sound B starring Vincent Price, Tab Hunter, Susan Hart, David Tomlinson screenplay by Charles Bennett and Louis M. Heyward directed by Jacques Tourneur AT THE EARTH'S CORE starring Doug McClure, Peter Cushing, Caroline Munro, Cy Grant screenplay by Milton Subotsky, based on the novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs by Walter Chaw Jacques Tourneur kicks all kinds of ass. He shone in the Forties with his Val Lewton collaborations and his magnificent, atmosphere-laden pictures Night of the Demon and Out of the Past. Having turned his attention primarily to moody Joel McCrea westerns and adventure pulpers in the Fifties, Tourneur, by the time the Sixties rolled around, unfortunately found himself outside his black-and-white comfort zone (his last great work is probably an episode of the original "The Twilight Zone", "Night Call") and at the helm of productions starring people like Steve Reeves and Vincent Price. One of his last pictures--1965's abominable War-Gods of the Deep--finds its way onto DVD via MGM's admirable "Midnite Movies" line as the front end of a double feature. It's a flat, fish-eyed stinker that positions itself as a ripper of both the Price-anchored Roger Corman/Edgar Allan Poe films and the bona fide cycle of Jules Verne spectacles that began with Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), continued through From the Earth to the Moon (1958) and Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), and culminated in 1964's still-creepy First Men in the Moon, to which this film might owe its greatest debt. Ostensibly based on a Poe poem called "The City in the Sea," War-Gods of the Deep grafts its gothic settings (complete with another voiceover intro of Price reading a poem) to a Verne-like tale of a mysterious egomaniac (named "The Captain," of course, and played by Price) living in a giant, velvet-lined mansion beneath the sea, just off the coast of Cornwall. Continue reading "War Gods of the Deep (1965)/At the Earth's Core (1976) [Double Feature] - DVD" » Posted in 1960s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, UK | Permalink King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017) starring Charlie Hunnam, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Djimon Honsou, Eric Bana screenplay by Jody Harold and Guy Ritchie & Lionel Wigram directed by Guy Ritchie by Walter Chaw This is the part where I confirm I've read my Malory and Pyle, my T.H. White, of course. That I've seen Excalibur and Monty Python and the Holy Grail and The Sword in the Stone and any number of First Knights, including even Unidentified Flying Oddball, which I loved when I was a kid easily-scarred by that weird android doppelgänger of Dennis Dugan's wayward astronaut. I was a big fan, too, of Choose Your Own Adventure #86: Knights of the Round Table. In other words, one of the most popular Western myths went pile-driving through the three decades of my relative cultural sentience. When I had a brief obsession with WWII, I brushed up on all the literature just to better understand why the British saw Churchill as the Once and Future King. Just last year, one of 2016's best films, Jackie, featured an extended sequence in which the titular widow wandered through the White House listening to the score from Camelot. Even my early Lego fantasies with the Castle playsets featured an adultery subplot where my French best friend made off with my Queen. I'm not a fan, then, so much as a victim of the mythology's ubiquity. Continue reading "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)" » Posted in 2017, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Fantasy, Theatrical | Permalink The Protector (2005) + The Covenant (2006) Tom yum goong starring Tony Jaa, Petchtai Wongkamlao, Bongkoj Khongmalai, Xing Jing screenplay by Kongdej Jaturanrasamee & Napalee & Piyaros Thongdee and Joe Wannapin directed by Prachya Pinkaew ½*/**** starring Steven Strait, Sebastian Stan, Laura Ramsey, Taylor Kitsch screenplay by J.S. Cardone directed by Renny Harlin by Walter Chaw Tony Jaa is a bad motherfucker. There's a moment in his latest export The Protector where it appears as though he's killed someone with his penis (lo, how I would love to avoid that epitaph), and in the meantime, he dispatches foes with the heedless joy of obvious predecessor Jackie Chan (who has a cameo in the film shot so ineptly that it suggests a Jackie Chan impersonator smeared with Vaseline). Alas, there's a plot (something about the kidnapping of two elephants, one of which is turned into a gaudy tchotcke in an evil dragon lady's den of inequity), too, told through a lot of howlingly incompetent narrative chunks you could seemingly rearrange in any order with no tangible disruption of sense. (The Butchers Weinstein may of course be partly to blame.) The film is easily the funniest, most exhilaratingly ridiculous picture in a year in which Snakes on a Plane aspired to the same camp/cult heights, and it does it the only way that you can: by being deadly serious. Continue reading "The Protector (2005) + The Covenant (2006)" » Posted in 2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, Fantasy, France, Hong Kong, Horror, Thailand, Thriller | Permalink

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Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 88 and 443 Below you can find the full step by step solution for you problem. We hope it will be very helpful for you and it will help you to understand the solving process. To find the greatest common factor of two numbers just type them in and get the solution. Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of and To get the Greates Common Factor (GCF) of 88 and 443 we need to factor each value first and then we choose all the copies of factors and multiply them: 88: 2 2 2 11 GCF: The Greates Common Factor (GCF) is: 1 See similar ones: | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 576 and 833 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 1624 and 6057 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 3780 and 256 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 224 and 675 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 448 and 1350 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 280 and 46 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 120 and 1155 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 864 and 1056 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 329 and 9 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 45 and 1075 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 416 and 718 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 541 and 10 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 596 and 847 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 10 and 275 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 459 and 295 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 54 and 864 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 650 and 270 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 793985 and 356856 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 582 and 291 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 488 and 610 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 185 and 99900 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 4080 and 384 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 73728 and 1088391168 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 1150 and 63 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 461 and 717 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 365 and 609 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 1125 and 2990 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 328 and 368 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 496 and 816 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 328 and 816 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 816 and 136 | | Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of 248 and 656 |

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Illinois Legalizes Recreational Marijuana (date: July 24, 2019) The State of Illinois officially legalizes recreational marijuana after the Illinois Senate and House passed a comprehensive cannabis bill. Governor J. B. Pritzker signed the bill into law on June 25, 2019, fulfilling a substantial campaign promise. Illinois is the first and only state to legalize cannabis through the legislative process, instead of a ballot initiative. Although the bill faced plenty of opposition, supporters of the bill were quick to make key compromises that ensured the bill’s passage before the end of the legislative session. For example, Senate amendments removed the home-grow provision for purely recreational users while keeping such allowances for medicinal users. They also drastically scaled-back the planned expungement of criminal records. Instead of for the blanket annulment of minor marijuana-related violations, the law sends eligible cases (involving less than 30 grams of marijuana, unless the conviction is linked to a violent crime) through the governor’s clemency process. For cases involving amounts between 30 and 500 grams, individuals must petition a court to vacate a conviction. In all, approximately 770,000 cannabis-related cases are eligible for expungement. Notably, the social equity provisions remained largely untouched, making Illinois’s recreational cannabis law the first of its kind. Illinois is the first state to address fairness in its cannabis legalization by introducing a category of “social equity applicants,” who see reduced or eliminated fees and bonus application points. To qualify as a social equity applicant, 51% of the business must be owned by people who have either been arrested and convicted of a cannabis-related offense or have strong ties to a community that has been disproportionately impacted by both poverty and cannabis drug law enforcement. Businesses with 10 or more employees will also qualify if 51% of the workers fit this definition. Legalization is expected to boost revenue for the state, with all tax revenue destined for a Cannabis Regulation Fund, which will be responsible for the administration and regulation of the new law. All remaining revenue will be diverted to the state budget – specifically, the General, Criminal Justice, Human Services, Budget Stabilization, Local Government, and Drug Treatment funds. The Department of Agriculture also plans to coordinate with the Illinois Community Colleges to offer programs that with certify students for careers in cannabis. Up to eight community colleges will be selected for the Department’s program. The legalization of adult-use marijuana has no effect on the current Compassionate Use Medical Cannabis Program. Currently operating cultivators and dispensaries must continue to reserve a sufficient supply to ensure that patient access to marijuana is not interrupted. Similarly, the new law has no effect on current workplace policies that require employees to be drug free, so long as the policy is not applied in a discriminatory manner. Disclaimer: G & G Law assumes no responsibility for the accuracy or the timeliness of the information on this website. This website is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice or a substitute for legal counsel. Visitors should not act on this information without seeking professional counsel. The information on this website is not intended to, and does not, create an attorney-client relationship, and you should not send us confidential information until you speak with one of our attorneys and receive our authorization to do so. Ian Saderholm2020-01-17T11:17:38-06:00January 9th, 2020|Business Entity Selection/Formation, Cannabis, Employers, Employment Issues, Small Business Law, Startups| Zoning Issues for Illinois’s Craft Grow Businesses Illinois Releases Cannabis Applications for Craft Growers, Transporters, and Infusers New Laws for Businesses in 2020 Red Tape Unwrapped: Mayor Lightfoot Eases Small Business License and Permit Applications Business Entity Selection/Formation Contracts/Documents Not for Profit Corporations

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Cookie Policy, Godstone Surrey On this website https://www.goldcrestcars.co.uk we use cookies to provide a better user experience and also track user activity so we can improve our services in future. All the information which these cookies collect is anonymous and are only used to improve the experience on this website. Cookies are small pieces of text sent to a web browser by a website a user visits. A cookie file stored in a web browser and allows the service or a third-party to recognize a user anonymously and make the users next visit easier and the service more useful. How Goldcrest Cars uses cookies When a user accesses this website, it may place a number of cookies files in the users web browser. This website uses cookies for the following purposes: to enable certain functions of the service, to provide analytics, to store user preferences, to enable advertisements delivery, including behavioural advertising. How to control and delete cookies through a browser The ability to enable, disable or delete cookies can also be completed at the browser level, in order to do this a user can follow the instructions provided by a browser (usually located within the "Help", "Tools" or "Edit" facility). Disabling a cookie or category of cookie does not delete the cookie from the users browser, the user will need to do this themselves from within the browser. Please note, however, that if a user deletes cookies or refuses to accept them, the user might not be able to use all of the features this website offers, a user may not be able to store user preferences, and some of our pages might not display properly.

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#203 / The Front Door To American Power That is Maria Butina peeking in from the right. She is, for those not following the national news, a Russian. She has been accused of being a Russian spy, as well as a woman willing to use sex to advance her nefarious plans. She also has a close relationship with the National Rifle Association. Butina is now being held in a jail in the United States. She says she was just a student (she recently got a Masters from American University) who happens to like guns a lot. To get an idea about the gun thing, consult the picture at the bottom, or click this link. Fact is, a picture of Butina with a gun also figures prominently in the article to which I link in the very first line of this blog posting. Click that link, too, to solidify your understanding that Butina really does like guns. On July 18, 2018, The New York Times ran an article titled, "What Was Maria Butina Doing at the National Prayer Breakfast?" Maybe The Times hasn't been aware that those who like guns a lot also like to hang around with the religious set. I am sort of joking. According to The Times' article, which quotes a professor at Dartmouth, the National Prayer Breakfast is a "backdoor to American power." Because of that fact, The Times implies that the National Prayer Breakfast is exactly where we would expect a gun-loving Russian spy to show up. I actually don't want to talk about Butina all that much. The references to her are really a digression, and have very little to do with the point I want to make. I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to feature a sexy, gun-loving, religious, Russian redhead in one of my daily commentaries, which are usually so abstract, theoretical, and/or pedestrian. Enough about Butina! (But click this link for even more - and note the gun!). My comment today is about the statement that the National Prayer Breakfast is a "backdoor to American power." The Times and the Dartmouth professor make this statement because a lot of entitled, rich, and well-positioned people in American society attend the National Prayer Breakfast. Many of us think that power resides with people like that. Well, that's true, of course, Members of Congress and the lobbyists who throng where elected officials gather (and the National Prayer Breakfast certainly qualifies) do wield significant economic, social, and political power. Here is my caution. I think it is important for ordinary Americans not to fool themselves into thinking that the best way to access political power is to find some way (sex might do it!) to cozy up to the kind of people who attend events like the National Prayer Breakfast. Going after power that way, in fact, is definitely trying to access power through the backdoor. In our nation, power ultimately resides with the people. That means you and me. The best way to access that power is to remember, first, that you have it yourself, and then, second, to organize with others to mobilize and use your own power to advance the causes in which you believe. That is how to get to power through the front door. (1) - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/opinion/maria-butina-putin-infiltration.html (2) - https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/nra-maria-butina-spying-charges-trump-campaign/

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6 of The Interesting Facts About The Bigg Boss House Which You Would Have Not Known Bigg Boss is one of the most controversial and favourite show that most of the people love to watch. And if you are a big fan of this show, then you must be knowing its latest season (season 13) is doing so well and is full of drama and acting which we are absolutely enjoying. If you do not know about this show, then let me tell you. This is a show where some celebrities or commoners live together in a house for 3 months. To live in the house or to survive there is not at all easy as it seems, individuals living there need to perform various tasks and compete with each other in order to win a cash prize. The show is full of drama and dirty secrets which one might not be knowing as it is not shown on the television. So, here is the list of some of the secrets that you just can’t afford to miss. Have a look. 1. Contestants get the liquor in juice packaging via: Bigg Boss You must have heard that the contestants who are living inside the Bigg boss house aren’t allowed to consume liquor. But that’s not correct. The concerned management supplies them with alcohol in fruit juice packets which we can’t guess ever. 2. All the steamy bits are aired after taking contestant’s permission Getting intimated, kissing or hugging each other in the show is normal and these things are not shown on the TV unless permission is rated for it from the contestants. Each contestant signs a contract before the show regarding showing the steamy bits on the Indian TV. 3. Cleaning is not done by the contestants We get to see the contestants doing the household chores including sweeping, cleaning, cooking, etc. But what we get to see is not correct. Every morning, some member of the cleaning staff comes to the house and does all the things. Also read: 8 Couples of Television Whose Social Media We Cannot Resist 4. Navjot Singh Sidhu is the only contestant who never got voted out by inmates Navjot Singh Sidhu is the only contestant till date who never got voted or eliminated out from the fellow contestants. Though he left the show in between of the season, he was one of the most loved contestants of that season. 5. If you want to quit in between, you have to pay Rs. 50 lakh or more Yes, this is true if you want to quit the show in between, you need to pay big amount may be Rs. 50 lakh or more. So, you can’t say no once you get the entry inside the Bigg Boss house. 6. Not only people live here Yes, Bigg Boss’s house is no less than a jungle. The contestants will get to see some insects or animals like snakes or scorpions in the house as well. So, these were some of the shocking facts about your favourite Bigg Boss show which one could not get to see on Indian television. Also read: 6 TV Actresses Who are Not Just Bold, But Extremely Pretty and Also the One Show Changed the Game of Television Related Topics:Bigg Boss House Deepika Padukone’s New Movie Chhaapaak Trailer is Strong Enough To Give You Goosebumps Parineeti Made A Comeback To The Shooting of Saina Nehwal Biopic’ After Suffering Neck and Spine Injury A writer can take you back to the old, build new and take you places with this motto and passion I started a journey of Gudstory. I tried to communicate my thoughts and happenings around the world to you. Being business owner by profession and writer by passion.

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Karolina Skog is no longer a government minister, Minister for the Environment 25 May 2016 - 20 January 2019 Article from Ministry of the Environment Consumers to receive environmental information about fuel As part of efforts to end fossil fuel dependence and achieve Sweden’s goal of reducing transport sector emissions by 70 per cent by 2030, the Government today adopted an ordinance prescribing that consumers receive information at fuel pumps about the climate impact and origin of fuels, such as petrol, diesel, gas and more. It is important for consumers to be able to make informed decisions when they buy fuel. Making environmental information about fuel available will also make it clear which companies are at the forefront of efforts to reduce emissions. "One basic principle of environmental policy is that it must be easy to do the right thing. When environmental information about fuel is made available, this principle will also apply when choosing fuel," says Minister for the Environment Karolina Skog. Environmental information will be available at fuel pumps and will be overall information about the fuel's greenhouse gas emissions over its life cycle, its raw materials and their country of origin. More detailed information will be available on fuel suppliers' websites. To avoid excessive administrative costs, small fuel suppliers are exempt from this information requirement. It will therefore be voluntary for suppliers of less than 1 500 cubic metres of liquid fuel or 1 000 000 cubic metres of gaseous fuel per year. The Swedish Energy Agency will be authorised to issue regulations on the specifics of the required environmental information. The obligation to provide environmental information will apply from 1 January 2020. Jakob Lundgren Press Secretary to Minister for the Environment Karolina Skog Karolina Skog Summary of the Government’s budget initiatives in the areas of environment, climate and energy 29 September 2016 · Article from Ibrahim Baylan, Isabella Lövin, Ministry of the Environment

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Musicians Russell, Tanner helped Hilton Head become a family destination Lisa Allen Previous Article Meditating through music Next Article Q&A with Jeff Bradley If you think about it, Hilton Head Island became to be as we know it -- a family-oriented vacation destination -- because Sea Pines Resort hired a guy to strum a guitar under a huge oak tree. That guy was Gregg Russell, a Birmingham, Ala., native who was trying to earn a graduate degree in business by singing for the summer at Disney World. “I was the front guy for a trio and an agent asked if we wanted to go to Hilton Head for a couple weeks.” His bandmates weren’t interested, but Russell was. “I came here alone for a twoweek job in 1976 and I’ve been here ever since. At the end of two weeks, I went to pick up my paycheck, and they asked to stay another two weeks.” The job extensions from Sea Pines Resort Company have yet to end. “They’ve taken very good care of me,” Russell said as he prepares for his 38th season under the Liberty Oak in Harbour Town. “Gregg is everything to the Sea Pines Resort. He has entertained families and kids for generations. He is Sea Pines in so many ways,” said Rob Bender, Sea Pines Resort’s director of recreation and marine operations. “Sea Pines is a family resort. His show involves the entire family. It has a nostalgic feel to it. There are no electronics, no gadgets. If anything, his appeal has increased, based on attendance and comments. You don’t play that long unless you know what you’re doing.” During the summer season, Russell works six days a week, starting with the morning Bubble Gum Cruise/dolphin watch and concluding with the nightly concerts. “It has been a good marriage,” Russell said. “I didn’t know they were looking for what I offered. It became very clear early on they were looking for the family market: grandparents and parents and children. I like to call my show a family show, not a kids’ show. If it was just a kiddie show it never would have survived.” Bender said Russell perfectly compliments the resort’s aura. “You’re in one of the most beautiful destinations on the East Coast with The Liberty Oak, the yachts, the lighthouse, and then you have this gentleman who is world class. He has the right formula. He’s a genius.” Russell’s path to Hilton Head started with a childhood friendship with the son of a wealthy Birmingham, Ala., family. Russell became part of the family and when it was time for his friend to go to boarding school in Florida, the friend’s parents send Russell there, too. But for college, Russell put himself through. “I was struggling. I had to earn my way through school, so I auditioned at Disney.” After that fateful two-week stint on Hilton Head, Sea Pines consumed his summers. He spent the rest of the year singing at ski resorts in Colorado, at festivals, and on cruise ships all over the world. “I was on more than 1,000 cruises,” he said. He eventually married and had two children. “I did Christmas and New Year’s cruises and we went as a family. It was part of my compensation.” But for the most part, Russell traveled alone. “I had a family and it was tough to move them around during the school year. I was on the road 200 days a year for 25 years.” The upstart It wasn’t until about a dozen years after Russell started that Greenwood Resorts, founder of Palmetto Dunes and Shelter Cove, found their perfect formula, Shannon Tanner. “I don’t think he’s a competitor, in the best sense,” Russell said. “He used to come watch me as a youngster. I consider him my friend. I think there is always going to be room for family entertainment.” Tanner, now 49, recalls watching Russell’s show as a teenager, primarily as a place to meet female teenagers. “I would stop and listen to Gregg. Things are unconsciously in our minds.” It wasn‘t until Tanner left Hilton Head for Colorado and then returned in his mid-20s that he landed the gig at Shelter Cove. “I had a son and I was writing kids‘ music. There was a guy doing something similar, but it wasn’t what they were looking for. My show and Gregg’s show are unique. Those shows are nonexistent any more.” Now getting ready for his 26th year, Tanner said how he approaches his show evolves. “You have to walk that fine line that it’s not boring for adults, but you have to entertain everyone. You can’t sing down to the kids. They know if they’re being sung to.” Tanner has broadened his audience with new shows, including his new winter show at La Quinta, Calif. “There are so many facets to what I do now.” He does a pirate cruise two days a week and is launching a Thursday evening “Parrotpalozza,” with a Jimmy Buffett theme. What’s next for family entertainment? Despite the shows’ longevity and constant popularity, there doesn‘t appear to be a new act waiting in the wings. “I wouldn’t want to be starting my career right now,” Russell said. “When I look at kids’ song lists, I don’t recognize any of it. We are throwbacks. “I’ve never thought of competitors. You do what you do. If I was trying to slug it out in the bar or pub scene, that would be different, but this is fairly unique. I don’t see another generation coming up, doing the same.” Russell sees that the entertainment world has moved away from guys with guitars. “Disney World used to have live performers all over the park,” he said. “They distracted people. Today, you’re hard pressed to find live performers. It’s either stage shows or the big parades. The kind of thing we did down there has gone by the wayside.” The only exception he found recently was in the Magic Kingdom at “Beauty and the Beast.” “Belle comes out and they pick eight to 10 people. It’s totally interactive and personal. It shocked me. It’s a throwback.” Tanner also said he doesn‘t see a possible successor. “I don’t presume that I’m irreplaceable, but there is no one that does what we do. I don’t want to say it’s a dying art, but,” he said trailing off. “You can’t replace tenure. You have to buckle up and ride the years out. You’re signing a kid’s hat and his mom has her hat on that’s been signed 50 times.” Russell said a significant change is the lack musicians writing their own music. “I’m not sure that’s the trend. You can’t reproduce today’s music with a singer and a guitar. Most of my act is original music. I’ve released 15 CDs over the years. Writing keeps me fresh.” Russell doesn’t regret veering away from a career in business, like his friend from Birmingham. “He was a financier and retired very young. But I don’t envy that. No, not at all.” He’s been in a movie, “Come Away Home,” wrote one, “Camp Tanglefoot,” and he and his wife, Lindy, launched Hilton Head Heroes. It arranges for families with ill children a free week’s vacation at Hilton Head, away from hospitals and doctors. “We’ve helped 800 or 900 families,” Russell said. “That’s one of the most important things I’ve ever done. Do people know all that about me? Probably not. It doesn’t really matter.” Russell, who admits only to being old enough to be a member of AARP, has no plans to quit his evenings under the oak tree. “People ask me when I’m going to retire. I think “from what?’ I can’t imagine walking away from that. I’ll know when it’s time.” Bender said Sea Pines doesn’t know what comes after Russell, whenever that might be. “There is no ‘next.” That’s not something we think about,” he said. As Tanner said, “Something will take our place. It will evolve.”

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Finishing Touches For Furnishing An Edwardian House When it comes to spotting top quality Edwardian antiques, it's not always easy to get things right. We all know that the littlest of details can make the biggest of differences, so it's important that they're handled correctly. In the antiques world, it's fair to say that there's no such thing as a minor detail. In fact, the antiques world is founded on minor details, says About.com journalist Pamela Wiggins. It's the minor details that make the difference between a genuine and a counterfeit. It's the minor details that can tell you whether or not the piece you want is worth your admiration. I cannot emphasize enough that there's no such thing as a minor detail. If you're trying to put together a period house, everything has to fit. It's even more important, when it comes to Edwardian pieces. If you're looking for some finishing touches that can furnish an Edwardian house, you're in luck at MP Levene. They've got an extensive collection of Edwardian silverware - everything from mugs, to dish rings and candelabras. They're all genuine pieces, restored and returned to their former glory. What could be better than a true Edwardian antique, a one off destined for the bosom of your very carefully designed home and sanctuary? Right now, they have a magnificent Edwardian centrepiece on sale. It is a superb piece of silver, with an oblong base and a reed and ribbon border. It's centre is decorated with four intricate lion heads - they sit on a square pedestal that supports a large, round bowl. It is thought that the centre bowl, and the two smaller detachable bowls were once used to display fruit. The front of the pedestal is engraved with the crest and motto of the Crompton family of Yorkshire and Derbyshire. Another fine example is a rather charming Edwardian tea set. Made up of three separate pieces of silver-ware, and produced in 1904 by Carrington & Co of London. This would be an ideal addition to an Edwardian house, so why not think about investing in this or a similar piece? There's a teapot, a milk jug and a sugar bowl - all embossed with a frieze of scrolls, leaves and flowers. Each pieces stands on three feet, giving the whole set an obviously antiquated look, says LoveToKnow.com journalist Myre Audet. If you're looking for something a little bit more unusual, try looking for a quirky Edwardian mug. Made in 1907, and very delicately engraved to look like it is draped in ferns, these pieces are delightful. It has a gilded, gold washed interior and a strong loop handle. It would make a superb present for a christening, but it would also look just as splendid on a mantelpiece, or in a display cabinet. This style mug would be suited to the type of buyer who doesn't like to go for the obvious pieces – they are quirky, fun antiques. For those buyers still not satisfied with a quirky Edwardian mug, there's the even quirkier Edwardian scissor set. Which includes a beautifully maintained pair of grape scissors, sold in their original leather case. Whilst they are completely plain on the back, they do have an attractive looped engraving on their front - it more commonly referred to as 'bright cut engraving.' These scissors are surprisingly heavy, which gives them that very solid and antiquated feel. Author Bio: Arnold Smith is a Edwardian antique collector and is always looking Edwardian furniture at auctions. He recommends MP Levene if you are looking for beautiful Edwardian pieces. Arnold can be found online blogging about how to tell the difference between a genuine antique and a fake. Label: Guest Post, Home Decoration, Home Ideas, Home Tips

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Massive search for missing woman proves fruitless Joseph Gartrell More than 1,800 volunteers turned out Thursday to search for Jessie Davis, the 26-year-old Lake Township woman missing since last week. More than 1,800 volunteers turned out Thursday to search for Jessie Davis, the 26-year-old Lake Township woman missing since last week. Tim Miller, founder of EquuSearch, the Houston-based organization that organized the search, said that of the 700 searches his team has been on, only two rivaled the turnout in the effort to find Jessie. “It’s overwhelming and almost out of control,” Miller said before the search began, but he was confident his organization would gain control of the situation. The throng was divided into teams of 100, and around noon, the biggest news of the day -- a clump of freshly turned dirt -- came out of team four. In a rolling wasteland of tall grasses and trees, Christopher Stump came upon a set of fresh-looking four-wheeler tracks that led up a hill and stopped abruptly. “They pretty much went nowhere,” said Stump, 35, of Greentown. “They just ended.” The brush was down in the area where the tracks stopped, Stump said, and there were two types of fresh dirt on the ground, covering an area about 6 feet long and 3 feet wide. “It looked like a big grave,” Stump said. Shortly after Stump’s discovery, Sgt. Eric East of the Springfield Police Department could be heard requesting cadaver dogs. About 15 minutes later, East led a group of five handlers and their dogs to the spot, about 150 yards down a rough lane from Highland Park Avenue NW. Members of the search party and media assembled at the top of a bluff, an area where the investigation of the plot couldn’t be viewed, and waited quietly until after 1 p.m., when police cordoned off the area. The FBI and area law enforcement agencies searched the area and eventually closed off Highland Park Avenue from Pleasantwood Avenue NW to Aultman Avenue NW. Shortly after 7 p.m. Thursday, the Stark County Sheriff’s Department said that the patch of freshly turned dirt turned out to be a marijuana patch. Stump said with the size of the plot of freshly turned over soil and its proximity to Davis’ home -- less than one mile -- he couldn’t help but think there was a body there. “But it’s good news, what they found,” he said. In the same area where Stump came upon the fresh dirt, three siblings marked a spot where they’d discovered two green rugs that were discarded along a muddy trail. “I remember that kid said, ‘Mommy’s in the rug,’ ” 10-year old Zak King said, referring to comments Davis’ 2-year-old son, Blake, made since the disappearance of his mother. “We looked at this rug to see if there was a bleach spot, like they said in the news,” King’s sister Brianna Smith, 13, said. Thirty minutes before Stump’s find became the focal point of the day, James Chester and his shaved head emerged into the sunshine from a dense wooded area off Highland Park Avenue NW and announced that he hadn’t found anything suspicious. “A lot of brush back there,” Chester said. “Nothing unusual going on back there. No clothing, no purse. Nothing unusual at all.” Chester was compelled to join the search. He lost his oldest son in 1999 and can relate to the anguish Davis’ family must be feeling. Also he’s known Bobby Cutts Jr. since Cutts was a little boy. Cutts is the father of Davis’ son Blake, and Davis’ family said he is the father of the unborn child Davis is carrying. Authorities have searched Cutts’ home on three occasions since Davis was reported missing. Chester’s son and Cutts grew up together, played football together at GlenOak High School. “He’s a good kid. When I heard (that Cutts was a suspect), I thought, ‘Oh, my, God,’” Chester said. “You expect the worst until you find out different. Bobby’s a good guy, and I hope he didn’t do anything like this. “I’ve known Bobby all his life. I know his mom, his dad, his grandmother, his grandfather. He came to my house a lot of times. Unfortunately, this is reality; I hope he’s innocent. I wanted to come out today and find out for myself what’s going on. “I came out first of all to find this young lady and also to find out what’s going on with Bobby. But first of all, for that young girl.”

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Seven courses offered this spring at UCF Judaic Studies The Jewish Studies Program at the University of Central Florida will offer seven courses in the upcoming fall semester, which begins January 2016. The courses to be offered are as follows: Elementary Modern Hebrew I, Elementary Modern Hebrew II, Judaism and Jesus, Wanderings: the Jewish People in Dispersion, Modern Jewish Experience, Notable Women in Jewish History, and Building a Nation—The Challenges to and Accomplishments of the State of Israel • Elementary Modern Hebrew Language and Culture I is designed to teach major language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, and to introduce the student to Israeli culture and Jewish civilization. No prior knowledge of Hebrew or Hebrew alphabet is required. The course is open to students and members of the community who have had no background in Hebrew. This class will meet Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3:00 pm in Business Administration 1, Room 206 and will be taught by Sanford Olshansky. • Elementary Modern Hebrew Language and Culture II is designed to teach major language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, and to introduce the student to Israeli culture and Jewish civilization. First semester Hebrew or its equivalent is prerequisite. The course is open to students and member of the community who have had some background in Hebrew, equivalent to one semester. The course will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12:00pm in the Mathematical Sciences Building, Room 406 and will be taught by Sanford Olshansky. • In Judaism and Jesus students will examine the implications of the “historical Jesus” and early Christianity on the Jewish people, particularly with regard to late antiquity and the Second Jewish Commonwealth. It will explore the light shed by “Jesus research” on multiple aspects of ancient Israelite society and culture. It will also take up the question of who killed Jesus, and the origin of the charge of “deicide” - the “murder of God.” What can be done to bridge the gap of misunderstanding, and how might this endeavor impact Jewish-Christian relations today? This is a web-based class and will be taught by Dr. Ken Hanson. • In Wanderings: The Jewish People in Dispersion, students will learn of life and history of the Jews in the medieval and modern worlds, including topics such as the Jewish-Christian relations; development of Jewish philosophy and mysticism; Jewish life in Eastern Europe and in the Arab countries; the Holocaust; Modern Israel; and Jews and Judaism in North America. This is a web-based class and will be taught by Dr. Ken Hanson. • Modern Jewish Experience is to acquaint students with a variety of modern Jewish experiences as depicted in literature. This course will involve a survey of the pre-modern traditional life in Eastern Europe, including life in the Ghetto and the Shtetl (small Jewish town) life. This course will also deal with the emergence of the Jews into modernity along with the rise of Jewish national movement in the end of the 19th century; the growth of the Zionist movement, immigration to America and to pre-state Israel (Palestine), establishing the State of Israel, war and peace, in-gathering of the exiles, the Holocaust, and the current peace trends in the Middle East. This is a web-based class and will be taught by Julia Phillips-Berger. • Notable Women in Jewish History will examine, through films and text, the historical and cultural role of women in Judaism from the Biblical age to the present. Women discussed in the course will include Eve, Deborah the Prophetess, the daughters of Rashi, Golda Meir, and other leaders associated with Jewish history. The course will also discuss the present and future state of Jewish Women in America. This is a web-based class and will be taught by Julia Phillips-Berger. • Building A Nation—The Challenges to and Accomplishments of the State of Israel focuses on the real-life lessons to be learned from the state of Israel’s “modern miracle,” as it turned a neglected patch of desert into a high-tech powerhouse, producing more start-up companies per-capita than any country in the world. What principles, cultural concepts, and innovative approaches to business and technology are applicable to our own culture, and how might they be integrated on a personal level toward building successful professional strategies? This is a web-based class and will be taught by Dr. Ken Hanson. Students may take the listed courses as electives or as required courses to satisfy requirements for a Minor in Judaic Studies (18 credits of upper division courses). A Certificate in Judaic Studies is also available for students completing 5 courses in Judaic Studies. The Foreign Language Requirements may be satisfied with Hebrew language courses. Liberal Studies students are encouraged to take a minor in Judaic Studies. Students who take a Minor in Religious Studies, Humanities, or Middle East Studies are encouraged to take courses in Judaic Studies. Most of our courses may be counted toward their Minors. Members of the community may take the courses as non-degree-seeking students or may audit the courses. Registration is required of non-degree students; call the Registrar’s office at (407) 823-3100 for details. Persons 60 years of age or older who meet Florida residency requirements may register for classes without payment. Seniors should call Kent Woodford at (407) 823-5148 (kwoodfor@mail.ucf.edu), to obtain registration forms in advance. Registration for degree students Monday, Oct. 26, 2015 - Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016. Registration for non-degree Students and senior citizens is Jan. 8, 2016. Classes begin Jan. 11, 2016. For information, please call Dr. Moshe Pelli, director of the Judaic Studies Program, at 407-823-5039 or 407-823-5129 or visit our web site at http://judaicstudies.cah.ucf.edu/. Tizmoret A Capella Group performing at Temple Israel Coming up at The Roth Family JCC Jewish groups and lawmakers laud legacy of John Lewis after he announces pancreatic cancer diagnosis Soleimani killed in US airstrike Bernie Sanders picks former Obama official as liaison to Jewish community

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Associate Director, Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center eboerwin@bcm.edu Dean, UTHealth School of Public Health M. David Low Chair in Public Health Kozmetsky Family Chair in Human Genetics Professor, Human Genetics Center and Dept. of Epidemiology The research interests of Dr. Boerwinkle encompass the genetic analysis of the common chronic diseases in humans, including coronary artery disease, hypertension, and non-insulin dependent (type II) diabetes. Dr. Boerwinkle received his B.S. in Biology from the University of Cincinnati in 1980, an M.A. in Statistics (1984), and M.S. and Ph.D. in Human Genetics (1985) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor where he served as Senior Research Associate in the Department of Human Genetics from 1985-1986. He joined the University of Texas-Houston Center for Demographic/ Population Genetics in 1986 as a Research Assistant and became Assistant Professor in the same year. In 1991 he joined the Department of Human Genetics at the School of Public Health, University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center as Associate Professor, in 1996 was promoted to Professor, and in 1997, Director of the Human Genetics Center. He became a faculty member of the Institute of Molecular Medicine in 1996 and became Professor and Director of the Research Center for Human Genetics. Dr. Boerwinkle is a member of the American Diabetes Association and the American Society of Human Genetics. The research interests of Dr. Boerwinkle encompass the genetic analysis of common chronic diseases in humans, including coronary artery disease, hypertension, and non-insulin dependent (type II) diabetes. This work includes localizing genes which contribute to disease risk, identification of potentially functional mutations within these genes, testing these candidate functional mutations in experimental systems, defining the impact of gene variation on the epidemiology of disease, and determining the extent to which these genes interact with environmental factors to contribute to disease risk. Activities include both statistical analysis and laboratory work. A large part of Dr. Boerwinkle's current research effort consist of localizing genes contributing to disease risk using modern genome-wide mapping methods. Success depends on keeping up with the latest genomic technical advances. The laboratory is set-up and operating as a high through-put sequencing and genotyping facility in which speed, accuracy and efficiency are monitored continuously. However, we are constantly seeking out more efficient methods to collect and manage genetic information. Dr. Boerwinkle and colleagues have completed the world's first genome-wide analyses for a variety of CAD risk factors, including diabetes and hypertension. These investigations have lead to the identification of novel susceptibility genes in both cases. Dr. Boerwinkle is particularly interested in methods for identifying potentially functional mutations within a gene region. This seemingly simple objective is made difficult because the functional mutations are expected to have small effects and are imbedded in a sea of silent genetic variation. Once nearly all of the variation is catalogued directly by DNA sequencing, individuals are genotyped for each variable site. Both novel and traditional statistical methods are applied to relate the array of genetic information to a wealth of phenotypic data. This algorithm generates "candidate functional mutations" that are then tested in an in vitro or mouse model system. Once a functional mutation has been identified, Dr. Boerwinkle's group evaluates the ability of the variable site to predict the onset of disease (e.g. myocardial infarction or stroke) above and beyond traditional risk factors. This work is carried out as part of multiple prospective studies of cardiovascular disease and its risk factors in tens of thousands of individuals representing the major American ethnic groups. Finally, he is working on experimental designs for studying genotype by environment interaction in humans. In particular, we are working on the extent to which interindividual variation in lipid lowering and anti-hypertensive medications are influenced by genetic factors. The practical objective of the research is to use genetic information to identify individuals at increase risk of disease and to design more efficacious interventions. Genetic studies are defining, at the molecular level, novel mechanisms of disease risk, onset and progression. Dr. Boerwinkle and collaborators address the localization of genes which contribute to disease risk in cardiovascular diseases, hypertension and diabetes. The methodology used involves screening of families having the disease and linking the presence of disease with known markers of the human genome. In this manner, the genomic region in which relevant mutations are located can be mapped and the relevant DNA sequenced. By assessing the structural change the mutation may have caused in the gene product (protein), it is possible to infer how it may affect biological function. In order to determine experimentally whether a mutation is functional, it is necessary to introduce the mutated gene into an animal, usually a mouse, and assess its biological effects on the animal's phenotype. Dr. Boerwinkle has participated in multiple notable discoveries since joining the Institute. Only two will be highlighted here. First, Dr. Boerwinkle's group has completed the first ever genome-wide search for genes contributing to inter-individual blood pressure levels. This initial effort has lead to the identification of an important gene (an adrenergic receptor) which influences blood pressure levels and the risk to hypertension. This is the first time that such a genome-wide approach has led to the identification of a susceptibility gene to a major cardiovascular disease risk factor. Second, Dr. Boerwinkle has participated in similar efforts to identify genes contributing to the risk of developing non-insulin dependent (type II) diabetes. In this case, however, there were no genes in the region that were suspects for the disease. A team of collaborating investigators have painstakingly characterized the genetic region and identified the mutated gene (in this case a protease). This is the first time that anyone has ever positionally cloned a gene contributing to any common chronic disease. This work is of obvious potential clinical importance. It may lead to improved prediction of those at increased risk of disease and the design of more efficacious intervention strategies. The technologies and information from the human genome project provide new tools for lessening the burden of ill-health. Dr. Boerwinkle's accomplishments in developing an internationally recognized team of investigators targeting the genetics of cardiovascular disease and its risk factors ensures a productive future and further discoveries. Beck TF, Campeau PM, Jhangiani SN, Gambin T, Li AH, Abo-Zahrah R, et al.. FBN1 contributing to familial congenital diaphragmatic hernia. Am J Med Genet A. 2015;167A(4):831-6. Yu B, Li AH, Muzny DM, Veeraraghavan N, de Vries PS, Bis JC, et al.. Association of Rare Loss-Of-Function Alleles in HAL, Serum Histidine: Levels and Incident Coronary Heart Disease. Circ Cardiovasc Genet. 2015;8(2):351-5. Verhaaren BFJ, Debette S, Bis JC, Smith JA, M Ikram K, Adams HH, et al.. Multiethnic genome-wide association study of cerebral white matter hyperintensities on MRI. Circ Cardiovasc Genet. 2015;8(2):398-409. van Leeuwen EM, Huffman JE, Bis JC, Isaacs A, Mulder M, Sabo A, et al.. Fine mapping the region reveals a common intronic insertion associated to HDL-C. NPJ Aging Mech Dis. 2015;1:15011. Alonso A, Yu B, Qureshi WT, Grams ME, Selvin E, Soliman EZ, et al.. Metabolomics and Incidence of Atrial Fibrillation in African Americans: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study. PLoS One. 2015;10(11):e0142610. Rahbar MH, Samms-Vaughan M, Dickerson AS, Loveland KA, Ardjomand-Hessabi M, Bressler J, et al.. Factors associated with blood lead concentrations of children in Jamaica. J Environ Sci Health A Tox Hazard Subst Environ Eng. 2015;50(6):529-39. Gambin T, Jhangiani SN, Below JE, Campbell IM, Wiszniewski W, Muzny DM, et al.. Secondary findings and carrier test frequencies in a large multiethnic sample. Genome Med. 2015;7(1):54. Yu F, Lu J, Liu X, Gazave E, Chang D, Raj S, et al.. Population genomic analysis of 962 whole genome sequences of humans reveals natural selection in non-coding regions. PLoS One. 2015;10(3):e0121644. Yamamoto S, Jaiswal M, Charng W-L, Gambin T, Karaca E, Mirzaa G, et al.. A drosophila genetic resource of mutants to study mechanisms underlying human genetic diseases. Cell. 2014;159(1):200-14. Samocha KE, Robinson EB, Sanders SJ, Stevens C, Sabo A, McGrath LM, et al.. A framework for the interpretation of de novo mutation in human disease. Nat Genet. 2014;46(9):944-50. Bayram Y, Pehlivan D, Karaca E, Gambin T, Jhangiani SN, Erdin S, et al.. Whole exome sequencing identifies three novel mutations in ANTXR1 in families with GAPO syndrome. Am J Med Genet A. 2014;164A(9):2328-34. Lalani SR, Zhang J, Schaaf CP, Brown CW, Magoulas P, Tsai AChun-Hui, et al.. Mutations in PURA cause profound neonatal hypotonia, seizures, and encephalopathy in 5q31.3 microdeletion syndrome. Am J Hum Genet. 2014;95(5):579-83. Yang Y, Muzny DM, Xia F, Niu Z, Person R, Ding Y, et al.. Molecular findings among patients referred for clinical whole-exome sequencing. JAMA. 2014;312(18):1870-9. Xie YAngela, Lee W, Cai C, Gambin T, Nõupuu K, Sujirakul T, et al.. New syndrome with retinitis pigmentosa is caused by nonsense mutations in retinol dehydrogenase RDH11. Hum Mol Genet. 2014;23(21):5774-80. Xia F, Bainbridge MN, Tan TYang, Wangler MF, Scheuerle AE, Zackai EH, et al.. De novo truncating mutations in AHDC1 in individuals with syndromic expressive language delay, hypotonia, and sleep apnea. Am J Hum Genet. 2014;94(5):784-9. Lin H, Sinner MF, Brody JA, Arking DE, Lunetta KL, Rienstra M, et al.. Targeted sequencing in candidate genes for atrial fibrillation: the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) Targeted Sequencing Study. Heart Rhythm. 2014;11(3):452-7. Yu B, Zheng Y, Alexander D, Morrison AC, Coresh J, Boerwinkle E. Genetic determinants influencing human serum metabolome among African Americans. PLoS Genet. 2014;10(3):e1004212. Zheng Y, Yu B, Alexander D, Steffen LM, Boerwinkle E. Human metabolome associates with dietary intake habits among African Americans in the atherosclerosis risk in communities study. Am J Epidemiol. 2014;179(12):1424-33. Zheng Y, Yu B, Alexander D, Steffen LM, Nettleton JA, Boerwinkle E. Metabolomic patterns and alcohol consumption in African Americans in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study. Am J Clin Nutr. 2014;99(6):1470-8. Zhang F, Boerwinkle E, Xiong M. Epistasis analysis for quantitative traits by functional regression model. Genome Res. 2014;24(6):989-98. Richard Gibbs, Ph.D. Rui Chen, Ph.D. Harsha Doddapaneni, Ph.D. Marie-Claude Gingras, Ph.D. Robert Glenn, Ph.D., M.S. Yi Han, Ph.D. R. Alan Harris, Ph.D. Jianhong Hu, Ph.D. David Murdock, M.D., F.A.C.M.G. Debra Murray, Ph.D. Donna Muzny, M.S. Xiang Qin, Ph.D. Jeffrey Rogers, Ph.D. Aniko Sabo, Ph.D. Steve Scherer, Ph.D. Fritz Sedlazeck, Ph.D. Eric Venner, Ph.D. Fuli Yu, Ph.D.

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January 18, 2018 3:10AM EST Burma: Ethnic Cleansing, Repression, Denials Abuses and Impunity Signal Collapse of Democratic Transition Rohingya refugees walk through rice fields after crossing the border from Myanmar into Palang Khali, Bangladesh, October 19, 2017. © 2017 Jorge Silva/Reuters (New York) – The Burmese government’s ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims and its repression of the media and aid operations have severely undermined Burma’s transition to democratic rule in 2017, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2018. The Burmese military’s atrocities in Rakhine State, including summary executions, rape, expulsion, and mass burning of villages, amounted to crimes against humanity and resulted in the deaths of thousands and the displacement of over 650,000 Rohingya to neighboring Bangladesh. Military and civilian officials have repeatedly denied the abuses and provided ludicrous explanations that are contradicted by evidence and witness accounts. “Burma’s military forces slaughtered villagers, gang raped women and girls, and burned families inside their homes,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “The world now knows what happened from numerous accounts of the atrocities, medical evidence, and satellite imagery. The government’s false and nonsensical denials only undermine its credibility and hinder efforts to obtain justice for victims.” December 19, 2017 Video Burma: Methodical Massacre at Rohingya Village The Burmese army carried out systematic killings and rape of several hundred Rohingya Muslims in Tula Toli village in Rakhine State on August 30, 2017. In the 643-page World Report, its 28th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 90 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Kenneth Roth writes that political leaders willing to stand up for human rights principles showed that it is possible to limit authoritarian populist agendas. When combined with mobilized publics and effective multilateral actors, these leaders demonstrated that the rise of anti-rights governments is not inevitable. Mass atrocities in northern Rakhine State began in late August, when Burmese security forces launched a large-scale military operation against the Rohingya population in response to attacks on security force outposts by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) militant group. Government officials called the military’s actions “clearance operations” directed at ARSA, but satellite imagery and witness accounts demonstrate that the campaign was aimed at driving Rohingya from their homes and destroying their villages. Satellite imagery has revealed that more than 354 primarily Rohingya villages have been either substantially or completely destroyed since late August, at least 118 of them destroyed after September 5 – the date the government announced as the end of military operations. Human Rights Watch and other organizations, the United Nations, and media documented widespread rape and other sexual violence by security forces. Rohingya Crisis Human Rights Watch reporting on the Myanmar military’s crimes against humanity. The atrocities committed against the Rohingya, occurring during Burma’s first full year under an elected civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, have led to widespread condemnation, including by the UN Security Council, General Assembly, and Human Rights Council. In October, citing the Rohingya crisis, the World Bank announced it would delay a US$200 million loan, its first direct financial assistance to Burma since the late 1980s. On December 20, the UN announced that the Burmese government had permanently barred the UN special rapporteur on Burma, Yanghee Lee, from entering the country and would no longer cooperate with her mandate. Several countries have curtailed diplomatic or military engagement programs and imposed travel restrictions for current and former senior military officials implicated in abuses. On December 21, the United States imposed economic sanctions and travel restrictions on Maung Maung Soe, a senior military commander who exercised operational control over the campaign in Rakhine State. The UN Security Council should impose a comprehensive arms embargo and targeted economic and travel restrictions on Burmese military leaders implicated in atrocities. In the absence of UN action, concerned countries should impose bilateral restrictions. “Resolving the Rohingya crisis is going to take greater international action to ensure that people at risk receive assistance and protection,” Adams said. “More pressure is needed on Burma’s government to allow aid and international monitors into Rakhine State.” Despite the country’s supposed transition to civilian rule, the military remained the primary power holder in the country. It continued to block efforts to amend the 2008 constitution, by which it retains authority over national security and public administration through control of the defense, home affairs, and border affairs ministries. A constitutional provision allows the military to appoint 25 percent of parliamentary seats, providing a de facto veto over constitutional amendments. Burma: Letter on Section 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law The civilian government throughout 2017 condoned or supported the military’s outsize role in governance, and allowed law enforcement authorities to increasingly use repressive laws to prosecute journalists, activists, and critics for peaceful expression deemed critical of the government or military. Authorities continued to abuse a vaguely worded provision in Burma’s 2013 Telecommunications Act, section 66(d), which essentially criminalizes free speech. More than 90 people have been prosecuted under the provision, including over 20 journalists. In November, police announced a total ban on public assemblies in 11 townships in Rangoon. The government also used British colonial-era laws to prosecute journalists. In June, officials detained three journalists who had been reporting on an ethnic armed group in northern Shan State under the 1908 Unlawful Associations Act. After major domestic and international outcry, the charges were dropped. In December, officials arrested two Reuters journalists in Rangoon who had been reporting on the Rohingya crisis for allegedly possessing documents relating to security operations in Rakhine State. The two were charged under the 1923 Official Secrets Act and remain detained. December 20, 2017 News Release Burma: Journalists Feared ‘Disappeared’ November 16, 2017 News Release Burma: Widespread Rape of Rohingya Women, Girls Massacre by the River Burmese Army Crimes against Humanity in Tula Toli “All of My Body Was Pain” Sexual Violence against Rohingya Women and Girls in Burma

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Speed Skating Sponsorship We support Canadian elite athletes You are here: Speed Skating Sponsorship Intact Insurance has sponsored Speed Skating Canada and our national teams since 2006. We’re proud of the Canadian National Speed Skating Team’s success at world events. At the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy, the National team won 12 medals – half of all the Canadian medals earned that year. In the 2008-09 skating season, they brought home 71 World Cup medals. During the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, our athletes captured 10 medals, including gold medals for Christine Nesbitt in the 1,000m, Charles Hamelin in the 500m, as well as our men's relay and pursuit teams. During the 2010-11 World Cup season, our speed skaters garnered 60 medals. We support Canada's future Olympians, too, by supporting the development of speed skating amongst Canadian children. Catriona Le May Doan, two-time Olympic champion and three-time World champion, works with us on our Podium Tracker program, a grass roots initiative that awards $1,000 to local speed skating clubs whenever a Canadian speed skater medals at a World Cup event.

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:: Opinions > Other Opinions McCain Linked to Group in Iran-Contra Affair WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama has his William Ayers connection. Now John McCain may have an Iran-Contra connection. In the 1980s, McCain served on the advisory by PETE YOST information clearing house WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama has his William Ayers connection. Now John McCain may have an Iran-Contra connection. In the 1980s, McCain served on the advisory board to the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />U.S. chapter of an international group linked to ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> The U.S. Council for World Freedom aided rebels trying to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua. That landed the group in the middle of the Iran-Contra affair and in legal trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, which revoked the charitable organization"s tax exemption. The council created by retired Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub was the U.S. chapter of the World Anti-Communist League, an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America. After setting up the U.S. council, Singlaub served as the international league"s chairman. McCain"s tie to Singlaub"s council is undergoing renewed scrutiny after his campaign criticized Obama for his link to Ayers, a former radical who engaged in violent acts 40 years ago. Over the weekend, Democratic operative Paul Begala said on ABC"s "This Week" that this "guilt by association" tactic could backfire on the McCain campaign by renewing discussion of McCain"s service on the board of the U.S. Council for World Freedom, "an ultraconservative right-wing group." In two interviews with The Associated Press in August and September, Singlaub said McCain became associated with the organization in the early 1980s as McCain launched his political career. McCain was elected to the U.S. House in 1982. Singlaub said McCain was a supporter but not an active member. "McCain was a new guy on the block learning the ropes," Singlaub said. "I think I met him in the Washington area when he was just a new congressman. We had McCain on the board to make him feel like he wasn"t left out. It looks good to have names on a letterhead who are well-known and appreciated. "I don"t recall talking to McCain at all on the work of the group," Singlaub said. McCain has said he resigned from the council in 1984 and asked in 1986 to have his name removed from the group"s letterhead. "I didn"t know whether (the group"s activity) was legal or illegal, but I didn"t think I wanted to be associated with them," McCain said in a 1986 newspaper interview. Singlaub does not recall any McCain resignation in 1984 or May 1986. Nor does Joyce Downey, who oversaw the group"s day-to-day activities. "That"s a surprise to me," Singlaub said. "This is the first time I"ve ever heard that. There may have been someone in his office communicating with our office." "I don"t ever remember hearing about his resigning, but I really wasn"t worried about that part of our activities, a housekeeping thing," said Singlaub. "If he didn"t want to be on the board that"s OK. It wasn"t as if he had been active participant and we were going to miss his help. He had no active interest. He certainly supported us." On Tuesday, the McCain campaign addressed the resignation by saying that the candidate disassociated himself from "one Arizona-based group when questions were raised about its activities." Taking an opportunity to attack the Obama-Biden ticket, the McCain campaign added that as a House member and later as a senator, McCain fought against communist influence in Central America while Sen. Joe Biden tried to cut off money for anti-communist forces in El Salvador and Nicaragua. The renewed attention over McCain"s association with Singlaub"s group comes as McCain"s campaign steps up criticism of Obama"s dealings with Ayers, now a college professor who co-founded the Weather Underground in the 1960s and years later worked with Obama on the board of an education reform group in Chicago. Ayers held a meet-the-candidate event at his home when Obama first ran for public office in the mid-1990s. In McCain"s case, he was a House member and a board member of Singlaub"s council when the new congressman voted for military assistance to the Nicaraguan Contras, a CIA-organized guerrilla force. In 1984, Congress cut off military assistance to the rebels. Months before the cutoff, top Reagan administration officials ramped up a secret White House-directed supply network run by National Security Council aide Oliver North, who relied on retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Secord to carry out the operation. The goal was to keep the Contras operating until Congress could be persuaded to resume CIA funding. Singlaub"s private group became the public front for the secret White House activity. "It was noted that they were trying to act as suppliers. It was pretty good cover for us," Secord, the field operations chief for the secret effort, said Tuesday in an interview. The White House-directed network"s covert arms shipments, financed in part by the Reagan administration"s secret arms sales to Iran, exploded into the Iran-Contra affair in November 1986. The scandal proved to be the undoing of Singlaub"s council. In 1987, the Internal Revenue Service withdrew tax-exempt status from Singlaub"s group because of its activities on behalf of the Contras. Peter Kornbluh, co-author of "The Iran-Contra Scandal: A Declassified History," said the Council on World Freedom was crucial to diverting public attention from the Reagan White House"s fundraising for the Contras. Singlaub and the council publicly urged private support for the Contras, providing what Singlaub later called "a lightning rod" to explain how the rebels sustained themselves despite Congress" cutoff. In October 1986, the secrecy of North"s network unraveled after one of its planes was shot down over Nicaragua. One American crewman, Eugene Hasenfus, was captured by the Nicaraguan government. At first, Reagan administration officials lied by saying that the plane had no connection to the U.S. government and was part of Singlaub"s operation. "I resented it that reporters thought it was my plane. I don"t run a sloppy operation," Singlaub told The AP. In an interview last month, Downey, the full-time employee of Singlaub"s council, said she has a clear memory of McCain resigning in 1986, but not earlier. "It was during the time when the U.S. Council had been wrongly accused of being owners of the Hasenfus plane downed in Nicaragua," said Downey. "A couple of days after that, I was in Washington and called home to get messages from my mother. I returned that call and a staff person wanted to ask for the resignation of Congressman McCain." When Hasenfus was shot down, McCain was in the final month of his first campaign for the U.S. Senate seat he still holds. McCain"s office responded quickly. McCain said he had resigned from the council in 1984. Further, McCain said that in May 1986 he asked the group to remove his name from the letterhead. McCain"s office produced two letters from 1984 and 1986 to back his account. The dates on the resignation letters in 1984 and May 1986 coincided with McCain election campaigns and increasingly critical public scrutiny of the World Anti-Communist League, the umbrella group Singlaub chaired. In 1983 and 1984 for example, columnist Jack Anderson linked the league"s Latin American affiliate to death squad political assassinations. The Latin American affiliate was kicked out of the league. At the time, Singlaub told the columnist the Latin American affiliate had "knowingly promoted pro-Nazi groups" and was "virulently anti-Semitic." "That was putting it mildly," Anderson wrote in a Sept. 11, 1984, column on alleged death squad murders, an article that appeared two months before the U.S. election day. Two weeks after Anderson"s column, a letter from McCain addressed to Singlaub asks that the congressman"s name be taken off the board because he didn"t have time for the council. Singlaub told AP that "certainly by 1984," he had purged the World Anti-Communist League of extremists. Singlaub complains that American news media wrote that the league hadn"t gotten rid of extremist elements and tried to tarnish the league"s credibility, "making something evil out of fighting communism." Posted in Other Opinions McCain Blasts Wall Street Failure, Neglects To Mention His Adviser Helped Cause It Obama and McCain on 9/11: “unity” in support of war and repression Randy Scheunemann: How Mccain Sees the World McCain Suggests Bush Has Endorsed Torture John McCain’s Arab-American problem McCain Rejects Hagee: How Long Before Major American Jewish Groups Do the Same? Hamas: McCain’s statement proves no hope in American foreign policy change Iraq Troika: McCain, Obama and Clinton Competing Visions in American Politics: Obama versus McCain Will John McCain have the decency to apologize to American Muslims? McCain: Straight Talk and Militarist Madness

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Data protection Overview Internal guidance Guide 1 - E-mail Guide 2 - Exam records Guide 3 - Introduction to GDPR Guide 4 - Research Guide 5 - Data retention Guide 6 - Student use of data Guide 7 - References Guide 8 - Disclosure of student data Guide 9 - Disclosure of staff data Guide 10 - Use of data for College purposes Guide 11 - Use of photography and video Guide 12 - Individual Rights External guidance Guidance from the ICO Article 29 Working Party Medical research guidance Central Secretariat Disclosure of staff personal data to third parties The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides data subjects with a greater degree of control over the parties to whom their personal data is released. Disclosures are permitted where data subjects have given their consent, although in certain specified circumstances the GDPR permits disclosure without such consent. Disclosure of personal data to persons or organisations outside the European Economic Area are subject to additional rules unless the data subject has given their consent. Personal data must not be disclosed to unauthorised third parties, including family members, friends, local authorities, government bodies, foreign Embassies and High Commissions and the police, unless the data subject has consented to the disclosure or consent is exempted by the GDPR, or by other legislation. There is no general legal requirement to disclose personal data to the police (see Section 6 later). Consequently, staff should be cautious when a third party enquirer requests disclosure of personal data. It is important, in the interests of the data subject that care is taken to ascertain that a third party has a genuine requirement for the information requested. Where disclosures are relevant and fair, it is important to ensure the validity of each request and to minimise the risk of illegitimate disclosure. In most cases a disclosure in response to a telephone call is not good practice in view of the difficulty of verifying the identity of the caller, even where the request is simply to establish that the data subject is associated with the College. Enquirers should be required to submit their request in writing, and responses should also be made in writing (and not provided over the telephone). Ideally, the request for the disclosure of personal data to a third party should come either from the data subject directly, or the request from the third party should be accompanied by a statement from the data subject consenting to the disclosure. Where you are uncertain as to whether an individual has consented to the release of their data, you should first contact the individual to seek consent for disclosure prior to releasing any information to the enquirer. Except in cases where there is a statutory obligation upon the College to comply with a request for disclosure of an individual’s data, there is no compulsion to make a disclosure, even in cases where the GDPR permits it. If there is any doubt as to the legitimacy of a disclosure request, then no disclosure should be made. Staff should always consult the College’s Data Protection Officer if they are uncertain whether information about an individual can be released to a third party. Departments should have in place a system for dealing with requests for personal data pertaining to their staff from third parties. This should involve identifying one or more persons who are responsible for handling such requests and to whom enquirers should be directed. These nominated persons should determine whether they are able to deal with the request directly, as indicated below, or whether the request should be referred to the College’s Data Protection Officer. Disclosure of personal data to employees of the College Where an employee of the College requests personal data about another data subject within the College, such information should be released only if, and only to the extent that, the member of staff requires the information in order to perform his or her official duties. Permission for such disclosures must be granted by a senior member of staff as determined by the Head of the Department concerned. He/she may wish to determine each request singly on a one-off basis, or may set out in local rules those members of staff who have the authority to consent to such a disclosure e.g. only the Head of Department or Deputy can disclose financial data on individuals, only line managers can respond to queries on references, only tutors can authorise the disclosure of student personal data, etc. Disclosure of personal data to employment agencies, prospective employers, banks and building Societies It is important, in the interests of the data subject, that care is taken to ascertain that a third party has a genuine requirement for the information requested and that the data subject has consented to the disclosure. As noted above, in most cases a disclosure in response to a telephone call is not good practice in view of the difficulty of verifying the identity of the caller, even where the request is simply to establish that the data subject is employed by the College. Ideally, the request for the disclosure of personal data to a third party should come either from the data subject directly or the request from the third party should be accompanied by a statement from the data subject consenting to the disclosure. Disclosure of personal data to casual enquirers Disclosure of personal data to supposed family and friends or seemingly official bodies, in response to telephone calls, can be damaging to a data subject unless they have given their consent. Do not confirm or deny that the person is a member of the College. Instead, the data subject should be informed of the enquiry and leave them to make subsequent contact, should it be desired. Alternately, if the enquirer already knows that the person is a member of the College, instead of providing a postal or e-mail address or telephone number to a third party, the person receiving the request should offer to forward any message that needs to be communicated. Disclosure of personal data to the police In response to a casual enquiry from the police, College staff are no more obliged to disclose personal data about one of its staff or students than to any other casual enquirer. The police are entitled to have personal data disclosed to them without the consent of the data subject, where they can establish that the disclosure is made in order to prevent or detect crime, or to apprehend or prosecute offenders in accordance with the provisions of the applicable legislation. However, it is not sufficient for them to state this justification over the telephone or when making the request in person. They must provide a formal written submission. Should a Department receive such a submission, the College’s Data Protection Officer should be contacted for further assistance. Even where responding to a request is justified by legislation, the College has to ensure that, in the interests of the data subject, it does not disclose personal data that is not covered by that legislation. Disclosure without consent Personal data about an individual may be disclosed to third parties without consent in specific situations, usually for regulatory or legal reasons. In addition, where the individual's consent is required but they cannot be contacted, or where the circumstances are such that it would be inappropriate to seek their consent, Heads of Department or their nominated representative should consult with the College Data Protection Officer before responding to any such request for disclosure.

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Life at University Independent School Parent AllFinanceHealthPropertyTravel Win: A Five-Star Holiday to the MarBella Hotel, Corfu How you can Save for your Children with Brewin Dolphin Camp America: More than just a Summer of Fun A Day in the Life of a Physicist at Imperial College Above, Jess’ involvement with the Institute of Physics has helped her public speaking skills Dr Jess Wade, 29, is a Research Associate in the Department of Physics and Centre for Plastic Electronics at Imperial College, London I’m responsible for… Creating light-emitting diodes from organic molecules – I work at the interface of chemistry, material science and physics. Under the right circumstances, organic molecules and polymers can act as semiconductors – half way between an insulator and a conductor – which we can use to make all different kinds of electronic devices, from solar panels to light emitting diodes and biological sensors. My job at Imperial College is to choose which materials to use, find a way to dissolve them to create a semiconducting ink, and print them on to a substrate. Alongside research, I keep our lab in order, which means ordering parts and building different pieces of equipment. I have a few PhD and Masters students to supervise, and I get to do some undergraduate teaching, which I love. I wake up and cycle to work – it is beautiful, straight through Hyde Park, and I get a great view of Buckingham Palace and the Shard. There is a massive cycle lane there now, which makes it much safer. I usually work for an hour or so before going for a swim at Imperial’s amazing sports club. The super brave scientists swim in the Serpentine, the river in the middle of Hyde Park. If swimming is not your thing, we also have a climbing wall! I got my job… After completing an art foundation course at Chelsea College of Art & Design, I began my undergraduate physics degree at Imperial, then stayed for a Masters and PhD. You get a red lanyard when you first join as a student, and even on my first day I was dreaming about receiving a blue one, which the staff wear. “scientists are fascinating, super focussed, able to make connections between the strangest concepts, and very forward-thinking.” The transition from undergrad to PhD is surreal – you are suddenly paid to do science experiments all the time, and you can even wear your pyjamas to work if you want because no one cares what you look like. A PhD is about three years, after which you can do pretty much any job you want. I wanted to stay in research, and luckily I found a position at my favourite place on Earth. The best part of my job… Is the people and the adventures. Scientists are fascinating, super focussed, able to make connections between the strangest concepts and very forward-thinking. I like processes to be explained clearly, and I like working around people who know (or are trying to work out!) the answers to the biggest questions in the universe. We all get to travel to different universities right across the world. It is amazing to see and work alongside so many cultures, eat so many strange foods and have such an international group of friends. If I want to go and play with some x-rays in South Korea, I have a friend for that. Neutrons in France? I know who to call. Even if I want to go and spend a few days hanging out at Google in San Francisco. Science opens doors to places you never dreamed possible. There aren’t enough girls in physics, which is really lame as it is the most exciting place in the world to work. At any time of the day or night, I can cycle to university and fire up some powerful lasers to examine individual molecules in a light emitting diode. How many people can do that? The worst part of my job… Is the same as the best part! The travelling gets pretty exhausting, and sometimes all I really want to do is stay at home with my mum and dad. My most memorable work moment… That is a tricky one! I have been invited to speak in New Zealand, met the President of China and spent time researching at Samsung’s super top secret labs. I am not sure which is the best, but I know it will keep getting better. My side projects… I am a member of the Institute of Physics (IOP). I got involved throughout my undergraduate degree, but I never realised how useful it was until my PhD, when I wanted to apply for competitions and the generous travel grant. The IOP has made me a confident public speaker, a well-connected researcher and an incredibly proud physicist. Above, Jess firmly believes that physics is the most exciting place in the world to work, and more girls should get involved Throughout my career in research I have been involved in projects to support gender inclusion in science, as well as encouraging more young people to study science and engineering. I have also been privileged enough to sit on the IOP education group committee reviewing the GCSE curriculum. Thanks to the IOP, I have worked with several different special interest groups, had the opportunity to write for Physics World and met hundreds of inspirational people, including Nobel Prize winner Malala! My role models… Are my mum, Dr Charlotte Feinmann, a consultant liaison psychiatrist at UCL and general kick-ass mother. She was also an academic psychiatrist, who has written scientific more papers than I will ever achieve. My PhD supervisor, Professor Ji-Seon Kim, is also phenomenal – she moved from South Korea aged 22 to complete a PhD at Cambridge, and her research was thorough, meticulous and fascinating. She is now a Professor at Imperial, and director of the Centre for Plastic Electronics where I work. My love of physics… Comes 100% from my school teachers. My whole family are medical doctors, which is great, but they are more interested in biology than they are physics. I went to school at South Hampstead High School, and both my physics and chemistry teachers had PhDs in physics. Their lessons would leave me curious and questioning, and luckily they had the answers! Study physics because… You will literally be able to walk in to any career, whether you want to be a banker, management consultant, journalist, lawyer, designer, engineer, or super model. Decide that you want become a medical doctor? There’s a short conversion for that – or you could be part of the team designing lifesaving diagnostic tools. Physics degrees provide such a comprehensive mathematical grounding that everyone wants you. The hardest part will be choosing! My thoughts on the gender gap in science… It’s still not improving, unfortunately. When girls choose subjects like physics and further maths, they outperform boys at every level, but they just don’t choose it. Girls are good at a lot of different subjects, and because of silly stereotypes and societal bias, they don’t choose the most interesting ones. I have just read a book called “Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong”, written by an Oxford-trained engineer with a phenomenal career in popular science writing called Angela Saini. As scientists, we take it for granted that research will be fair and unbiased; that experiments will be ethical and that the results will be reproducible. “we should push for equality not for the fairness of women in science, but because we are human.” The same goes for the advice we get from teachers and parents about careers and course – they’re neutral too, right? But what if the people who wrote the rules were biased themselves? From hobbies to brain-size and intellect, scientific studies have tried time-and-time-again to prove there is something inferior about women. But Saini isn’t convinced, and her work reveals just how wrong these “old wives’ tales” are. What is most awesome about Saini’s work is how neutral she stays throughout. Rather than a book of trying to prove people wrong, Saini is trying to work out what is right. What’s most heartening is that this “inferiority” spans three generations of women’s equality: getting the vote; sexual liberation; and the modern day, and at every stage she finds women determined to get gender studies right. We should push for equality not for the fairness of women in science, but because we are human. Find out more about Jess at makingphysicsfun.com or follow her on Twitter, @JessWade Girls in Science Whether you need advice or comfort on your choice of school, pastoral care, the best way to tackle exams, or how best to confront teenage problems, Independent School Parent provides all the answers. Our expert writers include some of the top names in teaching, ensuring that Independent School Parent always supplies impartial advice that you can trust. RELATED ARTICLESMore from Independent School Parent A is For A Levels Degree apprenticeships explained Studying Wildlife and Conservation at university The latest on ISP An Eco Education Independent School Parent - January 16, 2020 Highgate School: Social Mobility All the Answers: Top Tips for Interviews Win a Five-Star Holiday to Greece More from ISP With separate editions for prep and senior schools, Independent School Parent is the only magazine to address the issues that really matter to parents who have chosen to educate their children privately. Whether it’s advice on your choice of school, pastoral care, the best way to tackle exams, or how to confront teenage problems, Independent School Parent provides the answers through insightful articles written by an expert team of writers that includes some of the top names in teaching. Claudia Dudman Harriet Cottrell © 2020 Chelsea Magazine Company

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Update on UA on imminent executions – 1990 April 12, 1990 September 3, 2015 martha 1969, 1981, 1983, 1987, 1990, death penalty execution, death penalty sentence, Extra-ordinary Military Court, international organization, Mahmillub, right to appeal, unfair trial, United Nations, urgent action Four political prisoners executed – 1990 February 17, 1990 September 3, 2015 martha 1965, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1986, 1987, 1990, Anti-subversion Law, Cakrabirawa, Cipinang, death penalty execution, death penalty sentence, Extra-ordinary Regional Military Court, Mahmildam, Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI, Presidential Decree 11/1963, public statement, report, unfair trial Urgent Action on imminent executions – 1988 November 1, 1988 September 3, 2015 martha 1965, 1966, 1969, 1975, 1976, 1986, 1987, 1988, Bandung, Barisan Tani Indonesia, Blitar, BTI, Cakrabirawa, Cipinang, Criminal Court, death penalty execution, death penalty sentence, Extra-ordinary Military Court, Extra-ordinary Regional Military Court, KUHP, Mahmildam, Mahmillub, Partai Komunis Indonesia, Pemuda Rakyat, PKI, Presidential Decree 11/1963, right to appeal, urgent action Urgent Action on reported executions – 1988 October 17, 1988 September 3, 2015 martha 1965, 1968, 1969, 1988, Cakrabirawa, Cipinang, death penalty execution, death penalty sentence, Extra-ordinary Regional Military Court, Mahmildam, unfair trial, urgent action An Indonesian prisoner under sentence of death – 1987 May 1, 1987 September 3, 2015 martha 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1975, 1985, 1986, 1987, Anti-subversion Law, background paper, Bandung, Blitar, Cangkringan, Central Java, Constitution 1945, Criminal Code, Criminal Court, Criminal Procedural Code, death penalty execution, death penalty sentence, human rights defender, internal report, Jawa Tengah, justice system, Klaten, KUHAP, KUHP, Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat Sementara, MPRS, Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI, Presidential Decree 11/1963, prison conditions, right to appeal, torture, unfair trial, UUD 45 Urgent Action on reported and imminent executions – 1985 May 23, 1985 September 3, 2015 martha 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1975, 1983, 1984, 1985, Blitar, death penalty execution, death penalty sentence, Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI, Trade union, unfair trial, urgent action 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1985, Blitar, death penalty execution, death penalty sentence, East Java, Jawa Timur, Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI, Surabaya, unfair trial, urgent action Two former communist leaders under threat of execution – 1984 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1975, 1976, 1983, 1984, action circular, Anti-subversion Law, Blitar, Central Java, Criminal Code, Criminal Court, death penalty execution, death penalty sentence, East Java, Jawa Barat, Jawa Tengah, Jawa Timur, KUHP, Pamekasan, Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI, Presidential Decree 11/1963, Purwodadi, remission, report, South Sulawesi, Sumatera, unfair trial, West Java Urgent Action on six arbitrary arrests – 1981 October 8, 1981 September 3, 2015 martha 1965, 1969, 1975, 1979, 1981, arbitrary detention, detention, freedom of association, freedom of expression, LEKRA, Lembaga Kebudayaan Rakyat, Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI, prisoner of conscience, unlawful detention, urgent action Death penalty special action – 1981 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1979, 1981, action circular, Anti-subversion Law, background paper, Bali, Banjarmasin, Binjei, Blitar, Bogor, Cakrabirawa, Cipinang, Constitution 1945, Criminal Court, cruel and degrading treament, death penalty execution, death penalty sentence, Extra-ordinary Military Court, Extra-ordinary Regional Military Court, justice system, Kabanjahe, Mahmildam, Mahmillub, Makassar, Malang, Medan, Nirbaya, Nusakembangan, Padang, Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI, Presidential Decree 11/1963, remission, right to appeal, RTM Cimahi, Samarinda, Solo, Surabaya, Ujung Pandang, unfair trial, United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UUD 45, Yogyakarta

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Pagano has his team's love; now he needs a Super Bowl Coach without a long-term contract knows this fourth season will define his tenure in Indianapolis Zak Keefer, zak.keefer@indystar.com Published 4:49 p.m. ET Sept. 10, 2015 | Updated 8:36 a.m. ET Sept. 12, 2015 The text message to T.Y. Hilton came between his coach's second and third bouts of spirit-sapping chemotherapy, the sort that kept him in bed 20 hours a day and made menial tasks like brushing his teeth an exhaustive chore. Still, game day was coming. Hilton's phone buzzed. It was Chuck. "Remember, stretch and cut. Stretch and cut." It was November 2012. Hilton was the Indianapolis Colts' standout rookie receiver who doubled as a punt returner; Chuck Pagano was six weeks into treatment for acute promyelocytic leukemia. He was coaching from the third floor of the IU Simon Cancer Center. The following Sunday, in a game against the Buffalo Bills, Hilton hauled in a punt at the 25-yard line. Stretch and cut. The words stuck like glue in his mind. He rolled out wide for a few seconds, allowing his blockers a chance to stretch out the coverage, then darted upfield, sliding through the holes created. Stretch and cut had turned into a 75-yard touchdown. "You can lean on Chuck no matter what," Hilton says, nearly three years later. The text messages to Montori Hughes didn't stop after the worst of the pain had passed. They kept coming. "How you doing, big man? You doing OK?" It was Chuck. Hughes, a former Colts defensive lineman, lost an infant daughter to an unexpected illness during training camp last August. Pagano took the whole team to the funeral. He was still checking on Hughes a year later. "It's one thing to do it right when it happens, when everyone's calling and texting," Hughes says. "But to do it a year later tells me he genuinely cares." “PLAYERS WILL RUN THROUGH A BRICK WALL FOR THIS MAN.” Note scribbled by Colts general manager Ryan Grigson during Chuck Pagano's interview for the coaching position The text messages to Dwayne Allen came with a command. The Colts tight end spent this past spring in Arizona, rehabbing and rebuilding his bruised frame, while teammates began voluntary offseason workouts back in Indianapolis. Allen missed the first few. Then his phone buzzed. It was Chuck. Coach wasn't happy. "Enough's enough," Pagano wrote. "We need you here." Allen was at the next workout. The text messages to Joe Reitz, a college basketball player turned Colts offensive lineman, arrived the day his son was born. It was Chuck. "That just made my day!" Pagano wrote. "What's he going to play when he grows up? Football? Basketball? Tight end? Power forward?" Andrew Luck wasn't expecting to hear from his coach. It was October 2012. Pagano had just checked into the hospital. Luck was preparing for his fourth NFL start, a game against the Green Bay Packers. He figured their weekly Friday morning quarterback meeting – where Pagano, a former defensive coordinator, would walk his rookie QB through 10-15 looks he could expect to see on Sunday – would go on hiatus while coach battled leukemia. But on Friday morning, his phone buzzed. It was Chuck. Coach had sent him eight texts about the Green Bay defense. To hear them tell it, that's why these Indianapolis Colts play for Chuck Pagano. Because he's willing to coach from a hospital bed. Because he offers a shoulder to cry on amid personal tragedy. Because he puts his foot down when he needs to. Because he texts them the day their son is born, flies to Puerto Rico to see them get married and spends part of his offseason touring U.S. military bases with them. The players aren't spitting rhetoric. Their conviction is genuine, their faith in this man unflinching. Indianapolis Colts general manage Ryan Grigson (left) and coach Chuck Pagano have been leading the team since early 2012. (Photo: Matt Kryger / The Star) "Never had a coach like him," says Colts safety Mike Adams, an 11-year league veteran. "With so many it feels like a dictatorship. Not with Chuck." "With him it's never just about football," adds first-time Colt but longtime Pagano disciple Andre Johnson. "He's treated me like I was part of the family since I was in high school." It's a peek into the persona of Pagano – a coach's son who toiled for 28 years as an assistant across 12 stops without landing a single head-coaching interview. Then he got one. On his way home from Indianapolis that day in January 2012, Pagano shrugged his shoulders. "Nice try," he said to himself. Then he got the job. Then he got cancer. Then he beat it. Then he returned to the locker room, frail and bald and undeterred, and told to his players he was going to do two things: Dance at his daughters' weddings and hoist the Lombardi Trophy. They cried. They roared. They won 11 games. Then they did it twice more. Then, in January, they came one game short of the Super Bowl. Now he enters Year 4, the stakes undeniably high, the pressure undeniably present. After turning down a one-year offer from the Colts, Pagano owns no contract extension, no guarantee there will be a Year 5. The mission is clear, handed down by the team owner: Jim Irsay wants championship(s). Pagano is the man charged with delivering them. More than in any other season of his career, Chuck Pagano is betting on himself in 2015. "Look, we all know what we signed up for," Pagano says one day at the Colts practice facility, leaning forward in his chair, his anticipation for the coming season unmistakable. This is the year that will define his tenure in Indianapolis. "I know how I'm judged." He did the team's laundry and scooped up jockstraps as a graduate assistant at Southern Cal. He coached linebackers at Boise State, defensive backs at East Carolina and UNLV, the secondary and special teams at Miami. Spent time in Cleveland. In Oakland. In Chapel Hill, N.C. Coached the Baltimore Ravens' defense to within one play of Super Bowl XLVI. A day later he was called into his boss's office. John Harbaugh told him the Indianapolis Colts wanted to talk. "For what?" Chuck Pagano asked, oblivious to the fact the Colts still had a head-coaching vacancy. "I didn't even have a résumé updated. I didn't have anything," he says now. "I told that to (general manager) Ryan (Grigson). He said, 'Don't worry about it. Let's just get to know each other.' Some guys come in with these fancy PowerPoint presentations, all these books and binders about strategy. I didn't have any of that." What he had was himself, his charisma and a deep well of football knowledge built on a lifetime in the game. Pagano's father, Sam, was a coaching institution in Boulder, Colo., winning three state titles in the 25 seasons he led Fairview High. Chuck saw it early: A coach isn't just a coach – he's a second father, sometimes a first. More than once a new player would move into the school district and end up staying with the Paganos for a few weeks. Chuck was in charge of folding out the sofa. Other players – sick, in trouble, both – would call in the middle of the night, desperate for help, advice, both. "Who are you going to call at that point? You're going to call the coach," Pagano says now. "We saw first-hand how our father built relationships with his players. It was an early glimpse into how it should be done." Chuck Pagano, with interim coach Bruce Arians, visited the Colts' locker room after a win in 2012 while he was still undergoing cancer treatment. (Photo: Indianapolis Colts photo) It stayed with him. After playing for dad at Fairview he arrived at the University of Wyoming as a walk-on; he graduated four years later as the starting strong safety. "Boy, he loved to hit," remembers his younger brother, John, the victim of many of those hits and now the San Diego Chargers' defensive coordinator. "Chuck played like he had no regard for his own body." When the talent ran out and his playing days expired, Chuck sat down with his father and shared his ambition. He wanted to coach. Dad said he'd help. Sam called his friend at Southern Cal, head coach Ted Tollner, and got his oldest son a gig as a graduate assistant. You want to coach? We'll see how badly you want it. He'd do the team's laundry and scoop up jockstraps. He'd pay his dues. He'd climb the ladder. What he didn't know was the ladder would take 28 years. "I never played the grass is greener type of deal," Pagano says. "You could sit here and play the complain and compare game – why's he getting it? Why'd they choose him for the job? Meanwhile, you're not doing your job because you're worried about the next one." So Pagano worked. And then, when he least expected it, a day after a heartbreaking loss in the 2011 AFC Championship Game, the call came. "We're looking for a leader of men," Jim Irsay told Pagano when he walked in the door for the interview. "Still emotional and still kind of angry," Grigson says of Pagano. "The bitterness (from the loss) was still emanating from him, even when we brought him in." Pagano wowed them. Not long into the interview Grigson scribbled a note on a piece of paper and showed it to Colts executive Pete Ward. "PLAYERS WILL RUN THROUGH A BRICK WALL FOR THIS MAN." Ward nodded. The Colts had their man. Irsay soon called with an offer. Pagano mulled it over. He called back. "Let's hunt," he told his new boss. One of his first calls was to his brother. John answered from the bleachers at the Senior Bowl. "You're never going to believe this…" Chuck began. The memory fires up his little brother to this day. A day later the new head coach sat in his new office. He'd reached the summit of a long, rocky climb. After almost three decades in the game, a football team was finally his football team. "Coming on the interview was one thing, then actually getting the call and being offered the job and taking the job?" Pagano says now. "When the whirlwind was over and you had the chance to really sit down, it was like, 'Holy ----, what did I just do?' "I was looking for the head coach manual," he continues. "What do you do Day 1? Day 2? There's no manual. It's probably a lesson for everybody else who might get the opportunity – you better be taking some damn good notes. We were all rookies. Rookie GM, rookie coach, rookie quarterback. We made some good decisions, some bad decisions, but that was part of it. You think back and it's surreal where we started and where we ended up today." Where they are today: Among the favorites for Super Bowl 50. "They're going to win it," Sam Pagano says. "Chucky believes it. He really believes it. They're going to be Santa Clara in February and they're going to win that thing." Colts coach Chuck Pagano and his wife, Tina, celebrate with fans after beating the Broncos in Denver during last year's playoffs. (Photo: Matt Detrich/The Star) It's not often an NFL coach wins 11 games in each of his first three seasons. Only two men – Pagano and former 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh – can say they've done it (though Pagano missed 12 games in 2012 while battling leukemia). It's also not often a team is bounced from the playoffs in consecutive seasons by 21 and 38 points, respectively, and that coach keeps his job. Making matters worse for Chuck Pagano: Those losses came in the same stadium, against the same opponent, in the same brutal fashion. The Colts went to Foxborough and were beaten to a pulp. The Patriots remain the riddle Pagano can't solve. The cold reality: Another lopsided loss in New England this January could doom his tenure in Indianapolis. "It's our Achilles heel right now," Pagano said of the porous run defense that buried the Colts in those games. "We either get it fixed or it will be somebody else getting it fixed." He might as well have been speaking for the entire defense. It speaks to the burden placed squarely upon Pagano's shoulders this fall. Fix it, or it will be somebody else getting it fixed. “No matter the day, you’re always going to get the same guy. That’s a man of faith, a family-loving tough son of a gun.” Colts tight end Dwayne Allen, on coach Chuck Pagano What he has on his side: A roster full of players who will run through a brick wall for him. T.Y. Hilton loves the way Pagano jumps into passing drills and plays defensive back, turning back the clock to his Wyoming days. Mike Adams loves the way he respects his players. Dwayne Allen loves his tough love. "Chuck has skin like an armadillo," Allen says. "No matter the day, you're always going to get the same guy. That's a man of faith, a family-loving tough son of a gun." Andre Johnson loves the way Pagano keeps in touch, no matter where he's playing and where Chuck's coaching. It's one of the reasons his decision to come to Indy in free agency was so easy. "The first time I walk into his office, he just wrapped me up in a big hug," Johnson says. "Next thing you know, he's asking about my mom and my uncle, and he's telling me about his grandkids. I don't know of many coaches who do that." Colts cornerback Vontae Davis loves Pagano for resurrecting his once-wilting career. "Chuck? That's my guy," says Davis, a former first-round pick who struggled in Miami before blossoming into a star under Pagano's tutelage in Indianapolis. "At the end of the day, he took me under his wing and taught me to be a pro." He's taught them, trained them, texted with them. On the best days of their life and some of the worst. He's transformed a team – his team – from the ruins of 2011 to the promise of 2015. The byproduct of his startling success: Demands for more. Time to hunt. Call Star reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134 and follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer. Pagano has his team's love; now he needs a Super Bowl Coach without a long-term contract knows this fourth season will define his tenure in Indianapolis Check out this story on IndyStar.com: https://indy.st/1EZoSQ2

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Hunter-ed Rewarding Safety Photo Contest You can win a $100 gift card from Bass Pro Shops just by showing us your hunter education card! Follow these simple steps to enter. Log into Twitter and to go Hunter Ed’s page: http://www.twitter.com/hunter_ed Click “Tweet to Hunter Ed” Upload an image of yourself with your hunter education card or certificate and include the hashtag: #HunterEdReward Click “Tweet,” and you’re done! We will notify the winner via Twitter direct message once the contest has concluded. Wait, you haven’t taken your hunter education course yet?! Get a move on! Go to www.hunter-ed.com, pick your state, and you’ll be done in no time. The Rewarding Safety Photo Contest (“Contest”), sponsored by Kalkomey Enterprises, Inc. (“Sponsor”), is only open to legal residents of the United States and the District of Columbia who are 13 years of age or older at the time of entry. Employees, officers, and directors of the Sponsor and the Sponsor’s affiliated companies, subsidiaries, advertising and promotion agencies, and any and all other entities directly associated with this Contest, as well as the immediate family members and members of the same household of any of the above are not eligible to participate. Upon entering this Contest, entrants agree to waive any rights their state of residence may provide in regard to contests. Void where prohibited by law. No purchase is necessary to enter or win. The Contest is open to individuals 13 years of age or older who live in and are legal residents of the United States. Multiple entries will be accepted. By submitting an entry, you agree to the terms defined within the official rules. By providing your entry, you give full and unlimited rights to the Sponsor to use, edit, broadcast, and reproduce your picture as the Sponsor sees fit. Entries will only be accepted on the Hunter Ed blog. The Contest begins on September 15, 2014, at 7:00 a.m. (CST) and ends on September 26, 2014 at 11:59 p.m. (CST). Winner Selection: Prize winner will be selected by the Sponsor and announced via social media on September 30, 2014. Only one winner will be selected. The winner will be selected upon verification by the Sponsor that all Contest requirements have been met. Odds of winning will depend on the number of eligible entries received. Contest entrants agree to abide by the terms of these Official Rules and by the decisions of the Sponsor, which are final on all matters pertaining to the Contest. The Contest is governed by the laws of the United States. All federal, state, and local laws and regulations apply. All taxes, fees, and surcharges on prizes are the sole responsibility of the prize winner. The winner will receive one (1) Bass Pro Shops gift card valued at $100. No substitution or transfer of prizes is permitted. This Contest is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Entrants agree to completely release Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram of any responsibility related to this Contest. Entrants agree to providing information to the Sponsor and not to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. By entering this Contest, you agree to be bound by these Official Rules. Entrants further agree to be bound by the decisions of the judges, which shall be final and binding in all respects. The Sponsor reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to disqualify any individual it finds to be tampering with the entry process or the operation of the Contest or website; to be acting in violation of the Official Rules; or to be acting in an unsportsmanlike or disruptive manner, or with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any other person. The Sponsor is not responsible for and may disqualify entries that are lost, late, incomplete, invalid, illegible, misdirected, failed transmissions, or partial or garbled transmissions, whether the result of human, mechanical, or electronic error or whether in the transmission, submission, or processing of the entries or otherwise. The Sponsor assumes no responsibility for any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, communications line failure, theft, destruction, authorized or unauthorized access to, or alteration of entries. The Sponsor is not responsible for any problems or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer online systems, servers or providers, computer equipment, software, failure of email or entries on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any website or combination thereof, including injury or damage to participants or to any other person’s computer related to or resulting from participating or downloading materials in this Contest. If, for any reason, the Contest is not capable of running as planned, including infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures, or any other causes beyond the control of the Sponsor which corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of this Contest, Kalkomey Enterprises, Inc. reserves the right at its sole discretion to cancel, terminate, modify, or suspend the Contest. The Sponsor reserves the right to disqualify any entry of an entrant who is found tampering with the entry process or with the conduct or operation of any Contest or in violation of these Official Contest Rules. Each prize is awarded “as is” with no warranty or guarantee, either expresses or implied, outside of manufacturer’s limited warranty. No transfer, assignment, or substitution of a prize permitted, except Sponsor reserves the right to substitute for prize an item of equal or greater value in is the event an advertised prize is unavailable. All federal, state, provincial, and local laws and regulations apply. Winners may be required to sign and return an Affidavit of Eligibility, a Liability Release, and, where legally permissible, a Publicity Release within 7 days following the date of first attempted notification. Failure to comply with this deadline may result in forfeiture of the prize and selection of an alternate winner. Return of any prize/prize notification as undeliverable may result in disqualification and selection of an alternate winner. Winner hereby further agrees that he/she will sign any documents necessary to transfer copyright of the entry to Sponsor within 7 days following the date of first attempted notification. Acceptance of the prize constitutes permission for Sponsor and its agencies to use winner’s name and/or likeness, biographical material, and/or entry (including an altered form of the entry) for advertising and promotional purposes without additional compensation, unless prohibited by law. By accepting prize, winner agrees to hold Sponsor, and their respective parent companies, subsidiaries, affiliates, partners, representative agents, successors, assigns, officers, directors and employees harmless for any injury or damage caused or claimed to be caused by participation in the Promotion or acceptance or use of the prize. Sponsor is not responsible for any printing, typographical, mechanical, or other error in the printing of the offer, administration of the Promotion or in the announcement of the prize. Posted in Contests Tree Stand Photo Contest with Hunter Safety System by Chris Haught · November 1, 2013 Help us promote tree stand safety awareness! Every year, there are reports of hunters falling from tree stands; and often, the difference between life and death is at the end of a lifeline. The National Sports and Shooting Foundation reported in 2011 that more than 6,600 hunting accidents were related to tree stands. As hunting seasons open up around the country, we want to continue to encourage hunters to stay safe. Hunter Safety System (HSS) and Hunter Ed are coming together to give away the following items: Hunter Safety System Care Package: HSS Elite Vest HSS LifeLine System Package of 16 Glow-Clips 2 HSS Hats Hunter Ed Hunter’s Safety Course CVA Wolf 209 Magnum Break-Action Muzzleloader U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance 1 year membership and a camo hat. So here’s how you can win. Pick a social media site – Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Follow Hunter Ed and Hunter Safety System on the social media site you choose. Upload a picture taken from your tree stand. It can be of you or your view; show us your safety gear! Tag it with #treestandhunting. Check back on November 19 when we’ll announce the winner on our social media channels Eligible Channels: Facebook: Hunter Ed and Hunter Safety System Twitter: Hunter Ed and Hunter Safety System Instagram: Hunter Ed We will contact the winner on the social media site where they submitted their image. The winning entry will be posted on Hunter Safety System’s and Hunter Ed’s social media sites. Official Rules: The Tree Stand Photo Contest (“Contest”), sponsored by Kalkomey Enterprises, Inc.(Sponsor), is only open to legal residents of the United States and District of Columbia who are 18 years of age or older at the time of entry. Employees, officers, and directors of Sponsor and Sponsor’s affiliated companies, subsidiaries, advertising and promotion agencies, and any and all other entities directly associated with this Contest, as well as the immediate family members and members of the same household of any of the above are not eligible to participate. No purchase is necessary to enter or win. The Contest is open to individuals 18 and older who live in and are legal residents of the United States. Multiple entries will be accepted. Entrants must do one of the following to successfully enter the Contest. Like Hunter Ed and Hunter Safety System on Facebook. Follow Hunter Ed and Hunter Safety System on Twitter. Follow Hunter Ed on Instagram. Entries will only be accepted on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. The Contest begins on November 1, 2013, at 8:00 a.m. (CT) and ends on November 15, 2013 at 11:59 p.m. (CT). Prize winner will be selected by the Sponsor and announced via social media on November 19. Only one winner will be selected. The winner will be selected upon verification by the Sponsor that all Contest requirements have been met. Odds of winning will depend on the number of eligible entries received. Contest entrants agree to abide by the terms of these Official Rules and by the decisions of the Sponsor which are final on all matters pertaining to the Contest. The Contest is governed by the laws of the United States. All federal, state, and local laws and regulations apply. All taxes, fees, and surcharges on prizes are the sole responsibility of the prize winner. The winner will receive a HSS-610 L/XL New Elite Vest ($159.95), a HSS LifeLine System ($39.95), HSS Glow Clips ($7.95), two HSS hats ($30), a Hunter Ed safety course ($24.50), a Wolf 209 Magnum Break-Action Muzzleloader ($246.95), U.S Sportsmen’s Alliance 1 year Sustaining Membership ($25), and USSA hat ($10) . No substitution or transfer of prizes is permitted except by the Sponsor. This Contest is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Entrants agree to completely release Facebook, Twitter or Instagram of any responsibility related to this Contest. Entrants agree to providing information to the Sponsor and not to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. The Sponsor is not responsible for and may disqualify entries that are lost, late, incomplete, invalid, illegible, misdirected, failed transmissions, or partial or garbled transmissions, whether the result of human, mechanical, or electronic error or whether in the transmission, submission, or processing of the entries or otherwise. The Sponsor assumes no responsibility for any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, communications line failure, theft, destruction, authorized or unauthorized access to, or alteration of entries. The Sponsor is not responsible for any problems or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer online systems, servers or providers, computer equipment, software, failure of email or entries on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any web site or combination thereof, including injury or damage to participants or to any other person’s computer related to or resulting from participating or downloading materials in this Contest. If, for any reason, the Contest is not capable of running as planned, including infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures, or any other causes beyond the control of the Sponsor which corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of this Contest, Kalkomey Enterprises, Inc. reserves the right at its sole discretion to cancel, terminate, modify, or suspend the Contest.

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Iran and its Proxy Hezbollah: Strategic Penetration in Latin America 15/04/2009 | by Karmon, Ely (Dr.) First published as Working Paper by the Real Instituto Elcano (RIE), Madrid ‘Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must love the tropics’, commented ironically The Miami Herald.[1] He has spent more time in Latin America than President Bush. Since his inauguration in 2005, Iran’s foreign policy focus has shifted from Africa to Latin America in order to, as Ahmadinejad puts it, ‘counter lasso’ the US.[2] Iran’s Goals in Latin America Farideh Farhi argues that while Iran’s increased attention to Latin America as a region is a relatively new development, its bilateral ties with some individual Latin American nations are of long standing and relatively robust. Iran has shared an ideological relationship with Cuba since the end of the Iran-Iraq War, and a political relationship with Venezuela since their co-founding of OPEC in the 1960s. The impetus behind these long-standing bilateral relationships is three-fold:[3] 1. Iran’s non-aligned position in foreign policy has compelled it to seek out countries with similar ideological outlooks. 2. US efforts to keep Iran in diplomatic and economic isolation have forced it to pursue an active foreign policy. 3. The election of a reformist President in 1997 made it possible for countries like Brazil to engage Iran with enough confidence to withstand pressures from the US. The shift to the left in many important Latin American countries in the first decade of the new millennium has allowed Iran to be more successful in its attempt to improve relations with particular countries. From Ahmadinejad’s point of view, ‘rather than responding passively to the US attempt to isolate Iran politically and economically and become the dominant player in the Middle East region, Iran’s backyard, Iran should move aggressively in the US’s own backyard as a means to rattle it or at least make a point’.[4] What is Ahmadinejad Looking for in Latin America? First, he is seeking Latin American support to counter US and European pressures to stop Iran from developing nuclear capabilities. Venezuela and Cuba were, alongside Syria, the only three countries that supported Iran’s nuclear programme in a February 2006 vote at the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency.[5] Secondly, Ahmadinejad wants to strike back at the US in its own hemisphere and possibly destabilise US-friendly governments in order to negotiate with Washington from a position of greater strength. Third, Ahmadinejad's popularity at home is falling, and he may want to show his people that he is being welcomed as a hero abroad. Since Ahmadinejad’s ascendancy to power, he has made three diplomatic tours to Latin America in search of an alliance of ‘revolutionary countries’. He visited Venezuela in July 2006, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador in January 2007, and Venezuela and Bolivia in September 2007. Ahmadinejad had also hosted President Chávez of Venezuela, President Ortega of Nicaragua, President Morales of Bolivia and President Correa of Ecuador and is expecting the visit of Brazil’s President Lula da Silva in 2009. The cornerstone of Ahmadinejad’s Latin America policy is the formation of an anti-American axis with Venezuela. During a July 2006 visit to Tehran, Chávez told a Tehran University crowd, ‘We have to save humankind and put an end to the US empire’. When Chávez again visited Tehran a year later Ahmadinejad and Chávez used the visit to declare an ‘Axis of Unity’ against the US.[6] Ahmadinejad’s efforts to further destabilise the neighbourhood suggest that he is seeking a permanent Iranian presence on the US doorstep. Both leaders are using their mutual embrace to overcome international isolation and sanctions. Both Tehran and Caracas have used their petrodollar windfall to encourage states in Latin America to embark on confrontational policies towards the US.[7] Using billions of Iranian dollars in aid and assistance, and a US$2 billion Iran/Venezuela programme to fund social projects in Latin America, Ahmadinejad has worked to create an anti-American bloc with Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua. Iran’s Growing Presence in Latin America During the International Conference on Latin America held in Tehran in February 2007, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mehdi Mostafavi, announced the opening of embassies in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Uruguay and a representative office in Bolivia, and that a number of Latin American countries would open embassies in Iran.[8] Iran’s political and economic penetration of the continent in a short period of two-three years is indeed impressive. According to Elodie Brun, both Venezuela and Iran are using oil as a political instrument to insert themselves internationally in a way that both characterise as revolutionary. The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez, and President Ahmadinejad embrace a rhetoric emphasising autonomy and independence from the great powers, primarily the US but also Europe, citing unity in the struggle against imperialism and capitalism. Hostility to the US, and particularly to the Bush Administration, is what most binds the foreign policies of the two countries.[9] ‘Here are two brother countries, united like a single fist’, Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan leader, was quoted as saying in Tehran. ‘Iran is an example of struggle, resistance, dignity, revolution, strong faith’, Chávez told al-Jazeera. ‘We are two powerful countries. Iran is a power and Venezuela is becoming one. We want to create a bipolar world. We don’t want a single power [that is, the US]...Despite the will of the world arrogance [of the US], we [Iran and Venezuela] will stand by the oppressed and deprived nations of the world’, Ahmadinejad said.[10] Thérèse Delpech, a French analyst, has noted that Ahmadinejad's ‘flamboyant style’ is similar to that of his Venezuelan colleague.[11] Some observers consider that Latin America’s willingness to embrace Iran indicates how far US prestige has fallen in the region. Chávez has emerged as ‘the godfather and relationship manager’, striving to draw in this embrace other allies such as Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua. He is providing Iran with an entry into Latin America, vowing to ‘unite the Persian Gulf and the Caribbean’ and recently gave Iran observer status in his leftist trade-pact group known as the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas.[12] Iran has become the second-largest investor in Venezuela, after the US. The first ‘anti-imperialist cars’ from a joint venture (Venirauto) have now reached Venezuela’s roads, with the first batch earmarked for army officers. The 4,000 tractors produced annually in Ciudad Bolivar have a symbolic value as agents of revolutionary change. Most are given or leased at a discount in Venezuela to socialist cooperatives that have land, with the government’s blessing. Universities are teaching Farsi.[13] Iran is to help build platforms in a US$4 billion development of Orinoco delta oil deposits in exchange for Venezuelan investments. An Iranian company is building thousands of apartments for Venezuela’s poor. The most visible impact so far has been the arrival of Iranian businesses. The public housing project alone has brought more than 400 Iranian engineers and specialists to Venezuela, where many have learned basic Spanish.[14] Venezuela could also provide Iran with some breathing space as it tries to weather the financial pressure of UN and US sanctions on its nuclear programme. Venezuela could end up being an outlet for Iran to move money, obtain high-tech equipment and access the world financial system.[15] Venezuela has already become Iran’s gateway for travel to the region. There is now a weekly flight between Caracas and Tehran, with a stopover in Damascus, operated by the Venezuelan state-controlled airline Conviasa and Iran’s national carrier, Iran Air. Flights are packed with government officials and government-friendly business people.[16] Venezuela’s state airline bought an Airbus jet especially for the route. Bolivia might be a poor country, but it is strategically located and represents an important ally for Iran that can act as a catalyst in enhancing Iran’s growing cooperation with other leftist or populist governments in Latin America. On 27 September 2007 Ahmadinejad visited La Paz for the first time to meet President Morales. They took the opportunity to sign a programme of cooperation worth US$1.1 billion in Bolivia’s underdeveloped oil and gas sector.[17] In August 2008 the government of Bolivia, with the support of Iran and Venezuela, created the Public National Strategic Company ‘Cement of Bolivia’ with an investment of US$230 million for the establishment of two plants in Potosí and Oruro departments. In the same month, the Vice-president of Iran, Mojtama Samare Hashemi, came to the country to express his support for Evo Morales and to promote economic agreements. Iran decided to open two health clinics in Bolivia, as a base for future Red Crescent projects in South America. The agreement includes sending Iranian medical teams to Bolivia, and offering specialised education and training for Bolivian physicians. The Bolivian Health Minister said that the Iranian clinics would expand the medical aid already being provided by Cuba and Venezuela.[18] The Iranian state television agreed to provide Bolivian state television with Spanish-language programming, making it that much easier for every Bolivian to receive Iranian-produced news and documentary shows –ie, propaganda. In September 2008 Morales went to Teheran and agreed with Ahmadinejad to accelerate the execution of joint projects to increase economic development and welfare for both nations. The two Presidents issued a statement to the effect that the interference of the United Nations Security Council in Iran’s nuclear programme had no legal or technical justification. Morales’ decision to set aside any hesitation and fully support Iran's position in the current nuclear stand-off has gone a long way to cementing Iranian-Bolivian friendship. According to the statement, the two sides have also pledged to continue their political struggle against imperialism. ‘Nothing and no country can harm our relations with the revolutionary country of Iran’, Morales told reporters. Following his return from Iran, President Evo Morales announced he was moving the country’s sole Middle Eastern Embassy from Egypt to Iran, a clear sign of what his strategic priorities in the Middle East are. According to Maradiaga and Meléndez, Nicaragua’s foreign policy strongly correlates with Venezuela’s, and any Latin American relationship with Iran is conducted through Caracas. President Ortega sees himself as a ‘revolutionary’ who supports Chávez’s political-ideological anti-imperialist ‘Socialism of the 21st century’. Francisco Aguirre Sacasa, a former Nicaraguan Foreign Minister, described Ortega’s relations with Iran as a ‘policy of the heart’.[19] Iran promised Nicaragua US$1 billion in aid and investment to develop its energy and agricultural sectors, infrastructure and water purification facilities. The largest project was the construction of a deep water port on Nicaragua’s eastern shore, requiring an investment of US$350 million. Nicaragua received a US$231 million loan from Iran in 2007 to build a hydroelectric dam. In August 2008, Nicaraguan-Iranian relations were further consolidated when President Ahmadinejad donated US$2 million for the construction of a hospital. Iran will also expand media cooperation with Nicaragua.[20] Iran has stationed about 20 Iranian officials at its Embassy there, which has by now become one of the largest in the country. However, Maradiaga and Meléndez claimed as late as mid-2008 that the proposed projects created the appearance of strong economic ties between the two nations but that there was little evidence that the aid and investment would materialise. They doubted that the relationship –held together by the anti-Americanism espoused by the leaders of both countries– would deepen beyond the ideological and political level.[21] On the political level, Nicaragua is actually playing down US concerns about Iran’s nuclear-weapon ambitions and President Ortega publicly supported Iran’s right to ‘nuclear energy for peaceful ends’.[22] Prior to 2007 ties were minimal and neither country had diplomatic or commercial offices in the other’s capital. In 2000, 2006 and 2007, no Ecuadorean exports reached Iran, and in 2003, the year with the highest volume of trade, Ecuador’s total exports to Iran were worth US$2.5 million. Ahmadinejad’s short and surprising visit to Rafael Correa’s presidential inauguration in January 2007 spawned a new bilateral relationship between the two countries. Correa maintained that the relationship was not political but based solely on commercial interests. The visiting President said that ‘deep cooperation between Iran and Ecuador in the international arena will help establish balance in the world equation’.[23] According to César Montúfar there is little evidence of a growing commercial relationship between Quito and Tehran. The ties between Ecuador and Iran were established because of Ecuador’s relationship with Venezuela. Montúfar argues that as Venezuela’s influence in Ecuador is declining a similar decline in Iran’s relations with Ecuador has ensued.[24] However, this evaluation was quickly contradicted by the facts. In the summer of 2008 the two countries opened commercial bureaus in their respective capitals. The Ecuadorean commercial bureau in Tehran was the only one to be opened by the government of Correa since he was elected. Iran and Ecuador signed an energy cooperation deal in September 2008, including a plan to build a refinery and a petrochemical unit in southern Ecuador.[25] President Correa visited Iran in November 2008 and signed 25 bilateral agreements in various fields, including the oil industry. Correa, who is the first Ecuadorean head of State to visit Iran, travelled accompanied by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Oil and Mining, Agriculture and Defence, among other officials and business people. In December 2008 Ecuador and Iran signed an agreement of cooperation in the field of energy with the participation of Iran in hydro-electrical projects and in the tender for the construction of the important of Coca-Codo-Sinclair dam project. In December 2008, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili visited Ecuador. During the meeting with Jalili, Correa said his country’s relations with Iran were strategic and that he favoured the expansion of the military ties and customs cooperation between the two nations. ‘Links between Quito and Teheran are beyond trade relations’, Correa said.[26] Finally, on 13 February 2009 Iran opened a brand new Embassy in Quito, an act coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Iran.[27] Fernando Armindo Lugo Méndez, a former Catholic bishop, was inaugurated as President of Paraguay on 15 August 2008 and headed the country’s first left-leaning presidency. Ahmadinejad was one of the first to congratulate Lugo on his victory. Iran’s media praised Lugo by calling him ‘a man of God and an enemy of the Great Satan’. The large Muslim population in Paraguay’s tri-border region aided Lugo’s campaign for the presidency through fund-raising drives that were supported by Iran and Venezuela.[28] Lugo designated Alejandro Hamed Franco, Paraguay’s ambassador to Lebanon, as Foreign Minister. Hamed has publicly announced that he plans to strengthen ties with the Middle East. His appointment was sure to create tensions with the State Department due to his sympathies with anti-US developments in the Middle East and his acknowledged connections with US-banned groups. He was accused of providing Paraguayan passports to Lebanese citizens, although he claims they were only for those who were trying to escape Israeli attacks in 2006.[29] In February 2009 an Iranian government delegation visited Paraguay to seek import and investment opportunities. The Iranian delegation hoped to import soya and meat from Paraguay and showed an interest in bilateral cooperation in technology and agriculture and in investing in Paraguayan real estate.[30] During President Mohammad Khatami’s February 2004 visit to Caracas to attend the summit of the non-aligned G-15 he met the newly elected President Lula da Silva of Brazil and talked about bilateral trade. Since then, Brazil’s exports to Iran have doubled and it has been the latter’s largest Latin American trade partner for several years, with a volume of exports to Iran as large as those of neighbouring Turkey and India.[31] However, when in September 2007 Ahmadinejad expressed his intention of going to Brasilia on an official visit –after speaking at the UN General Assembly and visiting Venezuela and Bolivia–, Brazilian diplomacy came out with the classic excuse: the impossibility of reconciling Lula and the Iranian President’s schedules.[32] Still, Lula’s reluctance to meet Ahmadinejad did not prevent him from publicly supporting Iran’s nuclear energy programme and suggesting that Iran ‘should not be punished just because of Western suspicions it wants to make an atomic bomb’.[33] During the visit in November 2008 of the Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim to Iran, his Iranian colleague Manouchehr Mottaki said that ‘Iran affords South America major priority in its foreign policy and Brazil enjoys a special position in this respect’ and that Tehran and Brasilia generally share the same interests in numerous global matters which can be used as a potential for bilateral consultations. Amorim, for his part, described the expansion of ties with Iran as a priority for Brazil’s foreign policy. He also referred to his meeting with Mottaki as a ‘turning point’ in Brazil-Iran relations and expected that the visits by the two nations’ Presidents would bring ties to a new level.[34] On this occasion, President Ahmadinejad said there are no barriers to the expansion of ties with Brazil. ‘The (political) systems in the world are on the decline, and we should help each other and work for establishing a new (political) order’. Ahmadinejad expressed his hope that the visit to Iran of President Lula in the near future would further help build up the friendship between the two nations.[35] In June 2008, the Uruguayan Vice-president Rodolfo Nin Novoa called for the further expansion of all-out ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran. He announced his readiness to pay a visit to Tehran to discuss the furthering of bilateral cooperation with the Iranian authorities and said that President Ahmadinejad had invited his Uruguayan counterpart to visit Tehran in the near future. He also announced Uruguay’s nomination of a new ambassador to Tehran and the formation of the Iran-Uruguay Parliamentary Friendship Group.[36] Then, in October 2008, Fernando Alberto Arroyo became Uruguay’s ambassador to Tehran. Argentina has an Embassy in Tehran and Iran has an Embassy in Buenos Aires. Since 1994 relations between the two countries have been marred by Iran’s involvement in the AMIA bombing. Efforts to resolve the case were being made when much of the region was expanding its relations with Iran, and several of Argentina’s regional allies were pledging support for Ahmadinejad’s government. According to Iranian sources, during the 2004 G-15 summit meeting, despite Argentine President Nestor Kirchner’s interest in discussing bilateral economic ties, Khatami refused to meet him until ‘Buenos Aires formally apologised to Tehran for falsely charging Iranian diplomats with involvement in the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in 1994’.[37] Although Argentina maintains friendly relations with Iran’s allies, like Chávez, Ortega and Correa, Kirchner’s domestic agenda is driving him in a different direction. For example, he cancelled plans to attend President Correa’s inauguration ceremony after Ahmadinejad announced that he would attend. The continuing US conflict with Iran complicates matters further.[38] At the 2007 UN General Assembly, the Argentine President urged Iran to help with the probe on the terrorist attack. This was not well received by the Tehran government, which responded angrily. The case has also caused tension with Chávez, an ally of the then President Kirchner. The Venezuelan ambassador to Buenos Aires, Roger Capella, was replaced after he criticised the Argentine justice system for seeking the capture of Iranian officials, upsetting the Argentine government. But this was not enough to weaken the ties between Argentina and Venezuela.[39] In February 2007, the Iranian government organized the first International Conference on Latin America at the Institute of International Political Studies at the Foreign Ministry. The title of the conference was ‘Development in Latin America: Its Role and Status in the Future International System’. According to press releases, the participants also included Argentine members of parliament.[40] The Subtle Ideological/Religious Penetration Iran’s religious and intellectual penetration of Latin America, its attempts to convert Christians and Sunni Muslims to Shia Islam and thus export the ideology and revolutionary beliefs of Ayatollah Khomeini is similar to the trend seen today in the Middle East, although it clearly does not reach the same proportions. For instance, Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, head of the Sunni International Union for Muslim Scholars and the Muslim Brotherhood’s main religious authority, has made harsh anti-Shia and anti-Iran statements in the Egyptian and Saudi press. He warned against the danger posed by the spread of Shia Islam in Sunni countries, characterising it as part of Iran’s campaign for regional hegemony.[41] In another typical example, an article on a Sudanese website accuses Iran of having ‘turned its Embassy in Khartoum into a centre for spreading... Shia [Islam], aimed at prompting the Sudanese to forsake Sunni [Islam] and embrace Imami Shiism [instead]’. To ensure the success of this plan, various Iranian-funded facilities have been established around the capital, including cultural centres, libraries, institutions and schools. These establishments are actually missionary centres for spreading Shia Islam. ‘[Moreover], some of the recent converts to the Shia have begun to spread Shiite philosophy in the capital and around the country, among students and in the large universities’.[42] A superficial surf of the Internet shows that Latin America is not immune from this phenomenon. Professor Ángel Horacio Molina (Hussain Ali), a researcher at the Centre of Oriental Studies of the National University at Rosario (Argentina), writes frequently for the Revista Biblioteca Islámica in El Salvador and moderates the Islamic blog oidislam.blogspot.com. The blog’s home page presents itself as ‘Islam Indoamericano, a space to develop a revolutionary and indoamerican Islam’. Molina is convinced of the importance of developing this revolutionary brand of Islam to enrich the Muslim umma (nation) worldwide. However, his space is also used to propagate opinions on ‘the political reality’ of the continent from an ‘Islamic revolutionary perspective’.[43] Thus, the blog includes the speech by the Iranian ambassador to Mexico, Dr Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri, delivered on 11 February 2009 on occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Khomeinist revolution. Similarly, it has 10 articles in its chapter on ‘Islam Indoamericano’, 11 on ‘Islamic Resistance’ and 21 on ‘Zionism Uncovered’, all of which are anti-Israeli and anti-US. Among the recommended links are Hezbollah’s website and several Iranian or pro-Iranian websites in Spanish. The following is a non-comprehensive list of Spanish Iranian or pro-Iranian websites: *Organization Islamica Argentina, http://www.organizacionislam.org.ar/. *Unión de Mujeres Musulmanas Argentinas, http://www.umma.org.ar/. *United Latino Muslims of America (ULMA) [actually an Iranian site for Mexico and the Movimiento Mexicano de Solidaridad con el Pueblo Irani (MMSPI)], http://u-l-m-a.com/default.aspx. *Comunidad islamica Shia de Bolivia, http://usuarios.lycos.es/shiabolivia/. *Oficina de Divulgación Islámica Fátimah Az-Zahra/San Salvador/El Salvador, available in Spanish, English, French, Italian and Portuguese (!), http://www.islamelsalvador.com/. *Corporación de Cultura Islámica, Santiago, Chile, http://www.islamchile.com/pagina.php. *Semanario Islámico, Temuco, Chile, http://www.islam.cl/. *Fundación Cultural Oreinte, http://www.islamoriente.com/. *Red Islam, http://www.redislam.com/. *Agencia de Noticias Coránicas de Irán, http://www.iqna.ir/es/. *Organización Cultural y de Relaciones Islámicas (OCRI), http://es.icro.ir/. *Shia Latinos, http://shialatinos.blogspot.com/. *Islam-Shia, http://www.islam-shia.org/. Also, the pro-Iranian blog Imperialism and Resistance (http://almusawwir.org/resistance/), that combines leftist revolutionary rhetoric and messages with Islamist ideology, provides much Latin American news (almusawwir is one of the 99 names of Allah in the Quran: the Fashioner, the Bestower of Forms and the Shaper). All these websites contain not only legitimate religious or cultural texts and explanations, but also radical political anti-American, anti-Israeli and anti-Western material. The Islam-Shia website, for instance, recommends reading two books on Israel and Zionism by the Argentine radical right-wing ‘philosopher’ and strategist Norberto Ceresole: The Falsification of Reality; Argentina in the Geopolitical Space of Jewish Terrorism and The Conquest of the American Empire: Jewish Power in the West and the East. Not only that, but it also recommends the French Holocaust denier and ex-communist Roger Garaudy’s book The Fundamental Myths of the State of Israel and, to crown it all, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. On a broader strategic level, Iran planned to open a television station ‘for all of Latin America’ to be based in Bolivia. Morales made the announcement at a gathering of coca farmers from the Chapare. The station would be ‘for all of Bolivia, for all of Latin America, recognising the great struggle of this peasant movement’, Morales said.[44] According to recent information, the Iranian government has renounced, for unknown reasons, financing the installation of the TV channel in Bolivia, although an Iranian TV team visited Bolivia to follow its ‘political and cultural reality’.[45] Opposition to Iranian Penetration Farhi argues that the new-found intensity of Iran’s relations in Latin America is unsustainable. It is based on political opportunism, as a diplomatic thorn in America’s side, rather than on a more long-term economic or military partnership. Already, the proposed deepwater seaport is facing resistance in Nicaragua by land-rights activists. Iran’s real commitment to this project is also not clear and Tehran has so far refused to forgo Nicaragua’s US$152 million debt, despite Ortega’s specific request that it do so. Ultimately, Farhi predicts that while bilateral relations between Iran and individual Latin American countries will continue to gradually improve, based on economic give-and-take and a degree of shared commitment to non-alignment, the intensely vitriolic character of current relations is unlikely to continue beyond Ahmadinejad’s term in office.[46] For instance, days after it was published that Iran had promised a loan to build a hydroelectric dam in Nicaragua, the opposition party Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista (MRS) criticised the government, claiming that the interest rates asked by Iran were double those offered by the World Bank and the Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. Some have claimed that cooperation with Iran would permit President Ortega to renounce cooperation with the US and Europe, who require transparency and scrutiny.[47] Similar criticism has been aimed at President Morales of Bolivia by Jorge Quiroga, the leader of the main opposition party, and by the Governor of Cochabamba, Manfred Reyes Villa. It is interesting to note that in Iran itself a group of students has criticised Ali Larijani, the Chairman/Speaker of the Iranian parliament, and President Ahmadinejad for the support they give President Chávez of Venezuela. The anonymous writer of this information on a leftist blog notes that there are social and political sectors in Iran that are opposed to the strengthening of relations with Chávez, not with the Venezuelan people.[48] According to this analysis, the danger exists that the interesting and beneficial rapprochement of the last few years between Iran and Latin America could confront a grater danger: that relations will freeze at the level of the administrations and will not involve the peoples. The danger is that any change in political leadership, in Iran or in the Latin American countries, will actually result in a decrease in the present level of bilateral relations. Therefore, the big challenge will be to incorporate the social actors to bilateral cooperation.[49] César Montúfar has commented that it is surprising and incoherent that the Iranian president and his government, while deepening the country’s ties with the leftist governments of Latin America, is implacably repressing its own leftist groups at home.[50] The Middle East’s Strategic Bonanza for Iran The expansion of economic and political relations and cooperation with Latin American countries is also intended to bring Iran strategic assets in the Middle Eastern arena, its home turf. As already noted, the support Iran received on the issue of its nuclear project from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and even Brazil, is extremely important for the Tehran regime, especially if the UN imposes harsher economic sanctions and more states accept them. In the regional arena, Venezuela and Bolivia strongly supported Hezbollah during the Second Lebanon War in July-August 2006. President Chávez was extremely vociferous during that period. But the real test came during the last war in Gaza, when Israel started ‘Operation Cast Lead’ to deter Hamas from bombing Israeli territory and staging continuous terrorist activities against its citizens. Presidents Chávez and Morales fully embraced Iran’s position and complied with Ahmadinejad’s demand to sever diplomatic relations with Israel. The decision was taken after the visiting Iranian Minister of Industry and Mines, Ali Akbar Mehrabián, delivered a letter from his President to the leaders of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.[51] Venezuela not only broke off its relations with Israel ‘given the inhumane persecution of the Palestinian people’, it also promised to request the prosecution of Israel’s leaders at the International Court for crimes against humanity and not to rest until they are punished.[52] The visiting Iranian Minister of Cooperation, Mohammad Abbasi, delivered a similar letter from his President to the leaders of Brazil and Ecuador, who did not follow the Venezuelan and Bolivian example. According to Kaveh Afrasiabi, from Tehran’s point of view, an indirect benefit of its special relations with Bolivia is that it impresses on Moscow the services that Tehran can render in strengthening Moscow’s anti-unipolarist credo, which was spelled out by President Dmitry Medvedev in his major foreign policy speech in September 2008. Medvedev openly mentioned Russia’s intention of seeking a ‘sphere of influence’ in politics and made a point of mentioning that it would be sought ‘not only with neighbours’.[53] Russian experts, including some at the Russian Centre for Strategic Studies, have pointed out that in the aftermath of the Georgia crisis Russia is inclined to strengthen its ties with countries such as Iran and Venezuela. The growing rift between the US and Russia is an opportunity for Tehran both to neutralise the UN Security Council’s efforts to impose tighter sanctions on account of its nuclear programme but also to explore further, and more meaningful, strategic cooperation with Russia and the Latin American leftist regimes vis-à-vis the common threat of US unipolarism.[54] Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy advisors are openly counting on Iran’s new relations with Latin America as one of the net gains of his presidency. In fact, the new level of cooperation between Iran and Latin and Central American countries is a timely, further confirmation of the strategic vision and outlook that they have brought to the government compared to Mohammad Khatami’s aim of reaching detente with the West almost to the exclusion of all else.[55] Iran and Terrorism in Latin America Iran is still the world’s ‘most active state sponsor of terrorism’, according to the US State Department in its most recent study on the subject.[56] It is a label the Iranian regime has won, and worn proudly, since the US government began keeping track of terrorist trends more than a decade and a half ago. The scope of this support is enormous. According to government officials, Iran ‘has a nine-digit line item in its budget for support to terrorist organizations’. The figure is estimated to include US$10 million or more monthly for its principal terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, US$20-30 million annually for the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, US$2 million a year for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and –at least until recently– upwards of US$30 million a year for Iraqi insurgents.[57] In 2006, the Assistant Secretary of State Thomas A. Shannon expressed his concern about the kind of relationship Chávez wants to have with Iran on the intelligence side. ‘One of our broader concerns is what Iran is doing elsewhere in this hemisphere and what it could do if we were to find ourselves in some kind of confrontation with Iran’, he said. In June 2008 Shannon declared that Iran ‘has a history of terror in this hemisphere, and its linkages to the bombings in Buenos Aires are pretty well established’.[58] The 1992 suicide bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires is arguably the first Islamist terrorist attack in the Western Hemisphere. Although the attack has yet to be officially solved, the bulk of the evidence points to Hezbollah. A car, driven by a suicide bomber and loaded with explosives, smashed into the front of the Embassy and killed 29 people and injured a further 242. On 18 July 1994, the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) building was bombed, leaving 85 dead and 300 injured. This attack was the deadliest terrorist toll ever in Argentina’s history, and resulted in the largest Jewish death toll from terrorism outside Israel since the Second World War. The AMIA case has gone through many ups and downs, involving prosecution changes, witness tampering charges and several arrests that ended in release. On 25 October 2006, Dr Alberto Nisman, Argentina’s Attorney General, and Marcelo Martínez Burgos presented the findings of the special team which investigated the terrorist attack that destroyed the AMIA building. The detailed report unequivocally showed that the decision to blow up the building was taken by the ‘highest instances of the Iranian government’, and that the Iranians had asked Hezbollah, which serves as a tool for its strategies, to carry out the attack. The report did not ignore the fact that the attack was carried out for reasons connected to the conflict in the Middle East (including the abduction of Mustafa Dirani and the Israeli bombing of the Hezbollah training camp in the Beqa’a Valley). However, based on the evidence collected, it concluded that the fundamental reason was the Argentine ‘government’s unilateral decision to terminate the nuclear materials and technology supply agreements that had been concluded some years previously between Argentina and Iran’. On 9 November 2006, Judge Corral adopted the Attorney General’s recommendations and issued international arrest warrants for seven Iranians and one senior Hezbollah operative. The warrants were for the upper echelons of the former Iranian government, including the former President, Iranian diplomats posted to Buenos Aires and Imad Moughnieh, head of Hezbollah’s External Security Service and Hassan Nasrallah’s military deputy. In March 2007, INTERPOL’s Executive Committee, after considering written submissions and oral presentations from Argentina and Iran in connection with the 1994 bombing of the AMIA building in Buenos Aires decided to endorse and adopt the conclusions of the report prepared by INTERPOL’s Office of Legal Affairs to the effect that Red Notices should be issued for the following six individuals: Imad Fayez Mughniyah, Ali Fallahijan, Mohsen Rabbani, Ahmad Reza Asghari, Ahmad Vahidi and Mohsen Rezai. The Executive Committee also endorsed the Office of Legal Affairs’ conclusion that Red Notices should not be issued for the former President of Iran, Ali Rafsanjany, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ali Akbar Velayati, or the former Ambassador to Buenos Aires, Hadi Soleimanpour.[59] In November 2007, delegates at the 76th INTERPOL General Assembly upheld the unanimous decision made by the organisation’s Executive Committee to publish six of nine Red Notices requested in connection with the 1994 bombing of the AMIA building in Buenos Aires.[60] It has been sufficiently demonstrated that in his capacity as head of Hezbollah’s external security apparatus, Mughniyeh was the person who received instructions from the Iranian Ministry of the Interior (after the decision was made to carry out the attack) and that he implemented these instructions by forming an operational group to carry it out. It is interesting to analyse the Iranian reaction to Mughniyeh’s assassination in February 2008 in Damascus. The honours bestowed upon the until then ‘invisible’ Mughniyeh were outstanding: the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailedMughniyeh as a ‘great man’; Ahmadinejhad called him a ‘source of pride for all believers’; heading a high-level Iranian delegation, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki attended Mughniyeh’s funeral in Beirut ‘to commemorate the great hero’ and expressed condolences ‘on behalf of the Iranian government and people’. Mughniyeh was projected as an Iranian hero who fought against Iraq and took part in several daring operations behind Iraqi lines.[61] Iranian leaders uttered harsh statements against Israel, stronger even than Hezbollah’s. The Iranian ambassador to Syria, Ahmad Moussavi, warned that the death of Mughniyeh ‘will lead to an earthquake in the Zionist regime’. Ali Akbar Mohtashamipur, a cofounder of Hezbollah and current Secretary General of the International Committee for Supporting the Palestinian People, claimed Mughniyeh’s assassination was a ‘prelude’ to ‘very dangerous and major events in the next few months’.[62] Strangely, after the Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki met with senior Syrian officials in Damascus to discuss Mughniyeh’s assassination and announced a joint probe into the assassination, a Syrian official dismissed the report as ‘totally baseless’ and said Damascus would conduct the investigation alone. The result has not yet been made public, as it is immensely embarrassing for the Syrian government to explain how this wanted terrorist was on its soil. According to the investigation of Attorney General Alberto Nisman and District Attorney Marcelo Martínez Burgos, numerous pieces of evidence show that Argentina was infiltrated by Iran’s intelligence service, which in the mid 1980s began establishing a vast spy network that then became a complete ‘intelligence service’ that basically comprised: the Iranian Embassy and its cultural attaché in Buenos Aires; extremist elements that were associated with the Shiite mosques At-Tauhíd in Floresta, Al Iman in Cañuelas and El Mártir in San Miguel de Tucumán; the businesses referred to as ‘fronts’ –GTC and Imanco–; and other radicalised members of the Islamic community who were in Argentina for the sole purpose of gathering the information and making the arrangements that paved the way for the attack on AMIA on the morning of 18 July 1994.[63] The situation seems to repeat itself today in Venezuela and Bolivia, but this time with the active or passive support of their governments, which are well aware of past intelligence Iranian activity in the continent. At the intelligence level, US officials say they are worried about the possibility of terrorists and Iranian intelligence agents arriving on the weekly flight between Caracas and Tehran. The State Department charged in an April terrorism report that ‘passengers on these flights were not subject to immigration and customs controls’.[64] Bolivia’s President Morales has ordered his Foreign Minister to lift visa restrictions on Iranian citizens. The problem of visa-free Iranian travel is the potential it affords for the creation of a terrorist base of operations in the US’s backyard. If anyone with an Iranian passport can enter Bolivia without a visa or any further documentation, the country will soon be open to covert officers of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, its Islamic Revolutionary Guard –which the State Department recently declared a terrorist organisation– and the Quds Force, an Iranian military group whose mandate is to spread Islamic revolution around the world.[65] A further danger is if other Latin American countries follow the Bolivian lead and lift visa restrictions. Iran has already proved what it can do in Latin America with visa restrictions. Hezbollah’s Presence in Latin America and the Threat of Terrorism Hezbollah’s presence and nefarious activity in South America is well documented. It was behind the two deadliest terrorist attacks in the continent’s history: the Israeli Embassy and the Jewish community centre bombings in Buenos Aires, which took place in the early 1990s. Hezbollah also established a significant presence in the ‘tri-border area’ (TBA, where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay converge) using local businesses, drug trafficking and contraband networks to launder funds for terrorist operations worldwide.[66] Since 9/11, under US pressure, local governments in the tri-border area and other countries, like Chile and Colombia, have monitored and discovered part of the wide Hezbollah network active in the continent.[67] However, despite the arrest of important activists in Paraguay, Brazil and Chile, mainly for economic crimes or narcotics trafficking, this large Hezbollah network continues to be active on the continent.[68] Increased focus on the TBA after Hezbollah-linked bombings in Buenos Aires and again after the September 11 attacks in the US led to an increased understanding of Hezbollah’s fundraising operations, but also led Hezbollah to shift them to other Latin American countries, making their location, nature and extent largely unknown.[69] Evidence linking Hezbollah to the emergence of Islamic mosques in Ecuador, that promote radical religious views consistent with Hezbollah’s ideology, indicates that it recognises the need to increase its ideological support base in Ecuador. Hezbollah’s promotion of radical religious ideology in Ecuador is consistent with its organisational use of radical ideology to increase its legitimacy by mitigating any sources of opposition from members of its radical constituency in response to increased participation in the Lebanese political system. This relationship specifically identifies diasporas as strategically valuable to terrorist operations and results in several important policy implications for their treatment by host-nations determined to combat terrorist operations.[70] In June 2005 Ecuadorean police broke up an international cocaine ring led by a Lebanese restaurant owner suspected of raising money for Hezbollah. The Lebanese ringleader, Rady Zaiter, had organised a large narco-terrorist infrastructure using his Arab food restaurant in northern Quito as a front. The Ecuadorean investigation led to related arrests of 19 people in Brazil and the US.[71] In 2001, the Colombian Technical Investigation Corps (CTI) arrested a Lebanese businessman, named Mohammed Ali Farhad, with ties to Hizbollah for managing a US$650 million cigarette smuggling and money laundering operation between Ipiales, Colombia, and ports in Ecuador. The Farhad investigation established a link with a Hezbollah-backed money-laundering operation run by Eric and Alexander Mansur, through the Mansur Free Zone Trading Company NV129.[72] On 21 October 2008 US and Colombian investigators dismantled an international cocaine smuggling and money laundering ring that allegedly used part of its profits to finance Hezbollah. The authorities arrested at least 36 suspects, including a Lebanese linchpin in Bogota, Chekry Harb, who used the alias ‘Taliban’. The authorities accused Harb of being a ‘world-class money launderer’ whose ring washed hundreds of millions of dollars a year, from Panama to Hong Kong, while paying a percentage to Hezbollah. The suspects allegedly worked with a Colombian cartel and a paramilitary group to smuggle cocaine to the US, Europe and the Middle East. Harb travelled extensively to Lebanon, Syria and Egypt and was in phone contact with Hezbollah members.[73] According to the Los Angeles Times, a credible intelligence source claimed that Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guard of Iran have formed terrorist cells to kidnap Jews in South America and smuggle them to Lebanon. The source alleged that Venezuelans have been recruited at Caracas’ airport to provide information about Jewish travellers.[74] In June 2008 the US Treasury Department froze the assets of two Venezuelans after having designated them as Hezbollah supporters and accusing them of raising funds for the organisation. Ghazi Nasr al Din, a Venezuelan diplomat of Lebanese ancestry, is accused of using his position at embassies in the Middle East to raise funds for Hezbollah and of discussing ‘operational issues with senior officials’ of the militia. In late January 2006, Nasr al Din facilitated the travel of two Hezbollah representatives at the Lebanese Parliament to Caracas to solicit donations and to announce the opening of a Hezbollah-sponsored community centre and office in Venezuela. He is currently assigned to Venezuela’s Embassy in Lebanon. The second Venezuelan noted by the Treasury Department is Fawzi Kanan, a Caracas-based travel agent. He is also alleged to have facilitated travel for Hezbollah members and to have discussed ‘possible kidnappings and terrorist attacks’ with senior Hezbollah officials in Lebanon.[75] Instead of opening an investigation, Chávez said that the world was using the allegations to ‘ make a move’ against him. The Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro lashed out at the US: ‘If they want to search for terrorists, look for them in the White House’.[76] A Kuwaiti newspaper reported that Hezbollah was training young Venezuelans in military camps in south Lebanon to prepare them for attacking American targets.[77] It was reported a few months later that the Venezuelan Minister of the Interior, Tarek El Aissami, was working directly with Ghazi Nasr al-Din to recruit young Venezuelans of Arab descent that were supportive of the Chávez regime to train in Lebanon with Hezbollah. Reportedly, the purpose was to prepare these youths for asymmetric warfare against the US in the event of a confrontation. According to this report, Hezbollah also established training camps inside Venezuela, complete with ammunition and explosives, courtesy of El Aissami.[78] Chávez, meanwhile, is perhaps the most open apologist for Hezbollah in the hemisphere. During the Israel-Hezbollah War of 2006, Chávez withdrew the Venezuelan ambassador to Israel. He later accused Israel of conducting its defensive war in ‘the fascist manner of Hitler’. After making the comments on al-Jazeera television, Chávez returned home and continued to malign Israel on his weekly television broadcast, Aló Presidente.[79] It comes as no surprise that Hezbollah’s director of international relations, Nawaf Musawi, attended an April 2008 ceremony at Venezuela’s Embassy in Beirut commemorating the sixth anniversary of the defeat of the anti-Chávez uprising in Venezuela. As an invited speaker, Musawi praised the survival of President Chávez’ Bolivarian Revolution while denouncing the US and ‘other powers that try to defeat the sovereignty and free will of the combative peoples of the world’.[80] ‘Hezbollah América Latina’ Probably the most striking and worrying trend has been the appearance in 2006 of a strange group calling itself ‘Hezbollah América Latina’, claiming to be active in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador and Mexico. Actually, the organisation’s backbone seemed to be ‘Hezbollah Venezuela’, led by one Teodoro Rafael Darnott who pretended to lead the Latin American ‘network’. They presented themselves also as a group of converted Wayuu Indians, Autonomía Islamica Wayuu, and issued a strategic statement titled ‘The Jihad in America will Begin in 2007’. This ‘organisation’ has been analysed in detail by this author and the Spanish researcher Manuel Torres Soriano.[81] ‘Hezbollah Venezuela’ Case Study: The True (?) Story On 23 October 2006, José Miguel Rojas Espinoza, a 26-year-old student of the state-run Bolivarian University, was arrested after the Baruta Municipality police found two explosive devices near the US Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela. One of the bombs was found in a box containing leaflets making reference to the Lebanese Hezbollah, while the other device was found outside a school, near the diplomatic premises. According to the local police, the idea was apparently to create alarm and publicise a message by scattering the pamphlets. It is possible that the second device was intended to explode near the Israeli Embassy but the suspect became nervous and dropped it near the US Embassy. ‘Hezbollah Latin America’ claimed responsibility for the attack on its website and promised it would stage other attacks, with the same goal of publicising the organisation. The website presented Rojas as ‘the brother mujahedeen, the first example of dignity and struggle in the cause of Allah, the first prisoner of the revolutionary Islamic movement Hezbollah Venezuela’. Already on 18 August 2006 the organisation threatened to explode a non-lethal device against an ally of the US in a Latin American city in order to launch its propaganda campaign. ‘Hezbollah Venezuela’ would see this as the beginning of its war against imperialism and Zionism and to show its solidarity with the Lebanese Hezbollah after the July war in Lebanon. The leader of ‘Hezbollah Venezuela’, Teodoro Darnott, traces the origins of the organisation to a small Marxist faction called ‘The Guaicaipuro Movement for National Liberation’ (Proyecto Movimiento Guaicaipuro por la Liberación Nacional, MGLN)”, which struggled against the oppression of the poor, indigenous peasants in the Valle de Caracas region. Darnott presented himself as Commander Teodoro, in a clear imitation of Subcomandante Marcos, the Mexican guerrilla leader in Chiapas. According to this account, the MGLN did not withstand the pressure of the security forces and was forced to retreat to Colombia. The group returned after five years to Venezuela to convert into Hezbollah, without a clear explanation for its metamorphosis. Darnott denied any link between ‘Hezbollah Venezuela’ and the Lebanese Hezbollah. Indeed, the religious and ideological foundations of his documents are very poor and superficial. In his article, Soriano emphasises the group’s leftist revolutionary background and rhetoric. Soriano considers that the group has a significant synergy with the so-called Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela. In one of its ideological editorials, the group expresses enormous respect and positive appreciation for the achievements of Hugo Chávez’s regime: ‘Hezbollah América Latina respects the Venezuelan revolutionary process, supports the policies of this process concerning the social benefices for the poor and the anti-Zionist and anti-American policy of this revolution’. However, the group does not accept a socialist ideology, not because it opposes it, but because Hezbollah’s ideology is ‘theocratic and obeys divine rules’. Therefore, for a new Venezuela to emerge, the revolution should aspire ‘to the divine and the moral’ and should firmly support Hezbollah ‘political-military project’.[82] On 2 November 2006 ‘Hezbollah Venezuela’ announced, ‘out of respect for the revolution and its leader’, that it would suspend its activities until after the elections of 3 December 2006, the day of the presidential elections in Venezuela, a show of solidarity with the regime and an attempt not to hamper it during the last days of the election campaign. Several weeks later Teodoro Darnott was arrested in Maracaibo, and practically nothing was published by the Venezuelan authorities about his fate. Until recently this ‘episode’ in the short history of ‘Hezbollah Latin America’ had not allowed the drawing of any clear conclusions regarding the group’s real characteristics and goals and its relationship with the Lebanese Hezbollah. However, in December 2008 Teodoro Darnott and José Miguel Rojas were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for their terrorist attack against the US Embassy,[83] and here begins the surprise. In October 2008 Darnott opened a blog, apparently from prison, in which he described his religious and political beliefs and presented, apologetically, his past activity.[84] He described himself as a mujahedeen ‘criollo’ (born in Latin America of European descent) with the new name of Teodoro Abdullah. Darnott no longer presents himself as the leader of ‘Hezbollah Venezuela’, but as a theocratic political-religious leader, ambassador and precursor of theocracy for Latin America. His very simplistic, primitive ideas propose for the continent, and for Venezuela, a theocratic nation, society and way of life and a new culture and civilisation of the divine. For him, ‘Hezbollah Venezuela’ –along with Osama bin Laden and other mujahedeen– are not terrorists but jihadists fighting the US and the secular state of Israel, the defenders of the abhorred capitalist order and democracy. It is not the intention here to analyse Darnott’s religious ‘world view’ but mainly to discover the political and operational reality behind ‘Hezbollah Venezuela’ and ‘Hezbollah América Latina’ and the links between this project and the Lebanese Hezbollah. For the first time this endeavour is possible due to the publication by Darnott in his blog of a 100-page biography.[85] A detailed analysis of Darnott’s biography provides an insight into the process of radicalisation and cooption to the Hezbollah network in Latin America. However, the document requires a more thorough study to check and confront on the ground the large amount of information cited about people and organisations. Darnott’s first contact with Islam was in Maicao, Colombia, where he met a Lebanese Shia, Musa Rada, who taught him Islam. He began to visit the local mosque and read theological books and the journal Azakalain (sic). Rada proposed that he study Islam at the Kausar Islamic Institute in Cali, Colombia. The Shia Association in Maicao paid his travel expenses to Cali, where he was already expected. There he was awaited by one Rashi, a leader of the Muslim community of African descent. The Institute’s Director was Abdul Karin, a university professor. Darnott describes the studies there as informal and without discipline. He returned to Maicao with the intention of integrating himself in the local Arab community. He continued his activities in the framework of MGLN. He was also in contact, through his companion Gerardo Ortiz Palencia with the guerrilla organisation FARC-EP in the Cúcuta region, under the leadership of Comandante Rodrigo, active in the Norte de Santander department, in Pamplona, Pamplonita and Cúcuta. After visits to poor Muslim communities in Santa Marta and Cartagena he decided to go to Bogotá, where he met a surgeon, Dr Juventino Martínez, who introduced him to José Gabriel Jiménez, known as Yahia (Juan). According to Darnott, the Muslim community in Bogotá is made up of various groups, including the Asociación Islámica de Bogotá, which includes Palestinian, Lebanese and other Arab members. The second group is La Sociedad Islámica de Bogotá, under the leadership of the Colombian Imam Dr Carlos Sánchez and a Kuwaiti. According to ‘clandestine sources’ the restaurant and free meals at this organisation are financed by al-Qaeda, and therefore many Colombians fear visiting it. The third group is the Centro Cultural Islámico de Bogotá, under the leadership of Dr Julián Zapata. When Dr Julián Zapata went to study in the Middle East, Dr Juventino Martínez was appointed head of the Centro Cultural Islámico de Bogotá, but soon the financial resources ‘disappeared’ and the Centre was on the verge of closing down.[86] As he found no interest in Bogotá for his ‘liberation struggle project’ for the Wayuu people, Darnott travelled to Bucaramanga, Santander. There he was approached by the Roman Catholic Bishop, Alfredo Vesgas, who proposed that he become a priest in the Guajira diocese. He accepted, as this served as a cover for his clandestine activities. At the same time, under the influence of a ‘revolutionary’ priest, Padre Chucho, he finally found the ‘one and true God’, the God of liberation and salvation. He continued his studies of Islam and theology at the local mosque in Maicao and through the Internet and developed an ‘Islamo-Christian theology of liberation’, a mixture of the theologies of Imam Khomeni and Gustavo Gutiérrez.[87] It was then, according to Darnott, that he really converted to Islam and the first thing he did was to change the symbols and messages of the MGLN, which became the Autonomía Islámica Wayuu (Wayuu Islamic Autonomy). Some accepted the changes while others left the community, but the move fostered closer links with other Islamic entities and many Muslims joined the movement, which called itself ‘revolutionary Islamic’ and accepted the messages of ayatollah Khomeini. One day, a certain Nik made contact with Darnott, and after a period of discussions and e-mail exchanges, the man disclosed that his real name was Mohamed Saleh, of Lebanese origin, who worked as a professor at the University of La Plata in Argentina. Saleh told Darnott that he was working for the Iranian government, that he was an important member of Hezbollah in Argentina and at the same time the leader of Hizbul Islam for Latin America, an Islamic party present in Uruguay and Paraguay. According to Darnott, Hizbul Islam is actually Hezbollah. His Arab friends in Maicao confirmed that Mohamed Saleh was a professor at the Universidad de la Plata and a member of Hezbollah. Saleh informed Darnott that the leadership of Hizbul Islam had approved his nomination as its representative in Venezuela, but on condition that he renounced all his work on the Internet. From Darnott’s point of view this meant renouncing to four years of intensive professional revolutionary work on the web. Mohamed Saleh frequently called Darnott to his Maicao phone number during the last six months of 2006. They exchanged e-mails and in one message Saleh proposed passing on weapons that Hezbollah had in Paraguay: 400 Kalashnikovs, bazookas and ammunition. FARC-EP was supposed to help transfer the weapons to Colombia. The agreement stipulated that the MGLN would be transformed into a Hezbollah cell into which Muslims would be recruited. The first meeting with Mohamed Saleh was planned for 2 October 2006, after which ‘Hezbollah Venezuela’ became an organised group under the orders of the organisation’s council in Latin America. He did not provide Darnott with any further details but informed him that the organisation was responsible for bombing the AMIA building in Argentina. Darnott describes in great detail his organisational work in Guajira to form ‘Hezbollah Venezuela’, the persons involved, the rivalries and betrayals. He stresses the importance of the work on the Internet for recruiting and propaganda and the fact that the Second Lebanon War gave a lot of publicity to his ‘organisation’. He candidly notes that the protests by Jewish organisations against his threats and the media attention it received helped enhance the group’s visibility and outreach. Finally, as regards the failed bombing at the US Embassy, Darnott claims that although he new about the planning he did not support it and accuses the perpetrators of lack of ‘professionalism’. Actually, his declaration of jihad, his threat to attack US and Jewish targets and the bombing itself were intended to give publicity to his ideas, to serve as ‘loud speakers’ to divulge his ideas and organisation. In the end, however, he does not explain the Lebanese Hezbollah’s role in the group’s ‘military’ activity and what happened to their relationship after the failed terrorist attack. What made ‘Hezbollah Venezuela’ worthy of attention was the timing of its activities. It became visible at a time when ‘the strange liaison’ between Hugo Chávez and the Iranian President Ahmadinejad had become an item of international interest.[88] Moreover, despite the long detention of Darnott and Rojas and the information the Venezuelan security forces already had about the group, the government did not provide any details about who is really behind the network. Teodoro Rafael Darnott, probably in jail, recently threatened the US saying that ‘If the United States were to attack Iran, the only country ruled by God, we would counterattack in Latin America and even inside the United States itself. We have the means and we know how to go about it. We will sabotage the transportation of oil from Latin America to the US You have been warned’.[89] Hezbollah Argentina The current Argentine government is unsympathetic to radical organisations or regimes, but there are many active groups and movements of the radical right and left in the country which have often expressed anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli and anti-US views. The difficulties in the long investigation and prosecution of the terrorist bombings of the Israeli Embassy and AMIA building, which at times involved the arrest and trial of rightist or corrupt people, bear witness to the tolerance of such radical activities. A past analysis of ‘Hezbollah Argentina’ showed a strikingly different picture from that of ‘Hezbollah Venezuela’. While the Venezuelan group is based on indigenous Wayuu Indians with a strong leftist background and revolutionary rhetoric, the Argentine group seems to include radical rightist mixed with leftist populist elements; the two trends have very close relations with the local Arab Shia community and the Iranian regime.[90] The rightist influence is clear in the publication of some of the most anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli and anti-American texts of Norberto Ceresole, the same whose pamphlets were published in the Islam-Shia website. Ceresole made contact with the Iranian regime immediately after the bombing of the Jewish AMIA building in 1994 and visited Iran and Lebanon. Ceresole considered Iran, since the Khomeini revolution, to be ‘the centre of resistance to Jewish aggression’ and the only state that has supplanted ‘the secular Arab resistance’ in fighting the Jewish State. The more popular leftist trend is present in the group’s cooperation with Quebracho, a small Argentine militant group. The Patriotic Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento Patriótico Revolucionario, MPR, or Quebracho) claims to be a political organisation fighting for ‘a socially just, economically independent and politically sovereign country’ for the ‘National Antiimperialist Revolution’. Quebracho militants refuse to define themselves as leftist or rightist. They consider themselves ‘revolutionary patriots’ in the framework of the Latin American liberation struggle. The Islamic Association of Argentina mainly consists of converts to Shiism (while there are few Argentines who convert to Sunnism) and cooperates closely with the Iranian Embassy. The Association and its religious leader, Sheikh Abdala Madani, clearly identify themselves with the Iranian regime. The link appeared on their website and Khomeini posters are carried at every anti-Israel demonstration. Things have not changed much in Argentina. If one looks at information and photos in the media covering the July 2006 march in Buenos Aires in solidarity with the Palestinian people, just days before bigger pro-Hezbollah manifestations were staged during the Second Lebanon War, the same Iranian-sponsored and linked groups appear: Organización Islámica Argentina (OIA), Mezquita At-Tauhid, Asociación Argentino Islámica (La Plata), Mezquita Ash-Shahid (Tucumán), Mezquita Al-Imam (Cañuelas) and the leader of the Asociación Argentino Islámica, Sheikh Abdala Madani. To be sure, Ayatollah Khomeini’s portrait is ubiquitous.[91] Hezbollah and the Anti-globalisation Movement On 17-19 September 2004 activists held an ‘International Strategy Meeting’ in Beirut under the title ‘Where Next for the Global Anti-War and Anti-Globalisation Movements?’. The Beirut conference emerged from a process that began at a May 2003 antiwar conference in Jakarta and continued at an antiwar assembly at the Mumbai World Social Forum in January 2004. The main conveners included Focus on the Global South (Thailand), a ‘key player in the global movement’, and the Civilian Campaign for Protection of Palestinian People (France). The rest of the working group that organised the conference hailed from Argentina, South Africa, Japan, France, Nicaragua, India, the Philippines, Italy, Brazil, Greece, the UK and the US, reflecting the broadly international and south-weighted character of the initiative. Some 300 individuals from 50 countries participated in the conference, representing various antiwar coalitions, social movements, NGOs and other groups.[92] The Arab sponsors (the Lebanese Welcoming Committee) included ‘progressives, seculars, and Islamists’, such as Hezbollah, the Lebanese Communist Party and the Progressive Socialist Party of the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. Joining them were activists from Syria, Egypt, and Morocco and Palestinian areas as well as a delegation of Iraqis. The decision to hold the meeting in the Middle East was part of a conscious effort to build closer links with antiwar and anti-corporate globalisation activists in the region. Hezbollah is not known for its antiwar or antiglobalisation stance and had never before participated in such a conference. It was invited because a group of radical Italian leftists insisted. Hezbollah was described at the conference as ‘one of the leading welcoming organisations [and] an example of successful, targeted and organised resistance’. Ali Fayad, member of Hezbollah’s Central Council and Chairman of the Academic Centre for Documentation, stressed that Islam’s message is one of unity and collaboration, not division, and that the conference was held in Beirut because Lebanon’s resistance ‘defeated the Reagan project for the Middle East in the 1980s... [and] liberated the land from occupation’. It seems that Hezbollah decided to jump on the antiglobalisation bandwagon at a sensitive moment in the war on terror and the situation in Iraq –both fragile, explosive situations that could decide the course of future events in the Middle East–. Four years after the first Beirut anti-globalisation conference, and during Israel’s ‘Cast Lead’ operation against Hamas violence from Gaza, Hezbollah clearly took the lead and sponsored a similar gathering. Dr Ali Fayyad, the Director of the Consultative Centre for Studies and Documentation in Beirut, who hosted the Beirut Forum, laid out its goals: ‘In this part of the world the resistance is Islamic. The resistance movement here must introduce themselves to other forces of resistance to imperialism around the world. The ideological differences must be postponed. The resistance must prevail... An important goal of the forum is how, despite the ideological contradictions, to find how to work together hand in hand to achieve unity against imperialism’.[93] The Beirut International Forum for Resistance, Anti-Imperialism, Solidarity between Peoples and Alternatives, held from 16 to 18 January 2009, assembled 400 delegates from all continents. The largest number of delegates came from the Arab world, including the Ba’ath and Communist Parties of Syria and Iran, but there were also many from Latin America, including 30 from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Guests from Venezuela comprised members of parliament, unionists and youth from both the United Socialist Party (PSUV) and the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV).[94] A prime organiser of the conference was Mohamed Kassem, a leader of the Lebanese teachers’ union. ‘For the first time, in Lebanon’, he said, ‘we have created a platform for struggling people all over the world, secular, nationalist, leftist and Islamic to speak their views and work together, against the wars in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, against the threats to Iran and the sanctions on Sudan, against the blockade of Cuba and the attempts to block the revolutionary direction in Venezuela, Bolivia and across Latin America... We are building mechanisms of international cooperation and South-South solidarity, and we plan to intensify those efforts in the future’. This Forum, where Latin America, Asia and the Near East were strongly represented, embodied the spirit of the Tri-continental.[95] The final declaration of the conference, besides the usual anti-Israeli and anti-American resolutions, related to specific Latin American issues. It saluted ‘Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez as well as Bolivian President Evo Morales for their support for the peoples’ resistance’ and expressed ‘total support with the struggle of these two leaders against any intervention of the United States in Latin America’. It called for the lifting of the blockade on Cuba and the release of Cuban prisoners held in US prisons and it condemned ‘the alliance between the USA and the neofascist government of Colombia that for four decades has terrorized its own people and worked to destabilize the progressive governments of Latin America’ and declared ‘their support to the revolutionary movements in struggle against this regime’.[96] In the opening session Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary Sheik Naim Kassem ‘captured the common spirit of the assembly: Today there are only two camps in the world. The one of US imperialism and its allies and the other one of the resistances; regardless of their ideological, cultural or religious affiliation. The resistances must be unified against its common enemy. This is only possible by respecting the diversity of the resistance movements’. Although planned long ahead of the war in Gaza, the entire event was marked by a ‘profound support of the Palestinian resistance struggle in Gaza’. Nobody, not even the forces present from non-Islamic countries, used Hamas’ leadership of the resistance in Gaza as a pretext to reject support for the resistance, as had been common in the past. However, notes a radical leftist reporter, ‘[c]areful participants of the Beirut Forum could notice a certain wariness to lend the same support to the Iraqi and Afghan resistance as they do for Palestine. This wariness is due to the interests of Iran as a regional power; interests which do conflict with these resistances. Given Iran’s record of support to the Iraqi regime installed by the US occupiers the message by the Iranian president to the forum rightly denouncing the Arab regimes which follow Israeli and US interest as traitors appears somewhat vapid’.[97] A representative of the Turkish conservative Islamist group Ozgur Der at the Beirut Forum asked the participants to reach and build bridges of understanding between opposition forces; to ‘globalise activist networks from IT workers to European Muslim minorities, from Gaza to local activists of Vancouver, from suburbs of Somalia to poor people of Harlem, from oppressed Kurdish people of Turkey to mine workers of Nigeria, from EZLN of Mexico to MNLF of Philippines, from HAMAS to European left, from Venezuela to Iran’.[98] Again and again, the importance of the Venezuelan link to Iran and its ‘revolutionary’ global role was stressed during this multi-national radical forum. Although the reports spoke of ‘many participants from Latin America’, according to the list of 100 adherents to the event only Venezuela was represented, possibly by some 30 people from ‘De Primera Mano Venezuela’, ‘Azequiel Zamora Venezuela’ and ‘APORREAR Venezuela’ groups.[99] According to an official report of the Venezuelan Ministry of Popular Power for Communication and Information, the Grupo Parlamentario Venezolano del Parlamento Latinoamericano (Parlatino, GPVPL) ‘actively participated’ in the Beirut Forum. Deputies of the GPVPL, such as Víctor Chirinos, Carolus Winmer, Víctor Hugo Morales, Yul Jabour and Vidal Cisneros, participated in the ‘event of solidarity to the Palestinian people and against the genocide committed by the Israeli army’.[100] Carolus Wimmer, Vice-president of the GPVPL and Secretary for International Relations of the Partido Comunista de Venezuela (PCV), hailed the support given at the conference to President Chávez for his ‘courageous’ decision to sever diplomatic relations between Venezuela and Israel, asked all the ‘progressive’ governments around the world to follow Venezuela’s and Bolivia's example in this and asked for an oil embargo against Israel and the expulsion of the Jewish state from the United Nations.[101] This long paper gives a glimpse of the extensive Iranian and Hezbollah presence and activity in Latin America. The problem with this presence and activity is that it goes beyond the normal political, economic, social and cultural levels and creeps into the dangerous area of terrorism and subversion, threatening not only outside actors and interests but possibly the very stability of the host countries. It is evident that Iran’s political and strategic standing in Latin America strengthens the Tehran regime and diminishes the possibility of UN-backed international diplomatic and economic pressure to convince it to renounce its nuclear project. Thus, indirectly at least, it enhances the threat of Iran’s nuclear hegemonic projection vis-à-vis the moderate Arab states, with all that this means for the stability of the Middle East, the stability of oil prices and nuclear proliferation to other states in the region. The Bolivian decision to move its Embassy from Cairo to Tehran is one small move in this direction. The proved Iranian and Hezbollah involvement in the worst terrorist attacks on the continent, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is a bad omen for the future. In the event of Iran’s vital interests –such as the survival of its nuclear project– being threatened by the international community, by the US alone or by Israel, Latin America would be a preferred ground for retaliation, directly or with Hezbollah’s support. The Hezbollah leadership could decide, based on its practical immunity in the past, that to avenge the death of the arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh or some serious incident on the border with Israel would be easy in Latin America. Recently it became known that such attempts have been foiled in Azerbaijan and in an unnamed European country. In the longer term, exporting radical Shiite ideological and religious teaching could serve to influence large sectors of society, especially the poorest and most deprived, and thus add another element of instability and radicalisation in a continent already plagued by socio-economic hardship. Growing anti-Semitism, as witnessed lately in Venezuela, could add to the existing sectarian turmoil in some countries. And what if Iran were to decide to deploy its long-range missiles in Venezuela at the request of President Chávez, if he were to feel threatened? Given Chávez’s invitation to the Russian Navy to visit his country, such a nightmarish scenario might be possible. [1] The Miami Herald, 30/IX/2007. [2] ‘Paraguay’s Persian Presence: Iran’s New Friend in Latin America’, Council on Hemispheric Affairs website, 21/VIII/2008, http://www.coha.org/2008/08/paraguay%E2%80%99s-persian-presence-iran%E2%80%99s-new-friend-in-latin-america/. [3] Farideh Farhi, ‘Iran in Latin America: Threat or Axis of Annoyance?’, draft prepared for the Conference Iran in Latin America: Threat or Axis of Annoyance, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC, 10/VII/2008. [5] ‘The Oppenheimer Report. Beware Iran in Latin America’, The Miami Herald, 30/IX/2007. [6] Parisa Hafezi, ‘Iran, Venezuela in “Axis of Unity” against US’,"Reuters, 2/VII/2007. [7] Michael Rubin, ‘Iran’s Global Ambition’, AEI Online, 17/III/2008, http://www.aei.org/ publications/pubID.27658/pub_detail.asp. [8] ‘Iran to Re-open Embassies in Latin America’, IRNA, 27/II/2007. [9] Elodie Brun, ‘La place de l’Iran dans la politique étrangère du Venezuela’, draft paper prepared for the Conference Iran in Latin America: Threat or Axis of Annoyance, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC, 10/VII/2008. [10] Al Jazeera English, 20/XI/2007. [11] Thérèse Delpech, ‘Le Moyen-Orient de Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’, Politique Internationale, nr 114, Winter 2007. [12] Daniel P. Erikson, ‘Ahmadinejad Finds it Warmer in Latin America’, Los Angeles Times, 3/X/2007. [13] Tehran Fars News Agency, 26/VII/2007. [14] Ian James, ‘Iran Raises Profile in Latin America’, Associated Press, 27/XI/2008. [17] Kaveh L Afrasiabi, ‘Iran and the Left in Latin America’, Asia Times Online, 4/IX/2008. [18] World War 4 Report website, 3/X/2008. [19] Félix Maradiaga & Javier Meléndez, ‘Relaciones bilaterales Irán – Nicaragua a un año del Gobierno Sandinista: ¿Retórica o Política Exterior Anti-Sistema?’, draft paper prepared for the Conference Iran in Latin America: Threat or Axis of Annoyance, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC, 10/VII/2008. [20] Tehran Times, 18/XII/2007. [21] Maradiaga & Meléndez, Relaciones bilaterales Irán – Nicaragua. [22] James, ‘Iran Raises Profile in Latin America’. [23] ‘Correa Views Iran-Ecuador Relations as Strategic’, FNA, 7/XII/2008. [24] César Montúfar, ‘El reciente acercamiento diplomático entre Ecuador e Irán ¿Gesto de afirmación soberana o tibio alineamiento geopolítico?’, draft paper prepared for the Conference Iran in Latin America: Threat or Axis of Annoyance, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC, 10/VII/2008. [25] ‘Iran and Ecuador Vow Closer Ties’, Reuters, 6/XII/2008. [26] ‘Ecuador, Iran for Strategic Relations’, Prensa Latina, 7/XII/2008. [27] ‘Irán inaugura embajada en Ecuador’, Prensa Latina, 13/II/2009. [28] ‘Paraguay’s Persian Presence: Iran’s New Friend in Latin America’, Council on Hemispheric Affairs website, 21/VIII/2008, http://www.coha.org/2008/08/paraguay%E2%80%99s-persian-presence-iran%E2%80%99s-new-friend-in-latin-america/. [29] The US had advised Lugo against awarding Hamed the post of Foreign Minister and reminded the incoming President that, as a supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah –considered terrorist organisations by the US– the new Foreign Minister would be denied a US visa and would not be allowed to fly on US airlines. John Kiriakou, ‘Iran's Latin America Push’, Los Angeles Times, 8/XI/2008. [30] ‘Iran Eyes Enhanced Cooperation in Trade, Technology with Paraguay’, Xinhua, 4/II/2009. [31] Farhi, Conference Iran in Latin America: Threat or Axis of Annoyance. [32] Denise Chrispim Marin, ‘Itamaraty Avoids Ahmadinejad, Lula Summit’, Agencia Estado, 25/IX/2007. [33] ‘Brazil’s Lula Defends Iran’s Nuclear Rights’, Reuters, 25/IX/2007. [34] ‘Brazil a Priority for Iran’, Press TV, 2/XI/2008. [35] ‘Ahmadinejad Blesses Brazil Interaction’, Iran Daily, 2/XI/2008. [36] Tehran IRNA News Agency, 18/VI/2008. [37] Tehran Times, 28/II/2004. The Group of 15 (G-15) was established at the Ninth Non-Aligned Movement Summit Meeting in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in September 1989 to foster cooperation and provide input for other international groups, such as the World Trade Organization and the G-8 (Group of Eight rich industrialised nations). It is composed of countries from North America, South America, Africa and Asia with a common goal of enhanced growth and prosperity. [38] Monte Reel, ‘Argentina Pursues Iran in ‘94 Blast As Neighbors Court Ahmadinejad’, Washington Post, 14/I/2007, http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/monte+reel/ [39] Carlos Malamud & Carlota García Encina, ‘Outside Players in Latin America (II): Iran’, ARI nr 124/2007, Elcano Royal Institute, 4/XII/2007, http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/portal/rielcano_eng/Content?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/Elcano_in/Zonas_in/Latin+America/ARI124-2007 [41] L. Azouri, ‘Recent Rise in Sunni-Shi’ite Tension (Part I): Sunni-Shi’ite Hacker War on the Internet’, MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis, nr 480, 16/XII/2008. [42] Cited in ‘Saudi and Sudanese Writers Warn of “Shi’ite Octopus” Taking Over Sudan’, MEMRI Special Dispatch Series, nr 2079, 12/X/2008. [43] http://oidislam.blogspot.com/, accessed 2/III/2009. [44] ‘Morales: Iran to Start TV Channel in Bolivian Coca Country’, Associated Press, 19/II/2008. [45] Carlos Valdez, ‘Entrevista AP: Irán descarta instalar televisora en Bolivia’, Los Tiempos,29/IX/2008. [48] ‘Estudiantes iraníes muestran su oposición a Ahmadeniyad (y a Hugo Chávez)’, Noticias de Irán en Español, http://noticiasdeiran.blogspot.com/2008/12/estudiantes-iranes-muestran-su-oposicin.html, 19/XII/2008. [50] Montúfar, El reciente acercamiento diplomático entre Ecuador e Irán. [51] ‘Venezuela rompe relaciones con Israel’,Noticias de Irán en Español, http://noticiasdeiran.blogspot.com/search/label/Ir%C3%A1n%20-%20Am%C3%A9rica%20Latina. [53] Afrasiabi, Iran and the left in Latin America. [56] ‘Country Reports on Terrorism 2007’, Office Of The Coordinator For Counterterrorism, US State Department, 30/IV/2008. [57] Ilan Berman, ‘No Diplomatic Relations Until Terrorist Funding Stops’, McClatchy-Tribune News Service, 12/II/2009. [58] Chris Kraul & Sebastian Rotella, ‘US Fears Venezuela-Iran Ties May be Aiding Terrorists’, Los Angeles Times, 28/VIII/2008. [59] ‘INTERPOL Executive Committee takes decision on AMIA Red Notice dispute’, INTERPOL media release, 15/III/2007. [60] ‘INTERPOL General Assembly upholds Executive Committee decision on AMIA Red Notice dispute’, INTERPOL media release, 7/XI/2007. [61] ‘Manuchehr Mottaki Speaking at Imad Mughniyeh’s Funeral in Beirut’, PressTV, 15/II/2008. [62] ‘OSC Report: Iran – Tehran Suspects Arab Involvement in Mughniyah Assassination’, NTIS, US Dept. of Commerce, 13/III/2008. [63] See the paper ‘Argentina accuses Iran of responsibility for the Hezbollah terrorist attack which destroyed Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, 1994. The Argentinean Attorney General’s office announced it had found Iran responsible for the terrorist attack and an Argentinean judge issued arrest warrants for seven senior Iranians and one senior Hezbollah member’, Annex 2, p. 9, http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/argentina_amia_e.pdf. [64] James, Iran raises profile in Latin America. [65] Kiriakou, Iran's Latin America Push. [66] See for instance Ambassador Francis Taylor, ‘The Presence of International Terrorist Groups in the Western Hemisphere’, testimony before the House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Hearing on the Western Hemisphere’s Response to the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attack on the United States, 107th Cong., 1st sess., 10/X/2001, www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2001/ 5674.htm; see also Blanca Madani, ‘Hezbollah’s Global Finance Network: The Triple Frontier’, Middle East Intelligence Bulletin 4, nr 1 (January 2002), www.meib.org/articles/0201_l2.htm. [67] See for example Fabio Castillo, ‘The Hizballah Contacts in Colombia’, part three of the investigative series ‘Tracking the Tentacles of the Middle East in South America’, El Espectador (Bogotá), 9/XII/2001. [68] In February 2000, the Paraguayan authorities arrested Ali Khalil Mehri, a Lebanese businessman who had allegedly been selling millions of dollars worth of pirated software and funnelling the proceeds to Hezbollah. Similarly, the businessman Assad Ahmad Barakat, a Lebanese emigrant to Paraguay and the alleged ringleader of Hezbollah’s financial network in the tri-border area, was arrested in the summer of 2002 for allegedly funnelling large sums of money to the organisation. In an October 2001 raid on one of his businesses, the Paraguayan authorities had found numerous items linking him to Hezbollah, including a letter from Nasrallah, who wrote that he was ‘most thankful for the contributions Assad Ahmad Barakat has sent from the Triple Border’. In November of that year, the Chilean authorities alleged that two businesses owned by Barakat were Hezbollah ‘fronts for money laundering’. Seven Lebanese citizens were arrested in connection with that investigation on charges of illegally financing a terrorist group. Similarly, Hezbollah cells based in Maicao, Colombia, have used local drug trafficking and contraband networks to launder funds that were later used to finance terrorist operations worldwide. Two clans in the area have been investigated for running combined gun and drug trafficking networks used for the same purpose. See Ely Karmon, Fight on All Fronts?: Hizballah, the War on Terror, and the War in Iraq – in Policy Focus, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, nr 46, December 2003, p. 24. [69] Howard Vincent Meehan, Terrorism, Diasporas, and Permissive Threat Environments. A Study of Hizballah’s Fundraising Operations in Paraguay and Ecuador, Master of Arts Thesis in National Security Affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. December 2004. [71] ‘Police Link Ecuador Drug Ring to Hezbollah’, The Associated Press, 22/VI/2005. [72] Ibid. The Mansur Free Zone Trading Company N.V. was Phillip Morris’s main distributor in Latin America until the US indicted the Mansur brothers for money laundering. [73] Kraul & Rotella, Colombian Cocaine Ring Linked to Hezbollah. [75] ‘It is extremely troubling to see the Government of Venezuela employing and providing safe harbor to Hezbollah facilitators and fundraisers. We will continue to expose the global nature of Hezbollah’s terrorist support network, and we call on responsible governments worldwide to disrupt and dismantle this activity’, said Adam J. Szubin, Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Treasury Department. [76] Associated Press, 20/VI/2008. [77] Kuwaiti daily al-Siasa, 29/VI/2009. [78] Alan Levine, ‘Hugo’s Hezbollah’, FrontPageMagazine.com, 12/XI/2008, http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/authors.aspx?GUID=de00261d-d4e1-428c-a8aa-698495018b83. [80] Martin Barillas, ‘Hezbollah Finds Fertile Ground in Latin America Thanks to Iran-Venezuela Axis’, Cutting Edge News, 1/IX/2008, http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=731&pageid=20&pagename=Security. [81] See Ely Karmon, ‘Hezbollah América Latina: Strange Group or Real Threat?’, Institute for Counter-Terrorism website, 14/XI/2006, http://www.instituteforcounterterrorism. org/apage/3539.php. See also Manuel R. Torres Soriano, ‘La fascinación por el exito: el caso de Hezbollah en América Latina’, Jihad Monitor Occasional Paper, nr 1, 17/X/2006, http://www.ugr.es/~terris/ Hezbollah%20Latino.pdf. [82] Torres Soriano, La fascinación por el exito: el caso de Hezbollah en América Latina. [83] ‘Condenan a prisión a venezolanos que colocaron explosivos en embajada de EEUU’, EFE, 20/XII/2008. [84] See his blog at http://www.blogger.com/profile/14182501489124982427 and http://teodoro-darnott.blogspot.com/. Accessed 28/II/2009. [85] See Terrorista venezolano prisionero 474: Teodoro Darnott (Venezuelan terrorist 474: Teodoro Darnott), published in December 2008. [86] Dr Juventino Martínez was approached by a representative of the US Embassy, which was worried by the fact that the Shia Center was close to the Embassy building and represented a threat in the event of an attack. According to Darnott, Dr Martinez became an American spy to monitor the activity of Hezbollah and al-Qaeda in Latin America. [87] Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino is a Peruvian theologian and Dominican priest regarded as the founder of Liberation Theology. Gutiérrez’s groundbreaking work, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, Salvation (1971), emphasises a Christian’s duty to aid the poor and oppressed through involvement in civic and political affairs. See The Encyclopedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/249944/Gustavo-Gutierrez. [88] Gustavo Coronel, ‘The Hezbollah Venezuelan Metastasis’, Venezuela Today, 4/IX/2006, http://venenews.net/gUStavo-coronel/hizbula-hezbollah-hizbullah+venezuela+hugoChávez.html. [89] J. Halevi & A. Perry, ‘Hizbullah’s Global Reach’, http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3580047,00.html, 10/VIII/2008. [90] Karmon, Hezbollah América Latina: Strange Group or Real Threat? [91] ANRed (Agencia de Noticias Red Acción), 7/VII/2006. [92] Ely Karmon, ‘Hizballah and the Antiglobalization Movement: A New Coalition?’, PolicyWatch, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, nr 949, 27/I/2005. [93] Bill Cecil, ‘Anti-imperialists Unite at Beirut Forum’, International Action Center website, 21/I/2009, http://www.iacenter.org/palestine/beirut-forum012509/. [95] Ibid. The Tricontinental Conference was held in Havana in January 1966 to adopt a common political strategy against colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism. Cuba provided the organisational structure to support terrorist, anti-American groups in the Middle East and Latin America. The Organisation for the Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America (OSPAAL) was created during this conference. [96] See the text of the Final Declaration of Beirut Intl. Forum for Resistance, Anti-Imperialism Solidarity between Peoples & Alternatives at http://www.iacenter.org/palestine/beirutforum_closing0122809/. [97] ‘Islamic and Leftist Anti-imperialists Unite’, Campo Antiimperialista website, 24/I/2009, http://www.antiimperialista.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5975&Itemid=244. [98] ‘Boost Global Intifadah Against Barbaric Age! Message of Ozgur-Der / Turkey, (Free Thought and Educational Rights Association) to the conference of the Anti-imperialist Camp’, Campo Antiimperialista website, 5/II/2008, http://www.antiimperialista.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5511&Itemid=235. [99] See ‘Proceedings of the Beirut International Forum’, Campo Antiimperialista website, 26/I/2009, http://www.antiimperialista.org/content/view/5980/244/. [100] ‘Parlamento Latinoamericano participa en el Foro Internacional de Beirut Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Comunicación y la información’, 14/I/2009, http://www.mci.gob.ve/noticias/1/187406/parlamento_latinoamericano_participa.html. [101] ‘Foro Internacional de Beirut solicitará expulsión de Israel de la ONU’, ABN, http://www.abn.info.ve/noticia.php?articulo=165773&lee=1. Karmon, Ely (Dr.) Senior Research Scholar, ICT, Israel Militant Groups | Terrorism Tactics | Terrorism Financing | Central Asian Jihadists in the Front Line Hamas’s grip on Gaza is the real strategic threat The Regional and Global Implications of Iran’s Nuclearization Iran thumbs its nose at the world The attacks in Mumbai: is there a Pakistani connection?

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Home New In English Prominent Candidates of Galmudug welcomes swearing-in lawmakers of Galmudug Prominent Candidates of Galmudug welcomes swearing-in lawmakers of Galmudug Aliyare Abdirahman Mohamed Hussein (Odawa), one of the most prominent candidates for the presidency of Galmudug, has welcomed the swearing in of the parliament today in the capital of Galgadud region.MP Odawa who spoke to reporters this afternoon said I welcome that the process of selecting lawmakers of Galmudug. As we know this has been going on for last eight months, and to day for accomplishing this important step which represents significant progress towards the federalization of Somalia. Really to speed up the tasks is good things for us, Mr. Odawa has also look forward to the successful completion of the remaining stages and the remaining six members of parliament. On the other hand, he reminded the country that there is a long way to go to achieve a unified local administration and that the current opportunities needs not be ignored. Abdirahman Mohamed Hussein (Odawa), who served formerly as Interior minister and current MP, welcomed the resolution of Ahlu Sunna’s concerns, and warned against turning away the ongoing process of establishing a Galmudug state, and he I also look forward to the successful completion of the remaining stages of the central regions state formation process. MP Odawa “I congratulate the Technical Committee, and the Elders of the Central Regions for accomplishing this important step which represents significant progress towards the federalization of Somalia” He said. He also added the formation of Galmud State with the interest of the people will contribute towards the establishment of durable peace and stability not only in this region but also for the whole of Somalia. The Galmudug electoral process has been fraught with disputes, notably between the federal government and Ahlu Sunnah, who have been battling for control of the process. The disagreement ended after the signing of a new agreement allowing the armed group, which plays a key role in the war against al-Shabab in the region, to have 20 representatives in the Galmudug parliament. Odow who served formerly as Interior minister and current MP is running for the regional presidency will face tough competition from candidates, including Ahmed Abdi [Qoor-Qoor], a government-backed aspirant. Notably, Qoor Qoor is currently the Deputy Minister for Public Works and Reconstruction. The Federal Government of Somalia has been facing criticism of meddling in the regional elections, including South-West State which marred by bloodshed resulted from the arrest of a candidate, vote-buying and corruption. Newly Deployed AMISOM Police Officers Complete Induction Somali Military Kills More Than 40 Al-Shabaab Militants Mohamed Nur Elected Galmudug Parliament Speaker

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‘Worst fears, best hopes’ for the Trump presidency: Nancy Kaufman, NCJW Nancy K. Kaufman Nancy Kaufman (Courtesy of National Council of Jewish Women)) Editor’s note: The upset victory by Donald Trump in the 2016 elections stunned a Jewish activist and leadership class that is at times as divided as the electorate at large. JTA asked some of those leaders to describe their concerns and expectations in a series of brief essays, “Worst fears, best hopes,” that will appear regularly between now and Inauguration Day. (JTA) — As progressive Jewish women, our hope is that as President-elect Donald Trump realizes the gravity of his new role in the U.S. and the world, he will move away from the misogynistic, racist, anti-Muslim, homophobic and anti-immigrant tone set by his campaign and many of his supporters. We hope he will recognize the need to unite the country and reach out to the more than 50 million Americans who did not vote for him. We hope that he can indeed be president of all the people, as he has promised he will be. We agree with the importance of addressing the economic pain in communities burdened by unemployment and falling incomes, but not at the expense of those least able to make ends meet. We hope his appointments will set a tone of inclusion and respect for all who call our country home. The idea of a Muslim registry is anathema to all of our most basic values as Americans and as Jews. What we fear most is that President-elect Trump will do what he promised to do — appoint Supreme Court justices pledged to overturn Roe v. Wade, abandon voter rights and protections, and turn his back on women and children in need. We fear he will deport millions of immigrants, ban Muslims from entering the United States and deny asylum to refugees escaping war and persecution. We dread a reversal of Obamacare that leaves 20 million without health insurance. We are afraid he will threaten freedom of speech and of the press. NCJW has engaged activist women for over 120 years and we will continue doing such work to preserve all that we can in the new Trump Administration. We are proud, passionate and powerful women and we will not stand idly by. We vow to remain true to our Jewish values in the face of these unprecedented challenges. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said during the days of racial segregation: “This is no time for neutrality. We Jews cannot remain aloof or indifferent.” (Nancy K. Kaufman is CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women.) Previous articles in this series can be found here. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media. By Batsheva Neuer January 16, 2020 11:02 am By Rachel Jacoby Rosenfield and Maital Friedman January 15, 2020 12:33 pm At 17, I’m the youngest woman to complete the seven-plus year study of the Talmud By Hila Schlakman January 10, 2020 12:59 pm It’s time to call violent anti-Semitism what it is: domestic terrorism By Ron Klein January 10, 2020 12:08 pm

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On the social media ‘battlefield,’ the Israeli army has weaponized snark By Sam Sokol April 29, 2019 4:00 pm (Photo by Quique Kierszenbaum/Getty Images; photo illustration by JTA staff) JERUSALEM (JTA) — Earlier this month, just hours before the start of Passover, the British Labour Party tweeted out holiday greetings to its more than 671,000 followers. “As Jewish people prepare for Passover, we’re wishing everyone in the Jewish community chag sameach,” read the now deleted message, which was accompanied by the image of a Star of David, a kiddush cup — and a loaf of bread. The image of a food specifically prohibited on Passover, in a tweet from a party battling allegations of institutional anti-Semitism, immediately created a firestorm on social media. Responses ranged from enraged to humorous. Joining the fray was the Israeli army, whose official account tweeted a “Happy Holidays” message with a similar image featuring matzah, an Easter egg and a Druze pilgrimmage site. Responses on social media were mixed. Some users deemed the IDF’s foray into British politics to be “pure Jewish humor.” Others, such as Jerusalem Post contributing editor Lahav Harkov, criticized it as “just another case of the IDF being inappropriate on social media … which, while funny, is really not their place.” Others, like Times of Israel military correspondent Judah Ari Gross, suggested that the tweet had crossed a boundary. “Just the Israeli military casually getting involved in another country’s internal politics,” he tweeted. In recent years the @IDF Twitter account has begun to adopt the vocabulary of social media, using language, memes and, notably, snark in a way that is uncommon for large government-run institutions, racking up 1 million followers in the process. The IDF’s social media team is fully aware of its edgy, and occasionally controversial, branding. Earlier this year, the team leader, Maj. Keren Hajioff, appeared to revel in that reputation, posting a picture of herself and her soldiers dressed as trolls — a nickname for social media users who like to bait their enemies. Guess what the IDF Social Media Office dressed up as for Purim? Trolls. pic.twitter.com/sQUjkWa9iG — Keren Hajioff (@kerenhajioff) March 19, 2019 This lighthearted and sometimes cutting approach is a radical departure from the army’s earliest forays into social media, said Aliza Landes, a former soldier in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit who was responsible for dragging the military into the social media arena during 2008’s Operation Cast Lead. Initially meeting pushback from commanders skeptical of social media, Landes and her comrades weren’t even allowed to tweet without permission from the highest levels. “The only thing I was allowed to tweet without getting permission from the IDF spokesman, a brigadier general, was what we were sending out on beepers,” she said. “If you look at our earlier tweets they are completely ridiculous. The army used to expect Twitter to adhere to army language rather than to try and engage in Twitter language. I’m very proud the little side project I started has become this big and is managed by some very excellent people.” Asked about the IDF’s Labour tweet, Landes said that while she is “a huge believer, people should stay on topic in their area of expertise.” The IDF did manage to generate a lot of attention, she noted, and “if that’s the goal, then they are achieving their objectives.” The IDF has certainly managed to garner attention. It recently celebrated its millionth follower with a tweet proclaiming “We got 99 problems but 1 million followers on @Twitter ain’t one,” a riff on a Jay-Z song with the lyrics “ninety nine problems but a bitch ain’t one.” We got 99 problems but 1 million followers on @Twitter ain’t one 🎊 🎉 pic.twitter.com/yzR84dm2oT According to Gross, the army’s social media approach may have been outside its purview but stemmed from an effort to fill a vacuum left by the Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister’s Office. “These various government offices are aware of the IDF’s provocative social media activities and evidently accept them,” the journalist said. ‘It’s not a case of negligence. Nor is it a case of someone accidentally or unwittingly overstepping their bounds. This is an active decision. The government knows what is going on, and the IDF is clearly not being told to stop.” Humor and sarcasm seem to be the order of the day. One tweet, which was retweeted nearly 900 times, contained a video riffing off Facebook’s auto-generated Happy Birthday messages. In the IDF version, members of several terrorist groups wish Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, many happy returns. At the end of the clip, the cake explodes. In response, one reporter tweeted that he did “not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with memes.” Another tweet, which garnered nearly 10,000 retweets and more than 31,000 likes, included a crude map of the Middle East that appeared to have been prepared in the rudimentary style of MS Paint. It showed an arrow pointing to Syria labeled “where Iran is” and another pointing to Iran labeled “where Iran belongs.” Iran, you seem to be lost. Here: pic.twitter.com/ByrDyUjWDr — Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) January 21, 2019 As with many on social media, the IDF does not appear to believe in subtlety, with one message stating baldly “A #BlackHole isn’t the only thing that sucks light and spreads darkness … COUGH COUGH Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.” Iran and Hamas seem to be the IDF’s favorite opponents on social media, although the United Nations has also come under virtual fire. And while some of the IDF’s choices have generated criticism, its combative tone online has also generated support, with journalists such as i24 news anchor Eylon Levy posting that “we can add the IDF Twitter account’s snark to the inventory of Israel’s lethal arsenal.” Likewise, columnist Ben Caspit has called Major Hajioff the “IDF’s secret weapon against Hezbollah.” According to British journalist David Patrikarakos, whose best-selling book “War in 140 Characters” chronicled the rise of the IDF’s social media team, “to contest the social media space, you need to be edgy.” “The big problem institutions have is they are too risk averse,” he said. “You can contest the taste sometimes, but humor does work.” Patrikarakos said sometimes you cross the line, “but on balance it’s better to be edgy and in tune with the medium in which you operate than not. That’s something that the IDF social media unit has got very right.” Explaining why the IDF decided to employ a sometimes sarcastic voice on social media, spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said that his unit was “trying to adapt to the relevant media where we are operating and to use the tools at our disposal in the way best suited to achieve our goals.” The IDF, he said, was “exploring boundaries.” While his soldiers “plan and assess and think what is appropriate,” it’s a “process of trial and error,” and “you won’t know what is OK, what’s acceptable and what’s frowned upon, until you do it.” Conricus took issue with the characterization of his unit’s work as snark, telling JTA that flexibility on social media is key. “I grew up as an infantryman,” he said. “You adapt your activity to the battlefield and the lay of the land.” Asked if the IDF has any guidelines, such as avoiding political matters, the spokesman replied that “everything is case by case” and that given the rapid pace of social media, “opportunity favors those willing to take it and to a certain extent willing to take a risk.” Conricus recalled a recent incident in which a Labour member of Parliament tweeted out a video purportedly showing Israeli troops beating a Palestinian. The video turned out to be from Guatemala. “Perhaps in the past some people would’ve felt it’s not the place of the IDF to respond and demand an apology, but we see it as our duty to fight against different efforts to delegitimize the IDF, which [occur] in traditional media and online, mostly on Twitter,” he said. At the end of the day, Conricus said, the goal is to strengthen Israel’s “soft power” by expanding its online presence. But the only way to do that is “by being active and engaging and broadening horizons, and sometimes that you do that through controversy,” he said, although the IDF is open to criticism if it gets something wrong. Former IDF spokesman Peter Lerner recalls an earlier era of social media. “When I was in charge of social media, it was expected of organizations and bodies of size and influence to be regal to a certain extent, to show some level of statesmanship” and not engage in sarcasm, he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “The reality today is somewhat more complicated than that, and the IDF is embracing that way of communicating in quite a good way.” While Lerner said that he had not been a fan of the army’s subtle jab at Labour, he said that overall he believed his successors had done a good job at pushing boundaries. The IDF’s new approach, however, has upset some people working in pro-Israel advocacy. “I can understand why they want to be funny and amuse people, but they lose sight of the fact sometimes that it’s a professional organization that is responsible for using deadly force,” said one social media professional working on public diplomacy issues. He asked not to be named so as not to damage his relationship with the IDF. “Joking about using lethal force,” this person said, “is something that can be seen as asinine and immature.”

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Department of Education to probe anti-Israel bias at North Carolina conference on Gaza By Marcy Oster June 19, 2019 3:53 pm The University of North Carolina hosted a controversial conference on Gaza using federal funding. (Wikimedia Commons) (JTA) — The U.S. Department of Education will investigate a Middle East conference on Gaza co-sponsored by two North Carolina universities over allegations that it had an anti-Israel bias. Rep. George Holding, R-N.C., called on the department to check into the late March conference co-sponsored by Duke University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill held at the latter campus. Holding said he had seen “reports of severe anti-Israeli bias and anti-Semitic rhetoric at the taxpayer-funded conference,” The Raleigh News & Observer reported. The universities budgeted $5,000 in Education Department funding from a four-year grant paying $235,000 annually for international and foreign language education programming. UNC told the newspaper on Tuesday that it spent less than $200 of the grant money. Education Secretary Betsy Devos responded in a letter to Holding on Tuesday. “I am troubled by the concerns outlined in your letter,” she wrote. “In order for the Department to learn more about this matter, I have directed the Office of Postsecondary Education to examine the use of funds under this program.” The conference featured a performance by the Palestinian rapper Tamer Nafar. Edited clips of Nafar singing his song “Mama, I Fell in Love with a Jew” at the conference were posted on social media. Kevin Guskiewicz, UNC’s interim chancellor, called the performance “disturbing and hateful language,” although Nafar and others said it was clearly satirical. The Louis D. Brandeis Center, which monitors anti-Jewish and anti-Israel activity on campus, said in a statement that the conference “minimized Hamas’ role in perpetuating the crisis” in Gaza. The statement added: “Furthermore, panels and programs denied Israel’s right to exist, brandishing it a ‘settler-colonialist’ entity while negating the enduring legacy of Jewish life in the region.”

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Dual Citizenship Services Italian Citizenship by Descent Italian Citizenship by Marriage How to Become an Italian Citizen Special Circumstances 1948 Cases Italian Passport Requirements Citizenship through Grandparents What to Expect at the Italian Consulate WHAT IS THE BEST CITY TO LIVE IN ITALY? 11 MOST BEAUTIFUL CITIES IN ITALY TO LIVE Italy is the kind of place where a fascinating mix of history, culture and scenery hits you smack dab in the face. It’s true, there is colorful art, impressive landmarks and ancient ruins at every turn and this is especially true in the major cities. With this in mind, whether you get lost down the side streets of Rome, explore the elegant palaces in Naples or take a gondola ride through the canals of Venice, there is simply no end of attractions and things to do in the cities of Italy. At the same time, these urban centers have so much more to offer than the obvious tourist attractions and you should even find that the lesser known cities are just as interesting as the most famous. Now, let’s take a look at 11 of the most beautiful cities in Italy to live: 1. Verona As you may know, Verona was the infamous & romantic home city of Romeo and Juliet. However, you need not be familiar with Shakespeare to appreciate this incredibly historic city. Featuring endless castles, piazzas and medieval churches, the ancient facades of Verona are striking to say the least. In fact, this is arguable one of the most visually stunning cities in Italy and when it comes to Roman ruins in particular, the beautifully preserved arena is merely an example of what you can expect to find. It’s true, most people come to walk in the footsteps of this famous couple but the enchanting architecture is more than enough to forget about Shakespeare and get lost in this vibrant city. For many visitors, the canals in Venice are not only a means of escaping the traffic but also the most unique way to explore this stunning city. After all, in how many cities can you sit back in a gondola and watch the medieval architecture as it drifts past? Venetian architecture is also incredible unique and you can also see this up close when you venture further into the city churches, piazzas and palaces. What’s more, if you visit Venice during the winter months, an enchanting mist hangs over the city and the lack of tourists crowds can make this a much more personal encounter. Either way, Venice is popular for good reason and this fairy-tale city never fails to excite and delight! Bologna may not be the best known city in Italy but this is certainly one of the most historical and culturally important. In fact, Bologna is home to the oldest university in Italy and also some of the finest food. In many ways, there is also two sides to the city with the first being the ambitious and high-tech areas such as Po Valley and the second being the much more elegant and academic city center. Either way, both sides have world-class eateries and a certain buzz which is largely to do with the young and exciting university population. Let’s be honest, Rome was always going to top this list and with more than 2,500 years of fascinating history, this is possibly the most interesting city in Europe. Featuring countless ancient churches, museums and archaeological sites, the capital city is also a historians dream destination. You will likely see a lot more tourists and lineups in this part of Italy but this is hardly surprising with presence of the Colosseum, Roman Forum and other famous landmarks. As if that’s not enough, the historical side of this city is also accompanied by a very modern vibe and the colorful art, culture and fashion in Rome is just as fascinating as any of the landmarks mentioned above. 5. Naples Believe it or not, Naples has a rather poor rapport with tourists and a reputation for being a somewhat gritty version of Rome or Florence. On the other hand, this is also “Bella Napoli”, a nickname that refers to the beautiful palaces and castles you will find in the city. Naples is also famous for having no less than nine art and archaeology museums and with all the great food and passion that you might associate with this part of the world, this is truly a unique city that offers a very simplistic alternative to the fancy tourist destinations nearby. Many of the most famous Italian artists and writers hail from Florence and with such an awe-inspiring appearance, it’s easy to see why. From the magnificent sight of the Palazzo Vecchio and the Duomo to the art museums and winding cobblestone streets, there is so much to see and just as much to love about the city. As you may know, Florence is also where you will find many masterpieces by Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. That being said, there is also work by Caravaggio, Raphael and Titian here, making it one of the most historically significant art rich cities in the world. 7. Palermo Palermo is best known for being a crossroads of civilization and a city where arabesque domes and Byzantine mosaics dominated the architecture. Interestingly, the city has managed to retain some of this status with many souk-like markets, Gothic palaces and baroque churches filling the streets. At the same time, there is also decay and many remnants of old stone walls and staircases offer an insight into what this glamorous city looked like in the past. However, as with many of the fast moving cities in Italy, there is also a very modern undertone to Palermo and you can experience this contemporary side by sampling the wonderful eateries and trendy bars around town. 8. Cefalu Cefalu is probably the most beautiful city in Italy that you have never heard about. You will find a stunning beach here, next to Arab-Norman architecture and a medieval town that looks like something you might see on a postcard. Giuseppe Tornatore used this city for the setting of his flim Cinema Paradiso and this should go some way to describing how beautiful is the city. Meanwhile, it can feel like stepping back in time down at the harbor, where fishermen tend to their boats and the quieter side of Cefalu gets under way. It may not be as famous as the movie but Cefalu hits all the right notes and just might be the most attractive city in Italy that you never thought about visiting. 9. Pisa Everyone has heard about the Leaning Tower of Pisa but not everyone knows that Pisa is a medieval city with stunning palaces and beautiful art. At one time, Pisa was a maritime rival to the cities of Venice and Genoa, while many Roman buildings and churches offer an alternative perspective from the leaning tower above. Believe it or not, locals also fill the streets here and still manage to outnumber the tourists, but they are forever thankful for the boost that the tower has brought to their beloved city. 10. Perugia Perugia is quite a large city and was founded during the time of the Etruscans and Umbrii peoples. For this reason, visitors can climb down into the famous Etruscan chamber tombs and witness some of the oldest remnants in medieval Italy. What’s more, there is also the National Museum of Umbrian Archaeology and the National Gallery, along with a number of ancient piazzas and churches to explore. If you wanted to uncover some of the ancient history in Italy yet escape the tourists at the same time, this is quite possibly the best city in Italy for you to visit! 11. Catania It’s true, Catania can seem like a loud and chaotic city at first glance but this is actually quite a charming city with a very energetic atmosphere. In fact, Catania is known for having a very youthful population and this is certainly true in comparison with elsewhere in Sicily. With gritty bars and trendy clubs at every turn, this energy is also clear to see after dark nightlife. That being said, Catania has a very historic core and towers, piazzas, and an 18th century convent form a beautiful sight with Mt Etna looming large in the background. As far as Sicily goes, Catania is the jewel in the crown! It’s true, Italian cities are full of intrigue, culture and history and each one has a unique personality. With this in mind, Rome, Florence and Venice may be top of the list of most visitors but the lesser known cities are just as interesting to experience. The History of Rialto Bridge The International Citizenship Index: These are the Best Citizenships to have around the World The History of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (il Duomo) IDC is founded on the passion of helping those of Italian descent restore their heritage and connection to Italy. Obtaining dual citizenship allows you access to a host of valuable benefits. Italian Citizenship Resources ● Laws for Italian Citizenship ● Visa Requirements for Italian Citizens ● Italian Consulate Website ● Italian Passport Application ● A.I.R.E. Registration for Italian Citizens ● US Dept of State – Dual Nationality ● Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) ● Italian Consulate Locations ● Information Center Italian Dual Citizenship (IDC) info@italiandualcitizenship.net © 2020 Italian Dual Citizenship | Official IDC Legal Offices. All Rights Reserved. Blog | Sitemap | Privacy Policy

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Naso, Sicily: places to visit in the Sicilian town of Naso Naso Hotels Visit Naso Naso is a town on the north-eastern coast of Sicily betwen Cefalu (to the west) and Messina (to the east). Earthquakes have had a severe effect on the heritage of the town of Naso, including the loss of a 9th century castle in the earthquake of 1786. The castle, along with the village and mother Church, once stood along the ridge that separates Naso from the valley of the river Zappulla. Explore Naso Despite the heavy losses Naso still possesses an excellent artistic and building heritage, especially among its churches which will form the main focus of your visit. Start your visit to Naso at the ancient Mother Church, dedicated to the Apostles Philip and James. The church has three naves, and apses separated by monolithic columns and decorated arches. The church altar and tabernacle are by the school of Antonello Gagini (1478-1536). The altar is surmounted by a beautifully decorated wooden choir adorned with statues and tortile columns. Note also the 16th century Chapel of Maria del Rosario, in Carrara marble and which contains the “Madonna with Child”, attributed to the school of Antonello Gagini. There is also a wooden crucifix by the Neapolitan school dating from the 17th century. Church of SS. Salvatore The Church of SS. Salvatore dates from the 14th century. The church square is made from the terracotta of Naso on which stand two bell towers. The church is divided into three naves with monolithic columns that support arches that have been partially decorated with stucco. On the altar stands a wooden statue of the Madonna and Child, and a marble triptych, attributed to Antonello Gagini, depicts the "Virgin and Child with St. Paul of the Cross and St. Gregory the Great". Among the paintings, note "St. Jerome" by Gaspare Camarda (1570-1630), the Immaculate attributed to the school of the so-called “Zoppo di Gangi” (1588-1630), "S. Francesco di Paola” by Antonino Grano (1660 c. - 1718) and the " Madonna dell'Itria ", attributed to Filippo Tancredi (1655-1722). Church of San Cono The Naso Church of San Cono dates from the late 16th century and has three naves divided by columns with monolithic stone round archs. In the aisles there are 17th century paintings, including one representing "Sant Antonio of Padua" by the “Zoppo di Gangi", the story of S. Anthony of Padua, and a "Circumcision" by Pietro d'Asaro (1579-1647). In the catacombs of the church there is a crypt in baroque style; it has a Latin cross form with four altars, in one of which are the relics of San Cono, protected by three iron curtains with seven keys. The chapel was designed by Bartolomeo Travaglio (17th century). Convent of the Friars Minor The Convent of the Friars Minor and the adjoining Church of St. Mary of Jesus date from the 15th century. Inside there is a painting of the Immaculate Conception attributed to Deodato Guinaccia (1510-c.1585), and a painting of Our Lady by the Gagini school (16th century). You can also see the Tombs of the local Earls, made between the 16th and 17th centuries, including the Gothic monument to Count Artale Cardona (15th century), the founder of the convent, by Domenico Gagini (1420-1492). Naso Museum of Sacred Art In the catacombs of the Church you can visit the Naso Museum of Sacred Art with silver vestments and church plate (chalices, reliquaries, monstrances, crucifixes), and many paintings including the “Madonna with the Sleeping Child” (14th century) and two paintings by Olivio Sozzi (1690-1765). The first section of the Museum displays some wooden sculptures and ceramics from the 15th-17th centuries. In the second section there are old vestments and a bronze bell. The third section holds the "Madonna with Sleeping Child”, attributed to the school of Joos van Cleve ( 1485 ca. - 1540). The last section exhibits silverware such as cups, relics and crucifixes. Other notable monuments Finally in the old town of naso you ca see the palaces that historically belonged to the local noble families, such as Piccolo Palace, Palazzo Giuffrè and Milici Palace, which are close to the religious buildings. Area around Naso, Sicily The landscape around Naso is characterized by large expanses of olive trees, and hazel and citrus groves. In hamlets among these you can also visit several old churches, such as the the 15th century Church of San Biagio. In this pleasant landscape, besides enjoying the artistic heritage, visitors should also be sure to try the local Sicilian cuisine, which shares certain characteristics across the island but also differs from area to area. At Naso, for example, do not forget to try the so-called “Sospiri di Monaca”. See also Naso history and etymology. Hotels in and near Naso Map of Naso and places to visit Places to visit near Naso Capo d'Orlando is a small beach resort in north-east Sicily Capo d'Orlando guide Visit the medieval centre of Patti as well as its castle and cathedral. Patti guide Tindari is home to the beautiful Tindari Sanctuary but also has many other interesting sites to visit. Tindari guide Tindari ancient city The ancient city of Tindaris was founded 2500 years ago, and the theatre, basilica and parts of the town can still be visited Tindari ancient city guide Tindari sanctuary The sanctuary of Tindari is an important pilgrimage destination because of the statue of the black Madonna it contains Tindari sanctuary guide The hilltop village of Montalbano Elicona is classified as one of the most beautiful villages of Italy. Montalbano Elicona guide

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Past Guest Lecturers Students who study at The Institute of World Politics have access to outside guest lecturers, many of whom are among the most prominent figures in government and the broader policy community. Here is a partial list of past guest lecturers at IWP classes and events. Col. Carl Glenn Ayers USA, chief of Psychological Operations, Joint Staff, Department of Defense Dr. Piotr Bajda, Assistant Professor, Cardinal Wyszynski University in Poland Timothy Beardson, Founder, Crosby Financial Holdings; China expert Paul D. Behrends, Senior Policy Advisor, Crowell & Moring Luke Bencie, President, Security Management International, LLC Ilan Berman, Vice President, American Foreign Policy Council Dr. Randall Bowdish, Retired Navy Captain; published author on terrorism Shawn Brimley, former Director of Strategic Planning, White House National Security Council Scott Carpenter, Deputy Director, Google Ideas Frank Cilluffo, former Special Assistant to the President for Homeland Security (External Affairs); Senior Analyst, Center for Strategic and International Studies Angelo Codevilla, Department of International Relations, Boston University; former Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution; former Staff Member, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Paula Dobriansky, Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Douglas J. Feith, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Francis Fukuyama, former Deputy Director of Policy Planning, Department of State; author, The End of History and the Last Man Andrew Garfield, founder, Glevum Associates; former senior military intelligence advisor to British Ministry of Defence Bill Gertz, National Security Correspondent, Washington Times Joel Harding, Information Operations Association Richard Haver, former Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; former National Intelligence Officer for Special Activities, CIA; and former Executive Director, Intelligence Community Affairs Michael V. Hayden, former Director, National Security Agency (NSA); former Director, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Max Holland, journalist; editorial board member, The Nation magazine Dr. Paula Holmes-Eber, Professor of Operational Culture at Marine Corps University Peter Huessy, Senior Defense Consultant, National Defense University Foundation; President, GeoStrategic Analysis Mark Hewitt, former Director, Defense Continuity Program Office; former Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Oleg Kalugin, former Soviet KGB major general David Kay, Senior Fellow, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies; former IAEA Inspection Team Leader, Iraq Jon Kyl, U.S. Senator from Arizona; Chairman, Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security Andrzej Kolodziej, President, Pomorska Inicjatywa Historyczna Foundation Francisco Lainez, former Foreign Minister of the Republic of El Salvador Stanislav Levchenko, former Soviet KGB officer Todd Leventhal, Director, Office to Counter International Misinformation, US Department of State Samuel Liles, Associate Professor, Purdue University-West Lafayette Aaron Linderman, Doctoral Candidate, Texas A&M Clare Lockhart, CEO of the Institute for State Effectiveness Carnes Lord, former national security advisor to the Vice President of the United States; Professor of Military and Naval Strategy, US Naval War College Michael Maibach, Senior Fellow at The Aspen Institute, formerly President and CEO of the European-American Business Council Brig. Gen. Jack Nicholson (Ret.), veteran of 30 years active duty Michael Novak, Director of Social and Political Studies, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Michael E. O’Hanlon , Senior Fellow, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence; Director of Research for the Foreign Policy Program , Brookings Institution Robert Reilly, then-Director, Voice of America Peter Rodman, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs; former Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Director, Policy Planning Staff, Department of State Diane Roark, then Senior Staff Member, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence James Schlesinger, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), former Secretary of Energy, and former Secretary of Defense Maj. Gen Michael A. Snodgrass USAF (Ret), former Chief of Staff, US Africa Command (AFRICOM) George Tenet, former Director, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Michelle Van Cleave, former National Counterintelligence Executive; formerly Special Advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Caspar Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense R. James Woolsey, former Director, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden USAF (Ret.), former deputy director of operations at SPACECOM and is a noted authority on military satellites and missile defense, and former director of the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), at the Office of the Secretary of Defense Col. Larry M. Wortzel (Ret.), former Director of the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College; Commissioner, US-China Economic Security Review Commission HIH Prince Ermias Sahle-Selassie Haile-Selassie, Chairman of the Crown Council of Ethiopia Susan Yoshihara, Director, International Organizations Research Group; Senior Vice President for Research, Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute The Kosciuszko Chair of Polish Studies

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Steve Randy Waldman Sandwichman Sunday Sandwichman offers a précis of the putative economic basis of Stephen Miller views on immigration. Back when Miller was a Congressional staffer in a world where certain norms applied, his restrictionist position took care, according to Sandwichman, to “discretely avoid[] any overt expression of racism or white supremacism.” Instead, Miller framed his position in terms that from someone else’s mouth might be described as left-populist: There aren’t enough good jobs to go ’round, immigrants compete with natives for those jobs and put downward pressure, and so exacerbate “principal economic dilemma of our time…the very large number of people who either are not working at all, or not earning a wage great enough to be financially independent.” (Miller’s words, via Sandwichman) Miller presents liberal immigration as an “agenda pushed by the world’s most powerful interest groups and businesses that clearly results in fewer jobs and lower wages for Americans.” I am an admirer of Bernie Sanders, and decidedly not an admirer of Stephen Miller, but in their positions circa 2015, it’s hard not to see some common ground. Sandwichman segues to the usual rebuttal of this view by liberal economists, handing the mic to Simon Johnson and Walter Ewing to point out that immigrants are a source of employment demand as well as employment supply, so that even in a very static analysis it is unclear whether the net effect of immigration is to put downward or upwards pressure on wages and employment. As Sandwichman concludes of broad conjectures of wage suppression or economic stimulus, “they are both right and they are both wrong.” You cannot make a reasonable guess about the employment effects of immigration, or conduct a meaningful empirical analysis, without a lot of context about the immigrants who would likely arrive and the structure of the economy that would receive them. There is no immigration policy that is not also economic policy, and like economic policy in general, it can be tilted towards this interest or that. (“It depends” is supposed to be an economists’ cliché — Harry Truman famously cried “Give me a one-handed economist!” — but ambidexterity is unfortunately antiquated. The authority in which the profession has garbed itself has created a lucrative market for the kind of people willing to make helpful pronouncements, so the custom now is to fill in the gaps left by missing context with impressive thickets of theory and quantitative analysis and appeals to the literature, all of which support whatever the professional subculture to which the analyst belongs is paid to support.) In musing about this now stereotyped argument between immigration-employment optimists (new demand means more economic activity!) and pessimists (new workers means fewer or lower-paying jobs for current workers!), a cutesy irony occurred to me. In the static, ceteris paribus world in which this argument plays out, each worker is basically an aliquot of labor supply bundled with an aliquot of labor demand, and the question is which is bigger. So, if you want employment stimulus, your ideal immigrant should carry a duffle bag of labor demand but just a dainty purse of labor supply. Who might that look like? Well, a so-called “scrounger” or “welfare tourist” would do the trick nicely. As long as we permit only the most demanding people with a strict aversion to hard work to immigrate, and provide state support if necessary to accommodate those preferences, Stephen Miller should welcome the newcomers. I guess it is not a novel observation that immigrants can’t both be welfare layabouts and putting everybody out of work at the same time. So if disemployment is your main concern, pick welfare layabouts. In less stereotyped real life, of course, this is all stupid. Ceteris paribus does not hold, and states have the capacity to generate labor demand at will simply by borrowing or creating money ex nihilo and distributing purchasing power to people likely to use it to buy labor-intensive goods. For reasons beyond any effect on employment, we prefer to discourage rather than encourage the practice of living on state support without doing anything useful (although us UBI-ists and JG-ists would like to broaden the range of activities considered “useful” beyond paid market work). If we want a lot of immigration without disemployment or (nominal) wage suppression, we can have it, or we could have it, if we had the political capacity to run the economy hot, that is, to distribute new purchasing power in order to engender labor demand, and accept the risk of inflation that would come with that. We can always put everybody to work, but the question of how productively — of whether our “hot” economy would leave almost all of us better in real terms or amount to a redistribution (or worse) from existing creditors and workers with safe jobs to immigrants and the marginally employed — is a hard question well beyond the kind of facile quantitative reasoning that surrounds this debate. Thinking seriously about this stuff would be thinking about the institutional details of production, how we might engender collaborations that create services we genuinely value from the underutilized talents of citizens and newcomers alike, and prevent frictions and conflicts that might undermine those collaborations. But the morally fraught politics of immigration, and the economic debates that surround it, are mostly orthogonal to these questions. The things we do that are bejeweled with the accoutrements of being smart are mostly stupid. Sandwichman links to an earlier piece of his, on debates in the 1920s and 1930s surrounding the campaign for an eight-hour workday. He quotes economist Dorothy Douglas, describing the theories of 19th Century labor advocate Ira Steward: Douglas condensed the two main aspects of Steward’s theory and their interconnection: One, the stimulating effect of leisure and leisure-time consumption upon the standard of living and hence the wage demands of the lowest classes of labor… and the other, the stimulating effect of this more expensive labor upon the technique of production itself — the effect of “driving” labor saving machinery. Finally, uniting the two, is a plea, now familiar to our ears of mass demand as alone making mass production possible. It strikes me as remarkable how current these ideas are, and should be. Generous social policy does not stand in opposition to productive work. On the contrary, if well arranged, it is the basis for productive work. To the manager of a firm, cheap labor is a source of productive advantage, but that’s a perspective that fails to compose. Economies that offer cheap labor must import external demand. A good economy is composed of workers with time and money to consume, and of firms with strong incentives to innovate, to use dear labor ever more efficiently. Update History: 25-June-2018, 4:10 p.m. EEST: “…is a harder hard question well beyond the kind…” 25-June-2018, 5:55 p.m. EEST: “Miller presents liberal immigration as an ‘agenda pushed by the world’s…” Steve Randy Waldman — Sunday, June 24th, 2018 at 8:15 am PDT [ 7 comments ] Exiting the Iran deal is a blow to financial transparency and US control Over the past decade, the United States has succeeded at exercising an extraordinary degree of “extraterritorial” control over the Western financial system. The apotheosis of this exercise was perhaps the nearly $9 billon penalty levied against BNP Paribas in 2014. Other non-US banks caught in the extraterritorial US net include HSBC, which paid $1.9 billion in 2012 for violating sanctions against Iran and laundering money in Mexico (for which it is in trouble again), Commerzbank, and many others. The United States’ remarkable success at exercising control over overseas banks was never a foregone conclusion. Before there was the #resistance, there was La Resistance. Many European bankers and public officials never believed it right that transactions which might be perfectly legal under their own domestic law, and which in no obvious way involve any US entity, should be blocked by whim of the American government. Re l’affaire BNP, American Banker noted: French government officials have repeatedly mentioned that BNP’s alleged actions don’t violate European law, even though it’s irrelevant to the debate at hand. The Justice Department doesn’t care if BNP’s actions violate European law; by operating in the U.S. (through Bank of the West and First Hawaiian Bank), BNP has agreed to follow U.S. law. And U.S. officials view sanctions violations seriously. (The violations do not have to occur in the U.S. for American authorities to act.) More recently, Europeans have chafed as the US government has chipped away at Swiss banks’ vaunted secrecy and the prerogatives of other European tax havens, while allowing places like Delaware and Nevada to pick up the business that American authorities are dismantling overseas. Nevertheless, thus far, the Europeans have played along, and the West’s dominance of global finance has meant that the US effectively controls conduits which are the lifeblood of non-Western powers like Russia and China as well. Russia, itself bitterly subject to American sanctions, hopes to escape the noose by deploying a blockchain-based parallel infrastructure for international transactions. Whether such an enterprise will prove laughable and quixotic, or whether it might pierce meaningful holes in the US-dominated conventional system, depends a great deal on how policymakers, bankers, and entrepreneurs around the world react to it. Prior to, well, yesterday, the US could claim a moral high ground. Its extraterritorial financial control might be objectionable, yes, but absent some coordinating mechanism like that, there would always be a competitive race among politicians and bankers to allow themselves to be persuaded that Mexican drug lords are just legitimate businessmen from a hardscrabble country and why should the Iranians be prevented from getting nukes when the world winks at the Israelis? The US may not be the ideal global financial policeman, but like every other kind of global policeman that it is, it may be better than no policeman at all. However, now, specifically with respect to its enforcement of financial sanctions on an apparently compliant Iran, it is the United States that seems, even among its Western partners, to be the rogue state in need of policing. However begrudging European acquiescence to extraterritorial US sanctions may have been two days ago, it is more begrudging today. More than that, the remaining counterparties of the Iran nuclear deal — China, France, Russia, the UK, and the EU — all want the deal to continue. They will be at pains to persuade Iran that it continues to enjoy significant sanctions relief relative to what it would face if it abandoned the deal. Which puts those countries between a rock and the hard-place of extraterritorial enforcement by the US of reimposed prohibitions. At a policy level, the remaining signatories now have an active interest in enabling, even encouraging, evasion of US financial controls, an interest that is morally and politically defensible. All of a sudden La Resistance among sullen French bankers isn’t just about the juicy fees foregone, but a heroic struggle to #resist Donald Trump, to prevent the renuclearization of Iran. And policymakers might agree. That might mean taking some of the pressure off of European and vacation isle tax havens, reversing the recent, American-enforced trend towards transparency. It might mean partnering with China and Russia to participate in the parallel, alternative financial arrangements that those countries seek to develop. It plainly puts at risk the hard won, absolutely extraordinary, hegemony that American regulators have over global finance. All of this might seem contrary to American interests. But then on questions of financial transparency and control, not all Americans actually have the same interests. And for those among the US #resistance who see Vladimir Putin beneath every strand of orange hair, what Donald Trump has just done makes the possibility of a new Russian SWIFT considerably less laughable. Andrew Sheng and Xiao Geng — From Dollar to e-SDR (ht Alex Lipton, thanks Nathan Tankus) 10-May-2018, 9:05 p.m. PDT: “European bankers and public pubic officials” (thanks commenter Typo) Steve Randy Waldman — Wednesday, May 9th, 2018 at 1:01 pm PDT [ 2 comments ] I like this piece by Kate Aronoff looking back on WPA “boondoggles” in the context of a suddenly much discussed job guarantee. A lot of people deserve congratulations for the suddenly much-discussedness of job guarantee proposals. People like William Darity, Darrick Hamilton, and Mark Paul, Pavlina Tcherneva, Randy Wray, and others have worked doggedly through years of winter to keep this (by no means new) idea alive while no major political faction in the United States was willing to give it the time of day. Now, all of a sudden, Democratic Party(ish) bigwigs including Kristen Gillibrand, Cory Booker, and Bernie Sanders are racing onto the bandwagon. Persistence pays (although perhaps not quite a living wage). Let’s get this part out of the way. I’m for it, if it’s well implemented. What about a UBI? I’m for that too, if it’s well implemented. Do we need both? Well, they do complement each other: Pairing a job guarantee with a UBI would mitigate the risk that the “guarantee” would transmogrify under political pressure into a punitive workfare program. Pairing a UBI with a job guarantee would mitigate the risk that we neglect the broader project of integrating one another into a vibrant society, that we let a check in the mail substitute for human engagement. If we could get both a UBI and a JG, that’d be great. (Of course, if we did get both, we’d want the numbers to be different than either as a standalone.) However, I am not so worried about an embarrassment of riches. We’ll be fortunate to get one, either one, implemented well enough not to subvert its purpose. I see no reason not to advocate both. People make this stupid argument about how we have to choose where we want to “expend our political capital”. There are times, in the context of some specific negotiation, where it might be reasonable to imagine “political capital” as a thing akin to hoarded gold, a commodity that must be spent either here or there. But most of the time this quasi-material analogy is worse than dumb. Political capacity is much more like muscle than gold, the more you use it the more you have. Advocating for UBI and advocating for a job guarantee are complementary activities. Both push against the present, barbaric consensus, under which human sacrifice to a drunken god of business cycles and market forces is defended by the fearfully fortunate as a price that must be paid. The way we squander our political capacity is not by arguing for UBI when we should be arguing for JG or vice versa. It’s when we argue with one another about which we should argue for, when we could be taking these ideas to a broader public. Whether we get either, both, or we just terrify our complacent Mandarines into using more conventional tools to run a hotter, fairer economy, persuading the public is how we will make progress. I have nothing more to say on the normative “should we? shouldn’t we?” question. Unfortunately, in my view, much of the take-making on the subject of a job guarantee has been driven first and foremost by authors’ self-positioning as advocate or critic. But away from all that heat, the details and implications of what is proposed are fascinating. Suppose we did this thing? What would happen? What would our country look like with a Federally funded but locally administered program to exploit the talents and capacities of all those who otherwise would not be employed for a decent wage? In between the certainties of Labor Paradise or Stalinist Hellhole are more modest possibilities and pitfalls that are worth thinking through. One of the things that I think is a mistake in the current job guarantee debate is a focus on productivity too narrowly defined. Where will be the work for all these people? Will it just be make-work? Isn’t a job something where a need is identified in advance, and then a human is hired to fill it, rather than something determined by the existence and capabilities of the human? I think this frame is very limited and limiting. In the hallowed private market, it is not uniformly the case that a need is identified and then the cog — um, I mean, the body — is hired to fill it. Successful firms define roles to make the most of unusually talented people they are fortunate to have. An increasing share of private work cannot be easily codified and Taylorized, but involves ongoing improvisation, collaboration, and negotiation between individuals and employers to achieve business goals. A job guarantee that had an unlimited number of slots on a mid-20th Century assembly line producing valuable, salable widgets might be easy to defend as “productive”, but would be wasteful of worker talents and poor preparation for participation in the modern economy. In actual, current practice, managers with very imperfect information hire teams of people they hope will have a mix of skills to accomplish various purposes, and then do a great deal of work trying to understand and cajole the humans they find they have to make useful things happen. The luckiest managers, those who hire at high salaries for prestigious firms, do much of their work by selection. From a large pool of applicants, they can choose the very few who are not only disciplined and capable of performing the work, but who are also able to convincingly demonstrate they are disciplined and capable during a hiring process. The vast majority of managers at the vast majority of firms, however, cannot be so choosy. Managers try to select those with the highest probability of being disciplined and capable, or perhaps more accurately, those for whom they will not be blamed if a hire turns out to be difficult and unprepared. Once the hiring is done, management is the art of building true from crooked timber. The world is not made of stylized firms with slots and then workers to fill them, but with humans who improvise, including managers who cajole, threaten, and guide in the thrall of incentives that define what counts as “productivity” or “success”. But for a job guarantee program, what should count as productivity or success? It can’t (and shouldn’t) be a “market test”. The state and nonprofits are not in the business of making goods to sell. One version of a job guarantee would focus on production within and for the employee: Is she flourishing in her role, is she learning and demonstrating skills and habits that will increase her ability to gain more remunerative private sector employment? These are all good things, but I don’t think it would be a good idea to define the success of a JG job primarily in these terms. If the job itself is for the benefit of the worker, and she is getting paid for it as well, there will be a hazard that the broader public will not perceive JG “workers” as actual workers, but as beneficiaries of taxpayer largesse twice over. For the program to survive, and for it to confer the “dignitarian” benefits thought to come with paid work, a job guarantee job must be socially coded as a job, as fair pay for value — social, rather than market, value, but still value — and not as a “handout”. Importantly, the public should very directly perceive the value provided by JG workers. The job guarantee program should yield visible, popular amenities. During economic booms that draw people out of the job guarantee program and into private-sector employment, the public should notice and lament the loss of those amenities. In much of the conversation about a job guarantee, advocates understandably work hard to argue that employment on the proposed terms can provide “real” value, and so emphasize activities whose importance and moral worth is difficult to deny — eldercare and childcare, protecting the environment, services for vulnerable and underserved communities. But I think there is a kind of paradoxical danger in focusing too exclusively on the things that are easiest to defend as valuable. It is like how we eviscerate education by shedding arts programs and focusing on STEM and demanding ever more testing. Tradeoffs that from a narrow, goal-directed perspective make perfect sense end up undermining the broader ecology under which a meaningful education is possible, ultimately subverting even the particular goals the “hard choices” were meant to support. In a job guarantee context, I don’t think we will get to keep the valuable but largely hidden eldercare if there are not also things whose social worth will be more contestable by naysayers and scolds but also visible and enjoyable to a broad base of voters and taxpayers. Wherever the job guarantee is, there should be festivals and block parties. There should be children’s theater in the park. There should be visible beautification, beyond just the cleaning of litter — trees planted, community gardens established and tended, decaying park benches replaced with custom carpentry. Perhaps ironically, job guarantee workers could help remedy the toll our society’s increasing fetishization of formal labor has taken on civil society. With extra human energy, neighborhood association meetings could be more frequent, more festive, and publicized more invitingly than the often drab affairs that they often are, dominated by interested insiders and people unusually motivated by resentments. With a well-subscribed job guarantee, cities could provide help with organization, catering, and clean-up to anyone interested in organizing open-to-the-public meetings and events. Should a locally administered, Federally funded job guarantee program come to exist, a litmus test for its success will be the reaction of localities. Usually, localities compete with one another to shed the unemployed, to encourage them to move elsewhere. San Francisco will happily — and so compassionately! — buy a bus ticket for any homeless person to, um, help them get “home”. In this tradition, many localities’ initial response will be to sabotage rather than embrace a job guarantee, to make the work punitive in hopes that labor-market losers look elsewhere rather than stick around and trouble the citizens. The job guarantee will succeed only if officials who reverse that impulse, who welcome job guarantee workers (and the Federal money they bring), are rewarded at the voting booth for doing so. And that will only happen if voters in municipal elections, whose behavior is notoriously not driven by altruistic or progressive impulses, perceive tangible benefits that outweigh the hassles and scandals and declamations of “boondoggle!” that will inevitably arise. We will know that a job guarantee has succeeded when the conventional incentives have flipped, when localities compete to attract job guarantee workers rather than to try to shift the burden of this otherwise marginally employed population elsewhere. 3-May-2018, 8:50 p.m. PDT: “under which human sacrifice to a drunken god of business cycles and market forces is defended by the fearfully fortunate as a price that must be paid by the fearfully fortunate.”; “and declamations of ‘boondoggle!’ that will also inevitably arise”; “that we let a check in the mail substitute”; “look like with a Federally funded and guaranteed, but largely locally administered, program”; “performing he the work” Steve Randy Waldman — Thursday, May 3rd, 2018 at 5:21 pm PDT [ 2 comments ] Ceci n’est pas un post interfluidity is migrating to hellish modernity, a new server, https rather than http links. So exciting, I know. I’m sorry to pollute your feed with this, a test post. Steve Randy Waldman — Tuesday, May 1st, 2018 at 7:56 pm PDT [ 1 comment ] Segregation is a normal good There’s a view that, since much of American inequality can be explained by the dynamics of housing wealth (as famously argued by Matthew Rognlie), then we could remedy inequality, or at least prevent its increase, if we took a battering ram to the gated city by eliminating height limits and exclusionary zoning and other restrictions that make it difficult for developers to add housing supply as prices increase in desirable cities and neighborhoods. I think this view is mistaken. It gets causality backwards. It is not hard to find explanations for the increase in inequality in the US. There has been an evisceration of labor unions; selective globalization that puts the working class but not the professional class in competition with labor in developing countries; skill-biased technical change and automation that substitutes labor for capital or threatens to. All of these reduce the power of labor to bargain for their share of the economic pie. Market power increasingly concentrates income and wealth, via Facebook or Google with their unassailable platforms, via Pharma and Hollywood thanks to the expansion of narrowly conceived patents and copyrights into amorphous “intellectual property”. Deregulation of finance and various forms of “financial innovation” made it possible for skilled financiers to lay claim to gains while offloading risks, creating a class of people who won big until they didn’t but never lost very much. The professional class, thanks to the general bailout of creditors when things came apart, hitched a ride on the coattails of the gamesters of finance and came through the great financial crisis largely unscathed, while the middle and working class lost their homes and marriages and self-esteem to a margin call on housing, which has since recovered in other people’s hands. You can certainly add having bought the right properties in the right cities in the 1970s and 1980s to the list of drivers of inequality, but I don’t think it is a big piece of the puzzle. Instead, I think it is more accurate to point out that one of the first and most valuable amenities people purchase when they become wealthier is wealthier neighbors. Wealthy people self-segregate, and the places to which they self-segregate become valuable, because the way you get a place limited to wealthy people is by bidding up the price of being in that place. The community, or the city, is gated for a reason. Now this sounds like a story of dastardly rich people. It is not. It is a story of humans, and how humans naturally and understandably behave in the society that we have built. To be successful in our society, to be a good person, is to be a successful capitalist. One should accumulate educational and financial resources, steward them responsibly, and invest them in labor and capital markets or business entrepreneurship to yield decent returns. Failing to do this is waste. Consideration of the welfare of others is mostly delegated to the state, or else to arms-length charities to which one budgets as one sees fit. The misfortune of your neighbor, or of your cousin, is not your misfortune directly. One could never be a successful microcapitalist, and therefore a good person, if one took it upon oneself to indemnify the mishaps and misfortunes of ones neighborhood and extended family. To do too much of that is a kind of squandering, a kind of waste. If it puts the welfare of your own family at risk, especially if it reduces your child’s quality of life or education, it segues from failure to sin. This ethos is very difficult to maintain, for human beings most of whom do strive to be good, do try to be virtuous, if we live directly among misfortune. We strive to find ways of reconciling being good and doing well, and to consider ourselves good we want to feel and be viewed as generous within our own, directly experienced communities. But we cannot simultaneously be successful microcapitalists and generous people according to the norms of less fortunate communities. Because while in theory, under mixed-economy capitalism, the state provides the less fortunate with the insurance they require to live decent lives in a topsy-turvy economy, in practice, in the United States, it does a pathetically inadequate job of it. In poorer communities, people manage their risks by pooling them directly, helping a neighbor with a rent check to prevent an eviction, or else letting her crash at their place for a while. Poorer people insure one another by forming lasting human relationships under which they make directly available, or directly draw upon, one another’s real and financial resources. Wealthier people “self-insure”, but of course that is an oxymoron. What insurance means is to create claims upon others’ resources that we can draw upon if we suffer misfortune. The “self-insurance” of the wealthy replaces the interpersonal claims of informal insurance with financial claims exercised via arms-length markets. Wealthier people save money they can draw upon in times of trouble. They purchase formal insurance contracts. Most of us try very hard not to trouble our neighbors with our misfortunes, but wealthier people are much more likely to succeed. Which makes wealthier people desirable neighbors, especially for wealthier people upon whose disproportionate resources the misfortunes of poorer people might make strong emotional and moral claims. The wealthy huff a lot about efficiency, but what fundamentally distinguishes the insurance behavior of the wealthy and the poor is that the poor insure one another with much greater capital efficiency than the rich. The wealthy prefund their insurance individually, each household accumulating cushions of financial savings and contingent assets, the majority of which are rarely drawn upon. The poor never hold much in the way of assets they do not require, but draw upon the resources of their community and family on an as-needed basis. Wealthy communities hold financial assets multiples in value of what members of the community will ever actually use, but each household within a wealthy community may genuinely have no resources to spare, in the sense of having endowed themselves sufficiently to buffer their family’s customary lifestyle against potential shocks. At a social level, the capital inefficiency of financial “self-insurance” need not be a problem. Financial resources aren’t inherently scarce like real resources, and one can imagine a policy regime in which some sort of financial claim was made so broadly available that all households could “self-insure” in this way without increasing any burden on real resources. But in the world as it is, wisely or not, only the wealthy can afford the luxury of dormant, underutilized financial claims. The not-so-wealthy must find ways of managing their risks without the intermediation of money and markets. They call upon on another for help, and when disputes arise, as they often do with respect to need-based claims, rather than hire a lawyer to fight the insurer as a wealthy household might, neighbors and families must argue it out, in discussions that may become painful and personal and destructive of valuable relationships. Like most efficiencies, capital-efficient mutual insurance has costs invisible to the outputs-over-inputs computation. As we become wealthier, we trade less intensive use of the financial claims at our disposal for the peace of not having to field or make claims upon our neighbors. This would all be true even if it were not the case — but of course it is the case — that various sorts of crime and discomfiting behavior correlate geographically with poverty. That correlation is itself, I think, a function of reconciling inequality with a liberal society, an effect much more than a cause of that inequality. You can agree with that or not, but the correlation still stands, and people want to move to nice neighborhoods, where “nice” is defined by the behavior of your neighbors, and wealthier people are more likely to be “nice” in the sense of troubling you less than poorer people. Segregation is a normal good, for individuals and families. As people become wealthier, they want to insulate themselves from the chaos of other people’s lives. In a relatively equal society, there is no community of people more or less capable of substituting formal, maket-intermediated forms of mutual insurance for interpersonal and relationship-based mutual insurance. As a society that celebrates personal accumulation and self-reliance becomes unequal, then unless the state itself provides sufficient formal insurance, those capable of “self-insurance” will migrate away from those who survive by sometimes tugging on their neighbors heart strings and purse strings. Some will move explicitly into gated communities. For the more liberal and cosmopolitan among the wealthy, the quiet gate of high market prices — which they themselves must work and sacrifice to pay! — is more spiritually congenial. Individually we take prices as just a fact of nature, so the control prices exercise seems natural and legitimate, even if, from some idealistic perspective, lamentable. In the US, segregation is overdetermined. If by the path-dependence of horrible history, we find that wealth and race become correlated, this tendency of the wealthy to segregate themselves from the poor would be sufficient to engender racial segregation. Add, gently, a modest preference for same-race neighbors or, less gently, outright racial animus, and it’s unsurprising that in the US we see the sharpest segregation across racial lines that are also economic lines. And of course, while segregation may be an outcome of yesterday’s economic tournaments, it also shapes the outcomes of tomorrow’s tournaments. The children of parents who could afford to withdraw themselves to gated communities with great schools are much more likely to be able to do so themselves, as they inherit both social capital and much of the financial capital their parents held as insurance. Race and racism very obviously shape and harden segregation in America. But we would and will have it in some shape or form regardless, as long as we are so unequal in our capacities to insure ourselves by impersonal means, and liberal enough to accommodate the preference of the wealthy to withdraw from the very personal claims of the less well insured. And just as race shapes segregation, segregation shapes race. Segregated communities don’t remain just groups of different individuals for very long. Across the lines, the different communities give one another names, turn anecdote and experience into stereotypes, attribute differences in circumstance to differences of character, behave in ways that presume and reinforce group differences. Over a generational time horizon, the phrase “racial segregation” is a tautology. 27-Jan-2018, 10:20 p.m. PST: “…Matthew Rognlie), that then we could remedy inequality, or at least prevent its increase, if…” Steve Randy Waldman — Friday, January 26th, 2018 at 4:34 pm PST [ 20 comments ] Quick thoughts about airline economics If you’ve not already read this piece by Matt Stoller challenging the conventional wisdom that airline deregulation in the 1970s has been a great success, you should. See also this 2012 piece by Phillip Longman and Lina Khan, and this 2015 piece by Longman. Thanks to Matt Ygesias and Marshall Steinbaum for pointers. You should also read Yglesias’ not-so-much-challenging-the-conventional-wisdom piece on why air travel sucks so much these days. Pieces like this have a long pedigree. Here is Megan McArdle in 2015, for example. Conversations about airline regulation are often framed in terms of neoliberalism and its discontents. That’s dumb. On purely neoliberal terms, airlines were never a good candidate for “the magic of competition” to do its work. Neoliberals should support some form of regulation of air travel for precisely the same reason they support the limited, regulated monopolies provided by patent and copyright protection. Just like inventing stuff or writing novels, air travel is a high fixed cost, low marginal cost business. The prediction of the Economics 101 reasoning that animates neoliberal thinking is that, if competition is let to do its work, price will fall to marginal cost, and all the airlines will go out of business. And that’s right. That basically was the result of airline deregulation. It was, of course, nice for consumers during the period when competition drove price towards marginal cost. But that was a classic Stein’s Law moment, and it is silly to imagine it can be indefinitely repeated. Airline investors may be dumb, but even they eventually learn. Plus, the subsidy provided to airline consumers by loss-making airlines was not provided only by foolish investors. Ex post, airline creditors, employees, retirees contributed to the subsidy by having their debts, pensions, and benefits written down. Taxpayers contributed to the subsidy by bailing out the airlines. If we mean to keep air travel cheap via some form of socialized subsidy, we can do a better job of designing it. Unsurprisingly, absent state protection from forms of price competition incompatible with their continued operation, the airlines tried and eventually succeeded to gain some protection via consolidation and monopolization of scarce slotting at airports. So, instead of state-managed pricing power, we have industry-managed pricing power. (This is one of Stoller’s main points.) By its nature, a sustainable air travel business is going to be regulated by something other than straightforward price competition. The question isn’t whether the industry will be regulated, but how and by whom, whether the state or a tacit cartel is more likely to do a better job. None of this is to hold up the 1970s Civil Aviation Board as a model of virtue. I don’t know the history or the industry well enough to make claims about the details of that regulatory regime. I suspect it had flaws. But so long as the issue is framed as a debate about “deregulation”, we will make no progress. Whether we craft it legislatively or let it evolve from strategic behavior within the industry, some regime will emerge that prevents competition from driving price to marginal cost. One aspect of the ancien régime that I think we do want to resuscitate is frequent and inexpensive service to smaller and mid-tier markets. Yglesias writes, in a tweetstorm, which I have edited into text: [Phil Longman and Lina Khan] note that deregulation robbed many smaller cities of the covert subsidies that were funneled there way by the Civil Aeronautics Board. This was a downside of deregulation and the goal is to conclude that deregulation is bad, one concludes that the loss of subsidy was bad. But separate from the question of deregulation, it’s worth actually asking the question of whether or not this is a worthy policy goal. If subsidized airfare generates large community benefits, presumably communities themselves could provide the subsidy. And if the overall policy objective is to ensure that poor places receive economic resources, you could do that by giving them money. So that the people of St. Louis or Cleveland or wherever could decide if subsidizing airline service is what their community best needs. But it seems to me that air travel is associated with lots of negative pollution externalities and we should tax it, not subsidize it. I think that this view is mistaken. If there is one reason why “neoliberalism” most deserves the pejorative connotation it has taken, I’d argue it is the tendency to look through the forest ecosystem of human communities and see only a bunch of individual trees. Yglesias makes this error here with a twist, he looks through the national community to metropolitan communities, and treats these as independent actors whose choices or wealth are all that matter. The case for supporting a rich transportation infrastructure to and from St. Louis or Cleveland isn’t (just) that we wish those communities well like some distant acquaintance. It is because we wish to build and support a vibrant and cohesive nation. The fate of American places is not a private concern of other people. Their struggles are our struggles. Their catastrophes are a cancer on our body politic. It is desperately urgent, the most urgent problem we face in my view, to mend some of the many ways that we find ourselves fraying as a nation. Yglesias appreciates this in other contexts. For example, he has proposed spreading the Federal government around, which would among other things help blur and heal the divide between “Washington” (an idea more than a place) and the increasing fraction of the country which feels alienated from it. There is a burgeoning industry among pundits for proposals like this, break up the liberal city, spread out the universities, pay a UBI, etc. And that is unironically great. Hopefully we will do some of these things. But the case for transportation infrastructure, meaning not just the physical facilities, but the institutions required to ensure rapid, convenient movement between places, is doubly strong. Like those other ideas, building transportation infrastructure provides and encourages economic development within far-flung communities, reducing the geographic disparities that now threaten the viability of the United States as an integrated polity. But transportation infrastructure also very directly binds distant parts of the polity together, and reduces the likelihood that dangerous disparity will develop or endure. If Cincinnati has abundant and cheap air transportation capacity that will remain whether it is fully utilized or not, firms in New York and DC and San Francisco will start thinking about how they can take advantage of the lower costs of those regions in a context of virtual geographic proximity. When decisions about transportation capacity are left to private markets, a winner-take-all dynamic takes hold that is understandable and reasonable from a business perspective, but is contrary to the national interest. Private entrepreneurs cannot overcome this. Even if an airline were to “adopt” an underserved city, providing transportation at a loss in hopes that a business renaissance later justifies it, firms will be discouraged from moving in by the ever present risk that the service will disappear or the terms will worsen. Only a commitment at a policy level to abundant and inexpensive transportation can eliminate this risk. It’s a cliché that the government builds “bridges to nowhere” that the private sector never would build. That’s true. And it’s a credit to the public sector. Bridges to nowhere are what turn nowheres into somewheres. We need many, many more bridges to nowhere. Finally, I want to express my annoyance at a trope in punditry about air travel that is as common as it is mistaken. Here is Kevin Drum: So flying sucks because we, the customers, have made it clear that we don’t care. We love to gripe, but we just flatly aren’t willing to pay more for a better experience. Certain individuals (i.e., the 10 percent of the population over six feet tall) are willing to pay for legroom. Some are willing to pay more for extra baggage. Some are willing to pay more for a window seat. But most of us aren’t. If the ticket price on We Care Airlines is $10 more, we click the link for Suck It Up Airlines. We did the same thing before the web too. As usual, the fault lies not in the stars, but in ourselves. Here is Megan McArdle, in a piece titled (by somebody) “Hate Flying? It’s Your Fault”: Ultimately, the reason airlines cram us into tiny seats and upcharge for everything is that we’re out there on Expedia and Kayak, shopping on exactly one dimension: the price of the flight. To win business, airlines have to deliver the absolute lowest fare. And the way to do that is . . . to cram us into tiny seats and upcharge for everything. If American consumers were willing to pay more for a better experience, they’d deliver it. We’re not, and they don’t. There are two things wrong with this line that air travel is awful because consumers’ true revealed preference is that it should be awful and cheap. First, there is the fact that air travel managed by the main domestic carriers in the United States is uniquely awful, and there is no evidence that US travelers are any more price conscious than consumers in other countries. No frills, discount air travel is popular in Europe as well, and it is sometimes awful, but it is on the whole much cheaper than “discount” air travel within the US. Mainstream carriers almost everywhere else in the developed world are notably less awful than the big American carriers, and often just as cheap. Second, this line of reasoning reflects a very basic misinterpretation of economics. Aggregate outcomes are not in general or even usually interpretable as an aggregation of individual preferences. When we learn about the Prisoners’ Dilemma, we don’t interpret the fact that both players rat as evidence that, really, they both just wanted to go to jail for a long time. After all, that is their revealed preference, right? No. We understand that the arrangement that would obtain if they could cooperatively regulate one another’s behavior is in fact the outcome that they would prefer. As isolated individuals, they simply have no capacity to express this preference. The same may well be true of air travel. As individuals, we face some degree of choice between price and quality when we purchase plane tickets, and maybe it’s true that under present circumstances, most of us don’t reveal a preference for paying much for quality. [1] But as individuals we face a very different trade-off than we do collectively, in aggregate. In particular, as individuals the amenity value of a flight is highly uncertain, whether we mean to pay up for quality or not. No matter how much we pay for extra leg room, we may end up next to the screaming kid. Our “media center” may be malfuctioning even while our neighbors watch an endless series of bad action films, and ultimately there is nothing we can do but nag the flight attendant about it. The wifi may be decent, or it may be crap, however much we pay for it. On an individual level, it is perfectly rational to discount a highly uncertain return in amenity value relative to what one would pay for a reliably enjoyable flight. [2] But because customers choose what to pay as individuals, airlines’ incentive to invest in quality reflects the tiny uncertainty-discounted value of amenities, not the value that travelers would place on those amenities if they were far more reliably provided. Reflecting this, airlines don’t invest much in quality, so quality differential between US airlines tends to be small relative to the uncertainty surrounding the experience. And so customers shop based almost exclusively on price, because they rationally discount small, extremely uncertain quality differentials to near zero. But that creates incentives for airlines to compete by continually downgrading quality to optimize on price. When you or I buy a plane ticket, we are not expressing a preference between the standards of service that obtained in 1976 and the price that would be required to support that vs the indignities and somewhat lower prices of today. With each budget airline ticket purchase, we are expressing a preference only over a very tiny and uncertain quality differential. It is quite possible (I would say quite probable) that the behavior in aggregate that results from those individual choices reflects quite the opposite of our true preferences. If that is the case, as in the Prisoners’ Dilemma, the solution to the problem would be to cooperate to regulate the circumstance in which our isolated, individual choices yield bad outcomes. Competitive races to places you don’t want to go are in fact a very common phenomenon. Most of us don’t, for example, claim that if workers who compete for jobs find they must accept unsafe workplaces, that merely reflects individuals’ preferences about trade-offs between pay and safety. We understand that there is a competitive dynamic that can leave workers with little choice but to accept crappy jobs, and employers with little choice but to scrimp on safety (however personally virtuous an individual business owner may mean to be). The solution to this problem isn’t to talk about how we are all terrible people and we bring this on ourselves. Instead, we invent OSHA, which is a means by which business owners coordinate to ensure that behaving decently is consistent with business survival in the context of continuing competitive dynamics. [1] That is contestable, given how much the airlines now make in fees for things one might describe as disaggregated dimensions of quality — extra leg room, priority boarding, food, any baggage at all. [2] It makes sense that people who purchase “diversified portfolios of air travel amenities” — very frequent fliers — would more rather than less likely to pay up for amenities than infrequent travelers, despite the multiplication of costs. And I think that is the case. Am I right? 14-Apr-2017, 10:50 a.m. PDT: “…makes this error here with a twist, he looks through the natural national community to metropolitan…” 16-Apr-2017, 10:35 p.m. PDT: “…days. Piece Pieces like this have a long pedigree. Here…”; “building transportation infrastructure provides and encourage encourages economic development” Steve Randy Waldman — Friday, April 14th, 2017 at 1:01 am PDT [ 19 comments ] A tao of politics Most uses of language can be understood in both referential and functional terms. If I tell the policeman “He ran the red light”, in referential terms I am claiming that, in some world external to my language, there was a car driven by a person I refer to as “he” which crossed an intersection while a red lightbulb was lit. But my words have functions as well, quite apart from what they refer to. A person might be fined or go to jail as a consequence of what I say. I might be conveniently exonerated of responsibility for an accident. Those consequences might be independent of the referential accuracy of the remark. Or they might not be. Perhaps there will be other corroborations, and inconvenient penalties if I am deemed to have lied. Regardless, it is simultaneously true that words refer to things and utterances have consequences. Both as speakers and as listeners (or as writers and as readers) we need to consider the “meaning” of a use of language on both levels if we are to communicate effectively. Often there are tensions between referential accuracy and functional utility. Referential accuracy does not necessarily imply virtue. Whether we agree with the practice or not, we all understand what is meant by a “white lie”. Statements with identical referential meaning can yield profoundly different social consequences depending on how they are said. To “speak diplomatically” does not mean to lie, but rather to pay especial attention to the likely effects of an utterance while trying to retain referential accuracy. To “spin” has a similar meaning but a different connotation, it suggests subordinating referential clarity to functional aspects of speech in a crassly self-interested way. But paying attention to the functional role of language is not in itself self-interested or crass. We all pay attention to how we speak as well as what we say. If we did not, we would needlessly harm people. Even if we are scrupulously truthful, we all make choices about what to say and what to omit, when to speak and when to remain silent. When we discuss our inner lives, often the consequences of our utterances are more clear (even to ourselves) than their referential accuracy, and perhaps we let the desirability of the consequences define what we take to be the truth. Perhaps that is not, or not always, without virtue. This bifurcation of language into referential and functional strikes me as illuminating of the stereotyped left-right axis in politics. In broad, almost cartoonish, terms, one might describe a “left” view that humans as individuals have limited power over their own lives, so the work of politics is to organize collectively to create circumstances and institutions that yield desirable social outcomes. The “right” view is that, absent interference by collectivities that are inevitably blind to fine-grained circumstances (and that usually are corrupt), individuals have a great deal of power over their own lives, so that differences in outcome mostly amount to “just desserts”. It’s obvious why there might be some conflict between people who hold these different views. On the key, core, question of whether individuals have a great deal of power or very limited power to control outcomes in their own lives, the stereotyped left view is, in referential terms, more accurate. If you are born in poverty in a war-torn country and fail to achieve a comfortable American-style upper-middle-class life style, it’s hard to say that’s on you, even if some very tiny sliver of your countrymen do manage to survive to adulthood, emigrate, and prosper. In narrower contexts, the question becomes less clear. For those lucky enough to be born in a developed country, are differences in outcome mostly a result of individual agency? For Americans born white, raised in middle-class comfort, and provided an education? For people born with identical genes? The case that differences in outcome result from choices under the control of individuals, for which they might be held responsible, grows stronger as we restrict the sample to people facing more similar circumstances. But even among the most narrow of cohorts, shit happens. People get sick, debilitated even, through no fault of their own. As a general proposition, individual human action is overwhelmed by circumstance and entropy. Policies designed with grit and bootstraps for their engine and individual choice for their steering wheel usually fail to achieve good social outcomes. This is the sense in which it’s true that “the facts have a well-known liberal bias“. But, before the left-ish side of the world takes a self-satisfied gloat, it should face an uncomfortable hitch. In functional terms, widespread acceptance of the false-ish right-ish claim — that people have a great deal of power over their own lives, and so should be held responsible as individuals for differences in outcome — may be important to the success of the forms of collective organization that people with more accurate, left-ish views strive to implement. This isn’t a hard case to make. A good society, qua left-ish intuitions, might provide a lot of insurance to citizens against vicissitudes of circumstance. A generous welfare state might cushion the experience of joblessness, housing and medical care might be provided as a right, a basic cash income might be provided to all. But a prosperous society with a generous welfare state requires a lot of people to be doing hard work, including lots of work people might prefer not to do. If people are inclined to see their own and others’ affairs as products of circumstance, they might easily forgive themselves accepting the benefits of a welfare state while working little to support it, and even lobbying for more. They might find it difficult to criticize or stigmatize others who do the same. That would lead to welfare-state collapse, the standard right-wing prediction. But if an ethos of agency and personal responsibility prevails, if differences in outcome are attributed to individual choices even in ways that are not descriptively accurate, if as a social matter people discriminate between justifiable and unjustifiable uses of public benefits and stigmatize the latter, the very prevalence of a right-wing view of human affairs might falsify the right-wing prediction and help to sustain the left-wing welfare state. Conversely, the existence of a left-wing social democratic welfare state renders the right-wing view less wrong, because it diminishes disparity of circumstance, increasing the degree to which differences in outcome actually can be attributed to individuals’ choices. Irreconcilable views reinforce one another. God is an ironist. If left-ish views are referentially accurate while right-ish views are functionally useful, then a wise polity will require an awkward superposition of left-ish perspectives to inform policy design and right-ish perspectives as public ethos. Singapore is ostentatiously capitalist, is widely perceived as a kind of protolibertarian paradise, yet it builds a rich welfare state out of mandatory, government-controlled “savings” and extensive intervention in health care and housing markets. The Scandinavian countries are left-wing social democracies, built on a politics of trade union solidarity, yet the right-wing Heritage Foundation ranks them about as “economically free” as the United States despite governments that spend much larger shares of GDP. Nordic politicians bristle at being called “socialist”, and they maintain higher levels of labor-force participation than the welfare-stingy US. Like Yin and Yang, black and white, right and left might stand perpetually in opposition even as they require one another to form a coherently incoherent whole. Steve Randy Waldman — Wednesday, March 29th, 2017 at 8:21 pm PDT [ 17 comments ] You tell me it’s the institution “The idea of Social Security, which some reactionaries used to label as alien to the American tradition, has become so firmly rooted here in America that business, labor, finance, and all political parties now accept it as a permanent system.” — FDR (1938) Lyman Stone is a wonderful writer I have only recently discovered. (Thanks Will Wilkinson!) You should read everything he writes. This, unfortunately, is not his best work. But it presents a useful occasion to say some things about “institutions”. “Institution” is one of those words much more frequently used than understood. It has multiple, quite different meanings, both in common usage and as a term-of-art in social affairs. Let’s go through a few of them. (I’m sure there are more. The word itself is an institution.) In its most common usage, “institution” most just means formal organization. We might say “Bluegrass Community and Technical College is an educational institution”. The pompous president of a corporation might regale assembled shareholders with an account of how things are proceeding “in this institution”. A second meaning in common usage is simply something unusually prominent or important to some community. “That crazy hot-dog vendor is an institution in this town.” Or, um, “The word itself is an institution.” In discussions of social affairs, the word “institution” does not mean either of those things, exactly. Because language, even technical language, is beautiful, and because language, in order to form itself, feeds upon associations and connections in the minds of those who affect to wield it, you will find echoes and overlaps between the word’s common-use meanings and its meanings in social theory. But they are not the same. A narrow definition of “institution” in social theory is something like “a pattern of social behavior in which participants occupy stereotyped roles which are independent of the identities of the individuals who perform them”. Motherhood is an institution, while your habit of babysitting your friend’s nephew is not. The former is a general social pattern independent of the people who, multiply and at different times, perform the roles of mother and child. The latter is just something you happen to do. If you become famous and “friendnephewsitting” becomes a widely adopted practice then, yes, then it would become an institution. But, for now, no. On the bright side, babysitting itself is most certainly an institution. You’ll always have that. Finally, there is a broader use of “institution” in social affairs. Economists, God help us, frequently refer to things like “the quality of a nation’s institutions” in spinning just-so stories about why some countries thrive and other falter. They don’t mean to say that one country does patterns-of-social-behavior-with-stereotyped-roles better than any other. All human agglomerations form institutions in that sense just fine. Motherhood, for example, is close to universal. Bribery is most certainly an institution, prominent to various degrees in many polities. Most economists (but not always or all, this is interestingly contested) would deem prominence of bribery as an institution in society to be reflective of “low quality institutions”, however fervently and frequently the practice is enacted. All societies have “strong institutions”, in the sense of having entrenched patterns of social behavior. However, different societies enact different institutions. When an economist makes comparisons between the quality of a country’s institutions, she is not referring to their resilience or ubiquity. She is making judgments about the adaptiveness of the bundle of patterns-of-social-behavior-with-stereotyped-roles prominent in one country relative to the mix of institutions found elsewhere. This agglomerative usage of institutions is the most common one in policy discussions. When we talk about some entity’s “institutions”, we are using that as a shorthand for the patterns of social behavior we observe within it. I have quietly dropped the qualification -with-stereotyped-roles, which we so emphasized in the first, technical definition. That is on purpose. In practice, outside of specific technical contexts, the word institution has come to mean simply any pattern of social behavior that might form part of a portfolio of such patterns which together constitute the je ne sais quoi of a group. Institutions become the stuff that gives different collections of humans distinct character even under identical circumstances. You might think of them as atoms of “culture”, another vague and grandly abused term. But then you might object — you should object! — that purely individual propensities, when aggregated, also contribute to “culture”. True, true! Fortunately, the agglomerative usage of “institutions” is so teleological and imprecise that it amoebically comes to encompass even purely individual propensities, to the degree that they are claimed to affect the quality of the aggregated whole. Individual thrift, for example, becomes an “institution”, because people claim that such thriftiness is material to the character and adaptedness of the whole. This usage creep can be misleading, sometimes dangerously so. For example, it’s not particularly plausible to suggest that elaborate patterns-of-social-behavior-with-stereotyped-roles, like representative democracy, are heritable genetic traits. But it may be plausible that individual propensities are heritable. Once we let individual propensities sneak into our definition of “institution”, then it becomes plausible that at least some institutions are genetic. But if “institutions” can be genetic, so can representative democracy, right? Things go downhill very quickly from there. This usage of “institutions” becomes infuriatingly vague, but that may be why it is so prevalent. We need labels for all the things that we can’t quite pin down, because we know there are things we can’t pin down that are important in their effects. Social scientists frequently try to identify or operationalize “institutions”, to come up with comparative datasets of institutional character or quality. But these empirical exercises necessarily impose very contestable models of which particular institutions are relevant to the outcomes they measure — “An independent judiciary!”, “Fast business formation!”. Measurement is a huge problem. Societies may have the formal trappings of institutions (reminiscent of our first common usage) without the behavioral substance researchers intend to measure. The formal constitution of an autocracy might be idealistic and democratic, for example, but that obscures rather than reveals the actual institutions of the state. Characterizing institutions is hard. Casual attempts often reveal more about the prejudices of the attempter than they do about the society ostensibly described. The way I like to think of “institutions” is this: Institutions are to groups what habits are to individuals. Attributing social differences to institutions is similar to attributing individual differences to varations of habit. It’s not wrong or entirely meaningless, but it’s also unsatisfying, incomplete, a bit tautological. How and why did the different habits, individual or collective, emerge? What sustains or might undo them? Changing social institutions is a process similar and similarly fraught to changing habits. Just as it is not enough to simply resolve to stop smoking, if you mean to break the habit of smoking, the mere passage of a law or enactment of a policy may not succeed at changing social conditions embedded in our collective habits. But that does not mean we are helpless, that (in Stone’s mistaken assertion) “the point of institutions is that they are not usually malleable to directed change”. If we wish to stop smoking, we do resolve to stop smoking, but we also work to change our circumstances and incentives in ways that support the desired change. We might avoid smoky bars (or we might have, back when there were still smoky bars). We might wear a nicotine patch, or take drugs that block the effect of inhaled nicotine. That is, to change habits, we do not merely resolve, but we act strategically upon ourselves as though we were an object as well as a subject. We change institutions all the time, and in precisely the same way. There is nothing magical or mysterious or necessarily even hard about creating, modifying, or undoing social institutions. In my other life, I do a lot of work related to blockchains, which interest me precisely because they are a technology for reifying the kinds of circumstances and incentives that contribute to institution formation, and they are amenable to intentional construction and directed change. It is a trick of conservatives — who, when they live up to their name, wish by definition to prevent some kind of change — to claim that the status quo is immutable, change is impossible, unnatural. Attempts would be destructive. Conservatives try to ground the way things are in mysteries of culture, in ancient hatreds or deep currents of history, in arcana of genetics or race, or, now that they are vague and fashionable, in “institutions”[*]. But institutional change happens every day, all the time, at a micro level within families and businesses, at a political level sometimes quite abruptly, often though not always in directions that were explicitly conceived and intended. As individuals we sometimes find we have fallen into unintended habits. At a social level we sometimes find ourselves in institutions that are harmful or dysfunctional. In either case, we try to change. If we are serious and strategic, sometimes we can. Meaningful social change occurs at three different levels, at a policy level, an ideological level, and an institutional level. The art of politics is to engender resonance between all three, between the technocratic formalities of policy, and the worldview we take for granted, and the interactions we find ourselves performing. No one says that it is easy. When you think about all the moving parts involved, it is a miracle that any one of us even breathes. But we do breathe. And societies do change, frequently, often as a result of intentional work on the part of people within them. [*] “Conservative” doesn’t mean good or bad. We are all sometimes “conservatives”. I suspect many readers of this blog are conservative with respect to some changes that we fear a Trump administration might make. We speak frequently of hopes that “American institutions” will resist those changes. By “American institutions” we mean both formal organizations like the court system, but also the habits and tendencies of Americans. It’s not ridiculous to hope that changing longstanding expectations and behaviors will prove difficult. But it would be a mistake to imagine our institutions so mysterious and refractory that they could not be altered, so we are surely safe. If our circumstances and incentives change, we will change. Preventing that, or shaping it, is a live challenge. Steve Randy Waldman — Monday, March 13th, 2017 at 4:25 am PDT [ 10 comments ] A lot of arguments which ought to be about politics become arguments about principles or morality. We can have interesting arguments over competing values, like weighing the concrete harms that might be done by publicly outing undocumented students against support for free expression and nonviolence. Even when we share similar values, people will weigh tradeoffs between them differently to arrive at very different conclusions. And that’s great. But it isn’t politics. Among the communities that I am a part of, within the well-appointed ghetto I live in, there is an unusual degree of consensus that we are living through a dangerous time, that the current governing coalition of our country represents a mix of malignity and incompetence so hazardous that our absolute priority must be to check and constrain it. That is much less a moral or ethical problem than it is a practical one. Within the political system we have inherited, with its quirks and virtues and flaws, how can we ensure that we have and can sustain the capacity to block the most terrible things? There are, thank goodness, the courts. They sabotaged the ACA Medicaid expansion, stranding millions of low-income people in Red states without healthcare. They prevented implementation of President Obama’s humane expansion of DACA and implementation of DAPA. But now they have also prevented implementation of President Trump’s ugly executive order on immigration, which is terrible in its content but absolutely terrifying in light of the manner in which it was initially (and intentionally, I think) implemented. So, yay courts. The courts are important, but not enough. The main and most durable check on the powers of the executive in our system is the legislative branch, the Congress. Like a lot of people, I’ve been very impressed with the Indivisible Guide. I certainly recommend that people read it and join into the sort of groups and coalitions that it recommends. The Indivisible Guide quite self-consciously takes a page from the Tea Party’s playbook, and notes that “If a small minority in the Tea Party could stop President Obama, then we the majority can stop a petty tyrant named Trump.” It advises people on effective ways to put the fear of God into their own Members of Congress to ensure that they do the right thing. I want to be clear that I encourage readers to download and read the Indivisible Guide, and to absolutely to engage in the manner that it prescribes. But I think that won’t be enough. The Tea Party, for all of its grassroots energy and astroturf money, might not have had much success if Republicans had not commanded legislative majorities. The Tea Party was effective because its activists were direct constituents to members of the dominant party in Congress, direct not just in the geographic sense of being citizens of their states or districts, but in the concrete sense of being the very same people who voted them into office. The threat of defection by Tea Partiers had real teeth, because it jeopardized members’ electoral coalitions, and their safest and most effective strategy for reelection is to hold their coalitions rather than gamble on alienating old voters to win new ones. However activated the anti-Trump base becomes, even in Republican districts of Red states, members of Congress have little reason to care if they believe that the suddenly engaged members of their constituency are people who didn’t vote for them the last time and who, under current conditions of party polarization, are unlikely to vote for them the next time. This fact is in-your-face visible right now, with members of Congress literally hanging up the phones on passionate voters. When Jason Chaffetz accuses citizens of his district of being part of some “paid attempt to bully and intimidate”, it’s not because he is so foolish as to actually believe that. It reflects a calculation on his part that he can afford to neglect and alienate the people he heard from, because they were people who hadn’t voted for him and never would. In my opinion, there is no substitute for actually persuading people who might not already be on our side. Could any claim be more banal than to say that politics is about persuading people? However, for a variety of reasons, I think at this political moment, it’s a claim that needs defending. There is a temptation among the most committed activists to be fatalistic about the possibility of persuasion, to imagine that all of those who are not already with us are irredeemable, or that our actions will be so misrepresented by a hostile media bubble that the substance of what we actually do or don’t do makes no difference at all in the court of public opinion. These views are seductive, because they carry with them a whiff of liberation. If persuasion is impossible, then we need not placate, propitiate, conciliate, mollify. We need worry no longer about “optics”. We are free to act, to #resist, to #disrupt. As Mad Dog Mattis put it, when the enemy deserves it, “it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.” I suspect that applies pretty well to punching Nazis too. If you tell me, as a moral proposition, that punching Nazis is virtuous, I can’t say that you are necessarily wrong. Moreover, Carl Beijer writes, “If you are seriously willing to entertain sympathy for a Nazi for any reason, it was probably just a matter of time until you found an excuse [to support a fascist crackdown]” If that is true, no political harm can possibly have been done by the violence and there is no reason to worry about politics or “think globally”. You are free to fight locally, by any means necessary and with no apology. But Beijer’s claim is not, actually, a supportable view of human affairs. Lots of people who under almost no circumstance would support a fascist crackdown oppose freelance political violence even against people whose views they actively abhor. Mock them as liberals, if you like, but as Jedediah Purdy reminds us [C]riticism of liberals [does not mean] jettisoning or demoting the core liberal commitments to personal freedom, especially free speech and other civil liberties. The point of the left’s criticism of liberals is that these sorts of rights are not enough to secure dignified lives or meaningful self-rule under capitalism, inherited racial inequality, and an ever-deepening surveillance state. Liberal values are not enough; but they are essential. A broader left program would work to deepen people’s lived experience of liberty, equality, and democracy—values to which liberals and the left share a commitment. The people who gave the ACLU 24.1 million dollars over a weekend (including me) did so despite knowing the organization has a long history of defending the speech of Nazis and Klansmen. That is not to say that the ACLU was necessarily right in any of these cases. It is not to say, as an ethical or a political matter, that Milo Yiannapolis’ claim to a right to speak at Berkeley outweighs the harms he might have done by identifying undocumented students. It is simply to say that ideas like “free speech” and “nonviolence” are in fact important political commitments that shape people’s allegiances and voting decisions, and that a political movement that wishes to be effective would weigh the costs of contravening those commitments against the benefits of actions that might seem to violate them. Even if you think these commitments are shams, because “free speech” in practice is refracted through far-from-neutral corporate media, because unaccountable political violence is tolerated or perpetrated by the state all the time, it doesn’t alter the fact that most Americans don’t share your view, and will perceive violations of even of what may be Potemkin norms as discrediting. That may not be right or fair, or it may be, but we are not talking about that. We are talking about politics. If you think this stuff doesn’t matter, that, after all, broken windows and burnt limousines, a punched Nazi and a silenced provocateur will be forgotten by the next news cycle, I don’t think you paid very close attention to the Presidential election. Donald Trump, an authoritarian protofascist, ran and won to a significant degree by exploiting a wedge that has opened up between commitments to civil liberties and civil rights. The question of who are the authoritarians, who are the bullies, is actively contested in American politics, and not just by Rush-Limbaugh-types shouting “Feminazi!” When Trump supporters complain about “political correctness”, they are claiming that contemporary liberal norms have rendered it socially costly for them to speak freely and candidly even when they mean no harm. They may be wrong to complain. Perhaps stigmatizing all but the most careful forms of expression around matters of race and sexuality and gender is in fact the best way to prevent severe harms to vulnerable people, and is a development that should be celebrated. Regardless, many Americans, whether they are right or wrong and even if they are mostly white, perceive a cost in personal freedom to these norms. They have not been convinced that those costs are just or necessary, especially in light of their own increasing vulnerability and grievance. Whether or not their discontent is legitimate, whether or not they are right to assert an ethical problem, their perception constitutes a political problem. Much of the work of Breitbart and Yiannapolis is explicitly devoted to widening the perceived incompatibility of civil rights and their supporters’ civil liberties. You can have one or the other, they suggest, a state in which men with arms protect your ordered freedoms, or one in which “those people” — liberals and Muslims and Black people and Berkeley students — are free and run roughshod over your liberties with tools ranging from accusations of racism to Molotov cocktails. Our work should be the opposite, to demonstrate that despite some tensions, commitments to civil rights and civil liberties can in fact be reconciled. A cosmopolitan, multiethnic America need not be a place where protection of everyone’s rights leave anyone unfree. It shouldn’t be so hard to persuade people that antifascism is profreedom. But this is where we are. The greatest mistake we can make, in my view, is to not try to persuade. Persuasion is not about elegant logic or Oxford-style debates. It is about interacting, with good will and in good faith, with people who look at things differently, and working to understand how they see things so that you can help them understand how you see things. Persuasion involves a meeting of minds, and very frequently alterations of circumstance and behavior by all involved. An argument can be persuasive, but so can a touch, an ongoing friendship, membership in a club, or a new set of coworkers. Persuasion is not academic. It comes not from dispassionate observation of objects, but the interaction and interplay of subjects. Persuasion is personal. Laughter helps. If your response to all this is to scoff, to call forth images of thugs or buffoons from Trump rallies or Gas-Chamber Twitter and mock the possibility of a “meeting of minds”, perhaps I can appeal to our shared identity as reasonable people and remind you that it is an error to conflate vivid with representative. I might also remind you how frequently that same word “thug” is used precisely to supplant the representative with the lurid in order to deceive people about members of other political communities. I might finally remind you that even if I am too optimistic, and the really awful are more representative of the other side than I think, we need only persuade the best 10% of them to put the fear of a much better God into Red-state legislators and to completely flip the arithmetic of political dominance in our country, despite its gerrymandered districts and quirky Electoral College. Ours is a political coalition that considers itself rational and open-minded, tolerant and cosmopolitan, and in many respects I think that is right. Multiculturalism means not fearing what is ugly in other cultures (and let’s not be so chauvinistic as to imagine we have a monopoly on ugly), but instead embracing what is wonderful. It means placing faith in the capacity of all of our better angels to guide us towards mutually enriching coexistence rather than mutually destructive conflict. We take pride in embracing and respecting people who look and act very differently than we do, who follow strange creeds the substance of which we might disagree with, who follow customs that may render us uncomfortable and require an unusual degree of diplomacy when we are called to interact in any intimacy. These habits and skills, of which I think we are justly proud, are precisely what are required of us now. If we can be as open and charitable and welcoming and diplomatic across the fault lines which have snuck up within our politics as we are towards those we more easily recognize as outsiders, we have a real shot, not only to reconfigure the electoral numbers game, but also to forge a shared understanding that would transform what must begin as a pragmatic exercise in politics into an ethical enterprise after all. 14-Feb-2017, 10:20 p.m. PST: “I suspect that applies pretty well to punching Nazis as well too“; “reflects a calculation on his part that he can afford to neglect and alienate the people he heard from, because they were people who hadn’t voted for him the last time and weren’t going to vote for him the next time anyway and never would“ 16-Feb-2017, 11:50 p.m. PST: Added link behind “authoritarian protofascist” to the event that perhaps most immediately called forth that characterization. Steve Randy Waldman — Monday, February 13th, 2017 at 12:34 pm PST [ 68 comments ] Party polarization is endogenous Centrist wonks lament party polarization, but rarely point out that it’s not something that just happened. In the context of heterogeneous political geography and malleable district boundaries, a two-party system doesn’t yield the centrism it is often credited with, but a superficial and artificial polarization that demands an eventual populist response. Party polarization is the endogenous and predictable result of incentives created by a first-past-the-post voting system susceptible to gerrymandering. For gerrymandering to work, the voting behavior of citizens must be identifiable and stable. The way gerrymandering works is to decrease the number of votes that are “wasted” in safe localities by redistricting a party’s voters into less safe or marginally unfavorable localities where they might tilt the balance. The expected outcome is more, closer, wins for the gerrymandering party. However, those closer wins are necessarily more fragile. Even small shifts in party identification or voting behavior, any deviation from the roles assigned to each of us by the gerrymanderers, can undo all their good work. Worse still, deviations are rarely idiosyncratic to a single district. Gerrymandering leaves a party more vulnerable to systematic deviations, which make “wave elections”. Thus gerrymandering creates incentives for incumbents and party operatives to try to cement party identification in stone. Candidates in both parties emphasize issues on which their members are unusually unified and the other party’s members are unusually opposed over issues that might be more important to their constituents, but less clearly drawn across party lines. They then work very hard to make positions on these issues, and only these issues, tribal markers, essential to voters’ identities. We end up in a world with extreme polarization of party platform and identification, despite not so much actual polarization among voters when a broader spectrum of issues than those emphasized by the parties is considered. A puzzle in this account is why the party disadvantaged on net by gerrymandering should play along. The answer to this is simple. Both parties gerrymander when they get to draw the lines, although the Republicans gerrymandered unusually aggressively and with unusual success in 2010. Further, even absent gerrymandering, both parties “naturally” have districts where they have some advantage, but where elections remain close and competitive. The safest strategy for an incumbent member of Congress in a closely divided district is to cement in place the coalition that brung her the last time, rather than roll the dice on poaching her opponent’s voters (which may open up her own voters to poaching). Incumbent members of Congress in both parties tend to prefer a stably polarized electorate to one in which common ground increases the uncertainty surrounding voter behavior. Even when this disadvantages the national party, in the social science cliché, it’s a case of concentrated benefits and widely dispersed costs. Post 2010, nationally, the Democrats might have been better off de-emphasizing party-polarized issues and embracing causes with cross-party popular appeal. But neither members of Congress individually, nor party activists who’ve made their careers and raised their funds as fighters across well-worn political battle lines, would assent to that strategy. Further, issues with broad popular appeal that have been neglected by both political parties are often issues to which both parties’ “donor classes” are allergic. Steve Randy Waldman — Wednesday, February 1st, 2017 at 12:40 pm PST [ 20 comments ] earliest posts

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Internet Access Local State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Comprehensive Internet Service Provider (ISP) Guide Internet Access in 92626 (Costa Mesa, CA) Internet Connectivity in 92626 ^ An estimated 33,552 of residents in 92626 are connected to the Internet either at home, work, elsewhere or at multiple locations [1]. Internet Availability in 92626 ^ Collectively (all cities), 76.6% of all California residents live in a household where Internet is available, which ranks 28th in the nation [2]. Connected in 92626 ^ There are an estimated 15,789 residents in 92626 who are not connected to the Internet at all - whether at home, work, or elsewhere [1]. Internet Speed in 92626 (Costa Mesa, CA) Landline Internet Speed in 92626 Sorry, speed data is not currently available. Wireless Internet Speed in 92626 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in 92626 (Costa Mesa, CA) Landline Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in 92626 Type of Internet Service Offered Maximum advertised download speed Maximum advertised upload speed Asymmetric DSL 10 Mb/s - 25 Mb/s 1.5 Mb/s - 3 Mb/s Cable Modem 50 Mb/s - 100 Mb/s 3 Mb/s - 6 Mb/s MegaPath Other Copper Wireline 10 Mb/s - 25 Mb/s 10 Mb/s - 25 Mb/s Wireless Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in 92626 Wireless 3 Mb/s - 6 Mb/s 768 Kb/s - 1.5 Mb/s Wireless 10 Mb/s - 25 Mb/s 3 Mb/s - 6 Mb/s Featured ISPs for 92626 Fast, reliable broadband connections Allows you to connect all Wi-Fi-enabled devices Bundle with phone or other services for bigger discounts America's #1 choice for satellite Internet is now better than ever! HughesNet Gen4: Satellite Internet that moves at the speed of you. Faster speeds. Greater download capacity. Get Ready to Do More. Plans up to 15x faster than before. 92626 Internet Statistics 92626 Internet Connectivity 92626: 68% of residents are connected, with 28.1% of the population connected on multiple devices [1]. Connected to the Internet in 92626 92626 Internet Connectivity [1] An estimated 33,552 92626 residents are connected to the Internet in some capacity - either at home, work, elsewhere or at multiple locations. An estimated 15,789 92626 residents are not connected to the Internet. These residents are not connected at home, work, or elsewhere. 92626 Internet Availability [2] It is estimated that 37,795 92626 residents live in a household where Internet is available. Household Income in 92626 92626: The median household income is $78,833 and 12% of households are below poverty level [6]. Additional information about 92626 About 92626 The region associated with ZIP code 92626 has an approximate population of 49,341 [2] and is located in Orange County in California. Internet Access in 92626 For more information about 92626 Internet Access, or for additional resources regarding California Internet access overall, visit California Public Utilities Commission . More About 92626 Of all residents in 92626, 78% have a high school diploma or higher, and 27% have a bachelor's degree or higher [6]. Cities in CA More ZIP Codes in CA 1. ^ Bureau of Labor Statistics & Bureau of Census 2. ^ United States Census Bureau 3. ^ Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 4. ^ FCC & National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) 5. ^ National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) 6. ^ NTIA & U.S. Census Bureau States: AZ | CA | CO | CT | FL | GA | IL | MA | MI | MN | NC | NY | OH | OR | PA | TX | VA | WA | WI | See all (map) About Our Local Internet Guides Internet Access Local is an extensive collection of data, statistics, information and other resources regarding Internet Service Providers in local areas throughout the United States. Our comprehensive Internet access guides help consumers learn about local ISPs and find fast, affordable service. ISPs in 92626 (Costa Mesa, CA) U.S. Internet Statistics about | contact | privacy © Copyright 2020 Internet Access Local

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The Ideal Shopping Experience: Can Technology Deliver? This article was first published on the The Guardian here. Rapid technological advances have turned shopping into a non-stop laboratory for testing out new ways to entice shoppers to tap their plastic and get spending. Shops are roadtesting everything from virtual reality headsets and magic mirrors to digital mannequins, while self-service checkouts have become commonplace in supermarkets. At the same time, apps, m-commerce websites and location-based advertising is turning your mobile phone into a shopping device. But in the rush to embrace the future, retailers risk leaving shoppers behind. It’s all too easy to forget that technology is purely a means to creating a more convenient, personalised offering – not an end in itself. With this in mind, the Guardian brought together a group of senior retailers, marketers and ad executives for a roundtable discussion sponsored by location-based mobile advertising company xAd. The discussion featured insights into how technology will change the way we shop in the future. Wider trends in retailing – from changing attitudes to consumption, to the fluctuating fortunes of the economy – were also touched upon. Participants were mostly positive that retail will change for the better over the next five years, but some were concerned about the scope for installing hi-tech gadgets for their own sake. “Technology is not your source of innovation,” said Runar Reistrup, chief executive of Depop, a marketplace mobile app for independent retailers. “Your source of innovation is the changing needs of customers. You need to innovate on value. Technology can help you find that value and scale it.” This view was shared by John Vary, innovation manager at John Lewis. “It’s got to the point now where we can do pretty much whatever we like with technology,” he said. “The question is: how can we humanise it to the point where our customers, no matter what their demographic, can actually engage in a way that is beneficial?” John Lewis is experimenting with virtual reality headsets to create a virtual shopping catalogue where customers “can actually walk through the space, encounter the fireplace and feel the heat,” Vary said. Although he warned: “We’ve seen a lot of immersive technology where the quality hasn’t been great. It has to be believable.” Creating a hi-tech world with human needs at the centre of it will mean blending new and old, said Sally Bendelow, creative product director at Notonthehighstreet, a website for independent sellers. “We yearn for the past as the antidote to the smoothness of the smartphone, the computer and the TV. We crave the sensory experience balanced with the technology,” she said. “You have the extreme of augmented reality, but then you have the other extreme of a pop-up shop where you eat, play and smell.” Announcing the website will look at selling goods through 3D printing, she added: “But what is the antidote to this smooth technology? You’ve got to do both.” Technology fever is gripping retailers as they seek to outbid their competitors with the latest innovations. But this rush to the future will inevitably hit the buffers of what is practically possible. Andy Harding, chief customer officer at House of Fraser, said that the chain has tested beacons, which use Bluetooth technology to send alerts about offers and merchandise to shoppers’ mobiles as they enter the store. It has also tried out “shoppable mannequins”, where you point your phone at the outfit worn by a dummy to get further information and a chance to buy the styles. Another innovation has been “shoppable windows”, where customers can scan items in shop windows with their phones and buy them through e-commerce. “We’re trying to connect consumers with the physical and the digital in a retail environment, centring it around the customer,” said Harding. “The latter is where we’re falling down a little bit; we have lots of disparate databases of information. But until we can present a cohesive and sensible experience, where you recognise a customer automatically and can present personalised recommendations, we have a problem.” He was somewhat pessimistic about what developments will be possible in five years, especially for retailers with systems that have been in place for more than a century. “You’ve got to do a heart and lung transplant on a lot of our systems to present a platform that will deliver the stuff we are talking about,” he said. Using data about customers to create a more compelling experience is at the heart of the challenge for physical and digital retailers. Amazon is perhaps the most advanced retailer in the way it uses data, with algorithms that make personalised product recommendations. But others, especially those on the high street, are struggling to get up to speed on using data about customers. Edward Armitage, e-commerce director at bookstore chain Waterstones, said that the chain is revamping its loyalty card and launching it on mobiles. It will use sales data and customer behavioural data to help staff make recommendations via the phone when customers are in the shop. “You will be able to access all of our shop inventory from the phone with personalised recommendations,” he said. “We are really incentivising them to use our website – to use mobile. When they do that, they become much more valuable customers.” He also said that he believes that Waterstones can carve out a niche against Amazon on the more “nuanced” aspects of customer experience. Kate FitzGerald, head of owned media strategy at Tesco’s data arm, Dunnhumby, said that the Tesco Clubcard loyalty scheme connects a number of sources of data to build a rounded view of customers: “How do you create, at scale, an experience for customers that is like going into a local store and being recognised as a local person in that store? How do you drive that recognition that you wouldn’t necessarily get in other retailers?” She added that co-creation between retailer and customer – “actually involving customers in product creation” – is essential if customers are to feel in control. Guy Cheston, media sales director at Harrods, said that the store has used virtual reality headsets to offer walk-throughs of £10m penthouse apartments marketed by its property arm. It has also run campaigns using store windows enabled with near-field communication technology. He added that big wins from in-store Wi-Fi and the use of beacons could be improved insight for retailers and brands into a customer’s journey to making a purchase, as well as recognising key customers as they visit the store. Over the next five years, smartphones will become a vital tool in advertising and creating offers for shoppers, said James Davies, head of channel partnerships and trading at xAd. He said that the mobile ad industry is focusing on people’s current and historic location, but added: “We haven’t got on to the signals that can be pumped out from devices, like: how fast are you going; how quickly did you get from A to B? That could give us a better understanding of people’s journey patterns in the physical world and be related to customer journeys from a shopping perspective.” This, he believed, could help retailers and brands tailor more relevant advertising to consumers. Meanwhile, Scott Ross, chief technology officer at DigitasLBi, said that a big change could occur when the current digital native generation of teens grows up and gets shopping. They will know how to use the tech to outsmart retailers – learning the triggers for promotions, for instance, and recreating them to get discounts. Francis Nicholas, digital marketing manager at Iglo Foods, which markets the Birds Eye frozen food range, said that he thought technology would take longer to embed in food retail than other areas, such as fashion – especially with the long tail of 7,000 independent retailers through which Iglo products are sold. He said he believes that it’s often the children of independent retailers that drive their parents to consider digital innovation in their stores. Hemal Kuntawala, head of Marks & Spencer Venture Labs, said that M&S is testing out an online personal shopping service that arms shoppers with an online personal stylist. “We have seen average order value increase by up to 20 times,” he said. Traditional retailers have a strength that new e-commerce retailers lack, which is the power of their brands, said Ben Sutherland, chief performance officer at iProspect. “You should be taking advantage of what is effectively your biggest asset, and that’s your brand – the way people feel about you,” he said. Over the next five years, retailers will test out the latest technology and try to amass as much data as possible about their customers. But, whether high street or digital, they will need to remember that many people want human input in their shopping experience. Combining hi-tech with humanity will be the route to success for many retailers. Shane Hickey (chair), business journalist, the Guardian Edward Armitage, e-commerce director, Waterstones Sally Bendelow, creative product director, Notonthehighstreet.com Guy Cheston, media sales director, Harrods James Davies, head of channel partnerships and trading EMEA, xAd Kate FitzGerald, head of owned media strategy, Dunnhumby Francis Nicholas, global head of digital marketing, Iglo Foods Group Andy Harding, chief customer officer, House of Fraser Hemal Kuntawala, head of M&S Venture Labs Runar Reistrup, chief executive, Depop Scott Ross, chief technology officer, DigitasLBi UK Ben Sutherland, chief performance officer, iProspect John Vary, innovation manager, John Lewis

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ISA President Fernando Aguerre to Receive the Dick Baker Memorial Award Posted March 28th, 2012 - News Posted for ISA News. “Dick is gone, but his memory and always positive energy are very alive in our hearts,” said Aguerre about his long time friend. Pictured above: Dick Baker and Fernando Aguerre. Photo: Aguerre personal file Award to be presented at the 15th Surf Industry Manufacturers Association (SIMA) Summit La Jolla, California. March 28, 2012 – The 2012 Dick Baker Memorial Award will be given to ISA President, Fernando Aguerre in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico, during the annual surf industry leadership conference, Surf Summit 15. The conference is presented by the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association (SIMA) and the Board Retailers Association (BRA). The award will be presented to Aguerre by the Baker Family during the Closing Ceremonies of the event on May 18, 2012. “The Dick Baker Memorial Award Committee is so honored to have Fernando as the 2012 recipient,” said Una Baker, Dick Baker Memorial Award Committee Chairwoman. “Fernando truly exemplifies the most admirable personal and professional characteristics that Dick possessed. From his endless devotion and love for his beautiful teenage triplets, sweetheart Florencia and family, to his dedication and professional guidance in the surf industry, he has a zest for life and knows how to embrace every day to the fullest. Fernando was like a brother to Dick and today is a wonderful father figure to Ryan and Jack. Like Dick, Fernando is a man of great integrity and can make anything he believes in happen.” The Dick Baker Memorial Award Committee chaired by Baker’s wife, Una Baker, is comprised of Baker’s surf peers, family and friends, including: Baker’s sons Ryan and Jack Baker; Shaun Tomson, World Champion Surfer; Bob Graff, CEO of Graffy, Inc.; Bob Mignogna, International Surfing Association Director General; CJ Olivares, Consultant for GrindMedia and Sean Smith, SIMA Executive Director. The committee reviewed nominations and selected Aguerre as a recipient who exemplifies many of Baker’s outstanding qualities including: a loving and dedicated parent, courage, compassion, a natural willingness to mentor others with integrity and respect for peers and competitors, and a dedication to advancing the sport of surfing with a passion. As a selfless, passionate and courageous man, Aguerre has conquered in the business world as a pioneer in the surf industry and has prevailed both as a father and with others in making the world a better place. Aguerre was born and raised in the coastal city of Mar del Plata, Argentina where, along with his brother and lifelong friend, Santiago, he got involved with surfing, a passion that would shape both of their lives, as well as the future of surfing in Argentina and the rest of the world. In the 1980s, Fernando and his brother co-founded Reef, a sandal and surfwear company, which grew to be one of the leading surf brands in the world. He served as CEO of Reef until 2003, and in 2005 the brothers sold the company to VF Corporation. Fernando has also served as president of the International Surfing Association since 1994, and has grown the ISA into a global organization recognized by the IOC, with members in 70 countries. In addition to Aguerre’s long-term presidency at the ISA, he co-founded the Pan American Surfing Association (PASA) in 1992, serves on the Senior Advisory Board of Directors for SIMA and was the President of the SIMA Humanitarian Fund for eight years. As the President of the SIMA Humanitarian Fund, Aguerre led the charge in raising more than .58 million dollars for global medical relief, urban youth outreach, injury prevention and assistance, and health education and awareness. Fernando actively participates as a member of several other humanitarian and environmental surfing-based organizations, always as an unpaid volunteer in search of his dream of a better world. He’s the proud father of 15-year-old triplets, Jakue, Kaila and Tiare, and continues to surf daily near his home in La Jolla, California. “Like Bobby Marley used to sing: Good friends we had, oh good friends we’ve lost along the way,” said Aguerre. “Dick is gone, but his memory and always positive energy are very alive in our hearts. There is not one day that goes by that I don’t remember Dick – his inspirational way of thinking out of the box, always caring for everybody… And calling me at 8:05 in the morning to start a plot for something better or to build something that did not exist at the time. He’d say, ‘Hey Juan (referring to former Argentinean president, Juan Perón), what do you think if we…?’ I miss those calls. I’m totally honored and humbled by this award that I will cherish for the rest of my life.” For more information about SIMA’s Dick Baker, please visit: http://www.sima.com/news-information/news-detail/id/58.aspx. The International Surfing Association (ISA), founded in 1964, is recognized by the International Olympic Committee as the World Governing Authority for Surfing. The ISA governs and defines Surfing as Shortboard, Longboard & Bodyboarding, StandUp Paddle (SUP) Racing and Surfing, Bodysurfing, Wakesurfing, and all other wave riding activities on any type of waves, and on flat water using wave riding equipment. The ISA crowned its first Men's and Women's World Champions in 1964. It crowned the first Big Wave World Champion in 1965; World Junior Champion in 1980; World Kneeboard Champions in 1982; World Longboard Surfing and World Bodyboard Champions in 1988; World Tandem Surfing Champions in 2006; World Masters Champions in 2007; and World StandUp Paddle (SUP, both surfing and racing) and Paddleboard Champions in 2012. ISA membership includes the surfing National Federations of 108 countries on five continents. The ISA is presided over by Fernando Aguerre (ARG). The Executive Committee includes four Vice-Presidents Karín Sierralta (PER), Kirsty Coventry (ZIM), Casper Steinfath (DEN) and Barbara Kendall (NZL), Athletes' Commission Chair Justine Dupont (FRA), Regular Members Atsushi Sakai (JPN) and Jean Luc Arassus (FRA) and ISA Executive Director Robert Fasulo as Ex-officio Member. For more information, please visit www.isasurf.org

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FCC Steps Up Efforts to Boost Schools' Online Access Katrina Schwartz Amidst all the exciting discussions of how to deepen student learning with digital and online tools is a much less exciting, but equally important question about how to schools pay for the expensive infrastructure like bandwidth, wireless networks, and basic internet connections central to new teaching methods. The federal government recognized this need in 1996 when the internet was in its infancy, creating the Universal Service Program for Schools and Libraries, or E-rate, to help schools and libraries connect to the internet. The program funds the connectivity needs of the majority of public schools and libraries. Now, the Federal Communications Commission is working to rewrite the E-rate program guidelines to better suit the emerging needs of today’s school environment. The changes are welcome news to harried school technology experts tasked with estimating a school’s needs more than a year in advance and applying for federal funds through the cumbersome E-rate application process. "The key is to have an eligible services framework that’s broad enough, provides some guidelines, but doesn't hard wire or define it so much that it’s tied down to one type of technology." In 2013, the program had $2.4 billion dollars to give out and received requests totaling $4.9 billion. “Demand has exceeded the E-rate cap every year since the program's inception,” notes the FCC’s website on E-rate basics. Given the success of the E-rate program in getting internet connections to schools around the country and the increasing need for technology in classrooms, many educators would like to see the program funded at higher levels. “It is simply insufficient to meet school and library demands 15 years later,” Calcasieu Parish Chief Technology Officer Sheryl Abshire told a Senate committee recently. “In my opinion we need a permanent increase in funding.” Despite these calls, the first draft of the new regulations does not indicate there will be more funds. [RELATED: Internet Access for All: A New Program Targets Low-Income Students] Instead, the FCC has started by focusing on streamlining the existing program to better use currently available funds. “There’s a real recognition that using the current pricing models, it’s very difficult to achieve the President’s goals of getting all these students connected at the speeds they want,” said John Harrington, CEO of Funds for Learning, an e-rate consulting company. His business helps school districts wade through the paperwork and reporting requirements for e-rate applications. “It’s very frustrating to watch schools get funded for only half a project,” he said when describing his wish to see the program improved. One way the FCC hopes to improve the program’s cost effectiveness is to help schools buy in bulk, organizing group purchasing agreements. Harrington also thinks there are ways to build cost-savings incentives into the program. High on his list is doing away with the priority system that dominates E-rate funding. When the federal program was set up in the late 90s the chief goal was to provide connectivity to all schools, so telecommunications, telecommunications services and internet connections got first priority and the neediest schools got higher discounts. Requests for computer wiring needed to connect classrooms to the internet or wireless networks would be considered a second-tier priority. With current technology, many schools need these second-tier infrastructure upgrades badly, and in some cases the first priority projects are no longer the most cost-effective or appropriate way to achieve universal connectivity. [RELATED: Finding Solutions for Tech Troubles in Schools] “The key is to have an eligible services framework that’s broad enough, provides some guidelines, but doesn't hard wire or define it so much that it’s tied down to one type of technology,” Harrington said. He’s especially worried that if the new regulations are too prescriptive, they won’t move with the pace of technological innovation. Another big theme of the FCC rewrite is to streamline the application process and get funds out to schools much more quickly. “That by itself will be revolutionary,” Harrington said. Right now, schools can wait up to a year and a half to find out if they will receive the funds requested, making it hard to plan and rollout new initiatives like a one-to-one tablet or computer program. The FCC is also focused on collecting more comprehensive data on how E-rate funds are being used by schools. While the grants given out are documented, there’s no good way to know just how connected a school is or how various programs are being deployed. Lastly, the FCC is trying to move the whole process online. Right now, some parts of the E-rate application must be filed on paper, a throwback to 1996 when legislators wanted to ensure that schools without internet access could apply to get it. Now, that concern is less pertinent and digitizing the application process will speed up processing times and hopefully ease the burden of applying. President Obama has directed the FCC to move forward with the rule-making process, but this first draft is not official. In fact, the FCC lays out several ways some of the big questions could be addressed and is soliciting feedback from educators on how to best improve the program. Still, the goal is to finish reworking the program by the end of the year so the new guidelines can be used in the next funding round. After that, perhaps E-rate advocates will pursue additional funding from Congress to bolster the important program.

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home . programme sections . Constellations Section Constellations presents films, that last year shone on world documentary skies. We introduce carefully selected titles from other film festivals. The body as a material sculpting object and abstract unity of functions. The body as a part of early traumas, ideological rejection, political censorship, persistence and ephemerality. The body as a concept of organization of extensive natural communities. The body as an empty shrine for further artistic use. This audiovisual essay in letters by Iranian filmmaker and British sculptor is a dreamful, intimate dialogue, discourse on the country’s fate following the Islamic revolution, on family and a desire to perfect the female body devastated by malignant disease. A film conversation on the artistic reflection of beauty, memory, experience, fulfilment and inception of new life. A Moon for My Father Douglas White, Mania Akbari United Kingdom, Iran / 2019 / 73 min. section: Constellations Czech Premiere Mikel, director of the film, along with the protagonist Mathias, are childhood friends, nevertheless due to the time that has elapsed, the former finds that he knows hardly anything about the latter. The mad circumstances leading up to a fatal twist in their lives makes them shoot a documentary reconstruction about the process that turns into a very personal portrayal of a man who was made to live a double life against his will, the border between each one of them being as thin as a line drawn between victim and perpetrator in a ruthless criminal underworld. More than to the criminal plot though, attention is turned to stubborn attempts of a person dragged down by a spiral of serious problems while being able to wear a mask of seemingly happy and steady life. Mikel Cee Karlsson Sweden, Finland / 2019 / 99 min. East European Premiere The murders, which have steadily been on the rise since the 1990s, form the subject matter of this epic documentary depicting the horrific scale of violence in a crime-stricken, Mexican society riddled with corruption. The ghost-like appearance of the overall picture is reinforced by the chosen black-and-white material and the division of the film into chapters, capturing with almost anthropological consistency a series of testimonies from the bloody history of the country. The sun shines on the horror: the search for the kidnapped, raped, and murdered women and missing students, the murder of a photojournalist who pointed out the links between politicians and criminal cartels, the uncovering of mass graves on private sites. Julien Elie Canada / 2018 / 154 min. Multi-talented artist and Czech native Jiří Synek (1921-2017), known to readers as František Listopad, spent most of his life in Portugal, where he performed under the name Jorge. He was a poet, translator, theater and film director, organizer, and teacher, and as such had a large influence on Portuguese cultural life. He had a significant role in building the Portuguese television and film school. He also wrote continuously, and his poems and prose are an exceptional testimony to the melancholy of exile. The documentary contains revealing archival recordings and poetic sequences, presenting Listopad through his ideas and life philosophy. Four Seasons and Autumn Pedro Sena Nunes Portugal / 2018 / 90 min. Central European Premiere An ageing beekeeper in the rural Macedonian mountains strives to maintain the tradition of honest, environmentally friendly beekeeping. Her quiet everyday life – caring for the colony and selling honey in a nearby town, the untiring care of her mother, living off their farm without electricity – is interrupted by the arrival of nomadic beekeepers, who perceive nature primarily as an opportunity for profit, a way to break free from their poverty. The filmmakers spent three years with the heroine of the film, shooting over four hundred hours of material which became the basis of this melancholy environmental appeal, lyrically depicting the immaculate beauty of nature. Ljubomir Stefanov, Tamara Kotevska Macedonia / 2019 / 85 min. Irving Park is a neighborhood in Chicago where the film's four lead characters live together under one roof. But their cohabitation has a rather unusual arrangement – they are all aging gay men practicing dominant-submissive relationships. This time-lapse film gets right in the middle of the action of this abnormal household, and through a seemingly primordial provocation that seems only natural and commonplace, such as long conversations from the Lord and his naked slaves, the film enables a sense of family reciprocity, unsolvable crises and daily inhabitation. As one of the cast members admits: we all live in acceptable relationships of domination and submission. Panagiotis Evangelidis Greece / 2019 / 117 min. Deep inside the wild nature of Corsica, a woman leads her lonesome life, with menacing forebodings of the future passing through her dreams. She keeps entering the forest, hunting after wildlife and in the eyes of her dead pray, she can see faces of people doomed to pass away soon. The locals think about her as an insane beldam, turning away from her except for a shepherd who had already found out for himself that her gift of telling fortunes is real. A dark film filled with mysterious atmosphere lets the audience into the world of island legends, folk tales and rural superstitions. The film also makes observations on the everyday work of shepherds in the open nature, meanwhile involuntarily contemplating topics posed beyond the horizons of human understanding. L' ULTIMU SOGNU Lisa Reboulleau France / 2019 / 33 min. In an abandoned industrial zone at the foot of the Austrian Alps, a Nigerian mechanic lives and works by dismantling old cars and selling their individual parts, mainly to Eastern Europe and Africa. The documentary captures him during his work and while taking meditative breaks with a cigarette overlooking Erzberg Mountain, where iron ore has been mined since ancient Rome. The hero's isolated microcosm is observed at the very edge of economic activity, yet it is inextricably linked to global economic relations in Europe and Africa, the mining of resources, and the exploitation of profits. Movements of a Nearby Mountain Sebastian Brameshuber Austria, France / 2019 / 85 min. Streaming has become an unprecedented hit in China with a commercial value in the billions. In 2017, more than 427 million people could not get by without sharing the details of their pre-camera privacy. Whether it be an incompetent street dancer, an adult man suffering from a genetic disorder that makes him look like a child, or a slacker working in an underwear factory. The director watched dozens of these “newsmakers” and from more than 800 hours of absolute mundanity, she put together a remarkable collective portrait of a generation for whom offline and online worlds are inextricably linked, showing a fascinating testimony about the pursuit of rapid success and the loneliness and mere killing of time. Present. Perfect. Shengze Zhu United States, Hong Kong SAR China / 2019 / 124 min. A documentary portrait of the Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa is a contemporary audiovisual reflection on the meanings that objects, locations and sounds in films carry. The filmography of the director of films such as House of Lava, Bones, In Vanda’s Room, and Colossal Youth is explored using not only his own words and clips from his movie trailers, but also a melancholic atmosphere and experiments with image and sound. Despite occasional glimpses into Costa’s office, he remains an enigmatic personality, which we know only through his work and creative processes. How he thinks, what he feels, and how he lives must be derived from his work. Júlio Alves Three places and three moments spent with the Geneva Golden Youth. For his documentary, the director organized a workshop with students from the prestigious HEAD School of Art and Design in Geneva to get to know the young men and women who are well-accustomed to a life of luxury and who like to kill time having long discussions in the nightclub, snorting cocaine and sipping champagne. The director sees the film as a highly subjective vision, a kind of pseudo-ethnological work in which some formal elements show hints of irony. Here he acts as an amused moralist and observer trying to break into a world riddled with lavish parties, drugs and all-pervasive vanity. Virgil Vernier France, Switzerland / 2019 / 31 min. Liberal-minded twenty-five-year-old Eva lives in Berlin, and none of the words used to describe her alternative life are entirely accurate. She is a wanderer, poet, lesbian, prostitute, virgin, housewife, drug addict, and model who decided at age fourteen that privacy was an outdated concept. Thanks to social networks, which she uses to permanently present herself to the public, we see primarily those characteristics by which she defines herself in opposition to majority society: an absolute openness in terms of showing physicality, sexuality, and drug use. Searching Eva is not just about the search for a woman whose body (and soul) have become a public spectacle; it is a multilayered film essay that explores female identity as such. Searching Eva Pia Hellenthal Germany / 2019 / 84 min. A grandmother, a granddaughter and a dog. A path leading up to dying. Several timeless moments from the life of a sick woman enriched by the presence of a filmmaker granddaughter who captures the transient quality of life events and the gentleness of giving farewells through film. Behind closed doors, simple conversations, routine actions (a dinner) and handing over of experience (gutting the pig’s head) unwind. The acuteness of fleeting moments is augmented by the dog’s view. The projection of final moments in life captured by the eyes of the camera that of a devoted pet. An intimate balance of losses in one’s life laid out on a ground plan of a family tri-portrait. The Dog's Eye Laure Portier France, Belgium / 2019 / 37 min. “A good terrorist is a dead terrorist,” a well-known saying goes. The same kind of ambivalence present in the title applies to this film telling the story of Jason Walters, a convicted and later redeemed member of the Dutch terrorist group Hofstad. They were responsible for manslaughter, planning of terrorist attacks and threatening with killings. Walters gave up only after two weeks of his flat being continuously besieged. Nevertheless, out of the testimonies of representatives of justice, prison wardens and other men charged with terrorist acts, a stereotypical image of a radical Muslim man embodying all the world’s evil suddenly melts away. A scarred Europe has displaced possibilities of redemption and repentance into toxically politicized causes outside all tolerable social criteria, as in the cases of most imprisoned terrorists. The Good Terrorist Robert Oey Netherlands / 2019 / 80 min. Art experimentation, image deconstruction, observation process. For over half a century now, the pioneers of video art Woody and Steina Vasulka have been exploring human memory, media memory and memory of art as an institution. A taste of life-long cohabitation of this partner and creative couple presents a personal story of a journey along places marked by their common fate: Brno, Prague, Reykjavik, New York and Buffalo. The odyssey of artistic fame of the living legends is put in contrast with their fragile social world and uncertain life perspectives. The heritage of video art is structured according to the texture of media of individual eras of film (35mm, video and hard disk). Fifty years of avant-garde saved on an external disk. The Vasulka Effect Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir Czech Republic, Iceland, Sweden / 2019 / 87 min. International Premiere A sensitive portrait of Daniel Spoerri that takes viewers not only to the workroom of this versatile artist, but also to his childhood spent in Romania where his father fell victim to the Jewish pogrom. In addition to Spoerri himself, his assemblages speak to them, breathing new life into various objects. They enhance the theme of rebirth around which the director constructed her own personal, fine-tuned film. - Daniel Spoerri (1930) is a Swiss visual artist and writer born in Romania. He is famous for his snare-pictures (tableau pièges), in which he places groups of objects found in chance positions onto a plane surface so that the resulting object can be hung up like a painting. This Movie is a Gift Anja Salomonowitz Austria / 2019 / 72 min. For four years, the director has been meeting up with students of a film club at Dora Maar high school in the ethnically colourful city of Saint Denis near Paris, observing how the protagonists and filmmakers-to-be were growing up, looking for their roots and identity, finding a common form of their film in making that had supposed to be really about anything in the beginning. Through showing everyday banalities, the participants were learning to work with the language of film, constantly coming back with reflections on changing formats and contents of their intended work that was meant to become a metaphor of their own place in the world. Un film dramatique France / 2019 / 114 min.

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2015 Holiday Tour of Homes Highlights 987 Grandview Avenue More than 175 years ago, this home was refuge for the poor and sick. Known as the Franklin County Poor House, it sat atop Grandview Avenue overlooking farmland and in the distance Franklinton. When the river would flood, the homeless couldn’t get there, so the county sold it to private ownership. The home has 22-inch-thick stone walls and unused gas sconces in some of the rooms. The foundation was built on huge sections of tree trunk, it’s bark still visible in the basement. 1600 Roxbury This unique “Rustic Cottage” was purchased by the current owners, Adam and Helen Miller in March 2014 and has the distinction of being the only home in the Grandview Heights – Marble Cliff area on the National Register of Historic Places. The home was designed by prominent Columbus architect, Frank Packard for J.E. Miller, an executive of the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad. The home was deemed significant for its distinctive, eclectic architectural styling and detailing, which combines elements of the Stick and Gothic Revival Styles and is described as “Carpenter Gothic.” The home was completed in 1895 and consisted of five large rooms on the first floor, and five bedrooms on the second floor. The home originally had no indoor plumbing and was heated by fireplaces. The home was purchased by the Myers family in 1953 who remodeled the cottage extensively to accommodate their family including the addition of a large family room in the rear. Later homeowners continued the renovations which include the replacement of plaster on the entire second floor with drywall, replacement of plumbing, heating and cooling systems, restoration of hardwood flooring, and repainting of the exterior of the home. Since moving in a little over a year ago, the current homeowners have restored the fireplace mantels in the lower level of the home. 1935 West First Avenue Constructed in 1903, the land for this residence was purchased and construction began by Frank Butterworth, furrier and principal in Henry Butterworth & Sons Furriers located at 1981/2 N. High Street in Columbus. This lovely frame home originally contained 10 rooms, and is a mélange of architectural styles. After a few ownership changes, the Dewey family moved in to the property in 1953 and made some alterations to the home including the addition of a second floor bathroom, altering the back roofline. Additionally, the original back porch was enclosed to improve the kitchen area and the front porch was removed, as it was in great disrepair. Sadly, in 1966 there was a house fire which caused extensive damage to the sunporch area. The damage to the sunrooms on the first and second floors necessitated replacement of the original windows and removal of the additional front door. These sunrooms became what is now the first floor sitting room and second floor bedroom. The current owners, Bryan and Carol Davis purchased the home in 1992 and made some wonderful alterations to the home including the large wraparound porch to the west side of the home. Additionally, the owners reconverted the sunporch and living room fireplaces into a functional see-through gas fireplace while preserving the original tiling. Other original features include the double staircase, one from the foyer to the upstairs, and one from the kitchen to the upstairs, the beautiful oak woodwork, and the front door. In 2000, the Davis’ added a mudroom and ½ bathroom off of the kitchen. More recently, two upstairs bathrooms were remodeled this year. The original landing at the top of the stairs has also been expanded to be a full hallway which allows better access to all four bedrooms on the second floor, as well as a walk-in closet for the master bedroom. The large metal container used to catch rain water for the home is still in place in the attic. It is a reminder of our past – of the daily challenges of living taking place so long ago, and of the treasures we behold in one of Grandview’s finest historic homes. 1358 Cambridge This 1926 Marble Cliff home was extensively renovated, for the first time in almost 40 years, in 2011 and 2012. Improvements include an overhaul of the 1970s-style kitchen, removal of a four-story elevator, and extensive landscaping work. Much of the house was also restored to its original condition, including repair and replacement of the wood flooring and trim throughout and restoration of the downstairs half-bathroom’s period tile and sink. In the kitchen, a framed 1920s advertisement ties in the house’s distinctive green roofing tiles and tan bricks–the Ohio companies that made both are still in business to this day. Each year, the owners venture to a friend’s tree farm near Bellefontaine, to select and cut down their Christmas tree, which they display in the front living room window. Constructed in 1910 as a summer home, and the original home had three bedrooms and one bathroom. On either side of the home were a sunroom and an open patio. The previous owner, Frank Monaco, Jr. was the son of former Marble Cliff Mayor, Frank Monaco, and he lived in the home for 28 years. When he lived there, Mr. Monaco, Jr. built a bedroom, half bathroom and laundry room. There was also a three tiered deck with a swimming pool/hot tub in the backyard. In 2000, Dr. Deborah and Thomas York purchased the home. They gutted the existing home and replaced all wiring, plumbing and plaster walls. There is one remaining plaster arched ceiling in Tom’s office. In 2003, they completed the major addition that you see today. On the first level, they added a gourmet kitchen with custom built-in cabinets and granite countertops, a breakfast room with a large bay window, a half bath, a family room and a playroom for the children. On the second floor, they added 2 bedrooms, a master bedroom including a master bath with his and her walk-in closets. They converted the main bathroom into a Jack and Jill bathroom and added a main bath and laundry room. The third floor was added which is completely finished and runs the length of the house. For the last 12 years the neighborhood boys have played, soccer, hockey, and baseball up there, with a few broken teeth for Dr. York to fix. The exterior wood siding was replaced with stone and stucco. As part of the project, all single pane windows, woodwork and light fixtures were replaced. One of our family traditions is to invite our neighbors on Cambridge Boulevard to a cookie decorating party each December. Another holiday tradition is to light luminaries every Christmas Eve. 1333 Glenn Avenue Originally constructed in 1922, this home has been extensively renovated over the years to include a spacious open kitchen, back porch, large master bedroom and master bathroom. Beautiful details of the home include soap stone kitchen countertops with a long island, hardwood floors, exposed brick throughout the home, and a mud room with high ceilings. The current owner moved into this home from ten houses down during the holiday season. A favorite Christmas memory of the family is literally walking the kitchen down the street ahead of the official move to have dinner in the new home on Christmas. 1289 Wyandotte Built in 1939, this home is the newest on the block. The original owner of the home lived on the corner of First Avenue, and he built three homes for his children so they were always close by. Since moving in, the current owner has upgraded the kitchen, added a patio and pergola and has many ideas for the future that will make this their forever home. The Broderick’s moved here in 1984 and raised two boys in this home. Each Christmas morning they take a photo of their sons on the steps, and no sneak peaks of what Santa brought until that photo has been taken! When visiting this home, be sure to look out for the many precious holiday items such as sterling silver Christmas ornaments the owner’s parents purchased for their grandchildren each year, as well as a tree in the den that have hand-made ornaments from the boys and very special gifted ornaments. Finally, be sure to look out for stockings displayed in the hall that were the owner’s and her siblings as a child.

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stanford.smith@kxii.com Stan Smith joined the News 12 team in June 2018 as a reporter. Stan is a graduate of the University of South Carolina, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Broadcast Journalism in May of 2017. He is now excited to tell the stories of the people and events of Texoma. During his time at South Carolina, Stan started as a reporter for Capital City Sports, where he covered events for all Gamecock teams. In his senior year, Stan reported, anchored, and produced for Carolina News, the university’s daily newscast. He was able to cover everything from local politics to both South Carolina men’s and women’s basketball teams reaching the Final Four. During the 2017-18 school year, Stan spent time as the Assistant Sports Information Director at Brevard College in Brevard, North Carolina. While there, Stan hosted a weekly coach’s show and was the radio voice for the school’s basketball programs. When he is not reporting, Stan enjoys spending time with family and friends, traveling, and watching sporting events. If you have any story ideas or would just like to say hello, feel free to email Stan at Stanford.Smith@kxii.com. KXII on Facebook Tweets by @KXIITV

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Shootout "Street Party" gets new twist at Lake of the Ozarks By Andrew Havranek | Posted: Tue 5:05 PM, Aug 20, 2019 LAKE OZARK, Mo. -- "When we do all our events, our number one question is how can we help more people and make more money for the charities," said Christy Janssen, Executive Director of the Shootout. "This last year, there was an article written about the Lake of the Ozarks' Shootout, and how we compared to other events around the United States," Janssen said. "We got number one ratings in everything but our street party." Janssen teamed up with the mayor and police chief in Lake Ozark and pitched the idea of allowing open containers during the event. "We're expecting 20,000 people, which, if we get to that point, would make it the larges party ever thrown at the Lake of the Ozarks," Mayor Gerry Murawski said. But the lift on on the open container ban does come with restrictions. First, glass bottles are prohibited. Bars will only serve cans or drinks in plastic cups. Second, drinks on the strip can only be carried between Beaver's at the Dam and Luby's Plaza. Also, everyone will be carded before entering the event. Those over 21-years-old will be given a wristband, which allows officers to know who is and isn't of legal drinking age if carrying a drink on the strip. "When they come out the same security checkpoint, they'll make sure they don't bring drinks out with them," Murawski said. Lake Ozark Gerry Murawski says if things go well for Wednesday's event, it could clear the way for more open container events on the strip in the future. "If we did it for this, and there's no problem? Gee, would we consider doing it for the car show," Murawski pondered. The Shootout on the Strip starts Wednesday at 5:00 p.m. and ends at 10:00 p.m.

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In Focus: Staff photos from Dec. 23 - Dec. 30 Steve Stout crouches next to a Christmas tree he and his family decorated on the Rancho Bernardo lot where their house stood before it was razed by wildfire in October. He said the tree represented hope to him and his family, which spent the holidays with relatives in Maryland. “All we lost were things,” he said. “Nobody was hurt -- that’s what is important. Family is important; things can be replaced.” (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) A woman takes part in a Christmas tradition by kissing a statue of the baby Jesus after Mass was celebrated at Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in downtown Los Angeles. (Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times) The setting moon imparts a peachy glow to downtown L.A. skyscrapers just before dawn. The photograph was taken with a telephoto lens from 30 miles away. The lens’ long focal length makes the moon appear larger, and the distance of the photographer from the buildings makes the skyline appear smaller. (Karen Tapia-Andersen / Los Angeles Times) Investigator Denise Dube and L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley are surrounded by crime evidence inside a walk-in closet at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Building in downtown Los Angeles. The vault contains photographs, transcripts and other items from such infamous cases as the Black Dahlia murder and the death of Marilyn Monroe. Cooley has added to the evidence cache with his own extensive collection of crime memorabilia. (Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times) Dayshawn Anthony, 4, receives a dollar bill from the Rev. Maurice Chase while Hannah Brown, 3, waits in line. Every Christmas for the last 24 years, Chase has arrived on skid row carrying thousands of dollars in cash. He says he solicits the money from Los Angeles celebrities. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times) UCLA senior Bruce Davis, right, is consoled after the Bruins lost to BYU, 17-16, in the Las Vegas Bowl. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) A passerby photographs a wind-felled tree at Celtic Street and Fullbright Avenue in Chatsworth on Christmas Day. Winds gusted to 102 mph Monday night and early Tuesday morning atop Whitaker Peak, and to 78 mph in Malibu Hills, prompting high-wind and red-flag warnings across Southern California. Downed power lines left thousands of households and businesses without power during the week. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) James Hill channels “Pirates of the Caribbean” star Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow as he entertains tourists outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Christmas. In his clutches, for a photograph, is Kirsty Borriello, on holiday from New Zealand. (Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times) Lupe Fiasco performs at the Power 106 FM hip-hop show Dec. 6 in Los Angeles. The 26-year-old Chicago rapper approaches his wardrobe like an art collector, flying around the globe in search of the most cutting-edge styles. He recently hired L.A. designer Darren Romanelli’s marketing agency to help him take cool to a new market. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times) An appreciative observer is silhouetted against the sunset on the boardwalk at Laguna’s Main Beach. (Marc Martin / Los Angeles Times) A member of the Air Force helps hold the American flag during the national anthem before the UCLA-BYU game at the Las Vegas Bowl. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) Show Slide Information

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Levin Papantonio - Personal Injury Lawyers Representing Personal Injury Clients for Over 60 Years Click Free Case Review Phone Click Free Case Review Court Appointments Drug Injuries Farxiga Jardiance Surgical Staplers JUUL Vaping Military Earplugs Monsanto Roundup Vioxx Rofecoxib Vioxx, also known as Rofecoxib, is a selective cox-2 inhibitor used to treat pain associated with arthritis. Physicians may also prescribe Vioxx, available in tablet and liquid form, to relieve minor pain, headaches and menstrual discomfort. Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in May 1999, Vioxx is made by Merck & Co. Minor side effects of Vioxx use include, but may not be limited to, upset stomach, dizziness, heartburn, vomiting and constipation. Numerous studies, including one sponsored by the drug's manufacturer, have found that Vioxx may increase a patient's risk of suffering a heart attack, stroke, or blood clot. A March 2002 FDA report linked Vioxx to five cases of a nonbacterial type of meningitis. According to the FDA, several patients developed aseptic meningitis while using the arthritis drug. In May 2002, a report published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research revealed that inhibiting cox-2 may also impede bone repair. Cox-2 reportedly assists bone-forming stem cells in the healing process. Vioxx Settlement News: Merck Settles Thousands of Vioxx Claims for $4.85 Billion Vioxx Settlement Announced - Nov 9, 2007 Merck & Co., Inc. has agreed to pay $4.85 billion to resolve Vioxx-related claims in which a claimant has suffered a heart attack, sudden cardiac death, or stroke. After more than five years of hard-fought and difficult litigation, Merck has agreed to pay $4.85 billion, the largest pharmaceutical settlement in history, to resolve certain Vioxx-related claims involving plaintiffs who suffered a heart attack (including sudden cardiac death) or a stroke. Levin Papantonio's Troy Rafferty and his team of Vioxx lawyers - Pete Kaufman and Rachael Gilmore -- played an integral role in the in the mass tort litigation that led to Merck agreeing to settle these cases. Mr. Rafferty is known nationwide as one of the leading Vioxx lawyers. He is Co-Lead of Discovery litigation for the national Vioxx MDL proceeding in New Orleans, and he is one of the few attorneys in the country that has tried a Vioxx case before a jury. The Settlement Program will settle the claims of thousands of qualified claimants who suffered a heart attack, ischemic stroke, or sudden cardiac death resulting from Vioxx. The settlement funds will be allocated among thousands of qualifying claims based upon an evaluation of each Qualifying Claimant's medical records by a Claims Administrator. We feel the Settlement Program is fair and that it provides qualifying clients the ability to be compensated for their injuries in the foreseeable future, rather than competing for a trial date with the thousands of other Vioxx cases pending nationally. Details regarding the Settlement Program, including eligibility and qualification requirements, may be accessed by clicking on the following links: Vioxx Master Settlement Agreement Claimant Valuation Examples Description of Settlement Official Press Release - Vioxx Settlement Announced Vioxx Master Settlement Agreement - With Exhibits www.officialvioxxsettlement.com/calculator/ Vioxx Pulled From Worldwide Market The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today acknowledged the voluntary withdrawal from the market of Vioxx (chemical name rofecoxib), a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) manufactured by Merck & Co. FDA today also issued a Public Health Advisory to inform patients of this action and to advise them to consult with a physician about alternative medications. Merck is withdrawing Vioxx from the market after the data safety monitoring board overseeing a long-term study of the drug recommended that the study be halted because of an increased risk of serious cardiovascular events, including heart attacks and strokes, among study patients taking Vioxx compared to patients receiving placebo. The study was being done in patients at risk of developing recurrent colon polyps. "Merck did the right thing by promptly reporting these findings to FDA and voluntarily withdrawing the product from the market," said Acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Lester M. Crawford. "Although the risk that an individual patient would have a heart attack or stroke related to Vioxx is very small, the study that was halted suggests that, overall, patients taking the drug chronically face twice the risk of a heart attack compared to patients receiving a placebo." Dr. Crawford added that FDA will closely monitor other drugs in this class for similar side effects. "All of the NSAID drugs have risks when taken chronically, especially of gastrointestinal bleeding, but also liver and kidney toxicity. They should only be used continuously under the supervision of a physician." FDA approved Vioxx in 1999 for the reduction of pain and inflammation caused by osteoarthritis, as well as for acute pain in adults and for the treatment of menstrual pain. It was the second of a new kind of NSAID (Cox-2 selective) approved by FDA. Subsequently, FDA approved Vioxx to treat the signs and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis in adults and children. At the time that Vioxx and other Cox-2 selective NSAIDs were approved, it was hoped that they would have a lower risk of gastrointestinal ulcers and bleeding than other NSAIDs (such as ibuprofen and naproxen). Vioxx is the only NSAID demonstrated to have a lower rate of these side effects. Merck contacted FDA on September 27, 2004, to request a meeting and to advise the agency that the long-term study of Vioxx in patients at increased risk of colon polyps had been halted. Merck and FDA officials met the next day, September 28, and during that meeting the company informed FDA of its decision to remove Vioxx from the market voluntarily. CLIENT STATEMENTS Here are some of the notes clients have sent us: You saved my life. I want to express my deepest appreciation. You mean so much to our family. I am so appreciative. To read our client reviews, visit our Testimonial page. The Florida Bar disclaimer regarding posting testimonials is available here. 316 South Baylen Street Handling Cases Nationwide Since 1955 Click for Free Evaluation Copyright © 1996-2020 | Policies & Disclaimers

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North Carolina State University -- Professional employees 1 collection related to North Carolina State University -- Administration Filters: 1910-19191860-18691930-1939North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic ArtsNorth Carolina State University -- HistoryNorth Carolina State CollegeNorth Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts -- Photographs University Archives Photograph Collection, People Photographs, 1890-1999 Size: 12.5 linear feet (24 boxes, 1 halfbox, 1 flat folder); 1.8 megabytes Collection ID: UA 023.024 Black-and-white and color photographic prints, negatives, contact prints and sheets, printing plates, and reprographic copies of images picturing individuals and small groups of people who have contributed to the history of North Carolina State University. Pictures of administrators, faculty, staff, students, and notable visitors and ... More Black-and-white and color photographic prints, negatives, contact prints and sheets, printing plates, and reprographic copies of images picturing individuals and small groups of people who have contributed to the history of North Carolina State University. Pictures of administrators, faculty, staff, students, and notable visitors and alumni are included, as well as class pictures. Most of the materials were created to portray a specific individual or small group of people: many are posed and have subject identification on the reverse. The materials date from the 1890s to the late 20th century. North Carolina State University was established in 1887 as the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (A&M College). The College opened in 1889 with one building - the current Holladay Hall - six faculty, and courses in the agricultural and mechanical arts, adding a curriculum in applied science in 1893. By the turn of the century the College had grown to some half dozen buildings, about 300 students, and had begun to diversify its curricula. In 1917, the institution's name was changed to North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering (State College). In 1931 the College greatly reworked its curricula as it underwent consolidation. Along with North Carolina College for Women and the University of North Carolina, it became a part of the Consolidated University of North Carolina,. North Carolina State is now one of the constituent institutions of the multi-campus University of North Carolina system, having received university status, and, after some controversy, assumed its current name in 1965. As of 2007, N.C. State had a student body of nearly 30,000, nearly two thousand faculty, and research and program expenditures of over $440 million. Less

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North Carolina State University. Student Publication Board North Carolina State University. Student Health Service North Carolina State University. Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity. Multicultural Student Affairs North Carolina State University. Housing and Residence Life North Carolina State University. Gallery of Art and Design North Carolina State University. Division of Student Affairs. University Dining North Carolina State University. Department of Registration and Records -- Periodicals North Carolina State University. Department of Admissions -- Periodicals North Carolina State University. Counseling Center -- Periodicals North Carolina State University. Army ROTC -- Periodicals North Carolina State University. African American Student Affairs -- Periodicals North Carolina State University -- Students -- Periodicals North Carolina State University -- Funds and scholarships -- Periodicals Filters: 2000-20091890-18991930-19391920-1929North Carolina State University -- HistoryNorth Carolina State University -- Funds and scholarships -- PeriodicalsNorth Carolina State University. Counseling Center -- Periodicals North Carolina State University, Division of Student Affairs Publications, 1889-2018 Size: 118.15 linear feet (107 archival boxes, 32 legal boxes, 25 cartons, 3 flat boxes, 1 half-box,) Collection ID: UA 016.200 The North Carolina State University Division of Student Affairs Publications contain various internal and external publications produced by the Division of Student Affairs and its committees; the division's member groups, programs, and organizations; and by North Carolina State University students. This includes newsletters, ... More The North Carolina State University Division of Student Affairs Publications contain various internal and external publications produced by the Division of Student Affairs and its committees; the division's member groups, programs, and organizations; and by North Carolina State University students. This includes newsletters, magazines, bulletins, handbooks, course catalogs, and other publications related to dining, housing, admissions, registration, financial aid, religious affairs, multicultural affairs, the arts at North Carolina State University, the Reserve Officer Training Corps, student health services, and international student affairs. A significant portion of the material consists of student media publications such as the Agromeck (yearbook), Windhover, and Red and White. The materials are dated 1889 to 2018. Working under their longstanding motto of "Students First," the North Carolina State University Division of Student Affairs works to provide "programs and services for students and the larger community to enhance quality of life, facilitate intellectual, ethical and personal growth, and create a culture which engenders respect for human diversity." In this pursuit, the member groups and programs of the Division of Student Affairs, including student media organizations, have produced a number of internal and external publications. In 2011, it merged with the Division of Undergraduate Academic Programs to become the Division of Academic and Student Affairs. Less

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R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company Philip Morris USA Monsanto Agricultural Company Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company Johnson, William H. (William Hugh), 1932- Gamma Sigma Delta American Society of Agricultural Engineers Alpha Epsilon North Carolina State University. Energy Advisory Task Force North Carolina State University. Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering -- History North Carolina State University. Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering -- Faculty 1 collection related to North Carolina State University. Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering -- History Filters: Johnson, William H. (William Hugh), 1932-North Carolina State University. Energy Advisory Task ForceNorth Carolina State University. Energy Advisory Task ForceNorth Carolina State University. Energy Advisory Task ForceNorth Carolina State University. Energy Advisory Task Force1980-1989North Carolina State University. Energy Advisory Task ForceNorth Carolina State University. Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering -- Faculty William H. Johnson Papers, 1941-2005 (bulk 1956-1983) Size: 30 linear feet (46 archival boxes, 1 archival card box, 8 flat files) Collection ID: MC 00062 The William H. Johnson papers document Johnson's career at North Carolina State University with materials from 1941 to 2005, the bulk of which are from 1956 to 1983. Johnson conducted extensive research in tobacco curing in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at N.C. State, and the papers are primarily comprised ... More The William H. Johnson papers document Johnson's career at North Carolina State University with materials from 1941 to 2005, the bulk of which are from 1956 to 1983. Johnson conducted extensive research in tobacco curing in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at N.C. State, and the papers are primarily comprised of his research notes and their associated sketches, drawings, and photographs. Also documented are Johnson's professional activities, including published papers and presentations at tobacco, agriculture, and engineering conferences around the country and across the world. Other material documents Johnson's involvement in numerous committees and groups, including chairing the Energy Advisory Task Force, a joint venture of N.C. State's School of Agriculture and Life Sciences and School of Forest Resources. The papers also document Johnson's correspondence with companies such as Philip Morris, Monsanto, Liggett & Myers, R.J. Reynolds, and others. North Carolina State University Professor Emeritus William H. Johnson held various teaching positions in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, starting as Research Instructor in 1956 and reaching the rank of Professor in 1969. He served as Assistant Director of the North Carolina Agricultural Research Service of N.C. State from 1983 to 1994, and received the rank of Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering in 1994. Johnson's major research interest was tobacco processing, and he was part of the research team that developed the bulk curing process for tobacco. Less

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Filters: 1920-19291910-19191980-19891870-18791990-1999North Carolina State University -- History -- 20th centuryNorth Carolina State College -- Buildings University Archives Photograph Collection, Postcards, 1900-1996 Size: 0.5 linear feet (1 album) Collection ID: UA 023.035 This collection consists of postcards dating from 1900 to 1996 that depict scenes around North Carolina State University's campus, buildings in Raleigh, North Carolina, and scenes from other locations in the state. The majority of the postcards are in color. Raleigh is the capital of North Carolina and home to one of the state's ... More This collection consists of postcards dating from 1900 to 1996 that depict scenes around North Carolina State University's campus, buildings in Raleigh, North Carolina, and scenes from other locations in the state. The majority of the postcards are in color. Raleigh is the capital of North Carolina and home to one of the state's largest universities, North Carolina State University. NCSU was established as a land grant university that opened in 1889 with one building. In 2008 the university has hundreds of buildings on over 2,100 acres of land, serving over 31,000 students and faculty. Less

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kflechlawyer@gmail.com(214) 871-1804 Order for Nondisclosure PERSONAL INJURY INTAKE FORM In certain cases, Texas individuals are able to have their criminal record “expunged” or they may petition for their record to be sealed (“nondisclosure”). If you are eligible for an expunction you should contact an attorney to make sure that it is done correctly. Art. 55.01. Right to Expunction, Texas Code of Criminal Procedure (a) A person who has been placed under a custodial or noncustodial arrest for commission of either a felony or misdemeanor is entitled to have all records and files relating to the arrest expunged if: (1) the person is tried for the offense for which the person was arrested and is: (A) acquitted by the trial court, except as provided by Subsection (c) of this section; or (B) convicted and subsequently pardoned; or (2) each of the following conditions exist: (A) an indictment or information charging the person with commission of a felony has not been presented against the person for an offense arising out of the transaction for which the person was arrested or, if an indictment or information charging the person with commission of a felony was presented, the indictment or information has been dismissed or quashed, and: (i) the limitations period expired before the date on which a petition for expunction was filed under Article 55.02; or (ii) the court finds that the indictment or information was dismissed or quashed because the presentment had been made because of mistake, false information, or other similar reason indicating absence of probable cause at the time of the dismissal to believe the person committed the offense or because it was void; (B) the person has been released and the charge, if any, has not resulted in a final conviction and is no longer pending and there was no court ordered community supervision under Article 42.12 for any offense other than a Class C misdemeanor; and (C) the person has not been convicted of a felony in the five years preceding the date of the arrest. (b) Except as provided by Subsection (c) of this section, a district court may expunge all records and files relating to the arrest of a person who has been arrested for commission of a felony or misdemeanor under the procedure established under Article 55.02 of this code if the person is: (1) tried for the offense for which the person was arrested; (2) convicted of the offense; and (3) acquitted by the court of criminal appeals. (c) A court may not order the expunction of records and files relating to an arrest for an offense for which a person is subsequently acquitted, whether by the trial court or the court of criminal appeals, if the offense for which the person was acquitted arose out of a criminal episode, as defined by Section 3.01, Penal Code, and the person was convicted of or remains subject to prosecution for at least one other offense occurring during the criminal episode. (d) A person is entitled to have any information that identifies the person, including the person’s name, address, date of birth, driver’s license number, and social security number, contained in records and files relating to the arrest of another person expunged if: (1) the information identifying the person asserting the entitlement to expunction was falsely given by the person arrested as the arrested person’s identifying information without the consent of the person asserting the entitlement; and (2) the only reason for the information identifying the person asserting the entitlement being contained in the arrest records and files of the person arrested is that the information was falsely given by the person arrested as the arrested person’s identifying information. Art. 55.03. Effect of Expunction, Texas Code of Criminal Procedure When the order of expunction is final: (1) the release, dissemination, or use of the expunged records and files for any purpose is prohibited; (2) except as provided in Subdivision 3 of this article, the person arrested may deny the occurrence of the arrest and the existence of the expunction order; and (3) the person arrested or any other person, when questioned under oath in a criminal proceeding about an arrest for which the records have been expunged, may state only that the matter in question has been expunged. 183 Parkhouse Street, Dallas, Texas 75207 kflechlawyer@gmail.com Copyright © 2019. Kirk F. Lechtenberger LLC., All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer & Privacy Policy

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Dalai Lama to visit Louisville next year [News] Posted On: 1 Aug 2012 - 1:09pm By Alyssa Rosen The Dalai Lama recently confirmed plans to travel to Louisville next year, on a mission designed to spread blessings and compassion. He is making the trip here to bless a Tibetan Buddhist temple and teaching center, and to also reach out to the general public. He is scheduled to visit Louisville May 19-21, 2013. The 14th Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhists. According to his website, “he frequently states that his life is guided by three major commitments,” the first of which is “the promotion of basic human values or secular ethics in the interest of human happiness.” Due to his emphasis on spreading basic human values, after the Dalai Lama blesses Louisville’s Tibetan Buddhist temple, he plans to also talk about how to spread compassion to not only Buddhists, but to the general public- especially the youth. He will also further religious knowledge by giving more in-depth religious training to Louisville’s Buddhists. The Dalai Lama is a frequent guest of Bloomington, Indiana, where his brother founded a Buddhist center. He, however, is not a frequent guest to Louisville, or even to Kentucky. The last time he was in Kentucky was in 1996 for recognition after he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work. The last time he was in Louisville was two years prior to that; the purpose of his 1994 trip was to visit the Cathedral of the Assumption. In May, the Dalai Lama will be visiting the Drepung Gomang Institute (DGI) and the Tashi Gomang Dharma Center, located on Hubbards Lane. DGI began in 2000 with only one monk. Since then, it has expanded and currently has four monks who teach about Buddhism, meditation and Tibetan culture and language. As it states on DGI’s website, “DGI’s mission is to provide individuals with an interest in Tibetan philosophy and culture to experience it firsthand.” The board president of DGI, Anne Walter, is the one who originally invited the Dalai Lama to speak and she must be ecstatic about his impending visit. Photo: courtesy of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet 14th Dalai Lama Drepung Gomang Institute Tashi Gomang Dharma Center Hubbards Lane Anne Walter About Alyssa Rosen I am an intern. I will be a Junior at Miami University this fall. I have lived in Louisville my entire life and wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Mighty Kindness Harvest Hoot brings Unity to community [Environment] How to ‘Engage Compassion’: The Dalai Lama speaks to Louisville from the heart Louisville news: Rand Paul, still weird, but now in a cooler way edition [News] His Grandfather Died of Cancer After Working for DuPont Chemical. Now He’s in a Movie About It. Can This Man Rebrand the Ohio River? The Middle School Dance: A Sociological Survey 2019 from A to Z 2019 from A to Z: No More

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Nabil Grace Bridge with a Brain Nabil Grace Home Structural Testing Center Bridge Street Bridge Recent Patents CE Links Nabil F. Grace Ph.D, PE Chair and University Distinguished Professor, Civil Engineering Department Director, Center for Innovative Materials Research 21000 West Ten Mile Road, Southfield, MI 48075 Lawrence Tech Engineers Dedicated Bridge with a Brain Southfield, Mich. - Electronic sensors embedded in the Bridge St. bridge in Southfield, make it possible for engineers to monitor the performance of the unique bridge in a national study funded by the National Science Foundation and exclusive to Lawrence Technological University. The first of its kind in the world, one lane of the concrete bridge is reinforced with pre-stressed carbon-fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP), and the other is reinforced with traditional steel. Nabil Grace, professor and chair of civil engineering at Lawrence Tech, collaborated with engineers at Hubbel Roth & Clark, the City of Southfield and Japanese manufacturing firms to research, coordinate material testing, and determine construction standards for this unique bridge design. The revolutionary rods are made from carbon fibers the diameter of a human hair. CFRP strands are woven together and encased in epoxy to optimize bridge durability. The lightweight, yet extremely durable carbon-fiber rods are far less susceptible to corrosion than steel cables, shows Grace's research. By dialing into the bridge's computer daily, Grace, his students and the City monitor the bridge's performance, and compare it to that of the conventional steel-reinforced span. The ongoing study, using sensors installed in the carbon-fiber reinforced section of the bridge, determines the long-term benefits of CFRP over conventional steel reinforced bridges. The $8.5 million project was funded by the Federal Highway Administration and the City of Southfield. The bridge opened for traffic Dec. 2001 and will be dedicated at special ceremonies May 8, 2002 at 10 a.m. Because it's incredibly strong and virtually impervious to water, salt and extreme temperatures, CFRP may be applicable to other types of construction: for balconies, particularly on buildings near the ocean; strengthening older buildings; in hospitals where steel reinforcement can interfere with high-tech equipment; for underground applications and for highway pavement reinforcement. Celebrating its 70th anniversary, Lawrence Technological University offers nearly 50 undergraduate, master's and doctoral degree programs in Colleges of Architecture and Design, Arts and Sciences, Engineering, and Management. Lawrence Tech pioneered the offering of day and evening classes, and now has a growing number of weekend programs. Lawrence Tech also is home to the Advanced Technology Academy, a charter high school offering a challenging curriculum closely linked to the University's academic mission. View the article Lawrence Tech Engineers Dedicated Bridge with a Brain.

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Book review - The Archipelago of Another Life Early on in Andreï Makine’s latest novel, we recognise that we are going to be led into the heart of darkness by his use of a dual narrator and a framing device, reminiscent of Joseph Conrad’s classic. Set in the far eastern borders of the Soviet Union, an orphan boy follows a stranger into the forest. He is quickly unmasked and befriended by the man he has pursued. The stranger makes him tea and begins his tale. In 1952, Pavel Gartsev is sent on military service to a training camp in the eastern taiga, designed to test the men’s resistance in case of nuclear attack. It’s the early period of the Cold War and paranoia is at an all-time high. Gartsev is bullied by his commanders and forced to endure various acts of cruelty. Ordered to capture an escapee from a nearby labour camp, he accompanies a motley crew deep into the Siberian taiga. The army commander is swiftly overruled by two zealous, trigger-happy representatives of Stalin’s secret police. The other recruit, Sergeant Vassin, hopes, like Gartsev, that the fugitive will elude them. When the men discover that their prey is a woman it unleashes dangerous impulses in them all. “She had humiliated and belittled us. Now we were the real victims. Endlessly shunted this way and that in this interminable taiga. Our honour under attack. Cut down to size by a girl… a bitch who must be punished, not for her crime but for having perverted the logic of this world!” But the thick forest proves inhospitable to those who don’t respect it. Each of the men suffer an injury and, fearful of dying in the wilderness, return to camp. Gartsev is left alone to catch the woman or perish. Up to this point, Gartsev has been dominated by his ‘rag doll’ soul, “a kind of guardian angel that …would counsel caution, compromise, resignation.” It allows him to survive in an immoral society but, he gradually realises, he can no longer countenance this shadowy existence. Everyone informs on everyone else, petty tyrannies abound and no one is to be trusted: “In this confused world one constant prevailed: hatred. It could derive either from desire or from fear, or else from ideas that appeared to be noble, but, curiously enough, were the most lethal of all.” As he closes in on the fugitive, Gartsev faces a stark choice that might yet be his salvation. Makine writes in French, superbly translated by Geoffrey Strachan, but the mood of his books is typically Russian. He often incorporates elements of his own life in his fiction – he was orphaned, spent part of his childhood in Siberia, served as a soldier in Afghanistan and defected to France in 1987. The Archipelago of Another Life is a powerful meditation on the shackles of oppression and the liberty of exile. Gartsev chooses a different path from Conrad’s Kurtz, and finds his moral compass in the remote, inhospitable terrain he inhabits; the darkness is outside. The wilderness offers refuge from the corrupting forces of an inhumane, totalitarian state. Originally published by European Literature Network

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COLOGNE, Germany, Nov. 9, 2011 & ndash; Ford & hellip; COLOGNE, Germany, Nov. 9, 2011 – Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally today launched volume production of Ford’s smallest petrol engine – a 1.0-litre, turbocharged, direct injection EcoBoost engine that will debut in Europe in early 2012 and ultimately be available worldwide. Ford’s Mulally Launches Production of High-Tech 1.0-litre EcoBoost Engine Delivering Class-Leading CO2 in Ford Focus Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally launches production of new 1.0-litre EcoBoost in Cologne, Germany. Small but powerful engine will be available around the world Ford invests €134 million ($200 million) in new production line at Cologne Engine Plant with state-of-the-art manufacturing technology The engine will debut in the European Ford Focus in early 2012, giving the Focus class-leading petrol CO2 emissions and fuel economy. It will subsequently be offered on the Ford C-MAX and the new B-MAX in Europe, and other Ford vehicles around the world New 1.0-litre EcoBoost is Ford’s smallest petrol engine. The turbocharged, direct injection engine delivers the combinations of 125PS with 114g/km CO2 and 100PS with 109g/km CO2 in the Ford Focus The European-designed engine also will be built in Craiova, Romania, from early 2012, bringing total European production capacity to a potential 700,000 units per year in the years ahead, with annual worldwide production of up to 1.3 million engines anticipated Engine Production Hall W Ford announced that when the 1.0-litre, three-cylinder EcoBoost engine debuts in the European Ford Focus, it will produce 125PS while delivering ultra-low petrol CO2 emissions performance of 114g/km – a level unmatched by Focus competitors. A 100PS version of the same engine will deliver outright best-in-class petrol CO2 emissions of 109g/km. “The new 1.0-litre EcoBoost – and our entire family of EcoBoost engines – represent technology breakthroughs that deliver power, fuel efficiency and low CO2 emissions through turbocharging and direct injection,” Mulally said. “These engines are delivering to our wonderful Ford customers the fuel-efficient vehicles they want and value and, in turn, contributing to the reduction of CO2 and fuel consumption." Mulally was joined by Hannelore Kraft, prime minister of Nordrhein Westfalen, Germany, and Elfi Scho-Antwerpes, mayor of Cologne, for the event. Ford said it invested €134 million ($200 million) to develop a special high-tech line at the Cologne Engine Plant to build the engine. The plant’s 870 employees will build up to 350,000 units a year of the new engine. European production capacity could increase to up to 700,000 units per year as production of the new small EcoBoost engine at Cologne is joined by Ford’s new engine plant in Craiova, Romania, in manufacturing the new 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine in early 2012. In the years ahead, Ford anticipates production to expand outside of Europe to deliver availability for customers around the world and global production of up to 1.3 million 1.0-litre EcoBoost engines per year. The new small EcoBoost petrol engine This new EcoBoost engine delivers performance to rival a traditional 1.6-litre engine and with significantly improved fuel efficiency and lower CO2 emissions. The 1.0-litre EcoBoost cylinder block can fit onto a sheet of A4 paper but delivers up to 125PS and 170Nm peak torque (with 200Nm overboost), giving it the highest power density of any Ford production engine to date. “Ford's commitment to Germany as a high-tech manufacturing location is significant,” Mulally said. “Nowhere outside of the U.S. do we have a stronger design engineering and manufacturing presence than we do here in Germany." The small and powerful new EcoBoost is set to debut in the European Ford Focus in early 2012, and will deliver unrivalled petrol fuel economy of 5.0 l/100km and emissions of just 114g/km CO2 in 125PS form, with a 100PS version offering best-in-class CO2 emissions of 109g/km. The engine also will feature in the hot-selling Ford C-MAX, and in the new Ford B-MAX, which enters production in 2012. Further global applications for both the 125PS and 100PS variants will be announced by Ford later. The 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine was developed by Ford experts across Europe, including engineers at Ford’s European Research and Advanced Engineering Centre in Aachen, Germany, and the Dunton Technical Centre, UK. “The new 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine is a true collaboration from start to finish with expertise from Ford specialists across Europe leveraged in designing both the engine and the cutting-edge facility in which it will be produced,” said Stephen Odell, chairman and CEO, Ford of Europe. “This will be reflected in the class-leading European CO2 emissions of the new 1.0-litre EcoBoost Ford Focus when it debuts in early 2012; low emissions that will be achieved alongside the spirited and refined performance that customers expect from Ford.” High-tech EcoBoost production The advanced EcoBoost production facility at Ford’s Cologne Engine Plant was designed by Ford’s Manufacturing Engineering team, Dunton, UK, using Ford's Virtual Manufacturing laboratory, to offer maximum flexibility and efficiency. Nearly 100 new machining units and a 580-metre purpose-built assembly line have been installed. Fifty-five automated and 14 semi-automated processes are used, alongside 90 work stations for skilled employees, helping to ensure the highest standards of quality and consistency in production. The technology is capable of machining to an accuracy of 10 microns, 10 to 20 per cent the width of a human hair. Ford has introduced new manufacturing techniques that reduce the volume of coolant required when machining aluminium engine parts to just four or five millilitres per component from a previous requirement of up to two litres, a reduction of more than 99 per cent that contributes to a reduced environmental footprint from manufacturing. New “cold testing” technology allows completed engines to be tested without being started - reducing fuel usage and CO2 emissions from the process by 66 per cent – while 100 per cent of the remaining energy required to run the plant comes from renewable sources. Total electricity demands have been reduced by 66 per cent compared with production of Ford’s 4.0-litre V6 engine, which ends today at Cologne Engine Plant. About Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 164,000 employees and about 70 plants worldwide, the company’s automotive brands include Ford and Lincoln. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford’s products, please visit www.fordmotorcompany.com. Ford of Europeis responsible for producing, selling and servicing Ford brand vehicles in 51 individual markets and employs approximately 66,000 employees. In addition to Ford Motor Credit Company, Ford of Europe operations include Ford Customer Service Division and 22 manufacturing facilities, including joint ventures. The first Ford cars were shipped to Europe in 1903 – the same year Ford Motor Company was founded. European production started in 1911.

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Elemental impurities analysis 8-Jun-2017 The control of elemental impurities has long existed within the US and European pharmacopoeias but the wet chemistry tests specified in them are beset with problems They are non-specific, prone to low recoveries and very subjective. Furthermore, studies have also shown that some elements give poor recoveries. So, whilst being “easy” to perform, it is clear they are inadequate. Therefore, many analysts have argued that these methods should be replaced by more specific instrumental techniques, thus allowing the specific analysis of individual elements — in a quantitative manner — to enable the sensible scrutiny of the potential toxicity of pharmaceuticals. After much work and debate, guidelines issued by ICH in 2014 have been formally adopted by the US and European pharmacopoeias; and, from 2018, a harmonised approach to elemental impurity analysis will be in place. ICH guidance The guidance issued by ICH lists 24 elements, grouped into four categories based on their relative toxicity, likelihood of occurrence and route of administration. The elements have been assigned exposure limits, given as permissible daily exposure (PDE) limits in µg). Usefully, the permitted concentration in drug products are also included (as µg, assuming a 10 g daily dose). The ICH guidance has been reproduced verbatim within the European Pharmacopoeia (EP) chapter 5.20 (Metal Catalyst or Metal Reagent Residues), with a compliance date of December 2017 for all products (3 years after the final ICH Q3D guidance was issued). The US Pharmacopeia (USP) has set a final compliance date of January 2018. ICH and the pharmacopoeias With general harmonisation obtained, it is now a lot simpler for companies to start their implementation strategy whilst ensuring compliance with the regulations, albeit that the analytical aspect of compliance will probably require finding an accredited partner laboratory capable of doing the testing. The general approach now accepted for the control of elemental impurities is very much based on a risk assessment. Elements deliberately added to the process are automatically included, as are the four Class 1 and three Class 2A elements (Table I), followed by any of the elements in Class 3 for non-oral dosage forms. Table I: ICH elements and limits, R/A: Risk Assessment, these are elements that need to be considered as part of the risk element As part of the risk assessment, all aspects of the process must be examined, allowing the manufacturer to make an informed decision about the level of testing required to ensure compliance with the regulations. In most cases, the risk assessment will not return many causes of concern. The impact of manufacturing equipment is generally minimal if the equipment and process is well controlled by standard GMP practices, and water can also be eliminated if the proper pharmacopoeial controls are utilised thoughout the manufacturing process. Other potential sources to be considered are catalysts, container closure systems and excipients. The latter come from a wide variety of sources and can also be categorised into different levels of risk. For example, a manufactured excipient would be unlikely to be contaminated with metals such as cadmium or mercury, whereas a plant-derived material, such as sucrose, would have a slightly increased risk of having these elements present. Mined excipients are generally of the greatest concern as these materials are often found alongside many other minerals in the ground. Having identified the risk, it will then be necessary to plan adequate controls; and, in many cases, this will require some analytical testing of the materials, involving the following considerations: Raw material or final product testing? Testing a raw material allows for the rejection of batches before they end up in the final product, but the component of risk can be diluted into the final product. Will a threshold study be sufficient? Will testing six pilot batches or three full-scale batches at 30% of specification demonstrate minimal risk? If a threshold study is not sufficient, or the results are non-conforming, then will the testing be batch release, skip testing or due diligence control with occasional batches tested? Once the approach has been decided, it will then be necessary to develop an analytical method to do this testing. This process will generally require a feasibility and method development step followed by a validation step. Method development and validation One of the key steps of developing a suitable method for elemental impurities testing is the preparation of the samples. The USP <233> chapter usefully sets out three distinct preparation techniques: direct analysis, dissolution and digestion. Direct analysis is, unfortunately, rarely applicable as aqueous solutions with a minimal matrix are uncommon. The specifics of dissolution and digestion are less important than an understanding that each has its limitations, and both have the potential to cause interferences depending on the elements being tested, and the technique being used. Having three preparation techniques to call on is not the same as saying that all three are equally valid in any given analysis. Once a suitable digestion technique has been developed, then the samples can be analysed. Typically, this should be done using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) as it allows for low detection limits to be reached, thus allowing the required specifications to be obtained. These limits may be challenging for alternative techniques, such as Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICPOES), but ICP-OES may be useful when higher limits are set or a particular interference is encountered when using ICP-MS. In any event, whichever approach is chosen, the method must be validated to demonstrate that it is fit for purpose. The ICH guidelines and the USP both allow for two different types of validations to take place, namely limit and quantitative. A limit test will only show whether a sample is above or below specification. Quantitative validation allows for a numerical result to be generated, which may be more useful for monitoring and data gathering as part of a risk-based approach to elemental impurity control. The decision regarding the extent of the validation will ultimately come down to the needs of the manufacturer and the extent of the testing. A limit test may be sufficient for a threshold study, but a full validation may prove to be more robust if used for batch release testing. The road to agreement on elemental impurities regulation has been a long and winding one, but it does seem that there is now a clear view to the final destination. The work of the ICH and the relevant local regulators has led to a final procedure that has made the testing requirement less onerous on the manufacturer. With adequate risk assessment procedures, the process of compliance is much simplified and reduces the reliance on analysis. When the risk assessment does not allow for the elimination of testing, validated methodologies are critical and, by collaborating with an accredited, expert contract laboratory, much of the burden can be reduced. Reading Scientific Services Ltd RSSL improves its imaging RSSL expands capabilities in particle characterisation The inside view on quality issues Assessing elemental impurities RSSL opens new metals lab Partnering medical devices manufacturers RSSL enhances its particle size characterisation capabilities

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Hunters kill 3,648 black bears in Wisconsin's 2019 season, the fewest since 2008 but about the same as last year Preliminary data from the Wisconsin DNR shows hunters harvested 3,648 black bears during the 2019 season, nearly equal to the 3,680 reported in 2018. Hunters kill 3,648 black bears in Wisconsin's 2019 season, the fewest since 2008 but about the same as last year Preliminary data from the Wisconsin DNR shows hunters harvested 3,648 black bears during the 2019 season, nearly equal to the 3,680 reported in 2018. Check out this story on marshfieldnewsherald.com: https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/outdoors/2019/11/08/hunters-kill-3-648-black-bears-wisconsin-during-2019-season/2529358001/ Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Published 2:53 p.m. CT Nov. 8, 2019 | Updated 1:06 p.m. CT Nov. 12, 2019 A black bear is photographed in Wisconsin. (Photo: Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources) Hunters killed 3,648 black bears this fall in Wisconsin, the lowest total in 11 years but nearly equal to the 2019 harvest goal, according to preliminary data from the Department of Natural Resources. The agency established a 16% lower harvest quota this year in keeping with a lower statewide bear population estimate. The season data "suggest that our bear population remains healthy and abundant across the prime bear range in the state," Scott Walter, DNR large carnivore specialist, said in a statement. The 2019 kill by zone was 939 bears in Zone A, 650 in Zone B, 898 in Zone C and 1,161 in Zone D. The total was 95% of the statewide harvest quota. Bear Management Zones in Wisconsin. Wisconsin black bear management zones. (Photo: Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources) Viewed over the last decade or so, the 2019 season produced the lowest kill since 2,955 bears were taken in 2008. But that was mostly by design, as the DNR reduced the 2019 kill goal and permit level in response to an estimated drop in the bear population. Using a new population model, in 2019 the agency estimated the statewide bear population at 24,055 animals, including declines in zones A, B and D. For the 2019 season, the state issued 11,595 bear hunting permits, down from 12,970 in 2018, and set a harvest quota of 3,835, down from 4,550 last year. Despite the modest decline in population, Wisconsin has one of the largest black bear populations in the United States, and the last 10 years have produced the highest bear harvests in state history. Over the last decade the DNR reported bear kills of 4,009 in 2009; 5,133 in 2010; 4,257 in 2011; 4,646 in 2012; 3,952 in 2013; 4,279 in 2014; 4,198 in 2015; 4,693 in 2016; 4,136 in 2017 and 3,680 in 2018. The agency has updated the state's bear management plan, which was approved earlier this year by the Natural Resources Board. The plan includes a change in hunting zones; the changes are scheduled to take effect in 2021. About 120,000 hunters applied for a harvest permit or preference point for the 2019 season, according to the DNR, down from about 124,000 in 2018. The deadline is Dec. 10 to apply for a 2020 Wisconsin bear tag or preference point. Whitefish trawling hearing: The DNR will hold a public hearing on a permanent rule regulating bottom trawling for lake whitefish on Lake Michigan. The proposed rule would allow commercial fishermen to use bottom trawling to catch whitefish in Zone 3, or waters of the lake near Two Rivers. Commercial fisherman are currently prohibited from using the technique in that area for whitefish; they must use other gear such as trap nets. A multi-year study found bottom trawling was more efficient for commercial fisherman, resulted in fewer conflicts between sport and commercial fishermen, and produced a relatively low amount of by-catch, or catch of non-target species such as trout and salmon. A Wisconsin Sea Grant report detailing the study stated 2.4% of the fish caught were non-target species. The hearing will take place at 6 p.m. Nov. 20 in the Lake Michigan room at Lakeshore Technical College in Cleveland. Written comments on the rule and its potential impacts will be accepted through Nov. 23 by emailing to DNRAdministrativeRulesComments@wisconsin.gov or by mail to Department of Natural Resources, Attn: Meredith Penthorn, P.O. Box 7921, 101 S. Webster Street, Madison, WI 53707-7921. Top Headlines from Sports: Bucks 117, Pacers 89: A barrage of three-pointers erases any doubt Packers at Vikings preview: Predictions, 5 things to watch Former Brewers third baseman Travis Shaw signs with Blue Jays FOLLOW JS SPORTS: Like our Facebook Page for the latest news WIAA state football: Stratford falls in Division 5 championship game Nov. 21, 2019, 10:34 p.m. Stratford unable to withstand Lake Country Lutheran blitz Stratford brings historic defense to Division 5 state title game

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Merchants History The Merchants Commitment Merchants National Bonding, Inc. Merchants Bonding Foundation 6700 Westown Parkway info@merchantsbonding.com Merchants Presents Check to AHeinz57 Pet Rescue & Transport Commercial/Fidelity Merchants National Bonding Larry Taylor Chairman of the Board & President Larry joined Merchants Bonding Company™ in 1989 and became the company's President in 1996. Larry is a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the Surety & Fidelity Association of America, past Chairman of the National Association of Independent Sureties, a member of the Greater Des Moines Committee, a past Board member of the Master Builders of Iowa Associate Council, past President of the Board of Directors of Youth Homes of Mid-America, and a United Way Campaign volunteer. He is a graduate of Purdue University. Bill Warner, Jr. Chief Operating Officer & Corporate Secretary Bill began his career at Merchants Bonding Company™ in 1988, has been Corporate Secretary since 1996, and was appointed COO in 2015. He is the Vice Chairman of the National Association of Independent Sureties. From 2001 to 2003, Bill owned Coastal Surety Services, Inc. in Gulf Breeze, Florida, and then joined Merchants' home office in 2004. He has served on the Board of Holding Tiny Hands since 2014. Bill attended Louisiana State University. Don Blum Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer Don joined Merchants Bonding Company™ in 2010. Prior to joining Merchants, he was with The Weitz Company for more than 22 years and held several positions, most recently as Treasurer. Don is a founding member and past president of the local Construction Financial Management Association. He graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in accounting and his CPA certificate. Josh Penwell Senior Vice President, Contract Underwriting Josh joined Merchants Bonding Company™ in 1996. He served as Assistant Vice President of Merchants' Austin, Texas, office before joining the Des Moines office in 2013 and was named Senior Vice President of Contract Underwriting in 2018. Josh serves on the Surety and Fidelity Association of America's Contract Bond Advisory Committee, and is a member of the National Association of Surety Bond Producers, Association of General Contractors of America and the Construction Financial Management Association. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a BBA in finance. Therese Wielage Vice President, Marketing Therese joined Merchants Bonding Company™ in 2008 after serving as Owner/Chief Marketing Officer for a technology company honored by INC 500 as one of the fastest growing companies in 2003. Prior to that, Therese spent 15 years as an award-winning broadcaster for NBC affiliates in Ohio and Iowa. Therese is Chair of the Surety and Fidelity Association of America's Communications Advisory Committee and serves on the boards of the Small Business Development Centers and the West Des Moines, Iowa Chamber of Commerce. Therese has a journalism degree from Miami University. Brad Rasmussen Brad joined Merchants Bonding Company™ in 2014. Prior to joining Merchants, Brad held the role of Senior Director of Sales & Marketing Technology Delivery at Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Iowa. Prior to that, Brad was the CIO at GeoLearning, Inc. Brad has held numerous technology and business leadership positions in start-ups to large organizations. He is also an active member in the Technology Association of Iowa. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa. Steve Dorenkamp Vice President, Claims Manager Steve began his career with Merchants Bonding Company™ in 1995 as a Contract Underwriter, holding the titles of Senior Contract Underwriter and Assistant Vice President prior to joining the Claims Department. In 2012, Steve became Vice President, Claims Manager and also joined the Executive Committee. He is a Board Member of the National Bond Claims Association and a member of several other surety claims organizations. Steve is a graduate of Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. Jim Holter Vice President, Commercial Underwriting Jim joined Merchants Bonding Company™ in 2004 to lead the Commercial Surety department as Assistant Vice President. In 2014, he was promoted to Vice President, Commercial Surety. Jim sits on the Surety and Fidelity Association of America's Commercial Committee, is active in the National Association of Independent Sureties (NAIS) and has been an instructor at the NAIS Surety School. Prior to Merchants, Jim was with Western Surety and CNA Surety. He attended the University of South Dakota. Merchants Corporate Headquarters West Des Moines, Iowa 50266-7754 Des Moines, Iowa 50306-3498 View All Office Locations Do Not Sell My Personal Information | Privacy | Site Map © Merchants Bonding Company (Mutual), Merchants National Bonding, Inc. and affiliated companies Website by Blue Compass

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Virginia Tech heads to Sweet 16 with win over… Virginia Tech heads to Sweet 16 with win over Liberty The Hokies rode a pair of second-half runs to victory and a trip to Washington D.C. SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Virginia Tech's Kerry Blackshear Jr. (24) strips the ball away from Liberty's Myo Baxter-Bell (0) in the first half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Virginia Tech's Ahmed Hill (13) celebrates his basket and foul against Liberty in the second half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Liberty's Lovell Cabbil Jr. (3) takes shot against Virginia Tech's Kerry Blackshear Jr. (24) and Virginia Tech's Nickeil Alexander-Walker (4) in the second half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Liberty's Keenan Gumbs (5) fights for a rebound against Virginia Tech's Kerry Blackshear Jr. (24) and Virginia Tech's Nickeil Alexander-Walker (4) in the second half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Virginia Tech's Ty Outlaw (42) celebrates in the final seconds of their win in front of Liberty's Darius McGhee (2) late in the second half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Virginia Tech's Justin Robinson (5) takes a shot against Liberty's Myo Baxter-Bell (0) in the second half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Virginia Tech's Justin Robinson (5) takes a shot against Liberty's Darius McGhee (2) in the second half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Virginia Tech's Nickeil Alexander-Walker (4) takes a shot against Liberty's Scottie James (31) in the second half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Virginia Tech's Nickeil Alexander-Walker (4) steals the ball away from Liberty's Lovell Cabbil Jr. (3) in the second half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Virginia Tech's Justin Robinson (5) dribbles against Liberty's Elijah Cuffee (10) in the second half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Virginia Tech's Ty Outlaw (42) scores a 3-point basket against Liberty's Caleb Homesley (1) in the second half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Liberty's Keenan Gumbs (5) dribbles against Virginia Tech's Ty Outlaw (42) in the first half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Virginia Tech's Wabissa Bede (3) fights for a pass against Liberty's Caleb Homesley (1) in the first half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Virginia Tech's Ty Outlaw (42) fouls Liberty's Georgie Pacheco-Ortiz (11) in the first half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Liberty's Darius McGhee (2) dribbles against Virginia Tech's Justin Robinson (5) in the first half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Liberty's Darius McGhee (2) scores a 3-point basket against Virginia Tech's Justin Robinson (5) in the first half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) SAN JOSE, CA - MARCH 24: Liberty's Scottie James (31) takes a shot against Virginia Tech's Ty Outlaw (42) in the first half of their 2019 NCAA Division I second round game at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March. 24, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) By Harold Gutmann | Correspondent PUBLISHED: March 24, 2019 at 6:29 pm | UPDATED: March 24, 2019 at 9:23 pm CLICK HERE if you are having a problem viewing the photos on a mobile device SAN JOSE – No. 4 Virginia Tech and No. 12 Liberty are located about 90 minutes apart in Southwest Virginia – close enough that they played an exhibition game in November to raise money for hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico, where Liberty starting guard Georgie Pacheco-Ortiz grew up. The stakes could not have been more different on Sunday, when they met against in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in one of the biggest games in each program’s history. In the end, Virginia Tech was able to avoid the upset bug at San Jose’s SAP Center. At a site where the other three high seeds were upset in the first round, Virginia Tech won 67-58 to advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1967. Kerry Blackshear had 19 points and nine rebounds and senior Justin Robinson, the school’s all-time leader in assists, had 13 points and four assists in his second game back after missing 12 games with a foot injury. “I’m so excited for (Robinson),” said coach Buzz Williams, who previously led Marquette to three straight Sweet 16s. “There was never any assurance that he was going to be able to play again. For him to be able to come back on this stage and obviously be a part of winning on Friday and then to continue our season, just thankful. Regardless of how it plays out, he was able to end his career in this manner is so much better than him sitting over there in civilian clothes.” The game played 2,700 miles away from the schools’ campuses may not have captured the imagination of Bay Area sports fans. There were tickets available at game time for programs that locals might only know in relation to Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry – his father Dell played at Virginia Tech, and his brother Seth started at Liberty before transferring to Duke. But that didn’t lessen the intensity on the court, especially in a back-and-forth start to the second half. Virginia Tech (26-8) started with seven straight points to go up 36-32, and Liberty (29-7) responded with nine straight points. The Hokies then made their decisive run, scoring 11 straight to make it 52-44 with 9:11 remaining as the Flames committed four turnovers and missed four shots. Liberty got within 59-54 on a 3-pointer by Pacheco-Ortiz, but Robinson made a pull-up jumper from the free throw line with two minutes left to bring the lead back to 7. The Flames made just 2 of their last 12 shots. “First half I thought we played defense, but we kind of was just ‘eh,’” said Ahmed Hill, who had two of Virginia Tech’s 10 steals. “I think when we picked up the intensity and kind of talked to one another, we began to move better, faster, sharper, mentally, and I think that was the difference.” Liberty junior Caleb Homesley was held to eight points on 3-of-11 shooting after scoring a career-high 30 Friday against No. 5 Mississippi State. Both teams set program records for victories this season. Liberty was coming off its first-ever NCAA Tournament win, while Virginia Tech won in March Madness for the first time in 12 years by shutting down No. 13 St. Louis. The Hokies will be much closer to home for the East Regional semifinal when they face No. 1 overall seed Duke Friday in Washington D.C. Virginia Tech has beaten the Blue Devils in three of the past four seasons, including a Hokies home game on Feb. 26, though Robinson and Duke’s Zion Williamson were both injured last month. “We’re not going to be star-struck or scared or any of that,” Robinson said. “We’re just going to battle, make it a fight and play how we know how to play and be the best version of ourselves.” Harold Gutmann More in College Sports *** The Pac-12 Hotline newsletter is published each Monday-Wednesday-Friday during the college sports season and twice-a-week in the summer. (Sign up here for a free subscription.) This edition, from Jan. 20, has been made available in archived form. Early-Entry Fallout: Limited The list of Pac-12 players who declared for the NFL Draft would form the backbone of an impressive lineup.... Pac-12 hoops takeaways: NET matters, USC’s rise and more The Trojans rallied to beat Stanford and take over first place after three weeks of conference play. But USC's toughest test is this week: a showdown at Oregon. CFP cash count: Pac-12 stays competitive in the revenue race The conference has only sent two teams to the playoff in six years. But because of the revenue distribution process, it hasn't fallen far behind in cash collected. No. 3 Stanford women return to winning ways — but barely The Cardinal fell behind 13-2 but steadied itself to win a nip-and-tuck game against the 8th-ranked Oregon State Beavers.

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Boy bitten by a lizard by Caravaggio 1595 1596 (Pt 1) by Mereasy | Jun 12, 2019 | Caravaggio, Masterpiece Explained, Paintings | 0 comments A photograph capturing that moment when everything can change suddenly While “Boy Bitten by a Lizard” is not one of Caravaggio’s most famous works, it is certainly one of the most interesting. For the first time, a fleeting emotion of the moment is represented, much like a photograph taken suddenly, capturing that unrepeatable instant between surprise and pain. There are two versions of the work, one from the V. Korda Collection, held at the National Gallery in London and the other in Florence, at the Longhi Foundation. It was the art critic Roberto Longhi, in the 1940s, who raised Caravaggio from the oblivion in which he had already fallen in the 1600s. Analysis of the work Giovanni Baglione – a contemporary of Caravaggio and a rather mediocre painter who had written the biographies of Roman artists of that last century – discussed this work. Baglione certainly was not on good terms with Caravaggio. He criticized his style, even if he had at times imitated him and had even sued him for certain vulgar verses that had offended him and which he believed had come from Caravaggio. However, implicitly recognizing the value of the painting he had written “… he seemed to actually shake his head”. The theme itself could be considered trivial. A boy is bitten by a lizard, but the way in which the theme is represented is extraordinary. The reptile that triggers the action by sinking the teeth in the young man’s finger is immediately noticed – it is in the shadows, a darker part of the work. What is striking, however, is the boy’s reaction. As in a still image, the young man is caught in the exact instant in which the body jumps back from sudden pain and leans forward towards the observer. The right hand suddenly retracts and pulls the whole arm with it, bringing the shoulder close to the body, in a sudden flicker that makes the shoulder position unnatural. The fingers are contracted by the pain, as if an excess of energy – a “shock” had passed through the nerve endings of the hands. The face is extraordinary, something that had never been seen before. His forehead is frowned in pain and surprise, while a silent cry comes out of the barely opened mouth. Moreover, the eyes are the truly remarkable, they reveal an expression between suffering and surprise, but also the wonder of having been “discovered”. In fact, the event is not private, the boy is aware of being observed and in fact looks towards us as if we had treacherously entered the room and caught him jolting back. History of an iconography The painting must have seen good fortune, because there are several repetitions from artists during the same time period, although the theme was not a something entirely new. In fact, there is a precedent: the work a Cremonese painter, Sofonisba Anguissola, held in the Capodimonte museum in Naples, Italy. This piece is the Child bitten by a shrimp, completed in around 1555, that depicts a baby crying out after being bitten, and being cared for by a young girl. Caravaggio had certainly seen the drawing. However, his interpretation offers more dramatization, transforming the child’s naive crying into a movement of horror. Moreover, in Sofonisba’s work, the cry seems to last forever, while Caravaggio represents the moment of the bite and, at the same time, gives greater complexity to the expression because surprise is added to the pain. There is little doubt that both works show a common direction, which is that of a representation in which external realities and moods come together. The matrix is the physiognomic studies of Leonardo, as the head of the screaming man (1503-1505), preparatory drawing for the Battle of Anghiari, which is the beginning of the vein of the face deformed by the cry that runs through the whole history of art. We will find it again in The Scream by Munch (1893), and again in the expressionist painting of the early 1900s, to finally reach the screaming mouths of Francis Bacon as in Pope III, of 1951, which is the “remake” of the Portrait of Innocent X of Velázquez of 1650. Even cinema is not exempt from these inputs – just think of the famous scene of Ejzenštejn’s film of 1925, the Corazzata Pötemkin, with the cry of the nanny as the wheelchair rolls down the stairs. Historical and artistic context Mancini, an art collector who had written at the beginning of 1600s “Considerations on painting”, includes the painting among Caravaggio’s early works dating back to the period when the artist, who had come from Lombardy, had been living in Rome for a few years. In the city of the Popes, after an unhappy period at the Cavalier D’Arpino’s workshop, Caravaggio had begun to make himself known and obtain high-ranking patrons, such as Cardinal Del Monte, a sophisticated man, leader in Roman politics, and very close to Pope Clement VIII. The artist was also close to wealthy banker Vincenzo Giustiniani. Important clients who, in addition to assuring him a certain economic stability, sometimes guided him in the choice of subjects. In fact, Caravaggio likely had access in Del Monte’s home to Leonardo’s Book of Painting, owned by the cardinal’s brother where there were studies on the “motions of the soul” that the great Florentine had led. However, the knowledge of Leonardo, who had lived in Milan for a long period of time, could date back to the years of apprenticeship in Lombardy. It is certain that it was in Rome, in the 1490s, that he would paint various works where extreme states of mind were depicted. Tallinn: A Lovely Example of Perfectly Conserved Medieval Architecture Paul Gauguin at the Royal Academy of London Jan van Eyck in Ghent Abstractionism Berte Morisot Jurgen Mayer Metaphysical Art Middleages Roubens

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Businesses join forces to ensure Georgia remains open, inclusive A coalition of Georgia businesses today launched an effort to maintain the state's standing as an attractive location to do business while ensuring it remains an inclusive place to live, work and play. Georgia Prospers counts more than 100 corporate and small businesses among its ranks. Signers, as their called, have committed to "promoting an attractive, prosperous, and economically vibrant Georgia." The new Georgia Prospers website highlights Georgia's ranking as the number 1 state in which to do business as well as its general business climate and warm southern hospitality as unique brand attributes. It also notes that in order to retain and attract a diverse and exceptional workforce, Georgia must continue to roll out the welcome mat to everyone, "regardless of one’s age, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity. individuals based on their sexual orientation." Former Senate Majority Leader Ronnie Chance is heading the coalition whose mantra is "A United Georgia is a Prosperous Georgia." “Georgia’s economy is expanding, and with our commitment to an excellent business climate, we are poised for tremendous growth," he said. "When Georgia businesses prosper, Georgia families prosper, so we all have a stake in bolstering the image of our state and existing businesses to attract the diverse, skilled workforce that is crucial to future success.” Georgia Prospers' launch comes just days before the 2016 Georgia legislative session is set to convene. Several religious freedom bills are pending before lawmakers and business leaders have been advocating for the inclusion of anti-discrimination language within the legislation.

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Election 2016: Constitutional Amendments on Ballot There are four amendments to the state constitution up for voter consideration this November. Amendment 1 would allow for the creation of an Opportunity School District (OSD) to take over the supervision, management and operation of failing public schools. If approved, the newly formed OSD would be run by a superintendent who reports directly to the governor. Learn more about how the program would be implemented and for frequently asked questions, visit www.gaopportunity.org Amendment 2 calls for the establishment of the Safe Harbor for Sexually Exploited Children Fund, a dedicated source of funding to provide restorative services child victims of sex trafficking. Services would include safe housing, trauma counseling, medical treatment, and more. A commission appointed by the General Assembly and the governor would direct the allocation of funds to entities whose mission aligns with the Fund’s goals, including agencies, faith-based organizations and non-profits. Find more details here. Amendment 3 does away with the current Judicial Qualifications Commission (JQC) and creates a new commission accountable to the General Assembly. The JQC is granted the power to discipline, remove and force judges to retire based upon their investigations into alleged misconduct. For more on how the commission would be reconfigured, click here. Amendment 4 requires the 5 percent sales tax already collected on fireworks sold in Georgia to be earmarked for trauma care, fire services such as equipment and training and public safety. SB 350 was the enabling bill for this amendment and specifies how the funds are to be used.

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'Lesbians for Men' Is the NSFW Photo Book You Have to See to Believe It's perfect for guys who love girl on girl action. Maxim Staff (Photo: Taschen) It's been derided as a hallmark of the so-called "male gaze," but girl-on-girl action is a common trope of erotic photography. A new photo book compiled by Dian Hanson, Lesbians for Men, explores how this sapphic fantasy has played out over the history of photography. "Straight men have always had a thing for lesbians, or more correctly, for essentially straight women willing to do other women for their viewing pleasure," reads the book's preface. "Lesbians for Men is the first photo book to acknowledge such photos are created to fuel male fantasy, to explore the reasons, and to trace their origins back to 1890, and forward to the present day." It's a nose dive into the erotically-charged worlds of photographers like Nobuyoshi Araki, Guido Argentini, Bruno Bisang, Bob Carlos Clarke, Ed Fox, Ren Hang, Petter Hegre, Richard Kern, Will Santillo, and Kishin Shinoyama. Lesbians for Men, which includes over 300 of such scintillating shots as well as accompanying commentary and analysis, will be available in November through Taschen for $49.99. Lesbiansphoto booksartsexyNSFWLesbians For Menphotography

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Continuing EducationExternal Link Incidentally discovered adrenal masses and subclinical Cushing syndrome Biochemical and clinical progression Biochemical and clinical progression related to the degree of autonomous glucocorticoid production from an incidentally discovered adrenocortical tumor. The frequency of incidental discovery of adrenal masses (adrenal incidentaloma) is increasing due to widespread use of computerized abdominal imaging — adrenal incidentalomas are encountered in approximately 5 percent of imaging studies. Irina Bancos, M.D., a consultant with Endocrinology, Diabetes, Metabolism and Nutrition at Mayo Clinic's campus in Rochester, Minnesota, explains: "Tumors of the adrenal cortex or medulla can result in hormonal excess, which includes catecholamine excess, mineralocorticoid excess and glucocorticoid excess (Cushing syndrome). Cushing syndrome (CS) is associated with clinically significant morbidity and mortality. Such patients may present with weight gain, altered fat redistribution, skin fragility, easy bruisability and purple striae, muscle loss and proximal myopathy, osteoporosis and fractures, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, and hypertension." Biochemical diagnosis Biochemical diagnosis of cortisol excess of adrenal origin While CS is quite rare, much more commonly, patients with adrenal tumors present with bio-chemical evidence of mild autonomous cortisol production without development of overt cush-ingoid features. Dr. Bancos highlights: "This condition is frequently labeled as subclinical CS (SCS). The definition of SCS varies, but mainly relies on demonstration of nonsuppressible morning cortisol with the overnight 1-mg dexamethasone suppression test (DST). "The 1-mg DST is considered the most valuable test in SCS despite the ongoing debate on the optimal dose of dexamethasone (for example, 1, 2 or 8 mg), the most accurate cortisol cutoff (for example, 1.8, 2.2 or 5 mcg/dL), and a wide range of reported sensitivity (44 to 100 percent) and specificity (24 to 100 percent). "As shown in a study published by Melvin M. Grumbach, M.D., and others in Annals of Internal Medicine in 2003, around 30 percent of patients with adrenal incidentaloma fulfill the criteria of SCS. Though patients with SCS lack symptoms and signs of overt CS, several reports, including studies published by Maurizio Iacobone, M.D., and others in Surgery in 2012 and Valentina Morelli, M.D., Ph.D., and others, published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism in 2014, have shown that SCS is associated with a high prevalence of hypertension, obesity, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia and osteoporosis. "As a group, patients with SCS have higher rates of cardiovascular risk factors and events. However, management of an individual patient with SCS is controversial as the contribution of mild hypercortisolism toward the development of otherwise prevalent hypertension, weight gain, dyslipidemia, diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular events is unknown. Indeed, while some studies reported partial improvement of cardiometabolic risk factors in certain patients, the degree of improvement was unpredictable. "The current classification of patients with adrenal tumors and glucocorticoid excess fails to accurately predict the individual harmful metabolic effect of hypercortisolism. Although it is well-known that glucocorticoids have a wide range of metabolic actions, it remains to be determined how exactly mild hypercortisolism affects metabolic parameters and whether any metabolic markers could identify individuals with SCS who would be more likely to benefit from the surgery. Currently, such patients usually undergo follow-up with targeted testing to identify any (possibly cortisol induced) metabolic abnormalities. And referral for adrenalectomy is largely dependent on the endocrinologist's comfort level with SCS and the patient's preference." A team of investigators at Mayo Clinic is currently attempting to better understand differences in steroid production in patients with SCS as well as tie in measured abnormalities with cortisol-induced metabolic changes. Dr. Bancos says: "Our team has recently developed a novel assay that measures 26 urinary steroid metabolites by high-resolution liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). We are in the process of developing a serum steroid assay aimed to discern false-positives from true clinically significant abnormalities in steroid production of patients with SCS. Such in-depth adrenal steroid profiling allows us to better characterize adrenal tumor glucocorticoid production other than cortisol. Trial aims, interventions and outcomes Trial for patients with adrenal tumors referred for adrenalectomy "In addition, we have an active trial for patients with adrenal tumors referred for adrenalectomy in whom we are able to combine in-depth steroid profiling with testing of beta cell function and insulin sensitivity before and after adrenalectomy. We are hopeful that identifying biomarkers of hypercortisolism's influence on metabolism in the future will allow us to intervene in a timely manner and prevent irreversible complications that occur in select patients with SCS," says Dr. Bancos. Grumbach MM, et al. Management of the clinically inapparent adrenal mass (incidentaloma). Annals of Internal Medicine. 2003;138:424. Iacobone M, et al. Adrenalectomy may improve cardiovascular and metabolic impairment and ameliorate quality of life in patients with adrenal incidentalomas and subclinical Cushing's syndrome. Surgery. 2012;152:991. Morelli V, et al. Long-term follow-up in adrenal incidentalomas: An Italian multicenter study. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. 2014;99:827. MAC-20439148

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Jim Day to give University Scholar lecture at UM Jim Day, professor of history, will give the University Scholar presentation Monday, March 16, at 7 p.m. in the J. A. Brown Room, Carmichael Library. His talk is titled “Wilson’s Raid through Alabama: A Sesquicentennial Retrospective.” Day was honored as the University Scholar at the annual Founders’ Day activities in October 2014. The award is given once each year to a member of the UM faculty who has demonstrated a strong, career-spanning commitment to scholarship or creative work of the finest caliber. It is among the highest awards UM bestows on its faculty. Day served 16 years on active duty in the U.S. Army, during which he taught history at the USMA, served in leadership positions from North Carolina to the Federal Republic of Germany and graduated from Airborne, Ranger, Jumpmaster, Air Assault, Pathfinder and Jungle Operations schools as well as Command and General Staff College. Day joined the faculty at the University of Montevallo in 1997 and has not only taught a myriad of history courses, but also has served UM at various times as chair of the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, dean of graduate studies, and assistant vice president for academic affairs. A member of numerous professional organizations, honor societies and community service groups, Day serves as president of Leadership Shelby County and the UM chapter of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. Day’s book, Diamonds in the Rough: A History of Alabama’s Cahaba Coal Field, (University of Alabama Press, 2013) was the winner of the Alabama Historical Association’s Clinton Jackson Coley Award for best work on Alabama local history (2014). All are invited to this evening of discovery and conversation to celebrate Day’s work and learn more about his current projects. Refreshments will be provided courtesy of the provost’s office.

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Richardville stands by Michigan Senate office space move, calls lease a 'good business decision' By Jonathan Oosting | joosting@mlive.com capitol-view-boji.jpg The Michigan State Senate at Capitol View, as envisioned in a bid from The Boji Group. LANSING, MI -- Former Majority Leader Randy Richardville is standing by plans to move Michigan Senate offices into a new building, saying the new lease he approved was a "good business" decision for the state. "We went through a very stringent process to find the price that was the best and the quality that was the best for the items that matched what we were looking for," said Richardville, who visited the Capitol on unrelated business Tuesday. "It was all done by a professional staff that came to me with a recommendation. It was a good business decision, not just for the state, but for the people of Michigan." The Senate, under the lease signed in December, is expected to move out of the aging Farnum Building and into the Capitol View Building by 2017. The building itself was expected to cost the state $51 million. But the Michigan Strategic Fund sold nearly $70 million in bonds to cover the purchase and related cost, and long-term debt service for the project could reportedly reach $134 million over 32 years. The move has come under scrutiny in recent months as lawmakers cut state spending to address a looming general fund budget crunch. House Democrats, vowing to fight annual appropriations for debt payments, have called the pending building move an example of misplaced priorities by Senate Republicans. "If we asked the people, I don't think Michigan taxpayers would agree with spending $134 million on brand new offices at a time when our roads are crumbling and students are packed into classrooms like sardines," state Rep. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, said last week. But Richardville called the $134 million figure "exaggerated," comparing it to a long-term mortgage, which will invariably cost more than the original purchase price. The Senate estimated that renovating the Farnum Building would have cost $26 million. But even then, Richardville said, the Farnum would have never been "a quality" building for Senate members and their staff to work in. "People can try to make a story that doesn't exist, but why would I make a bad business decision for the Senate?" he said. "Beyond financial costs, there were also concerns with safety, concerns with security and concerns with just bringing the building up to where it was state of the art." New Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive, has called the move a done deal orchestrated by his predecessor but said it is his job to execute it with transparency. Bids released last month by the Senate Business Office showed that a firm owned by Lansing developer Ron Boji offered to lease Capitol View to the Senate a cost of $16.75 per square foot and then sell the building for $1 when the lease expired. Boji has made political contributions to a variety of candidates and groups over the years -- mostly Republicans but also a handful of Democrats. Capitol View wasn't the absolute lowest price, but the team that reviewed the bids gave the building top marks because of its proximity to the Capitol and existing design features, such as parking and a separate, secure entrance for Senators and staff. The Boji Group, in its proposal, also documented plans for construction of a new two-story lobby connecting public hearing rooms in the Capitol View building. Gov. Rick Snyder, asked Tuesday about Senate plans to move into new office space, said he was not involved in the decision, calling it a responsibility of the legislative branch. "I've really remained out of it, because as the executive branch, we have a lot of decisions to make that keep us quite busy, and this is a decision they need to make as to where they reside," Snyder said. The Senate approved a plan to sell the Farnum Building last year in a 22-14 vote, with 19 Republicans and three Democrats approving related legislation. The House did not sign off on the sale of the old building, but that did not prevent the Senate from signing a lease for a new one. Jonathan Oosting is a Capitol reporter for MLive Media Group. Email him, find him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter.

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Michigan residents leaving the Catholic Church as many turn away from religion Updated Apr 29, 2019; Posted Apr 29, 2019 Congregation members stand for prayer during the Good Friday noon service at the Cathedral of St. Augustine in Kalamazoo, Michigan on Friday, April 19, 2019. Emil Lippe | MLive.com By Julie Mack | jmack1@mlive.com and Scott Levin | slevin@mlive.com The Catholic Church has loomed large over Gloria Emmons’ life. Growing up in metro Detroit in the 1950s and ’60s, her devout Catholic family was surrounded by other devout Catholics. Everybody went to church on Sundays. Nobody ate meat on Fridays. Almost every home had a statue of Mary. Emmons attended Catholic schools through college. She married in the church, sent her two sons through Catholic schools and the family attended weekly Mass for years. But today, Emmons describes herself as an “ambivalent” Catholic. “There are lots of conflicts” between Catholic doctrine and contemporary values such as equality for gays and women, said Emmons, 65, who lives near Kalamazoo. “As we move forward as a society, they stare you in the face." Emmons still considers herself Catholic. “I still love the Mass,” she said. But she no longer belongs to a local parish, and when she attends Mass nowadays, it’s typically to accompany her 93-year-old father to his church in Oakland County. For Emmons’ sons, former altar boys now in their 30s, the estrangement with the church has gone even farther. Both sons now reject Catholicism. One son is gay. The other son married another graduate of Catholic schools, but the couple didn’t have a church wedding and haven’t baptized their children. “I’m close to my father’s priest, and I’ve talked to him” about her children’s loss of faith, Emmons said. “He said he’s seeing the same thing" among his congregation. It’s a trend backed by numbers. Between 2000 and 2018, membership in Michigan’s Catholic parishes dropped from 2.2 million to 1.8 million, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), which collects annual data from U.S. Catholic dioceses. Even more striking in the CARA data are the declines in Catholic sacraments and education. Infant baptisms, down 49% since 2000. Weddings blessed by the Catholic Church, down 54%. First Communions, down 46%. Enrollment in Catholic grade schools, down 49%. Enrollment in K-12 religious education classes, down 48%. Sorry, but your browser does not support frames. The number of sacraments in the 2000 and 2018 CARA reports reflect the totals for the previous 12 months. The number of weddings include all marriages blessed by the church, regardless of whether it was performed in a Catholic church. One number not included in this chart are the number of adults baptized in another Christian faith who converted to Catholicism. That number was 3,793 in 2000 and 2,322 in 2018, a 39% drop. “Those are huge drops, a huge erosion," said Brian Wilson, a American religious history professor at Western Michigan University. But he and other experts say Michigan is not an outlier in the U.S. Catholic Church -- and the U.S. Catholic Church is not an outlier among the nation’s Christian denominations, most of which are losing members. “There are a whole lot of societal factors converging together," said Mary Gautier, a CARA senior researcher. “Younger people today are less likely to get married," she said. "If they do get married, they’re unlikely to get married in a church. Everybody wants a beach wedding.” Birth rates also are down, and when women do have children, they are less likely to have been married in the Church or be married at all -- which makes it less likely the child will be baptized. And a child who isn’t baptized is highly unlikely to be enrolled in a Catholic school, attend religious education classes or have a First Communion. In short, Catholics are less likely today to stay in the church out of habit or social pressure, Gautier said. “They want a faith that is meaningful for them. If a pastor can’t provide that, they’ll find it elsewhere” -- or eschew religion all together. Growth of the ‘nones’ Today, America’s fastest-growing category of religious identity is “none.” In a 2014 survey by the Pew Research Center 24% of Michigan adults answered “none” when asked their religion. That compares to 25% who identified as evangelical Protestants, 18% as Catholic and 18% as mainline Protestants. This chart shows the breakdown of religious identify for Michigan adults in the 2014 Pew survey. About 70% of survey-takers identified themselves as Christians; of these with a non-Christian faith, about 1% each identified as Jewish, Muslim or Buddhist. “There’s a religious change in the United States that is very much generational, and that’s just not for Catholics," said Greg Smith, associate director of research at Pew. Americans born before 1946 “by and large are very religious," he said. But as they die off, they are being replaced by millennials, a generation far less inclined to link spirituality to organized religion. Emmons points to her own family as an example of the generational shift: Her elderly father is an unwavering Catholic; she is a Catholic skeptical of the institutional church, and her children have eschewed organized religion entirely. “I think I’m typical of Catholics my age,” she said. “There’s no societal pressure anymore to be religious,” Wilson said, which means fewer people attend church -- and as fewer people attend, societal pressure lessens even more. “It’s a feedback loop.” Moreover, people today are less inclined to belong to organizations in general. “It’s not just organized religion” but everything from sports leagues to civic groups, Wilson said. “People are much more comfortable being on their own. They have networks of friends and contacts, but it’s less formal.” This shows the breakdown of religious identity by age, according to the 2014 Pew survey. Yet another factor may be the convergence of politics and religion. “There are plenty of churches that are apolitical and focus on the spiritual," Wilson said. "But they can be overshadowed in the media by conservative evangelicals and conservative Catholics who are very political and outspoken. “That turns off millennials, who might see this strong connection between religion and conservative politics and think this must be what every church looks like,” he said. Wilson said he’s seen the changes among his students at Western Michigan University. Comparative religion classes are less popular than they were 20 years ago, he said, and those who do enroll are much less knowledgeable. “More and more of my students have no background in religion," he said. “Even among those who say they come from Christian homes, a lot have never cracked open up a Bible. They are religiously illiterate.” Trends within Catholicism About 41% of American adults raised as Catholic are no longer Catholic, according to the 2014 Pew survey. By comparison, 55% raised in a mainline Protestant denomination and 35% raised as evangelical Protestants no longer identify with their childhood religion. While the Catholic retention rate is about average, what’s more problematic for the church is the lack of converts, said Smith, the Pew researcher. While 13% of Americans are former Catholics, only 2% are Catholic converts -- a 6-to-1 ratio. “Other religions have a much more favorable ratio," Smith said. Among former Catholics, half have joined another religion and about half are “nones," according to various surveys. “In 2008, we asked people why they changed religion,” Smith said about Pew surveys. "For Catholics, about a fourth cited the sex-abuse scandals. But when asked for the most important reason they left, the abuse scandal didn’t come up much.” Rather, survey respondents gave a variety of answers -- from no longer believing in God, to disagreements with Catholic teachings on issues such as gay marriage and birth control, to issues with a priest or congregation. “Many just drifted away,” Smith said. “It wasn’t a conscious decision.” Bringing people back The good news for the U.S. Catholic Church: Those losses have been offset by an influx of Hispanics on church rolls, both through immigration and outreach to Hispanic communities. Today, 38% of U.S. Catholics are Hispanic, and it’s 54% among Catholics born since 1982, according to a 2016 CARA study. These numbers come from the 2014 Pew survey. About a third of all U.S. Catholics are Hispanic, according to multiple surveys. But most of the Hispanic influx has occurred in Western and Southern states. The Catholic Church is shrinking in the Northwest and Midwest, including Michigan. The Archdiocese of Detroit is a prime example of what’s happening in longtime Catholic strongholds. The archdiocese -- which includes Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Monroe, Lapeer and St. Clair counties -- serves 1.1 million Catholics, more than 60% of all Catholics in Michigan. But church membership is down 22% since 2000. Marriages blessed by the Church are down 60%. Baptisms, down 55%. Since 2000, half the Catholic schools in the archdiocese have closed and the number of parishes has dropped by almost a third through church closures and mergers. The diocese has 30% fewer priests than in 2000, and 60% fewer nuns. “It’s not a good thing at all," said Father Steve Pullis, director of Evangelization, Catechesis and Schools for the Archdiocese of Detroit. He recognizes traditional Catholic teachings can be a difficult sell in today’s culture. “I get that it’s hard for my contemporaries,” said Pullis, who is 37. “To hear what Christ propose may be at odds with the values of the world." Still, he said, “We need to help the next generation know why it’s important to stay in the church.” To that end, Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron has unveiled an “Unleash the Gospel” movement that calls on Catholics to see southeast Michigan as ripe for missionary efforts. “It’s not about a membership drive or the number," Pullis said. "We’re about bringing hearts to Jesus.” To spread this message, the archdiocese has launched a number of initiatives: Small-group Bible studies; creation of a Young Catholic Professionals group; a speaker series in bars called Theology on Tap; podcasts; Facebook posts promoting video testimonials; an Unleash the Gospel magazine. This map shows Michigan’s seven Catholic dioceses. You can put your cursor over a diocese to see its Catholic population as of Jan. 1, 2018. The embedded numbers reflect the entire diocese vs. county-level totals. (Source: CARA) His vision also includes encouraging congregations to find ways make Mass a more meaningful experience through “radical hospitality," better use of music and more dynamic homilies. In addition, Vigeron has promised “practical help" to ensure priests provide empathetic pastoral care and present homilies "meeting people where they are at and avoiding ‘truth bombs’ that will only turn them away.” Those are approaches are backed by research, according to Gautier, the CARA analyst. Priests "can do real damage” in driving people away from Catholicism, she said. “Any parish who wants to attract people needs to work on hospitality and making people feel welcome,” Gautier added. “The research we find is that people are looking for a sense of welcome and a sense of belonging" in a church. Mary Henige, strategic communication director for the archdiocese, said Detroit-area Catholics are “supercharged” about the new approach of joyful discipleship. “I love our Church, and I want other people to love it," she said. "This world needs Christ more than ever.” The loss of joy But people such as Emmons see a disconnect between the teachings of Jesus and the institutional church. As the mother of a gay man, the church’s stance on homosexuality is especially painful. “It’s hard,” Emmons said. “It’s been hard for my son." For years, Emmons and her husband centered their lives around St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Kalamazoo, where their children attended school and Emmons’ husband was on the school board. It was a warm, tight-knit, loving community, Emmons said. That changed in the late 1990s with a new priest, Emmons said. “He was a young guy, but he was a 1950s-style priest" with rigid ideas. Emmons and her husband looked for another parish, but “they didn’t seem that friendly.” Meanwhile, Emmons said, the sex-abuse scandals, the church’s role in banning gay marriage in Michigan, the efforts to limit access to abortion and contraceptives, the treatment of women as “second-class citizens” all took their toll on her. “Church should give you joy, and it’s not there anymore," Emmons added. "I miss when church was joyful.” Part of the problem, she said, is the new crop of young priests, who tend to be much more conservative. “It’s not the 1960s, ’70s or ’80s," when liberals felt at home in the Catholic Church, she said. But for all her disillusionment with the institutional Church, Emmons said she still prays and still takes comfort in Catholic rituals. She’s dismayed that her sons have lost their faith. She’s especially unhappy her grandchildren are not baptized. “The Catholic part of me feels so bad, and I’ve talked to other parents who feel the same way," Emmons said. Still, she said, she understands why her sons no longer attend church. Her gay son stopped going to Mass after a priest “went on a rampage about gay marriage," Emmons said. The judgmental stances of the Church are especially galling considering the sexual-abuse scandals, which has undermined the church’s moral authority, Emmons said. And she scoffs at the idea a celibate, all-male priesthood can offer effective insights on marriage and family life. It’s not the relationship with Jesus that has changed, but her relationship with the church, she said. “People now realize they don’t have to go through a priest to have a relationship with God."

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MMCC Blog World’s first self-driving taxis debut in Singapore Posted on 31/08/16 by admin The world’s first self-driving taxis are picking up passengers in Singapore. Select members of the public began hailing free rides Thursday through their smartphones in taxis operated by nuTonomy, an autonomous vehicle software startup. While multiple companies, including Google and Volvo, have been testing self-driving cars on public roads for several years, nuTonomy says it is the first to offer rides to the public. It beat ride-hailing service Uber, which plans to offer rides in autonomous cars in Pittsburgh, by a few weeks. The service is starting small — six cars now, growing to a dozen by the end of the year. The ultimate goal, say nuTonomy officials, is to have a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, which will help sharply cut the number of cars on Singapore’s congested roads. Eventually, the model could be adopted in cities around the world, nuTonomy says. An autonomous vehicle is parked for its test drive in Singapore Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016. The world’s first self-driving taxis, operated by nuTonomy, an autonomous vehicle software startup, will be picking up passengers in Singapore starting Thursday, Aug. 25. The service will start small – six cars now, growing to a dozen by the end of the year. The ultimate goal, say nuTonomy officials, is to have a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, which will help sharply cut the number of cars on Singapore’s congested roads. (AP Photo/Yong Teck Lim) For now, the taxis are only running in a 2.5-square-mile business and residential district called “one-north,” and pick-ups and drop-offs are limited to specified locations. And riders must have an invitation from nuTonomy to use the service. The company says dozens have signed up for the launch, and it plans to expand that list to thousands of people within a few months. The cars — modified Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi i-MiEV electrics — have a driver in front who is prepared to take back the wheel and a researcher in back who watches the car’s computers. Each car is fitted with six sets of Lidar — a detection system that uses lasers to operate like radar — including one that constantly spins on the roof. There are also two cameras on the dashboard to scan for obstacles and detect changes in traffic lights. The testing time-frame is open-ended, said nuTonomy CEO Karl Iagnemma. Eventually, riders may start paying for the service, and more pick-up and drop-off points will be added. NuTonomy also is working on testing similar taxi services in other Asian cities as well as in the U.S. and Europe, but he wouldn’t say when. Doug Parker, chief operating officer of nuTonomy, speaks during an interview in Singapore Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016. The world’s first self-driving taxis, operated by nuTonomy, an autonomous vehicle software startup, will be picking up passengers in Singapore starting Thursday, Aug. 25. The service will start small – six cars now, growing to a dozen by the end of the year. The ultimate goal, say nuTonomy officials, is to have a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, which will help sharply cut the number of cars on Singapore’s congested roads. (AP Photo/Yong Teck Lim) “I don’t expect there to be a time where we say, ‘We’ve learned enough,'” Iagnemma said. Doug Parker, nuTonomy’s chief operating officer, said autonomous taxis could ultimately reduce the number of cars on Singapore’s roads from 900,000 to 300,000. “When you are able to take that many cars off the road, it creates a lot of possibilities. You can create smaller roads, you can create much smaller car parks,” Parker said. “I think it will change how people interact with the city going forward.” A “lidar” that detects obstacles using laser sensors is installed above the car plate of an autonomous vehicle during its test drive in Singapore Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016. The world’s first self-driving taxis, operated by nuTonomy, an autonomous vehicle software startup, will be picking up passengers in Singapore starting Thursday, Aug. 25. The service will start small – six cars now, growing to a dozen by the end of the year. The ultimate goal, say nuTonomy officials, is to have a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, which will help sharply cut the number of cars on Singapore’s congested roads. (AP Photo/Yong Teck Lim) NuTonomy, a 50-person company with offices in Massachusetts and Singapore, was formed in 2013 by Iagnemma and Emilio Frazzoli, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers who were studying robotics and developing autonomous vehicles for the Defense Department. Earlier this year, the company was the first to win approval from Singapore’s government to test self-driving cars in one-north. NuTonomy announced a research partnership with Singapore’s Land Transport Authority earlier this month. Singapore is ideal because it has good weather, great infrastructure and drivers who tend to obey traffic rules, Iagnemma says. As a land-locked island, Singapore is looking for non-traditional ways to grow its economy, so it’s been supportive of autonomous vehicle research. Auto supplier Delphi Corp., which is also working on autonomous vehicle software, was recently selected to test autonomous vehicles on the island and plans to start next year. A “lidar” that detects obstacles using laser sensors is seen atop an autonomous vehicle during its test drive in Singapore Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016. The world’s first self-driving taxis, operated by nuTonomy, an autonomous vehicle software startup, will be picking up passengers in Singapore starting Thursday, Aug. 25. The service will start small – six cars now, growing to a dozen by the end of the year. The ultimate goal, say nuTonomy officials, is to have a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, which will help sharply cut the number of cars on Singapore’s congested roads. (AP Photo/Yong Teck Lim) “We face constraints in land and manpower. We want to take advantage of self-driving technology to overcome such constraints, and in particular to introduce new mobility concepts which could bring about transformational improvements to public transport in Singapore,” said Pang Kin Keong, Singapore’s Permanent Secretary for Transport and the chairman of its committee on autonomous driving. Olivia Seow, 25, who does work in startup partnerships in one-north and is one of the riders nuTonomy selected, took a test ride of just less than a mile on Monday. She acknowledged she was nervous when she got into the car, and then surprised as she watched the steering wheel turn by itself. “It felt like there was a ghost or something,” she said. Cameras that help detect changes in traffic light colors are seen inside an autonomous vehicle during its test drive in Singapore Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016. The world’s first self-driving taxis, operated by nuTonomy, an autonomous vehicle software startup, will be picking up passengers in Singapore starting Thursday, Aug. 25. The service will start small – six cars now, growing to a dozen by the end of the year. The ultimate goal, say nuTonomy officials, is to have a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, which will help sharply cut the number of cars on Singapore’s congested roads. (AP Photo/Yong Teck Lim) But she quickly grew more comfortable. The ride was smooth and controlled, she said, and she was relieved to see that the car recognized even small obstacles like birds and motorcycles parked in the distance. “I couldn’t see them with my human eye, but the car could, so I knew that I could trust the car,” she said. She said she is excited because the technology could free up her time during commutes or help her father by driving him around as he grows older. An Associated Press reporter taking a ride Wednesday observed that the safety driver had to step on the brakes once, when a car was obstructing the test car’s lane and another vehicle, which appeared to be parked, suddenly began moving in the oncoming lane. An autonomous vehicle is driven during its test drive in Singapore Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016. The world’s first self-driving taxis, operated by nuTonomy, an autonomous vehicle software startup, will be picking up passengers in Singapore starting Thursday, Aug. 25. The service will start small – six cars now, growing to a dozen by the end of the year. The ultimate goal, say nuTonomy officials, is to have a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, which will help sharply cut the number of cars on Singapore’s congested roads. (AP Photo/Yong Teck Lim) Iagnemma said the company is confident that its software can make good decisions. The company hopes its leadership in autonomous driving will eventually lead to partnerships with automakers, tech companies, logistics companies and others. “What we’re finding is the number of interested parties is really overwhelming,” he said. A driver, right, gets his hands off of the steering wheel of an autonomous vehicle during its test drive in Singapore Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016. The world’s first self-driving taxis, operated by nuTonomy, an autonomous vehicle software startup, will be picking up passengers in Singapore starting Thursday, Aug. 25. The service will start small – six cars now, growing to a dozen by the end of the year. The ultimate goal, say nuTonomy officials, is to have a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, which will help sharply cut the number of cars on Singapore’s congested roads. (AP Photo/Yong Teck Lim) Durbin reported from Detroit. This entry was posted in Admin by admin. Bookmark the permalink.

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ABX Air Contract Details Defense contract under the United States Transportation Command awarded to ABX Air on 11/18/2015. Contractor: ABX Air Awarded: 11/18/2015 Three teams and eight individual airlines, all members of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet program, have been awarded indefinite-delivery / indefinite-quantity, fixed-price with economic price adjustment contracts to provide international airlift services. The total cumulative face value of the contracts is $357,053,176. The teams are: Patriot Team, Tulsa, Oklahoma, which includes ABX Air,* Wilmington, Ohio, Air Transportation International, Inc.,* Wilmington, Ohio, JetBlue Airways Corporation, Long Island City, New York; Kalitta Air, LLC,* Ypsilanti, Michigan; Northern Air Cargo, Inc., Anchorage, Alaska; Omni Air International, Inc.,* Tulsa, Oklahoma; United Airlines, Inc., Houston, Texas; and United Parcel Service Co., Louisville, Kentucky, $99,891,750 (HTC711-16-D-CC12) Federal Express Charter Programs Team, Memphis, Tennessee, which includes American Airlines, Inc., Fort Worth, Texas; Atlas Air, Inc., Purchase, New York; FedEx Charters, Memphis, Tennessee; and Polar Air Cargo Worldwide, Inc., Purchase, New York, $67,214,751 (HTC711-16-D-CC10) Miami Air International, Inc. dba Miami Air Team, Miami, Florida, which includes Miami Air International, Inc.,* Miami, Florida, and MN Airlines, LLC, dba Sun Country Airlines,* Mendota Heights, Minnesota, $4,446,065 (HTC711-16-D-CC11) Individual airlines include: National Air Cargo Group, Inc. dba National Airlines,* Orlando, Florida, $4,328,185 (HTC711-16-D-CC15) Delta Airlines, Atlanta, Georgia, $901,613, (HTC711-16-D-CC19) Hawaiian Airlines, Inc., Honolulu, Hawaii, $5,433 (HTC711-16-D-CC14) Alaska Airlines, Inc., Seattle, Washington, $4,551 (HTC711-16-D-CC17) Tatonduk Outfitters dba Everts Air Cargo,* Fairbanks, Alaska, $4,550 (HTC711-16-D-CC18) Lynden Air Cargo, Anchorage, Alaska, $4,229 (HTC711-16-D-CC20) Southwest Airlines Co., Dallas, Texas, $1,975 (HTC711-16-D-CC16) Allegiant Air, LLC, Las Vegas, Nevada, $1,971 (HTC711-16-D-CC13) Work will be performed at worldwide locations as specified on each individual task order, with an expected completion date of Sept. 30, 2016. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2016 Transportation Working Capital Funds to be obligated on individual task orders. The contracting activity is the U.S. Transportation Command Directorate of Acquisition, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois. Total Contract Value: $357,053,176 View all contracts that include "ABX Air" in the MiC database.

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Milwaukee Airport Guide to Milwaukee Airport - General Mitchell Airport (MKE) Milwaukee Airport Bus The company that provides service is Milwaukee County Transit System. See below further information about the routes departing from Milwaukee Airport: Runs between Milwaukee Airport and Bayshore Town Center as well as downtown Milwaukee. The service connects the Bayshore/Whitefish Bay area to UWM, Milwaukee’s east side, Walker’s Point, south side and General Mitchell International Airport. See the schedule here. Service hours: 03:54 am to 02:59 am (weekdays), 04:52 am to 2:58 am (Saturdays), 04:26 am to 02:37 am (Sundays and holidays). Links Milwaukee Airport with downtown Milwaukee, downtown MATC campus and the MATC-South Campus in Oak Creek. Services hours: 03:47 am to 01:54 am (weekdays), 04:13 am to 01:53 am (Saturdays), 04:25 am to 01:51 am (Sundays and holidays). Passengers with special needs: Milwaukee County Transit Plus (Phone +1 414 343-1700 / +1 414 343-1704 (TDD) is a transportation service for passengers with special needs. To pick up the bus, passengers may go outside of the Baggage Claim - Exit 1. M·CARD or APP Ride: $2.00 Cash Ride: $2.25 For further information, please call: +1 414 344-6711. M·CARD By M·CARD turns to be more affordable to board a bus. By just paying a fee of $2.00, you can charge a certain amount to the card and re-load it again and again for years. We recommend you to purchase M·CARD in case of staying more than a couple of days travelling around Milwaukee and its region. You can purchase your card online. Not the official airport website. Disclaimer - Contact Copyright © 2020. milwaukee-airport.com

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What Does Lula’s Release Mean for Brazil? By Lilla Adams On Dec 9, 2019 Lula" by Jeso Carneiro is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0. Brazil’s former President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, “Lula”, was released from prison on November 7, after serving 580 days of an almost 9-year sentence on charges of money laundering and corruption. His release was a direct result of a Supreme Court ruling the day before that now permits convicted criminals to remain free during pending appeals. Lula had originally been sentenced to 12 years in 2017 as a part of Lava Jato, an investigation that uncovered a large-scale corruption scheme involving a semi-public oil corporation and many government officials. First convicted in June 2017, Lula maintains that his convictions are “illegitimate.” His case has already processed numerous appeals, notably receiving a 3-year sentence reduction by Brazil’s Superior Court this year. Interestingly, Lula remains a hugely popular figurehead of the Workers’ Party (PT) today and was even the party’s primary presidential candidate while in prison during the 2018 elections. Only a Court decision in late August 2018 ended his candidacy under Lei Da Ficha Limpa (Clean Records Act 0f 2010), barring him from the October election due to his corruption charges. A famously polarizing figure in Brazilian politics, Lula’s release already appears to be mounting tensions concerning his de-facto leadership of the opposition, the legitimacy of his indictment, and his relations with the current administration. Lula Livre pic.twitter.com/EJRrynjJjE — Lula (@LulaOficial) November 8, 2019 Former Brazilian President Lula prepares to take on Bolsonaro’s current administration, following his release from prison earlier this month. (Translation: “Free Lula.”) Power Politics in the Justice System Lula’s release was made possible by Brazil’s Supreme Court narrowly ruling 6-5 to overturn its decision from three years prior. Since a 2016 ruling to change the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Supreme Court has held that defendants may be jailed should their first appeal uphold their conviction, regardless of other pending appeals. During the Lava Jato trials, this ruling incentivized defendants to take plea deals to reveal further information about the corruption, rather than test a justice system that would jail them after only one chance at an appeal. Lula’s status as a former President and recent presidential candidate has blurred the lines between the Court and politics throughout the judicial process. Justice Gilmar Mendes noted publicly that Lula’s case has “contaminated” recent debate on the issue of appeals, while Lula himself remains steadfast in vocally accusing his opposition of weaponizing the judicial system against him. In both cases, what should be impartial judicial decisions, concerning a corruption investigation and, more recently, the federal appeals process, are widely interpreted as partisan rulings due to Lula’s involvement and his public narrative of victimization. Lula is not the only politicizing factor: new revelations of judicial politicization by the prosecution have emerged, too. Sergio Moro, the judge who delivered Lula’s conviction in 2017, was heralded by Brazilian and international media at the time as the leader of an apolitical, anti-corruption crusade. However, a multi-part exposé by The Intercept Brasil in June of 2019 published leaked material and text messages among Lava Jato prosecutors and even Moro, himself. Such messages have provoked allegations that Judge Moro colluded with the prosecution in Lula’s conviction, by coaching the team of prosecutors and directing their media strategy. Judge Sergio Moro faced huge popularity due to his leadership in the Lava Jato trials and investigations. Moro convicted former President Lula in 2017 and now faces corruption allegations of his own. “Juiz federal Sérgio Moro concede entrevista” by Senado Federal is licensed under CC BY 2.0. Moro now commands a powerful position in the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro, former military officer of the conservative Social Liberal Party (PSL). By portraying himself as an anti-system candidate of the far-right wing during his campaign in 2018, Bolsonaro firmly grasped Brazilian’s distrust of the political class and their widespread economic insecurity. Distancing himself from any association with corrupt governments of the past, his policies stand firmly against the “socialism” of the PT years, railing against corruption and promoting a return to “liberal markets and family values.” Following his anti-corruption rhetoric, Bolsonaro combined the ministries of Justice, Public Security, and Government Accountability under the singular direction of the Minister of Justice, and appointed Moro to fill this new role. Indeed, Bolsonaro’s election could possibly be credited to Moro’s decision to convict Lula of corruption, which was upheld under Ficha Limpa to bar him from the presidential race that he was leading. Following allegations that even Moro might not have been impartial, Bolsonaro’s whole administration is facing a crisis of legitimacy. Lula and Political Culture These recent revelations tap into existing allegations that Lula’s conviction was an illegitimate and political criminalization of the Left in Brazil. In a 2016 letter to UN Human Rights Committee, Lula was already claiming that the prosecutors and judge were using the legal system to wage a political attack against him. Ambiguities in the charges against Lula and these leaks regarding Moro and the prosecution only fuelled support from his base during his prison sentence. Now, using his renowned charisma, Lula is capitalizing on already pervasive anti-establishment sentiments in the Brazilian public to further push this narrative, in order to discredit the anti-corruption foundations of Bolsonaro’s government. And of supporters, Lula still holds a sizeable backing from sectors of the Brazilian public. Lula left his two-term presidential tenure in 2010 with a huge 87% approval rating. Credited with lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty through success in a commodities boom and large-scale social programs, the former leader still commands a cult-like following, especially among Brazilian working classes. This phenomenon was illustrated in Lula’s lead in the 2018 presidential race: even from prison, being held incommunicado, he was nominated as the PT candidate and was leading the polls by double digits to Bolsonaro’s second place. Such numbers indicate that his vast numbers of avid supporters find his conviction irrelevant, whether they believe it to be illegitimate or simply negligible. Nonetheless, this means that Lula could remain a popular challenger to Bolsonaro’s tenure, especially upon his release and renewed campaign activities. Lula’s release was celebrated around the world, too. Regional leaders, such as President Alberto Fernandez of Argentina, Ex-President of Chile Richardo Lagos, and Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, immediately showed their public support for Lula’s plight. Former French President François Hollande tweeted in support of Lula upon the release, stating, “Lula’s place was never in prison.” Upon Lula’s jailing in 2018, Bernie Sanders, Maxine Walters, and 28 other Congressional members wrote a letter against his imprisonment to the Brazilian Ambassador. It asserted, “The facts of President Lula’s case give us reason to believe that the main objective of his jailing is to prevent him from running in upcoming elections.” La place de Lula n’était pas en prison. La liberté lui a été rendue, je sais qu’il la mettra au service du Brésil. @LulaOficial #LulaLivre — François Hollande (@fhollande) November 8, 2019 Former President François Hollande tweeted in immediate support of Lula’s release. A Polarized Country While Lula holds high levels of support among some sectors, he also has one of the highest rejection rates among voters. His critics maintain that his programs neglected to attack the roots of Brazil’s political and economic issues, and instead fostered government corruption. In a political sphere so saturated with anti-corruption rhetoric, Lula’s ties to Lava Jato and the evidence that first convicted him mean that he remains untrustworthy to a large portion of Brazilians. In the aftermath of such a widespread scheme that resulted in the 2016 impeachment of PT President Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s leadership is preventing Brazil from moving on from this era of corruption by blocking the rise of new forward-thinking political leaders. Firstly, Lula’s continued campaign activity and promotion by the PT prevents the emergence of a viable leftist challenge to Bolsonaro. As it stands, Lula’s candidacy is legally impossible: Brazil’s Clean Record Law blocks Lula from being eligible for elected office for 8 years following his first conviction in 2017. However, his refusal to step aside is also blocking the success of any other left-wing candidate who can run against Bolsonaro. The economic boom during his tenure and his historically high popularity levels as the first working-class president of Brazil means that Lula’s legacy is idealized by his party’s supporters and members alike. Thus, it seems that PT only want Lula, despite his conviction. Also, Lula’s candidacy is likely to only further the political polarization occurring under Bolsonaro. While Lula held high rejection rates in the 2018 election, Bolsonaro’s rate of rejection by voters was 5 points higher. Bolsonaro is known for his offensive speech, often turning to homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, and racism. He sparked international outrage over his neglect of the devastating fires in the Amazon this year and allegations of links to the murder of left-wing city councillor Marielle Franco. In his far-right rhetoric and anti-system policies, Bolsonaro has created large political divisions by provoking strong reactions across the board. A free Lula only drives the Brazilian people further to the political poles. His ability to recommence campaign activities could increase the effectiveness of the opposition to Bolsonaro. Capitalizing on the current polarization, Lula launched a stream of rhetorical attacks against Bolsonaro’s divisive administration, urging Brazilians to take to the streets and “follow the example of the people of Chile, of Bolivia.” However, fighting against a convicted politician could boost support for Bolsonaro, too, especially to counter the new allegations of corruption. Doubling down on his anti-corruption stance, Bolsonaro has urged Brazilians “not give space to compromise with a convict,” labeling Lula as “momentarily free, but guilty.” As Brazilians are forced to choose between a convicted hard-leftist and a pro-militarizing far-rightist, the public will only be further polarized. With anti-government protests currently sweeping parts of Latin America, Lula’s incendiary tactics could openly clash with the militaristic disposition of Bolsonaro, who requested authority from Congress in late November to stop potential violence with the use of armed forces. If Bolsonaro’s election was the product of political divisions over Lava Jato and Lula’s conviction, a more drastic political backlash could be in store over Lula’s release. Edited by Chanel MacDiarmid. Lilla Adams Lilla is a U3 student currently pursuing a degree in Political Science, with minors in Communication Studies and International Development. She specializes in North American and European politics, political theory, and media in politics.

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Panic! At The Disco » Nine In The Afternoon Nine In The Afternoon - Panic! At The Disco - Top 40 Singles Nine In The Afternoon debuted in the Official New Zealand Top 40 Singles on 11 February 2008. It has been in the Top 40 Singles for nine weeks with a highest position of #28. There are five songs by Panic! At The Disco in the Top 40 Singles. Chart placings for Nine In The Afternoon: 11 Feb 2008 Top 40 Singles 36 18 Feb 2008 Not Listed - 03 Mar 2008 Top 40 Singles 34 07 Apr 2008 Top 40 Singles 39 Chart placings by Panic! At The Disco: A Fever You Can't Sweat Out Top 40 Albums 02 Oct 2006 14 7 A Fever You Can't Sweat Out: Special Edition Top 40 Albums 27 Nov 2006 3 27 But It's Better If You Do Top 40 Singles 23 Oct 2006 14 10 Death Of A Bachelor Top 40 Albums 25 Jan 2016 10 4 High Hopes Top 40 Singles 03 Sep 2018 23 16 I Write Sins, Not Tragedies Top 40 Singles 02 Oct 2006 5 11 Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Top 40 Singles 12 Feb 2007 3 33 Nine In The Afternoon Top 40 Singles 11 Feb 2008 9 28 Pray For The Wicked Top 40 Albums 02 Jul 2018 12 2 Pretty.odd. Top 40 Albums 31 Mar 2008 6 5 Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die! Top 40 Albums 11 Oct 2013 1 15 Vices And Virtues Top 40 Albums 28 Mar 2011 2 21

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The Bookshelf: Author Alex Myers Challenges Gender Norms in New Novel By Alex McOwen & Peter Biello • Nov 8, 2019 Alex Myers is the author of "Continental Divide." Credit Peter Biello/NHPR Novelist Alex Myers came out as transgender in the mid-90s, when society's understanding of what it means to be transgender was less clear than it is today. In his new novel, "Continental Divide," Myers writes about 19-year-old Ron, who was born female, and grew up in Tamworth, New Hampshire. Ron decides to reinvent himself as a man by moving west to work on a ranch in Wyoming. Alex Myers is an English teacher at Philips Exeter Academy. NHPR's Peter Biello stopped by his classroom earlier this week to talk about "Continental Divide," and the challenge of coming out as transgender. NHPR's Peter Biello interviews author Alex Myers on his new novel, "Continental Divide." Read Alex Myers' Top Five Reading Recommendations: "Copperhead" by Alexi Zentner. High school student protagonist who grapples with his family's racist beliefs (and practices)... topics that are front and center in my mind. "Washington Black" by Esi Edugyan. Story of an enslaved boy in the 1800s on a sugar plantation who ends up serving an eccentric inventor. Wonderful historical imagination. "A Long Way to a Small, Angry, Planet" by Becky Chambers. She calls this a space opera (it's the first in a trilogy). I call it delightful escapism: another world, other species, rollicking adventure, and good writing. "The Prince of Los Cocuyos" by Richard Blanco. A memoir of his childhood in a Cuban family in Miami, wonderful story about realizing queer identity. "Sorted" by Jackson Bird. Another memoir, this one about a trans-guy who came out recently. It's a good one for folks looking to understand trans-identity and particularly coming of age in the time of social media. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. So this book "Continental Divide" is about a character named Ron, who grew up in Tamworth, New Hampshire, and starts to make the transition to becoming a boy, a man. What parallels do you see between Ron and your life? I think there are a lot of parallels. I grew up not in New Hampshire, but in rural Maine. I came out when I was about to turn 17. It did feel young at the time. A lot of people commented that it seemed early for me to be making up my mind about such a huge part of myself. Of course, the book is set in '92. I came out in '95. Nowadays, I see students who who are coming out as young as kindergarten and knowing very much who they are. The parallels in my own life would be a rural childhood, a feeling of always being a boy despite society telling me that I was a girl, and then going off to a more urban college experience with a bit more exposure to a range of differences. The events of this novel take place in the early nineties. If Ron were to come out today in 2019, how do you think it would be different? I think today, in 2019, more people know the word transgender and more people have exposure to a range of transgender identities. I think if Ron were coming out today, he would find more understanding, but maybe not more acceptance. I think sometimes people get what transgender is about on a superficial level, but they still don't know how to care for and love a transgender person. But I think at least he wouldn't meet such a vast quantity of ignorance. One of the things that I thought was very interesting about this book is the the question of when do you tell people that you are transgender and how much do you tell? Do you say anything at all? Ron has a couple of situations where he just wanted to reinvent himself to the new people around him as a guy. And then he was outed and it didn't work out so well. So then Ron says, OK, well, I'll be upfront with everybody right away. And things went a little bit better that way. How do you know how much to share and when? Many of the transgender people I work with and am friends with, especially those of us who have the privilege of being able to pass as the gender we live as, have been tempted to or tried to go, quote-unquote, "stealth." That's the term within the community for living as that gender identity and not telling people. And many of us who have done that have found it alluring at first and then completely unsatisfying. For myself, I've ended up feeling that I'm stifling some part of myself and I generally end up wanting to tell people that I'm gonna be close to. That said, it's seldom the thing I want to tell people right off the bat. I rarely meet somebody and you shake their hand and say, "Hey, I'm transgender." There have been times when I've done that, but usually I'd like to get to know them as a colleague, as a human being, and then as we get to know each other and in the natural process of becoming closer, it's something I would bring up, you know, as soon as I can, but not forcing it. I wanted to ask you about the question of masculinity that keeps coming up in "Continental Divide." Ron really wants to seem like a man, the man he feels like he is, but he's not sure how to do it. He's got brothers as an example and there are ideas that people hold about what men do. For example, he's with his love interest, Cassie, and Cassie looks into his fridge and says, "Oh, condiments and milk. Clearly, you're a guy." But there are other measures of masculinity, for better or for worse. How did you go about creating Ron and making the struggle appear on the page? I based Ron on a lot of people that I've known, a lot of trans guys and their coming out experience. A lot of us, and a lot of the friends I have, felt like society wants to sell you this wholesale picture of what it means to be a man, that there's this one sort of size of masculinity and you're gonna have to fit yourself to it. I wanted Ron to go through all of those stages of saying, does this part feel right to me? You know, maybe I'm not athletic or maybe this sort of toughness that I'm expected to have doesn't feel natural to me. Do I have to have it if I want to be a man, or can I be a man on my own terms? I think not just transgender people, but cisgender people face that a lot. I wanted Ron's journey to reflect not just trans experience, but human experience. A lot of cisgender guys that I work with, especially working in a high school setting with adolescents, I work with with boys who who who who feel, "I love to sing. I love to dance. Some people will judge me for that. But for me, it feels right. I can still do that and be a guy. Right?" I want to be able to sort of explore that and validate that. One of the things that works out in Ron's favor is that his version of masculinity, how he chooses to embrace and express it, works really well for his love interest, Cassie. Yeah, absolutely. I think Cassie herself is a little bit gender nonconforming. She's always thought of herself as a straight woman. She's always loved horses. Those can be very quote-unquote "typical feminine things," but also they can be non-typical feminine things or non-feminine typical things. She has circulated in this masculine world on this ranch, tending the horses with the wranglers, and had to be their equal. She had to assert herself. I think in some ways she's a tomboy, and in other ways, she's a feminine, straight woman. So encountering Ron, she has to ask, what does it mean that I'm attracted to a person who is not male bodied? What does it mean that I'm attracted to a person who maybe isn't typically masculine in this Western or Wyoming kind of way? So in writing this story about Ron figuring out who he is as a transgender person in the world, who were you writing this book for, essentially? I was writing this book for a couple different audiences and it's been fun to get out and do some readings early on. In part, I was writing it for people who are transgender. I don't think we have enough representations of people who are honestly like us, not dramatic, not traumatized, but who reflect the maybe the minor traumas and the real lived experience of a trans person. I've done some readings at LGBT centers and I love it when when lines get a laugh that I know you can have to be in on the joke to get. That's very gratifying that people see themselves and get what's happening there. I wrote it in mind of people who love a trans person and maybe who are trying to learn to love a trans person. Maybe you're a grandparent who's had a grand-kid come out as gender-queer. Maybe you've met your first transgender co-worker and you want to understand them, but you don't want to burden them with all your questions. I wanted to write a book that would help to explain it, but not make it preachy. And then I really hope that people will pick this book up, maybe they like the jackalopes on the cover or whatever, and they say "this looks interesting" and they'll read it without knowing it's something that's about a transgender person, and they'll be surprised to find themselves in some way reflected in what happens there. If you have an author or book you think we should profile on The Bookshelf, send us an email. The address is books@nhpr.org. The Bookshelf: Nelson's Stacia Tolman On Her Debut Novel By Alex McOwen & Peter Biello • Oct 25, 2019 Writer Stacia Tolman worked for many years as a high school English teacher at a private school in New Hampshire’s Monadnock region. Now, she’s drawn on her observations of high school social dynamics to write her debut young adult novel, The Spaces Between Us. The story centers on the relationship between Serena Velasco and Melody Grimshaw, high school students and best friends with a common goal: to escape their dull, lifeless hometown in rural New York.

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NATO Trust fund: NATO successfully removes pesticides from Moldova Surplus stocks of pesticides and dangerous chemicals predating 1974 left a damaging legacy in the Republic of Moldova. The dangerous substances were scattered all over the country, either buried or stored in poorly equipped facilities lacking proper monitoring and security. To address and prevent increasingly high risks to population and the environment, a NATO Trust Fund project was activated in 2007 to destroy the stocks and assist Moldova. A closing ceremony for NATO Trust Fund project was held on 28 June 2018 in Alexandreni, a village situated in the centre of the Republic of Moldova, which was attended by more than 70 guests including NATO and partner nations’ Ambassadors and Defence Attaches and Moldovan Government representatives. The ceremony was also attended by Mr Orhan Muralti, Director Operations on behalf of the NATO Support and Procurement Agency, which acted as the Executing Agent of the project on behalf of Romania, the lead nation. In addition to the lead nation, 18 other NATO member and partner nations – Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Netherland, Poland, Romania, Sweden and Turkey – contributed to the project. "This Trust Fund project is an excellent complement to the other defence capacity building and security related activities that take place within the framework of NATO-Moldova relations," Mr Filip Pavel, Prime Minister of Moldova, stated. Ambassador of Romania to the Republic of Moldova, E.S. Daniel Ioniţă, said, "We consider our project leadership as a strong demonstration - and an important element - of Romania's support to Moldova’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations". Mr Orhan Muralti, NSPA Director of Support to Operations and Mr Filip Pavel, Prime Minister of Moldova

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NAFSA Blog Campus Fraud Case Tests Understanding of Security Threats Victor C Johnson Recent press reports on the California visa fraud case disclosed by authorities this week do a good deal to inform the public about the scope and nature of the case. The schools affected have been clear in saying that fraud is something they take seriously and guard against vigilantly, while acknowledging that there are limits to what they can know about every student who comes through their doors every day. The ICE special agent in charge of the case, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, notes that there has to this point been "no indication that any of the students had any terrorist ties." Apparently the anti-immigration group FAIR knows more than ICE does. In the same article, a spokesperson for the group had this to say: "This is an indication that a lot of the abuses that led to 9/11 are still taking place. The consequences are not just people getting phony grades. There are potential national security consequences at stake." Given what is known about the case, it is unclear what exactly the connection to 9/11 or to "national security consequences" might be. The FAIR spokesperson himself acknowledges that one of the 9/11 hijackers was in United States on a student visa. That's one out of 19 – numerous government sources, including the 9/11 Commission and the State Department, have confirmed repeatedly over the years that all of the other hijackers entered the United States on tourist visas. Let's put this in perspective. The vast majority of non-immigrants who come to the country every year do so on tourist visas—the visas used by almost all of the 9/11 terrorists. We know little about these people. For most of them, we do not track where they go, how long they stay here, what they do while they are here—or indeed, if they ever leave. By contrast, individuals who seek student visas – about 2% of the foreign visitors to our country each year - have to meet many requirements in order to apply for and receive them, and they are closely tracked while they are here. Foreign students and scholars are the only population of U.S. visa holders that is subject to monitoring while they are in our country, and that monitoring is extensive. We know much more about this small group of foreign visitors than about the other 98% of foreign visitors to our country. Abuses of the U.S. system must be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated. Perhaps the full scope of this case is not yet known. At the same time, there is good reason not to jump to the conclusion that violations of immigration status suggest intent to commit terrorist acts. If we took that approach to its logical conclusion, our country would move further to close its doors to those outside our borders, and we know that's not good for our security. What is more, it is unproductive to respond to cases like these by simply adding yet more monitoring of a group of people that is already heavily monitored, diverting scarce resources away from our ability to pursue real threats. There is no evidence that the student visa system represents any more of a "vulnerability" in the immigration system than the visa categories used by the other 98% of our foreign visitors. In fact, foreign students have historically been among our most important foreign policy assets, connecting us with the leadership of other countries, creating avenues of cooperation among nations, and expanding the horizons of our own students toward a globally connected world. Contrary to what a former DHS official told the Associated Press this week, U.S. colleges and universities have invested enormous effort, time, and expense in making the foreign student tracking system work. The reason it works as well as it does is because of a sustained collaborative effort between schools and the U.S. government. Improvement is always possible, and we continue to work with the Department of Homeland Security each day on these matters. But a serious approach to our national security requires thoughtful consideration about where we spend our resources, for what purpose, and to what effect. Vic Johnson is NAFSA's senior advisor for public policy.

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Measuring Personal Travel and Goods Movement: A Review of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics' Surveys -- Special Report 277 (2003) Chapter: Front Matter PDF FREE Download Page i Share Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." Transportation Research Board and National Research Council. 2003. Measuring Personal Travel and Goods Movement: A Review of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics' Surveys -- Special Report 277. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10837. SPECIAL REPORT 277 Measuring Personal Travel and Goods Movement A Review of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ Surveys Committee to Review the Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ Survey Programs Committee on National Statistics NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES www.TRB.org Page ii Share Transportation Research Board Special Report 277 Subscriber Category IA planning and administration Transportation Research Board publications are available by ordering individual publications directly from the TRB Business Office, through the Internet at www.TRB.org or national-academies.org/trb, or by annual subscription through organizational or individual affiliation with TRB. Affiliates and library subscribers are eligible for substantial discounts. For further information, contact the Transportation Research Board Business Office, 500 Fifth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001 (telephone 202-334-3213; fax ; or e-mail ). Copyright 2003 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competencies and with regard for appropriate balance. This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to the procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The study was sponsored by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Measuring personal travel and goods movement : a review of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ Surveys / Committee to Review the Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ Survey Programs, Committee on National Statistics, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council. p.cm.—(Special report) 1. Commuting—United States—Statistics. 2. Freight and freightage—United States—Statistics. 3. Transportation—United States—Statistical services. 4. United States. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. I. National Research Council (U.S.). Committee to Review the Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ Survey Programs. II. Special report (National Research Council (U.S.). Transportation Research Board) ; 277. HD5717.5.U6M4 2004 388'.041'097309049—dc22 Page iii Share Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. On the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. William A. Wulf is president of the National Academy of Engineering. The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, on its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Harvey V. Fineberg is president of the Institute of Medicine. The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both the Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts and Dr. William A. Wulf are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the National Research Council. The Transportation Research Board is a division of the National Research Council, which serves the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. The Board’s mission is to promote innovation and progress in transportation through research. In an objective and interdisciplinary setting, the Board facilitates the sharing of information on transportation practice and policy by researchers and practitioners; stimulates research and offers research management services that promote technical excellence; provides expert advice on transportation policy and programs; and disseminates research results broadly and encourages their implementation. The Board’s varied activities annually engage more than 4,000 engineers, scientists, and other transportation researchers and practitioners from the public and private sectors and academia, all of whom contribute their expertise in the public interest. The program is supported by state transportation departments, federal agencies including the component administrations of the U.S. Department of Transportation, and other organizations and individuals interested in the development of transportation. www.TRB.org www.national-academies.org Page iv Share Transportation Research Board 2003 Executive Committee* Chair: Genevieve Giuliano, Director, Metrans Transportation Center, and Professor, School of Policy, Planning, and Development, University of Southern California, Los Angeles Vice Chair: Michael S. Townes, President and CEO, Hampton Roads Transit, Virginia Executive Director: Robert E. Skinner, Jr., Transportation Research Board Michael W. Behrens, Executive Director, Texas Department of Transportation, Austin Joseph H. Boardman, Commissioner, New York State Department of Transportation, Albany Sarah C. Campbell, President, TransManagement, Inc., Washington, D.C. E. Dean Carlson, President, Carlson Associates, Topeka, Kansas (Past Chair, 2002) Joanne F. Casey, President and CEO, Intermodal Association of North America, Greenbelt, Maryland James C. Codell III, Secretary, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Frankfort John L. Craig, Director, Nebraska Department of Roads, Lincoln Bernard S. Groseclose, Jr., President and CEO, South Carolina State Ports Authority, Charleston Susan Hanson, Landry University Professor of Geography, Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts Lester A. Hoel, L.A. Lacy Distinguished Professor of Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (Past Chair, 1986) Henry L. Hungerbeeler, Director, Missouri Department of Transportation, Jefferson City Adib K. Kanafani, Cahill Professor and Chairman, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley Ronald F. Kirby, Director, Transportation Planning, Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, Washington, D.C. Herbert S. Levinson, Principal, Herbert S. Levinson Transportation Consultant, New Haven, Connecticut Michael D. Meyer, Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Jeff P. Morales, Director of Transportation, California Department of Transportation, Sacramento Kam Movassaghi, Secretary, Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, Baton Rouge Carol A. Murray, Commissioner, New Hampshire Department of Transportation, Concord David Plavin, President, Airports Council International, Washington, D.C. John Rebensdorf, Vice President, Network and Service Planning, Union Pacific Railroad Company, Omaha, Nebraska Catherine L. Ross, Harry West Chair of Quality Growth and Regional Development, College of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Page v Share John M. Samuels, Senior Vice President, Operations Planning and Support, Norfolk Southern Corporation, Norfolk, Virginia (Past Chair, 2001) Paul P. Skoutelas, CEO, Port Authority of Allegheny County, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Martin Wachs, Director, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Berkeley (Past Chair, 2000) Michael W. Wickham, Chairman, Roadway Corporation, Akron, Ohio Marion C. Blakey, Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation (ex officio) Samuel G. Bonasso, Acting Administrator, Research and Special Programs Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation (ex officio) Rebecca M. Brewster, President and COO, American Transportation Research Institute, Smyrna, Georgia (ex officio) George Bugliarello, Foreign Secretary, National Academy of Engineering, Washington, D.C. (ex officio) Thomas H. Collins (Adm., U.S. Coast Guard), Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard, Washington, D.C. (ex officio) Jennifer L. Dorn, Administrator, Federal Transit Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation (ex officio) Robert B. Flowers (Lt. Gen., U.S. Army), Chief of Engineers and Commander, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Washington, D.C. (ex officio) Edward R. Hamberger, President and CEO, Association of American Railroads, Washington, D.C. (ex officio) John C. Horsley, Executive Director, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, Washington, D.C. (ex officio) Robert S. Kirk, Director, Office of Advanced Automotive Technologies, U.S. Department of Energy (ex officio) Rick Kowalewski, Deputy Director, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, U.S. Department of Transportation (ex officio) William W. Millar, President, American Public Transportation Association, Washington, D.C. (ex officio) (Past Chair, 1992) Mary E. Peters, Administrator, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation (ex officio) Suzanne Rudzinski, Director, Transportation and Regional Programs, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (ex officio) Jeffrey W. Runge, Administrator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation (ex officio) Allan Rutter, Administrator, Federal Railroad Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation (ex officio) Annette M. Sandberg, Administrator, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation (ex officio) William G. Schubert, Administrator, Maritime Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation (ex officio) Robert A. Venezia, Program Manager, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, D.C. (ex officio) Membership as of December 2003. Page vi Share Committee on National Statistics (2003) John E. Rolph, Chair, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California Joseph G. Altonji, Department of Economics, Yale University Robert Bell, AT&T Laboratories—Research, Florham Park, New Jersey Lawrence Brown, Department of Statistics, University of Pennsylvania Robert M. Groves, Survey Research Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Joel L. Horowitz, Department of Economics, Northwestern University William Kalsbeek, Survey Research Unit, Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Arleen Leibowitz, School of Public Policy and Social Research, University of California, Los Angeles Thomas A. Louis, Department of Biostatistics, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University Vijayan Nair, Department of Statistics, Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Daryl Pregibon, Kenneth Prewitt, Public Affairs, Columbia University Nora Cate Schaeffer, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison Matthew D. Shapiro, Department of Economics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Andrew A. White, Director Page vii Share Joseph L. Schofer, Chair, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois Thomas B. Deen, NAE, Consultant, William F. Eddy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania T. Keith Lawton, Metro, Portland, Oregon James M. Lepkowski, Arnim H. Meyburg, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York Debbie A. Niemeier, Alan E. Pisarski, Consultant, Stanley Presser, University of Maryland, College Park G. Scott Rutherford, University of Washington, Seattle Edward J. Spar, Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, Alexandria, Virginia Ronald W. Tweedie, Consultant, Jill Wilson, Study Director, Transportation Research Board Page viii Share Page ix Share The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991 established the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) within the U.S. Department of Transportation. This new federal statistical agency was charged with developing transportation data to support strategic planning and policy making. The ISTEA legislation also mandated that the National Academy of Sciences [National Research Council (NRC)] review the statistical programs and practices of BTS to improve the relevance and quality of transportation data. The NRC Panel on Statistical Programs and Practices of the BTS issued its report in 1997, approximately 5 years after BTS began operations.1 In 2001, BTS itself asked NRC to conduct another review of the agency’s activities. Specifically, BTS requested a study to review the agency’s current survey programs in light of transportation data needs for policy planning and research, and in light of the characteristics and functions of an effective statistical agency. In response to BTS’s request, the Transportation Research Board (TRB) and the Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) of the National Academies convened a study committee of 12 members under the leadership of Joseph Schofer, Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Professor of Civil Engineering and Transportation at Northwestern University. Panel members have expertise in transportation policy and planning, transportation data, and survey methodology and statistics. The committee met four times between February 2002 and March 2003. Each of the first three meetings was devoted to review of one of the Citro, C. F., and J. L. Norwood (eds.). 1997. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics: Priorities for the Future. Panel on Statistical Programs and Practices of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, National Research Council, Washington, D.C. Page x Share BTS survey initiatives—the National Household Travel Survey, the Omnibus Survey Program, and the Commodity Flow Survey. After each of these meetings, the committee issued a letter report presenting its findings and recommendations concerning the relevant survey. These letter reports are reproduced in Appendixes A, B, and C. Appendix D lists the invited presentations given at committee meetings. The final meeting was devoted to committee discussions of major themes and crosscutting issues and to preparation of this final report. The committee’s conclusions and recommendations are necessarily based on the programs and organization of BTS at the time of this study. As a result of its interactions with BTS staff over the course of the study, the committee is aware that the agency is engaged in planning activities that may address items raised in the letter reports and also relate to some of the issues discussed in this report. This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the Report Review Committee of the National Academies. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the authors and the National Academies in making the published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The contents of the review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their participation in the review of this report: William P. Anderson, Boston University, Massachusetts; Daniel Brand, Charles River Associates, Inc., Boston, Massachusetts; Konstadinos G. Goulias, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park; Ronald E. Kutscher, Vienna, Virginia; Martin E. H. Lee-Gosselin, Université Laval, Quebec City, Canada; and Frank Potter, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey. Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the committee’s conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Lester A. Hoel, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, who was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of the report Page xi Share was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution. The committee wishes to thank the many individuals who contributed to this study through presentations at meetings, correspondence, and telephone calls. The assistance of Mike Cohen, Lori Putman, and Joy Sharp of BTS; John Fowler of the Census Bureau; Susan Liss of the Federal Highway Administration; and Frank Southworth of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in arranging briefings and responding to committee requests for information is gratefully acknowledged. Jill Wilson managed the study under the supervision of Stephen R. Godwin, Director of Studies and Information Services, TRB, and with advice from Andrew A. White, Director, CNSTAT. Frances E. Holland assisted in logistics and communications with the committee. Suzanne Schneider, Associate Executive Director of TRB, managed the report review process. The report was edited by Gail Baker and prepared for publication under the supervision of Nancy Ackerman, Director of Publications. Page xii Share Page xiii Share Peer Review of BTS Framework for Evaluation Organization of Report Description and Assessment of Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ Surveys National Household Travel Survey Commodity Flow Survey Omnibus Survey Program Value of Flagship Survey Data Substantive Expertise Survey Stability and Quality Communication with Data Users Clear Survey Objectives Statistical Information and Policy Interpretations Flagship Personal Travel and Freight Surveys Page xiv Share Letter Report on the National Household Travel Survey Letter Report on the Omnibus Survey Program Letter Report on the Commodity Flow Survey Study Committee Biographical Information Next: Executive Summary » Measuring Personal Travel and Goods Movement: A Review of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics' Surveys -- Special Report 277 Get This Book TRB Special Report 277 - Measuring Personal Travel and Goods Movement recommends a series of actions the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) should take to render its flagship surveys -- the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) and the Commodity Flow Survey (CFS) -- more effective in meeting the needs of a broad spectrum of data users. The report also recommends approaches BTS and its survey partners should adopt to develop more effective survey methods and address institutional issues affecting survey stability and quality. Report Summary published in the October-September 2004 issue of the TR News. Executive Summary 1–8 1 Introduction 9–14 2 Description and Assessment of Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ Surveys 15–25 3 Conclusions 26–40 4 Recommendations 41–53 A Letter Report on the National Household Travel Survey 54–78 B Letter Report on the Omnibus Survey Program 79–100 C Letter Report on the Commodity Flow Survey 101–125 D Committee Meetings 126–128 Study Committee Biographical Information 129–134

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‘States’ Rights’: CNN Smears Federalism as Purely a Tool of Racists By Nicholas Fondacaro | June 28, 2019 2:13 AM EDT In addition to all but agreeing with President Trump’s “Sleepy Joe” nickname, CNN’s exclusively liberal panel thought Thursday was a terrible debate night for Vice President Joe Biden because of a heated exchange he had with Senator Kamala Harris (CA) over federal busing in the south during the civil rights movement. According to the panel, the idea that states had the right to make laws for themselves that differed from one another was a travesty with its roots in racism. Despite the fact that federalism was something liberals embraced during the age of President Trump, especially regarding climate change regulation and late-term abortion laws, liberal commentator Van Jones decried “states’ rights” as something racists wanted (Click “expand”): Let me just say as an African-American, why that was just unacceptable. That very argument was the argument that was used that the federal government should leave us, to abandon us to the good graces of racists all across the country. And if the local racists want to abuse us, leave us out, not educate our kids. not let us vote, that's the local decision.So, he just took the heart out of the civil rights movement with that argument. Our plea was that we are one country. The constitution applies to all of us, and we want the federal government to stand with us and against the local racists. And so for him not to understand that -- and here's the other thing. My heart breaks about it at a personal level because all he had to do was say, “you know what? I think I was wrong there.” If he had just said, “you know what, kamala? I think I was wrong then, and I've learned something, and I've learned something from talking to people like you.” It would have been a beautiful moment for him and for the country, and he threw it down the toilet based on egotism and nonsense and it was a heartbreaking moment. In an interview 18 minutes later with Biden surrogate and Congressman Cedric Richmond (LA), host Anderson Cooper pressed the point that Biden was arguing in support of a racist policy. “[Y]ou called Vice President Biden a statesman. He was a statesman in the sense he was supporting states' rights in busing,” Cooper prefaced. “Is that something you -- I mean is that something he should still be supporting?” Senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson didn’t let up and grilled Richmond on Biden’s support for a supposed racist form of government, suggesting it was a problem for the Congressional Black Caucus. “Cedric, it just seems like this is going to put the Congressional Black Caucus in a very difficult position where you're having to essentially defend somebody who presently is arguing for states' rights.” “I mean, are you worried about members of the CBC -- you're of course one of the leaders of the CBC -- carrying this mantle for Joe Biden if he's continuing to defend states' rights,” she wondered. When Richmond disagreed with the idea that Biden supported states’ rights, she snapped at him: “But he did. He did. I mean, that's exactly what he did do.” Liberal commentator and former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer Jess McIntosh thought the states’ right question with Biden put a tarnish on an otherwise stellar Democratic debate: And in a moment where we are so polarized in this country, where your access to rights that should be fundamental, like abortion rights, are based on zip codes and states, when you can get arrested and jailed for a very long time for doing something in one state that is perfectly legal in another, to have Joe Biden make that argument today, it just shows that it's not the forward-looking thing he wanted to do when he started this debate. In the wee hours of Thursday morning, CNN managed to have Harris herself on the program live from the debate spin room. Of course, Cooper had to question her about Biden’s supposed states’ rights support (click “expand”): COOPER: You know, one of the things one of our panelists, Van Jones, said earlier tonight about that moment was just -- and I don't want to get him wrong. I'm paraphrasing him. But just that in a Democratic primary debate to have one of, you know, if you look at the polls, the leading Democratic candidate defending a states' rights argument when it comes to civil rights and federal busing is just extraordinary. SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: Yeah, I mean, I have to confess I was surprised. COOPER: Do you expect him to -- The other option he could have done is just said, you know what, “I was wrong and I'm moved by what you said.” Do you expect him to, you know, kind of get to that place or do you expect him to stick with this states' rights argument? Because this is obviously going to be something that's talked about and it's going to be asked of him. Every CNN analyst and commentator approached the topic of federalism as a radioactive policy position to support. Meanwhile, it allowed states to form their own laws when it came to things their residents had different opinions on. In reality, it was something blue states benefited from as well. The transcript is below, click "expand" to read: CNN’s DNC Debate Post Analysis 11:11:39 p.m. Eastern ANDERSON COOPER: He is -- for those who maybe are not following the debate, he is arguing for states' rights. [Crosstalk] VAN JONES: Let me just say as an African-American, why that was just unacceptable. That very argument was the argument that was used that the federal government should leave us, to abandon us to the good graces of racists all across the country. And if the local racists want to abuse us, leave us out, not educate our kids. not let us vote, that's the local decision. So, he just took the heart out of the civil rights movement with that argument. Our plea was that we are one country. The constitution applies to all of us, and we want the federal government to stand with us and against the local racists. And so for him not to understand that -- and here's the other thing. My heart breaks about it at a personal level because all he had to do was say, “you know what? I think I was wrong there.” If he had just said, “you know what, kamala? I think I was wrong then, and I've learned something, and I've learned something from talking to people like you.” It would have been a beautiful moment for him and for the country, and he threw it down the toilet based on egotism and nonsense and it was a heartbreaking moment. COOPER (to Rep. Cedric Richmond): He certainly looked pained while Kamala Harris was talking. I'm not sure if he looked like he felt her pain. You're the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. That exchange with Senator Harris on busing, you called Vice President Biden a statesman. He was a statesman in the sense he was supporting states' rights in busing. He was against federal busing and supporting that it should be up to the states. Is that something you -- I mean is that something he should still be supporting? NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON: Cedric, it just seems like this is going to put the Congressional Black Caucus in a very difficult position where you're having to essentially defend somebody who presently is arguing for states' rights. And these are positions that people like Jim Clyburn. I mean, he marched against these sorts of issues in states like South Carolina, where I'm from, for instance. I mean, are you worried about members of the CBC -- you're of course one of the leaders of the CBC -- carrying this mantle for Joe Biden if he's continuing to defend states' rights? REP. CEDRIC RICHMOND: Well, look, I don't think he was trying to defend states' rights. HENDERSON: But he did. He did. I mean, that's exactly what he did do. RICHMOND: Okay. In your opinion he tried to defend states' rights. JESS MCINTOSH: I don't want to say this is a bad night for Democrats, though. I think we saw some really exciting things happen onstage. I think black women are the base of the Democratic Party. They have been looking for a reason to get really excited about Kamala Harris, and she gave it to them tonight. 12:13:25 a.m. Eastern NB Daily Campaigns & Elections 2020 Presidential Debates Conspiracy Theories Double Standards Political Groups Liberals & Democrats Cable Television CNN Other CNN Video Cedric Richmond Nia-Malika Henderson Anderson Cooper Joe Biden Kamala Harris Nicholas Fondacaro Nicholas C. Fondacaro is a News Analyst for the Media Research Center

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Florida man arrested years after animal abuse case that left 2 dogs dead Jorge Milian @caneswatch The case involved 14 pit bulls, including two puppies that died as the result of abuse, according to Boynton Beach police. BOYNTON BEACH — For more than four years, Marcus Dennard Brown avoided arrest on felony charges related to an animal cruelty case in Boynton Beach that included the death of two pit bull puppies. But a recent traffic stop by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office landed Brown in jail after a records check showed that the Delray Beach resident was a wanted man. Brown, 32, is charged with nine counts of felony cruelty to animals and four counts of unlawful or abandonment of an animal. Brown was booked into the Palm Beach County Jail on Sunday and remains locked up in lieu of $27,000 bail. Court records show Brown also had outstanding arrest warrants for failure to appear on traffic charges from five years ago that including driving with a suspended license. Boynton Beach police were first alerted to Brown’s alleged animal abuse on Sept. 3, 2014, after they were called to a residence on the 300 block of Northeast 11th Avenue belonging to Brown’s mother following a complaint that pit bulls were being confined, according to an arrest report. Brown’s mother told police that the dogs belonged to her son and that he kept the animals at the residence because he had nowhere else to house them, the report said. Police found 14 dogs, including eight puppies, in various states of distress, the report said. One 3-year-old female that was confined to a dirty crate had multiple scars on his heads and forelegs that "was consistent with injuries inflicted by fighting another dog(s)," the report said. A 1-year-old female was restricted to a crate with no food or water and was wearing a tow chain - used to pull a trailer - around its neck with scratches and puncture wounds on its face. Also discovered was a 3-year-old female placed in a feces-covered crate that lacked food or water with her eight puppies, which were six to seven weeks old, the report said. As the puppies were pulled out of the crate, one was found dead. A second "was motionless although it had a faint pulse." The second puppy was euthanized by a Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control veterinarian to prevent further suffering. The puppies that survived "were underweight, anemic, infested with internal parasites, and covered in feces/urine," according to the veterinarian’s report. Only three of the dogs were in satisfactory physical condition, the report said. Brown agreed to relinquish custody of the dogs, but he was not arrested at the time as the investigation continued. On May 22, 2015, an arrest warrant was issued for Brown on the animal cruelty charges. He remained free until Sunday when he was arrested by PBSO during a traffic stop, according to Boynton police. Details of the traffic stop, including where it took place and the circumstances, were not available. A judge ordered Brown not to have any contact with animals or pets if he is released on bond.

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New University Official Campus Newspaper of University of California, Irvine Biological Sciences at UCI: Just as Hard as Other Majors April 25, 2017 Michelle Bui UCI students studying biological sciences like to complain a lot about their major. My professor is confusing. The curve isn’t fair. Being a bio major is so hard. No one knows what it’s like. I should have chosen something easier. As someone in the major, I understand the struggles and the moments of stress that bring about these complaints. I myself am guilty of making some of them. But in hindsight, I always realize that the complaints are unreasonable and over-dramatic, and that majoring in biology is not that much harder than majoring in something else. Take, for example, the general notion that the major is difficult because of the professors and curriculum. As someone who has taken a fair amount of both science and humanities classes, I have realized that biology courses are quite straightforward. Yes, there is a hefty amount of material to memorize and understand, but at the end of the day, everything you need to know is given in lecture or on practice quizzes and homework. Some people complain about the amount of reading some professors assign, but as far as lower division courses go, most people will purchase their $200 textbook and not open it the entire quarter. Sometimes exams will go beyond what is taught in class and discussion and (God forbid) make students think critically about a problem, but it’s not like students are being asked to cure cancer by the end of their biochemistry courses. And yet, when students see something unfamiliar on a test, they tend to say things like, “That had nothing to do with what we learned in class!” In reality, the question was exactly the same as the one in class, except the professor changed the oxygen atom to a nitrogen atom. It’s pretty crazy, until you read the part that says that for the purposes of that question, nitrogen functions the same way as oxygen does. This is why a lot of biological sciences majors hate the humanities: the answers are not short and simple, and are rarely a regurgitation of what was said in class. But if bio majors supposedly work so much longer and harder than people in other majors, then why is it so difficult to write out what they have internalized and formulate new ideas about it? Isn’t that what humanities majors have to do all the time when they write essays or hold discussions? The most ironic part is that after listing all the reasons why being a bio major is difficult, people will say that majoring in something like English would have been easier. They imagine that life is so much better on the other side of campus. They seem to forget that they don’t read their textbook and fear writing, two skills that are necessary to make it through many humanities courses. Bio majors don’t just say this about the humanities — they say this about most majors. To be honest, people in the School of Social Sciences probably have a lot of memorizing and critical thinking to do too, and UCI’s engineers and math majors are probably doing more critical thinking than all of us when they build robots and code programs. I’ve heard of psychology majors putting in hours of reading to learn their material, and computer science majors taking days to finish up a code. The only reason why I can see biology being a slightly more difficult major than others is because of the competitive environment. Most bio graduates are looking to go to medical school, or get into some other health profession. To ensure that UCI only has the most qualified individuals applying, the higher-ups will weed out bio students who they don’t think can make it that far. You really are always competing against that kid sitting next to you in lecture, even if that kid is your best friend. Even though this is the case, I’m not trying to sabotage my friends so that I get higher grades than them, or even that random person sitting across from me in office hours. The constant competition stresses people out because they let it stress them out. It fuels them to perform better, but also makes them anxious all the time and worried that they are not good enough. I can’t say whether the insecurities that people have arise from the environment in the major, or whether the insecurities themselves contribute to the competitive environment. In any case, the stress on individual success is what makes the major so cut-throat sometimes. It’s very different from engineering, where you work on teams to finish a project, or English, where you share ideas in class and edit each other’s writing. At the end of the day, being a good biological sciences major takes time, patience, and a steady work ethic, characteristics that are likely required to succeed in most other fields, too. It shouldn’t matter whether or not being a biological sciences major is actually that hard. Anyone who is pursuing a major that they’re truly interested in should not be worried about the prestige or reputation it may have. Michelle Bui is a second-year biological sciences major. She can be reached at mkbui@uci.edu. City of Irvine Installs Hybrid Traffic Control Device on Alton Parkway Earth Balance vs. Butter? High School Musical: The Musical: The Series: The Review We Hate to Ask, Again, But Will You Help Lecturers? Irvine’s Housing Crisis - How Housing Insecurity Is Affecting Both Students and Residents in Irvine The Stolen Truth of NikkieTutorials Privacy Disclaimer: After submitting content for publication in the New University, in print or online, contributors relinquish the right to remove or alter contributions as they appear in publication.

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Stealth Crooks Snatch Woman’s Purse at Parkland Gas Station By Teresa Joseph • Published at 3:38 pm on October 17, 2016 In a matter of seconds, a woman's purse is gone as she filled up at a gas station in Parkland. The thieves were more like sit-and-wait predators as they went unnoticed and watched their victim. The victim, 65-year-old Elvie McCormick, said she feels violated and is still in shock. "When you look at the timing of this video, it was literally seconds," said McCormick. It happened on Sept. 26 at the Sun Gas Chevron on N. State Road 7. Security video released Monday shows the two men pulling up in a silver 4-door Toyota Camry with dark tinted windows. They parked across from the victim's car and waited. Once the woman walked toward the pump, the crook in the driver's seat slipped out and crouched toward the victim's car, opened the door and yanked her handbag. "I didn't see it! I didn't see the door open. I didn't hear anything," said McCormick. Police said the duo quickly drove off as the woman continued filling up her car. "I always take my purse and it way over on the passenger side in between the door and seat," said McCormick. She said she had about $600 in cash and goods in the purse. The 65-year-old also lost her keys and had to change the locks on her home. The video serves as a warning to keep your car doors locked while refueling at the gas station. McCormick said she has since changed the way she pumps gas. "I go around the car, make sure nobody's there. Then, I make sure that I'm aware of anybody coming in," said McCormick. The thieves remain on the run. Anyone with information on this case is asked to Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS.

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Back to .500 Published at 10:31 pm on June 5, 2013 The Philadelphia Phillies find themselves back at .500 for the year after a win on Wednesday over the Miami Marlins, thanks in part to a brilliant start by Cole Hamels (8 IP, 1 ER, 11K), and a seventh inning offensive explosion that included Domonic Brown's MLB-leading 19th home run of the year. The sweep of the lowly fish was among the more entertaining series of the year for the Phillies, who enjoyed a complete game from Kyle Kendrick on Monday and some late-inning heroics from John Mayberry on Tuesday. All in all, it was a really great series, even if it doesn't mean squat, given that they were playing a team that they most definitely should have pounded. But, here they are, once again at the .500 mark on the season. It was their first visit to the break-even plateau since they were 6-6 on April 14th. Since that time, they've had four chances to get back to even, and have been 0-4 in those starts prior to Wednesday's victory. It's been nearly two months since the Phillies sniffed a winning record, and in that time, quite a few things have changed... The winning pitcher on April 12 was Roy Halladay, who earned his 200th career win against the (who else?) Miami Marlins. Following that start, Doc would go on to have a 9.47 ERA over his next four starts, before hitting the disabled list with a shoulder injury that would require surgery. The Phillies everyday right-fielder, Delmon Young, was still two wonderful weeks away from contributing with his sub-.700 OPS. Since literally hitting the high-water mark in his first at-bat as a Phillie with a homer in a 14-2 loss to the Cleveland Indians on April 30, Ruben Amaro's buy-low acquisition has hit .220 with five home runs in 30 games. He has a good arm, though. So that's something. The Office ended it's nine-year run on NBC, in a fashion not-too-dissimilar than the way Hall of Fame Phillie Mike Schmidt ended his: circling the drain after many brilliant years in the game. I've since started to re-watch the series on NetFlix, and it's honestly one of the most brilliant television shows ever to air. But, like a lot of athletes, it hung around a bit too long and made us all forget just how awesome it was in its prime. N.L. East rival Atlanta Braves, who looked like they couldn't lose prior to April 14, looked like they couldn't win for a few weeks after. Since starting the season 11-1, the Braves proceeded to go 11-17 in their next 28 games. They followed that up with eight straight wins, and have since built a seven game lead in the division. The Red Wedding happened. You know what I'm talking about. Domonic Brown had all of two home runs and a rather unimpressive .692 OPS, convincing many that the former top prospect was a 25-year-old bust. Since that Sunday, Brown has hit 15 homers in 44 games to go along with a .956 OPS, a pair of NL Player of the Week awards, and an NL Player of the Month award, just got good measure. Following that Sunday win that put them at 6-6 for the season, the Phillies went and lost four straight games to put them squarely behind the eight ball. Will they meet a different fate this time around? Only time will tell, but the next seven games are against the Milwaukee Brewers (22-35) and Minnesota Twins (26-29), so things certainly might be looking up for the Phils.

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Are the olives used to make your olive oil contaminated with herbicides? Posted by Shaunice Wall - January, 2019 Tagged: olive oil, herbacides, Shaunice Wall is NCL's Linda Golodner Food Safety and Nutrition Fellow Olive oil and the Mediterranean are almost synonymous. Extra virgin olive oil, or EVOO, has been an unrivaled staple in the gastronomy of the health conscious. It has also been long time dubbed as “heart healthy” due to its high antioxidant and monosaturated fats, which can help lower “bad” LDL cholesterol and raise “good” HDL cholesterol. In fact, the Mediterranean diet was recommended as one of the healthiest diets in the latest edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. However, fraud in the marketing of EVOO has plagued consumers for decades. Too often, EVOO on the shelves of our grocery stores are low quality and falsely marked as high-quality virgin or extra-virgin olive oil. An additional common fraudulent activity of olive oil production is the mixing of fresh extra virgin olive oil with inferior, cheaper olive oils or oils of another botanical origin. In 2015, the National Consumers League (NCL) tested 11 different olive oils purchased at various supermarkets and discovered that six of them, despite being labeled “extra virgin,” in actuality did not meet the standards set by the International Olive Council (IOC). Though the mislabeling of extra virgin olive oil is cause for major health concern, this year, a court in France has sketched an alternative alarm for consumers as they have now banned the use of the world’s most widely used weed killer in its country’s olive groves. Roundup Pro 360, which is the product brand name developed by Monsanto and now owned by the German pharmaceutical company Bayer, has grown to dominate the herbicide market and lists glyphosate as its active ingredient. A French court has ruled that based on scientific studies, Roundup Pro 360 is “a potentially carcinogenic product for humans, suspected of being toxic for human reproduction and for aquatic organisms.” In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) had classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Despite this warning, the European Commission had approved a 5-year license renewal for the substance in November 2017. Partial and total bans of glyphosate also have been issued in about a dozen other countries since the release of that statement, including several other members of the European Union, Brazil, Canada and New Zealand. Bayer (used interchangeably as Monsanto throughout this article) is appealing the French court’s decision, citing studies that prove glyphosate is safe. Bayer is currently facing more than 9,300 lawsuits over the negative health effects of Roundup and related products. A European Parliament report revealed that the European Commission’s 2017 decision to extend the license for glyphosate was based on text that had been copied and pasted from Monsanto studies and included in an assessment by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) that concluded the substance is safe to use. What one Greek study revealed The persistence of glyphosate and its primary metabolite AMPA (aminomethylphosphonic acid) was monitored in two areas in Southern Greece with a known history of glyphosate use, and the levels of residues were linked to spray operators’ activities. During a 3-year monitoring study, a total of 170 samples were collected and analyzed from both areas. Differences in the level of residues between areas, as well as sampling sites of the same area, were identified. AMPA persisted longer than the parent compound glyphosate in both areas. To translate: the olives contained residual amounts of Roundup Pro 360. How widespread is herbicide use? Weed control in olive groves is needed to prevent weeds from soaking up the moisture the olive trees need to thrive. As a result, herbicide use has become a common practice, especially in Spanish olive groves, and has rapidly increased in the past 20 years. In very mountainous regions, close to 90 percent of the olive groves are in a system using no-tillage and herbicides for weed control. Why should the American consumer beware? Olive oil is made by crushing olives into a paste with steel blades. The olives are stirred to release the oil droplets in a process called maceration before being spun in a centrifuge to pull out the oil and water. After the water is removed, what is left is olive oil. If the olives used in this process are contaminated with Roundup Pro, the consumer may be potentially ingesting dangerous cancer-causing (otherwise known as carcinogenic) chemicals. Each year Americans consume more than 300,000 tons of olive oil and less than 5 percent of it is produced in the United States. The bulk of U.S. olive oil imports come from Europe, North Africa, and especially Spain, which accounted for 62 percent of all olive oil imports in 2016. The EPA's alleged collusion with Monsanto Studies conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. agency that regulates the use of herbicides and pesticides, claims the effects of glyphosate dietary exposure contradicts the declaration that it poses carcinogenic hazards by the World Health Organization. This inconsistency in study findings is subject to an ongoing investigation by EPA’s watchdog that is currently investigating allegations that former agency official Jess Rowland colluded with Monsanto during the review process to counter suggestions it endangers human health. Exactly how much glyphosate is needed to pose the risk of cancer? The limit in Europe is currently set at 0.5 milligrams (or 500 mcg) of glyphosate daily per kilogram of body weight, which works out to about 34 milligrams, or 34,000 mcg, for a 150-lb. person. The U.S. daily limit, set by the EPA, is 3.5 times as high as Europe's, although some have called for a lower limit. We think the United States should adopt the stricter standards embraced by Europe. What is NCL doing? While regulatory agencies come to a common consensus on the use of Roundup Pro in the cultivation of olives, we at NCL continue to hold olive oil producers accountable for truth in labeling violations. We endorse the use of authentic organic products and believe in its long-term value. NCL aims to monitor product safety and continues to foster the economic protection of the consumer.

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This article is from the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 6 volumes, edited by William S. Powell. Copyright ©1979-1996 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher. Select ratingGive Battle, Elisha 1/5Give Battle, Elisha 2/5Give Battle, Elisha 3/5Give Battle, Elisha 4/5Give Battle, Elisha 5/5 Battle, Elisha by R. Hargus Taylor, 1979 9 Jan. 1723–6 Mar. 1799 Elisha Battle, planter, revolutionary patriot, and state legislator, was born in Nansemond County, Va. He was the fifth child and third son of William and Sarah Hunter Battle. Earlier paternal and maternal ancestors had emigrated from Yorkshire, England, in the mid-seventeenth century, his grandfather, John Battle, settling on a two-hundred-acre estate on the west bank of Nansemond River in Nansemond County, Va. In 1663 this same John Battle obtained a royal patent for 640 acres of land on Pasquotank River in North Carolina. Here Elisha Battle's father, William, was born in 1682. In 1690, upon the death of his father, William returned to Nansemond County, where he continued to reside until his death in 1749. By deed of record dated 17 Aug. 1747, Elisha Battle purchased four hundred acres on the north side of Tar River, in Edgecombe County, from Samuel Holliman. This purchase formed the nucleus of Cool Spring Plantation, near the present town limits of Rocky Mount, to which Battle moved with his family in late 1747 or early 1748. Subsequent purchases made Battle a large and prosperous landholder. He soon gained a reputation as a man of honest conviction, sound judgment, and considerable native ability. According to an early biographer, Battle was appointed justice of the peace in about 1756, retaining this position until the infirmities of old age forced him to relinquish it in 1795. By 1759 he was serving as a justice for Edgecombe county court (later the inferior court of pleas and quarter sessions). He was one of five commissioners appointed in 1760 to "found and lay out" the town of Tarboro. The same early biographer indicates that Battle was elected to represent Edgecombe in the colonial House of Commons as early as 1771, though his first recorded appearance there is during the assembly that convened in New Bern, 4–21 Dec. 1773. With the threat of impending warfare, Battle was named chairman of Edgecombe's committee of safety (1774–75). He also represented his county in the provincial congresses that met in Halifax in April 1776 and in November 1776. With the establishment of an independent state government, Elisha Battle was elected to represent Edgecombe County in the state senate, 1777–81, 1783, and 1785–87. He served as chairman of the committee of the whole during much of the session of the constitutional convention, convened in Hillsborough in July 1788. With the majority of the delegates, Battle held that it would be too dangerous to adopt the proposed federal constitution without amendments to reserve and secure certain rights to the individual states. Accordingly, he voted to postpone adoption until such amendments were effected. In 1742, Battle married Elizabeth Sumner, a first cousin to Brigadier General Jethro Sumner, who served in the Continental Army under Washington. To their union were born eight children: Sarah, who married Jacob Hilliard and, afterward, Henry Horn; John, who married Frances Davis; Elizabeth, who married Josiah Crudup, Jr.; Elisha, who married Sarah Bunn; William, who married Charity Horn; Dempsey, who married Jane Andrews; Jacob, who married Penelope Edwards; and Jethro, who married Martha Lane. Battle united with the Falls of Tar River Baptist Church in 1764, attaining prominence in the affairs of his local congregation and the larger denomination. He served as a deacon and as a clerk at Falls of Tar River. He was also instrumental in the organization of the Kehukee Baptist Association in 1769, serving that body occasionally as moderator and as clerk. He was buried on the family plantation. Samuel A. Ashe, ed., Biographical History of North Carolina, vol. 6 (1907). H. B. Battle et al., The Battle Book (1930). Lemuel Burkitt and Jesse Read, A Concise History of the Kehukee Baptist Association (1803). William L. Saunders and Walter Clark, eds., Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, 30 vols. (1886–1914). J. Kelly Turner and J. L. Bridgers, Jr., History of Edgecombe County (1920). Samuel A. Ashe, ed., Biographical History of North Carolina, vol. 6 (1907): Google E-book. Battle Family Papers, 1765-1955 (collection no. 03223). The Southern Historical Collection. Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/b/Battle_Family.html (accessed March 7, 2013). Colonial and State Records Search, Documenting the American South, UNC Libraries: https://docsouth.unc.edu/csr/index.html/search Turner, Joseph Kelly; Bridgers, John Luther. History of Edgecombe county, North Carolina. Raleigh, Edwards & Broughton printing co. 1920. https://archive.org/details/historyofedgecom00turn (accessed March 7, 2013). Rocky Mount Record. Rocky Mount: The Gateway of Eastern North Carolina. Rocky Mount Record. 1911. https://archive.org/details/rockymountgatewa00rock (accessed March 7, 2013). North Carolina; Clark, Walter. The State records of North Carolina. Raleigh, P.M. Hale. 1886. https://archive.org/details/staterecordsnor00librgoog (accessed March 7, 2013). The Battle book; a genealogy of the Battle family in America, with chapters illustrating certain phases of its history. By: H B Battle; Lois Yelverton; William James Battle, Montgomery, Ala., The Paragon Press, 1930: https://www.worldcat.org/title/battle-book-a-genealogy-of-the-battle-family-in-america-with-chapters-illustrating-certain-phases-of-its-history/oclc/2579075 N.C. General Assembly. Page 5. Raleigh, N.C. [N.C.]: Lawrence &amp; Lemay,1831. 1831. http://digital.ncdcr.gov/cdm/ref/collection/p249901coll22/id/627213 (accessed March 7, 2013). Public officials Taylor, R. Hargus Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, University of North Carolina Press. 1 January 1979 | Taylor, R. Hargus

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Iowa State quarterback Brock Purdy ranks fourth in the FBS with 3,760 passing yards this season. AP Photo/Matthew Putney Running back Jafar Armstrong, right, hasn’t given Notre Dame’s running game much of a jolt since an abdominal injury early in the season, but he showed flashes of explosiveness in the regular season finale at Stanford. Tribune Photo/CHAD WEAVER Notebook: Iowa State's passing game brings intrigue to Notre Dame's Camping World Bowl matchup By Tyler James South Bend Tribune Tyler James Author facebook No history and little prestige comes with a football matchup of Notre Dame and Iowa State in Orlando, Fla. The Irish have never played against the Cyclones. Iowa State has never played in a bowl game in Florida. That will change on Dec. 28 when CFP No. 15/AP No. 14 Notre Dame (10-2) takes on Iowa State (7-5) in the Camping World Bowl. The bowl, played at Camping World Stadium, will be televised on ABC at noon EST. The matchup may be welcomed with a yawn by Notre Dame fans. Iowa State finished tied for third in the Big 12 with a 5-4 conference record alongside Texas, Oklahoma State and Kansas State. Head coach Matt Campbell is 26-24 in his four seasons with the Cyclones. That record was good enough for Iowa State to sign Campbell to an extension through the 2025 season last week. But beneath the headline of a 10-win Notre Dame team that once had College Football Playoff aspirations playing against a Big 12 team with a better conference record than only four teams in a 10-team league is a matchup of one of the best passing defenses in the country against one of the best passing offenses in the country. The Irish finished the regular season with the No. 5 ranked passing efficiency defense in the FBS with a 109.61 efficiency rating for opposing quarterbacks. Only two defenses — Clemson and Ohio State — allowed fewer passing yards per game than Notre Dame’s 163.7 yard per game. Iowa State, led by sophomore quarterback Brock Purdy, finished the regular season ranked No. 9 in the country in passing offense with 318.3 passing yards per game. Purdy completed 295 of his 445 passes (66.3 percent) for 3,760 yards and 27 touchdowns with nine interceptions. He’s currently ranked in the top 20 nationally in passing yards per game (313.3), passing efficiency (153.2), completion percentage and passing touchdowns. “This is a really good football team that could easily be 11-1,” Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly said of Iowa State. “They have an outstanding quarterback in Brock Purdy.” Iowa State’s five losses came by a combined 21 points. Losses to CFP No. 4 Oklahoma (42-41), No. 7 Baylor (23-21), No. 16 Iowa (18-17), and No. 25 Oklahoma State (34-27) all fell within one possession. A 27-17 loss to Kansas State in the regular season finale came with the widest losing margin of the season. A season after losing running back David Montgomery (1,216 rushing yards) and wide receiver Hakeem Butler (1,318 receiving yards) to the NFL Draft, Iowa State’s offense has been built around Purdy. “What he’s done has been impressive,” Cambell said of Purdy. “To be honest with you, we’ve had to rebuild our entire offense kind of through him and with him, losing some great players a year ago in David Montgomery and Hakeem Butler. I’ve been proud of Brock’s growth.” Kelly said he hadn’t watched any Iowa State film prior to speaking with reporters Sunday afternoon, but he knows why his defense has been successful against the pass this season. It includes pressuring the quarterback, preventing deep passes and limiting yards after the catch. The Irish will need another strong performance defensively in the Camping World Bowl. “Look, there are going to be opportunities to make some catches,” Kelly said. “You’re going to get your catches. We’ve gotten the ball out of the quarterback’s hands quickly. We’ve done a great job of eliminating the big play down the field. We get you down on the ground and tackle really well when you do complete the football.” Run game resurgence? Kelly isn’t running away from Notre Dame’s rushing attack. He stands by the ability of the Irish offense to run the football. “We ran the ball when we wanted to run the ball this year,” Kelly said. “That’s a big deal. When we needed to run clocks out, when we needed to run the football, we ran it when we wanted to. That’s the mark of a good running game.” The Irish are ranked No. 46 in the FBS with 176.8 rushing yards per game. But in Notre Dame’s two losses to Georgia and Michigan, the Irish rushed 14 times for 46 yards and 31 times for 47 yards, respectively. Despite losing starting right guard Tommy Kraemer and starting right tackle Robert Hainsey to injury, the Irish have still found some success with the running game to finish the season. In the four games backups Trevor Ruhland and Josh Lugg have started together on the right side of the line, the Irish averaged 208.8 rushing yards per game and 5.42 yards per carry. Through the first eight games, Notre Dame rushed for 160.5 yards per game on 4.55 yards per carry. “Do we want to be more consistent? Absolutely,” Kelly said. “Do we want to have bigger opportunities in the running game with explosive plays? We certainly do. “But some of that was an injury to one back that we thought would be a little bit more explosive, and he looked a little bit better against Stanford. So those things are coming together for us.” The running back Kelly is referring to is junior Jafar Armstrong. The Irish running game took on a different outlook when Armstrong tore an abdominal muscle in the season opener at Louisville. Armstrong missed the next four games and has recorded more than seven carries in only one game: a 19-carry, 37-yard performance against Virginia Tech. Armstrong turned three carries into 44 yards in the regular season finale at Stanford in one of the first signs he may be back to his old self. “We saw glimpses of that explosiveness against Stanford,” Kelly said. “Jafar is feeling better. He’s feeling stronger. He certainly will help us as we continue to work towards getting better.” Iowa State has allowed 133.8 rushing yards per game, which slates No. 34 in the FBS and two spots ahead of Alabama. Getting personnel • Defensive tackle Myron Tagovaila-Amosa didn’t play against Stanford with a leg injury. Left guard Aaron Banks didn’t finish the game after getting banged up early in the fourth quarter. Both starters are cleared to play in the Camping World Bowl, Kelly said. The two were active in team conditioning workouts last week. On Saturday, the Irish will start practice. Because the Camping World Bowl is so close to Christmas and final exams run through Dec. 20, the players won’t get another break to go home until after the bowl game, Kelly said. • Sophomore wide receiver Kevin Austin Jr. won’t be available to play in the bowl game, Kelly said. That aligns with the Tribune’s report in August that Austin was suspended for the entire 2019 season. Austin hasn’t played in a game this season. • While some younger players will be given a chance to prove themselves in early bowl practices, freshman cornerback Cam Hart won’t be among them. Kelly said recovery from labrum surgery will prevent Hart from taking contact. The 6-foot-3, 208-pound Hart switched positions from wide receiver earlier this season. • Kelly said no player has informed him of an intention to sit out the bowl game. In recent years in college football, players set to enter the NFL Draft have opted to skip their bowl games. That hasn’t been the case at Notre Dame. “We have a history and tradition here,” Kelly said. “The (eight) bowl games that I’ve been part of, everybody plays. If something changes, I’m certain we’ll deal with it and they’ll let us know.” tjames@ndinsider.com Twitter: @TJamesNDI WHAT: Camping World Bowl WHO: CFP No. 15/AP No. 14 Notre Dame (10-2) vs. Iowa State (7-5) WHEN: Saturday, Dec. 28 at noon EST. WHERE: Camping World Stadium, Orlando, Fla. RADIO: WSBT (960 AM, 96.1 FM), WNSN-FM (101.5) LINE: Notre Dame by 5.5 Camping World Bowl Jafar Armstrong Tommy Kraemer Josh Lugg Robert Hainsey Trevor Ruhland Cam Hart Kevin Austin Jr. Myron Tagovailoa-amosa Follow Tyler James Irish Venice Florida Dec 9, 2019 10:29am Just sit out the bowl game,and fire Clown Kelly. OverAll Dec 9, 2019 2:59pm The program is a joke... and the idea that we are a couple years away from being a playoff team is even more laughable. Even if it were true, that’s just not even close to good enough after 10 years. Fire this loser and let’s start from scratch. It doesn’t get much lower than playing unranked teams in tiny little bowl games that no one cares about. just take your millions and millions and millions of dollars that you’ve juiced out of the University and go back to boston. #FireKelly

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Pomeranian Metropolitan Railway opened The first stage of the PKM – the most important and largest communication project of the Pomeranian voivodeship – has been opened. Tri-City, 11 September 2015 – Pomeranian Metropolitan Railway, which links Gdańsk with Lech Wałęsa Airport and the Kashubia (Kaszuby) region, was officially opened during an inauguration ceremony held on 30th August. According to international advisory firm JLL, which presented Pomeranian Metropolitan Railway -Tri-City’s real estate market on the new track report at the beginning of the year, this is a great opportunity for the region in terms of labor market development, attracting new projects from business services sector, as well as for the residential and commercial real estate segment. Marcin Faleńczyk, Deputy Director at Invest in Pomerania, comments: “The project conveniently fits in with the whole infrastructural plan developed within the voivodeship in accordance with the assumptions of economic, transport and environmental policies applied at all levels, from the cities and the region as a whole to the provisions set out by the EU. Furthermore, the PKM will play a huge role in the reduction of both carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emission. The PKM’s influence on the Tri-City will be significant in numerous aspects.” The project also comprises areas of the former railway line as well as parts of less frequently used regional railway lines managed by PKP PLK SA. The investment’s first phase has just been opened. It includes the redevelopment of regional passenger railway transport through the revitalization of the Kokoszowska Railway, not used since 1945, and the development of a section connecting the southern parts of Gdańsk with the airport in Rębiechowo and the Gdynia-Kościerzyna railway line. Magdalena Reńska, Head of Tri-City Office, JLL, comments: “The launch of the fast PKM connection increases the Tri-City’s employee pool due to the reduction in the commute time from the Kashubia region. PKM will change the image and character of the city's urban areas and enhance the quality of its general transportation system”. Pomerania Metropolitan Railway will also enhance existing office locations. Furthermore, according to JLL, it will also increase the development of Gdańsk airport's surrounding areas of where modern business parks may be developed in the future. There are numerous popular shopping centres in the area of Wrzeszcz, including Galeria Bałtycka, CH Manhattan and Galeria Metropolia – currently under construction. Thanks to Gdańsk Wrzeszcz station, the PKM will also provide a new influx of potential customers for shopping centres located in the area. There is also potential for industrial investments along the Tri-City ring road. Currently, the highest concentration of industrial buildings in the Tri-City is located much further south than the PKM. However, there are vast plots of investment land located in the airport’s area that are well-suited to this sector. Access to the PKM’s stations within the area can be an argument for both logistics and industrial companies who are looking for employees. Jan Jakub Zombirt, Associate Director, Research and Consulting at JLL, summarised: “Thanks to the opening of the PKM, Tri-City has obtained one of the most modern communication systems within the country. Our research shows that developers and investors are looking for new land parcels to develop in close proximity to the PKM’s stations. Such investments carry numerous positive assumptions such as dynamics and sustainable development as well as underlining the agglomeration’s metropolitan character.” Advisory firm JLL is the most experienced and most active global agent operating on the Tri-City real estate market.

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OHCHR > English > Countries > Asia Region > Philippines Homepage National action plan/strategy for human rights education Call for public submissions Philippines and UN Charter-based Bodies Philippines and UN Treaty Bodies Core documents for the current and previous cycles and letter by the High Commissioner to the Foreign Minister Report of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons - Mission to Philippines (A/HRC/32/35/Add.3) Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food on her mission to the Philippines - Mission to Philippines (A/HRC/31/51/Add.1) Report of the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children - Mission to the Philippines(A/HRC/23/48/Add.3) Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions - Mission to the Philippines (A/HRC/11/2/Add.8) Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions - Mission to the Philippines A/HRC/8/3/Add.2) Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Concluding observations (2018) CRPD/C/PHL/CO/1 Concluding observations (2016) E/C.12/PHL/CO/5-6 Concluding observations (2016) CEDAW/C/PHL/CO/7-8 Concluding observations (2016) CAT/C/PHL/CO/3 Committee on Migrant Workers Concluding observations (2014) CMW/C/PHL/CO/2 Concluding observations (2013) CRC/C/OPSC/PHL/CO/1 Concluding observations (2012) CCPR/C/PHL/CO/4 Concluding observations (2009) CRC/C/PHL/CO/3-4 Concluding observations (2009) CERD/C/PHL/CO/20 Concluding observations (2008) CRC/C/OPAC/PHL/CO/1 UN Women’s Committee makes inquiry into sexual and reproductive health rights in the Philippines Philippines: Justice in the wake of natural disaster Open letter by the High Commissioner on the Death Penalty (PDF)

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Election 2019: Jacob Justen, Community High School District 155 board Jacob Justen Name: Jacob Justen Town: Crystal Lake Office sought: District 155 School Board Occupation: Commercial Credit Analyst Education: Bachelor’s Degree, Columbia College of Missouri (Accounting, Financial Planning, Business Management) Social Media: facebook.com/JakeForD155 twitter.com/JustenForD155 1. What is your largest priority for District 155 if elected? As I have talked to neighbors and voters, a consistent concern that is raised is spending and taxes. In Crystal Lake, District 155 accounts for a quarter of a residence's property tax bill. This is causing a crunch to family budgets, contributing to increasing rents for non-owners, and will influence business owners' decisions to move to or stay in the area. Student enrollment has declined and will continue to do so based feeder district and other population data. As I will discuss in the following answers, the school board will need to make changes to reduce costs and the burden on taxpayers; the Efficiency and Effectiveness Report prepared for the district recommended drastic budget cuts - up to 17 percent - as enrollment continues to decline. I believe that my background as a credit analyst will help me provide an independent voice on the board. 2. What changes should District 155 make in the future? The district will need to continue to address staffing levels and the efficient and effective use of capital assets. Particularly, the district should review staffing of non-educators as this makes up nearly half of the 717 total employees. The district also needs to be reducing the number of division leaders and assistants as outlined in the Efficiency and Effectiveness report posted on the district website. As was done with the Haber Oaks campus, the district administration office should be absorbed into the school facilities; the office building on Virginia Road in Crystal Lake can then be repurposed, either to be leased or sold. Additionally, the district needs to be more transparent with the community. Details of the recently approved contract were not made public until minutes before the vote, and the full contract was not made public until a full month afterward. The board is a public body; it cannot represent or be an advocate for the community without transparency. 3. What are your thoughts on how District 155 has adjusted to enrollment changes? Declining enrollment district-wide is one of the most important issues facing District 155. Since the 2009-10 school year, enrollment has declined 16 percent. Enrollment will continue to decline over the next 10 years based on projections from the efficiency and effectiveness report using feeder district and other data. The district will need to continue to assess staffing levels as enrollment decreases, including reducing the number central and school administrators, as well as division leaders and assistants. Currently, there are eight students to each employee in the district (teachers, administrators, support staff). Like the Haber Oaks campus, which was sold and absorbed into Crystal Lake South, the district office could be absorbed into one of the school buildings and office building on Virginia Road repurposed and sold or leased to further reduce costs to the district. 4. What direction do you believe that District 155 should head in the future with its property tax levy if enrollment projections hold? The district needs to be preparing for enrollment trends to hold; without a population or housing boom similar to what the area experienced in the early 2000’s it is not likely that the current trends or projections will reverse. Over the past decade, enrollment has declined from approximately 7,100 to 6,000 students. With these trends in mind, the district and the board have a fiduciary duty to prudently use tax dollars and to reduce the tax burden on the community. This includes adjusting staff levels as enrollment declines. Personnel costs compromise 79 percent of the current school year operating expenses. The Efficiency and Effectiveness Report recommends reducing the number of administrators in the central office and in each school. Also, as positions are vacated the district can hire more cost-effective staff or leave the position vacant based on staffing needs. The central district office can be closed and absorbed into a school building, allowing the district to divest the office building and further reduce occupancy expenses (utilities, property insurance, maintenance). 5. Do you believe that District 155 should consider closing one of its high school buildings in the future? The district's efficiency report identified Crystal Lake Central High School for closure and repurposing due to the building's age and maintenance costs, as well as its location in close proximity to the down town area making it more attractive for repurposing than the other three campuses. The report projected annual savings of $4.2 million by consolidating to three campuses. However, it also set a benchmark for this recommendation at a 30 percent decline in enrollment; using the decline from 2009-10 to the current school year, enrollment would need to decline by another 1,000 students to meet the benchmark. In the meantime, the district office should be absorbed into one of the school buildings and the office building repurposed for sale or lease. This will reduce occupancy costs associated with the office (utilities, property insurance, maintenance/repairs) for annual savings. 6. How do you feel District 155 handled its recent teacher contract negotiation process? How do you feel about the resulting contract? I was very disappointed with the way the district handled the teacher negotiation and approval process. There were no details released prior to the January board meeting at which the contract was approved. The agenda item for the contract vote was on Page 5 of the agenda and not listed transparently – it was only after local media inquiries to the district that it was confirmed to be the new contract. Media requests for the contract were declined and details were not made public until just before the vote – late on a cold night after much of the public audience had exited the meeting. A board member’s efforts to delay the vote until the following month were unsuccessful. The community was completely left out of the process and was unable to review or give any feedback on the contract. While the contract was recently publicly released, a full month after approval, it is difficult to offer an opinion as the details are so new and I have not yet fully reviewed the new contract or compared it to the current contract which runs through this school year. 7. How do you feel that District 155 has handled the disciplinary cases of teachers Matt Fralick, Rick Lima and Justin Hubly? Commenting on the specifics of the three cases can be difficult as the specific details known through reports are not complete, especially in an open or ongoing case. It is important that the teachers, coaches, and other staff are trusted by the students under their supervision and the community. With criminal charges being filed, as was the case with Mr. Lima related to the theft of a large sum of money, termination of employment seems to be an appropriate action taken by the district. It also was appropriate for the district to suspend Mr. Hubly upon learning of the accusations and to alert authorities. Based on what is known publicly about the accusations against Mr. Fralick, it is not acceptable that after a leave in August he was allowed back in the classroom with students until being placed on leave again prior to his arrest. It appears, based on reporting, that the district was at least aware of the accusations involving the "grooming" of a minor. Whether or not the minor in this case was a student in the district, Mr. Fralick should not have been able to return to work with students in the fall.

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Love|When The Times (Finally) Recognized Gay Unions https://nyti.ms/2kSk61v When The Times (Finally) Recognized Gay Unions Steven Goldstein, in blue shirt, and Daniel Andrew Gross, at a 2004 event in New Jersey. In 2002, their same-sex partnership was announced in the New York Times wedding pages.Credit...Nancy Wegard for The New York Times By David W. Dunlap In 2001, Stefan Erik Oppers and Gary Penn popped the question. The New York Times said no. A year later, Daniel Andrew Gross and Steven Goldstein popped the question. The Times demurred but this time did not shut the door entirely. Then, after a few more days’ thought, it said yes. The question, of course, was, “Will you print an announcement of our civil union in your society pages?” Mr. Goldstein was checking his desktop computer in Brooklyn on a Sunday morning, shortly before their commitment ceremony. Awaiting him was a message from The Times. “I started screaming: ‘Daniel! Daniel! The New York Times has changed its policy!’” he said. “‘And we’re going to be the first couple!’” What seemed like a sudden turnaround in Times policy had actually been the byproduct of decades of debate in and outside the gay community. Though The Times had covered the issue of whether to legalize same-sex marriage for years, it did not seem especially urgent to lesbian and gay advocates in the 1980s. They were more focused on discrimination, antigay violence and the AIDS epidemic. While the epidemic prompted many hateful and misinformed responses, it also exposed society to couples who cared for each other until parted by death — as fundamental a marital obligation as any. AIDS also showed how cruelly unwed partners could be treated. They were denied hospital visits, insurance proceeds and estate inheritance. Commitment ceremonies were growing common. But The Times hesitated to bestow what amounted to an institutional benediction of those unions in its society pages. “We’re likely to hide behind the argument that those pages just record legal weddings,” Joseph Lelyveld, then the managing editor, told a gay journalists’ organization in 1992. The prospect of legal same-sex weddings seemed remote in 1996, when President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, effectively banning federal recognition of same-sex unions. Even after Vermont first recognized civil unions in 2000 — creating “same-sex marriages in almost everything but the name,” as The Times reported — the paper’s position held fast. Nor did it change in 2001, when the Netherlands became the first country to recognize same-sex marriage. That was when Mr. Oppers and Mr. Penn requested an announcement of their wedding, which was to take place in the Netherlands. Allan M. Siegal, an assistant managing editor, told the couple that their request had been considered seriously but that the newspaper would continue limiting announcements to marriages legally recognized in the United States. Mr. Siegal, now retired, was too smart to believe the issue had been resolved, however. Howell Raines, then the executive editor, asked Mr. Siegal in spring 2002 to lead a committee that would devise a policy. “We wanted to treat same-sex unions, in print, the same way we treated lawful marriages, but without implying that the unions were marriages, still a hot-button issue at that time,” Mr. Siegal said in an email. The new policy was instituted in September 2002. That coincided neatly with the plans by Mr. Gross and Mr. Goldstein to formally celebrate their civil union in North Hero, Vt., on Sept. 1. On Aug. 24, 2003, The Times published a wedding announcement of Peter Freiberg and Joe Tom Easley, who were married in Toronto. On Feb. 22, 2004, The Times published a wedding announcement for Dr. Helen Sperry Cooksey and Dr. Susan Margaret Love, who were married in San Francisco. Have all the smiling same-sex couples in the weddings pages lived happily ever after? Hardly. They’re human, too. Mr. Gross and Mr. Goldstein’s relationship, for example, ended in 2015, after 23 years together. Mr. Goldstein remains proud to have made history with that 2002 announcement. He said, “Nothing helped the cause of marriage equality more than the stories of same-sex couples falling in love, and having the same joys and challenges as any other couple.” This article is part of a series called “Committed: 165 Years of Love (and War) in The New York Times Wedding Announcements.”

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Energy returns to Florida football: Change noticeable with Randy Shannon stepping in If you listened to interim head coach Randy Shannon speak for even 30 seconds on Monday, you noticed the difference. Energy and accountability returned to Florida Gators football for the first time in an extended period as the former Miami head coach and recent Florida defensive coordinator took the podium for his opening remarks as the man tasked with leading the Gators through their final four games of the 2017 season. It was refreshing. Practice was opened to the local media. Questions were answered directly with responses that informed and educated. Decisions were made swiftly. Changes were in the process of being applied across the program. Shannon showed more energy for Florida football in 18 minutes than the ousted Jim McElwain had since losing his mind at running back Kelvin Taylor for a throat slash gesture back in 2015. Without prompting, Shannon candidly explained the quarterback competition was now open — as is every position throughout the team. He put the onus on the defense to step up against a talented offensive team. And he straight called out special teams — a massive issue since McElwain took over the program, never more so than this year — for being responsible for consistently awful field position in Florida’s games. “Hey, we got four games left. Nothing matters but this game against Missouri,” he said. “Everybody in the room wants to be winners, they want to be competitive, they don’t want to let anybody down. But most of all, I told them guys, ‘Don’t let yourself down. Compete at a high level, concentrate, get done all the things you need to get done and we’ll be successful.’” When explaining that star freshman running back Malik Davis would miss the game after suffering a season-ending injury, Shannon took the opportunity to call out redshirt senior Mark Thompson, who has underwhelmed in his two years with the team. “It’s time for Mark Thompson to step up. He’s a senior; he’s a guy that’s 6-foot-2, 240 [pounds], runs a 4.4. It’s his opportunity to come in and play,” he said firmly. “We got to challenge him on offense, make sure he knows there was a reason why he was recruited to be a part of Florida – and that’s to be a skilled running back like he is but also be productive, be a physical-type guy that can get in open space and make plays. … Mark Thompson has to really step up this game.” Shannon will not be the next Gators coach for myriad reasons, and he likely knows that, but his experience with the Hurricanes shined through in a massive way Monday. Unlike his predecessor, the stage was not too big for him. Shannon had no reason to hide anything from the gathered media because he understood they are there to do nothing more than inform the fans, the lifeblood of any and every team. “Nah, it’s not an audition. I just think it’s an opportunity to coach and have fun with a bunch of guys you have a chance to be with,” Shannon said. “[We] have to represent the University of Florida and we got to go out there as a whole team and unit and coaching staff and have fun with these guys, be very enthusiastic and positive.” Regarding opening practices, he added: “Yeah! Yeah … back in my early days when I was a coach, it was different. We let you guys come to practice and see what we’re doing and stuff like fly around, run around. You can get your opinions about what you see and stuff like that, just don’t film anything. Otherwise, you can come out there and watch practice and see what we’re doing. It’s part of your job – to give information and see what we’re doing and give your opinion. And I’ll tell you this, you opinions don’t affect me like they did when I was younger. It’s to help you guys do your job the best that you can, more than anything.” Shannon thinks he will have a unique perspective on the offense because, as a defensive coach, he knows exactly what has been going wrong and how Florida may be able to improve. He also answered a question about his young, underachieving defense with a direct, candid response — taking responsibility for the struggles but fairly pointing out where the Gators are deficient from an experience perspective. “I don’t think nobody’s young; that’s the problem with me. I always think, no matter who you have, you have to coach them. Being in the NFL, you can trade for somebody, get somebody off the coach and sign them, waiver wire, all those things. In college, whoever you’ve got, you’ve got to coach them,” he explained. “We’ve been up and down on defense. We’ve done some great things on defense. Starting out the season, you would say, ‘OK, we will have Marcell [Harris], we will have Nick Washington, we will have guys in the secondary.’ But, unfortunately, we didn’t. We’re playing with a bunch of young guys, which in the secondary Duke [Dawson] is the only [upperclassman]; everyone else is a true freshman or a true sophomore. “Then you go and you say, ‘OK, linebacker wise, they’re all sophomores.’ Then you look at the D-line, and you think that’s the most experienced position, but when you lose [players to injury, you’re young depth-wise]. But they’re energetic. They play hard. They play fast. They play aggressive. They don’t quit. That’s the one thing you know about those guys. Now, we’ll do some stuff that’s not sound – we’ll fill a gap wrong or something will happen – but when it all comes back, those guys still compete, and they fix problems quick. That’s one thing about a young team, you’re going to be on sometimes and sometimes it’s going to be tough on you.” Shannon closed by showing that the moment and the position were not too big for him. He understands there are high expectations for Florida to finish the season strong despite McElwain’s departure and is completely focused on the task at hand. “At an institution or at an NFL team, basketball, baseball or a corporation, they want to win. They want the best that they can get. You have to accept the challenge that – no matter what – you have to give them what they want. That’s just the challenge of everything [with a job like this],” Shannon said. “… The best job I have is the job I have right now because it’s the only job. The best players I’ve ever coached are the players I’m coaching right now, because they’re the only players I can ever coach. You have to take that mindset and capitalize on that.” Shannon will not be the Gators’ permanent coach, but he presented himself more like one in 18 minutes than the man he replaced had all season — and perhaps even longer than that. Jim McElwain Malik Davis Mark Thompson Randy Shannon Florida’s running backs are ‘real’ and may be real good, but are they good enough? Serious injury concerns have Florida on tilt entering Texas A&M game Good, bad and ugly: Florida finds some answers, but Gators have major problems Sydney Croud says: I always liked Coach Shannon and feel he got screwed at Miami, so was glad when he came to the Gators. I hope that he has a good run and there can be some positive momentum for next year. Surprised if he wouldn’t be considered if he finishes out. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I am hoping for an 8-4 season. Michael Jones says: Nothing wrong with you, man. You’re just being a good Gator. It’s okay to have a little positivity and hope for the best. We don’t all have to be whiners 24/7. Go Gators!!! Watching Shannon yesterday I got a feeling that troubled me. It was the feeling he would be very successful, become the players’ choice to replace Mac, get passed over for another lovable loser, and go on to win multiple championships somewhere else. GATOR-6 says: Boy, Corey, you just scared the bejabbers out of me! Of all the things that have been troubling my sleep since last Saturday, this wasn’t one of them until now. Thanks a lot, buddy. Actually, Randy Shannon did a pretty good job at Miami, and at a time when the athletic department there was a mess-on-a-stick. Accordingly, there’s more to his resume than just won-loss record. So no, I wouldn’t count him out at Florida, just as I think Ed Ogeron at LSU might surprise a whole lot of people once he gets settled in (and brother that athletic department is currently as screwed up as the Vol’s is). Slash Tmp says: da fuq? Why do you affirm (twice) Shannon will not be the Gators permanent coach? I say he try. If he comes in and wins out….he should be seriously considered. I haven’t seen anyone on all the lists that I’ve looked at that’s the Preeminent choice. I look forward to watching the game against Missouri. Adam Silverstein says: Shannon went 28-22 at Miami. Slash–I was a little offended too when everybody assumed he wouldn’t be considered. That was after I thought about it for a few minutes, at first assuming too that he wouldn’t be. But why not? 28-22 at Miami, coming in during the worst of times for that program says an awful lot, and nobody can deny that the man has tons of big time football experience as well as loads of character. If you want to be really shocked though, take a look at Pat Dooley’s list of candidates he put out today. Some good names there, but a whole lot of names that are either one trick ponies or a flash in the pan. Made me want to puke. Erng'n Blue says: Shannon is saying and doing the opposite of his predecessor. Turns out, his predecessor’s approach was obviously the wrong one up until his dismissal. It’s called Ying and Yang. Shannon is smart enough to understand this and is going to ride this momentum to our last four wins. This is what a very good coach does. Capitalize on momentum swings and garnish a mob mentality to defy offs. Then reality sets in and leadership is the prevailing factor. This is why Shannon is not a candidate. The other reason is Strong. He never made it so please.. Whether he does or doesn’t become the next Gator HC, Randy Shannon is and always has been a class act. I dislike the Canes only less than I dislike FSU, but I cheered for them while he was there. I think they had a quick trigger on Shannon. I’m glad we have him. Loved his first presser. Like most good coaches, you can take his comments and apply them to either football or life with equal success. I plan to enjoy him for as long as he’s around.

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8000 N Kings Hwy Directions | Google+ | Tour 13707 Ocean Highway Pawleys Island, SC 29585 My Account View Cart Contact Us Join our newsletter list 1 3 7 9 A B C D E F Q R S T U V W Y Z Fonseca Vintage Port 2000 Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesca Portugal » Douro Inky purple colour. Complete nose, with impressive depth and background, displaying the concentrated and opulent fruitiness which is the hallmark of the Fonseca style. Rich blackcurrant and plum aromas overlaid with spicy and floral notes. Full bodied and velvety on the palate, with ripe chewy tannins providing frim grip to support the long fruity finish. International Wine Cellar Saturated medium-deep ruby. Exotic aromas of black fruit liqueur, road tar, smoked meat and hot stones; this reminded me of a great ripe-year Hermitage. Hugely rich and dense, with compelling sweetness and pliancy but also sound framing acidity. Extremely youthful and very long on the aftertaste. Finishes with suave but strong tannins and excellent grip and thrust. Like the best examples of the vintage, this won't injure your palate if you broach a bottle today, but it's structured for extended aging. Score: 95, Stephen Tanzer, January 2003 Fabulous nose of crushed raspberries, blackberries and licorice. Full-bodied and velvety, with super-clean fruit and a long finish. A beauty. Very harmonious for Fonseca. Best after 2011. Score: 94, James Suckling, May 15, 2003 Taylor Fladgate Vintage Port 2003 Wine which is produced and bottled under strict supervision and meets all standards to be certified Kosher. Wine which is produced using organic practices and is free of all synthetic chemicals, antibiotics, hormones and pesticides. Biodynamic designation is regulated by Demeter, an international certification organization. Biodynamic agriculture is based on the view of a farm as a self-contained organism. Certified organic vineyards must meet Demeter"s additional criteria for a period of one year before earning the designation "biodynamic." Sustainable practices incorporate organic standards and may exceed them and include ecologically and socially sound business practices such as fair pay for farm workers and energy conservation. Wines sealed with a screw cap as opposed to a cork, which experts report protects and preserves wine more effectively than does a cork, while also eliminating the possibility of cork taint. All wines naturally contain some sulfites, however wines that contain less than 10 parts per million sulfites are not required to include "Contains Sulfites" on their labels. Wines that are still in the barrel and have yet to be bottled. Futures offer the opportunity to invest in a wine before it arrives in our store. Like futures, pre-arrivals are wines that have not yet arrived on our shelves, however they may or may not be a new release. Pre-arrivals may already be bottled and en route to our store. The Wine Advocate is a bimonthly wine publication featuring the consumer advice of wine critic Robert M. Parker, Jr. Initially titled The Baltimore-Washington Wine Advocate the first issue was published in 1978. Accepting no advertising, the newsletter publishes in excess of 7,500 reviews per year, utilizing Parker's rating system that employs a 50-100 point quality scale. Wine Spectator is a lifestyle magazine that focuses on wine and wine culture. It publishes 15 issues per year with content that includes news, articles, profiles, and general entertainment pieces. Each issue also includes from 400 to more than 1,000 wine reviews, which consist of wine ratings and tasting notes. Since 1997, the 100% subscriber-supported IWC has also been available in French and Japanese editions. Wine Enthusiast Magazine is a lifestyle magazine covering wine, food, spirits, travel and entertaining topics. It was founded in 1988 by Adam and Sybil Strum and reaches 686,000 readers. Its wine ratings, conducted by reviewers in major wine-producing areas of the world, are considered an influential gauge for consumers and professionals in the wine industry. BeerAdvocate is an organization founded by brothers Todd and Jason Alström. The mission, as stated on their website, is to "Respect Beer". BeerAdvocate also has a full-color monthly magazine. It includes various articles written by, and concerning, craft brewers (both amateur and professional). The brothers also write for various journals, including Boston's Weekly Dig. Wine and Spirits is America's practical guide to the straightforward, enlightened enjoyment of fine wine and and premium spirits. We have for 18 years served customers and marketers alike with a lively mix of wine reviews, features, profiles, food and wine pairings, new product introductions, travel pieces, history, opinion and wine business news. Burghound.com was the first of its kind to offer specialized, and more importantly, exhaustive coverage of a specific wine region. The first Issue was released in January of 2001 and there are now subscribers in more than 50 countries and nearly all 50 states. Allen Meadows spends over four months a year in Burgundy and visits more than 300 domaines during that time. James is one of the world’s leading authorities on Australian wine, matching intelligent, honest reviews with unparalleled knowledge of, and passion for, the wine industry. The Bottle Shop wine store in Spring Lake, New Jersey, is owned by the Murray family, who have been wine merchants in Monmouth County since 1972. Tom and Marie Murray converted a small liquor store on the Jersey Shore into a vintage wine, cheese and gourmet food shop; an endeavor reported in the New York Times in the summer of 1974. Today, their three children are continuing the tradition... At OC Wine Mart, we are redefining your neighborhood wine, liquor & convenience store. We have a wine specialist on board who will gladly help you find the best wine for your particular occasion, whether it’s for a special dinner party, a gift, or just the right wine to pair with food, to take an everyday meal to the next level. For thirty-five years, Connoisseurs’ Guide has been the authoritative voice of the California wine consumer. With readers in all fifty states and twenty foreign countries, the Guide is valued by wine lovers everywhere for its honesty and for it strong adherence to the principles of transparency, unbiased, hard-hitting opinions. I rate wines using the 100-points scale. I have used this point system for close to 25 years. I still believe it is the simplest way to rate a wine, with its origins from grade school in the United States. A wine that I rate 90 points or more is outstanding (A), and worth buying. If I rate a wine 95 points or more (A+), it is a must buy. In-house ratings from our expert staff. View From the Cellar, an electronic wine newsletter published bi-monthly by John Gilman. Homepage for wine writer, Neal Martin's, "Diary of a Wine Writer". Malt Advocate magazine is America's leading whisky magazine. It's the number one source for whisky information, education and entertainment for whisky enthusiasts. Dedicated to the wines and grapes of the Rhone Valley Wine Review Online was originally conceived by Publisher Robert Whitley as an all-encompassing platform for the many talented wine journalists he came across in his travels as wine columnist for the Creators Syndicate. Since launching in May 2013 Vinous has become one the fastest growing wine content websites in the world. Regular features include comprehensive reviews of new releases from Italy, California, Champagne and Burgundy, vertical tastings and retrospectives, in-depth videos shot on location, Vinous Favorites - our top picks under $25 - and Vinous Table, where we profile our top eating and drinking destinations. ChampagneGuide.net is the web's most comprehensive guide to the wines and wine producers of Champagne. This online guide features profiles of over 160 champagne producers, from renowned négociant houses to small grower estates. Jim Murray's Whisky Bible is the world's leading whisky guide. Each edition contains roughly 4,500 detailed, professionally analysed and easy to understand tasting notes on the world's leading and lesser known whiskies. Whisky Advocate magazine is America's leading whisky magazine. The #1 source for whisky information, education & entertainment for whisky enthusiasts. Decanter magazine is - quite simply - the world’s best wine magazine. Read in over 90 countries, Decanter is required reading for everyone with an interest in wine - from amateur enthusiast to serious collector. World-renowned wine authority and Master of Wine delivers her tasting notes, wine news, intelligent and courteous members' forum, and fine wine writing aplenty plus exclusive online access to The Oxford Companion to Wine. THE TASTING PANEL magazine is the most widely circulated trade publication in the beverage industry, reaching an audience of thousands of key decision-makers every month and growing on an international scale. Beverage Dynamics is the largest national magazine dedicated to the needs of the off-premise beverage alcohol retailer. PinotReport is written exclusively about Western Pinot Noir. RateBeer is an independent world site for craft beer enthusiasts and is dedicated to serving the entire craft beer community through beer education, promotion and outreach. Drink Spirits is a spirit ‘agnostic’ site which means that, while we have our favorite spirits, we believe that there are amazing spirits within ALL categories of distilled spirits and alcohol. We do our best to hand pick the wines we carry and deliver them to you at a great everyday price. Whether you are looking for a everyday dinner wine or a special occasion wine, our staff will meet your needs. The San Diego International Wine Competition takes place in San Diego, California and the director is nationally syndicated wine columnist Robert Whitley. The International Wine Review publishes in-depth tasting reports on the world of wine for wine professionals and others deeply involved in wine. The JebDunnuck.com website is a subscription based, bi-monthly publication dedicated to providing cutting-edge, independent commentary and reviews on the top wines and wine regions of the world. The International Wine Report Tim Atkin is an award-winning wine writer and Master of Wine, with over 30 years' experience and a strong international following. Copyright © 2020 Owens Liquors. All rights reserved. Website Powered by Bottlenose.

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You are at:Home»News»Airport»Gold Coast extends SITA deal Gold Coast extends SITA deal By Tara Craig on November 19, 2019 Airport, Technology Gold Coast Airport has renewed its partnership with global IT provider SITA for passenger and baggage technology until 2024, extending a decade-long relationship. The Australian airport uses SITA AirportConnect Open, the common-use platform, together with self-service bag drop and check-in kiosks. Mark Allen, general manager technology, Queensland Airports Limited, said, “Gold Coast Airport had been one of Australia’s fastest-growing airports in the past decade. Throughout this time, SITA has been a trusted partner, ensuring we achieved our goals. SITA’s ability to deliver a smooth transition to a common-use passenger processing system (CUPPS), with complete flexibility to embrace individual carrier requirements, has been particularly valuable.” Gold Coast Airport welcomed almost 6.5 million passengers in FY 20s19, making it the fifth busiest international airport in Australia and sixth busiest overall. The airport’s passenger numbers have steadily risen in recent years and are expected to more than double by 2037. The extended partnership with SITA comes as A$500m (US$335m) is invested in redeveloping the airport precinct and represents a commitment to supporting future growth.

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The Dark Side of Prose I’ve been thinking about newspapers lately, and their most recent avatar, TV news, both the network and the cable kind. What intrigues me most about this use of prose is that it mainly dwells on catastrophes, setbacks, misfortune and misery. It is prose born of the modern city, London to be exact, in the form of The Spectator, edited by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele for about a year (1711-1712). It had a circulation of 3 thousand readers, but the pass-along, as magazines call it, reached some 60,000 readers, about a tenth of London’s 18th century population. The paper was intended to help city dwellers learn the ways of urban life; it was only within the previous century that vast numbers of people began to migrate to London and live there full time. Canals were the main way to travel, and leaving behind country life was partly the result of the Enclosure Acts, which began in 1604 to end the use of common lands for tilling and grazing. That meant only the landed gentry could afford to stay; others had to find a living elsewhere. Hence, the need to instruct the arrivistes on how to behave, stay out of trouble, avoid the pitfalls of the built environment. The Spectator’s narrator was himself a country gentleman new to the city, and was often naïve and a bit careless in his actions. He embodied the readers’ concerns and was their guide to negotiating the labyrinth of narrow streets, the haunts of pickpockets, prostitutes, muggers, and other predators of the innocent. In other words, the first urban prose sprung from the notion that the built environment was suspect, inclined toward corruption. The city’s bad reputation imprinted itself on journalism from the very start, and has continued to inspire a narrow, moralistic attitude toward human behavior. Ten years after The Spectator dies, Daniel Defoe publishes Moll Flanders, about a woman who is born of a convict mother in Newgate Prison, London. She grows up and learns the ways of the city, is deflowered early, ends up deported to colonial America, and after a series of misadventures returns to London only to find herself back in Newgate with a possible noose dangling over her head. She talks her way out of execution and finds herself married to a half-brother in America, the son of her biological mother. All this adds up to a portrait of a girl raised without parents in the moral anarchy of London. She turns out well at the very end, but only to soften the plot a little for readers. Stephen Crane comes up with a new Moll in his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, published in 1893. Maggie was born in a tenement in the Bowery, wanders into trouble, ends up as a prostitute in the slums of New York. The paradigm of the city as the underworld spreads from London to Paris to New York, and in nearly every case, the “girl” is the victim of the city’s lust and mayhem. Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (1900) sweeps away the Victorian moral machinery and studies how a girl from a small town learns to manipulate men to her advantage, and winds up a star on Broadway, rich, famous, sought after while the men in her life have all been swept into ruin. She conquers the city but not without becoming the very symbol of fallen human nature. But the notion of the city as a Dantean underworld meant that prose, whether romantic or realistic, was predetermined to report on the death of innocence in the urban landscape. And newspapers flourished for the next two centuries, serving up hefty portions of ghoulish tales of gentlemen turned into syphilitic rakes, ordinary men into gin drunks, and of youths learning how to survive by stealing and killing. The gang was the metaphor of how the city corrupted the young early and ruined their lives. Prose was a telescope with a lens ground in the early 17th century by ardent puritanical moralists; you couldn’t put the instrument up to your eye without it pointing to an alley to witness a mugging, or a window where adultery was in progress. It was inevitable that the suburb would become, around the middle of the 20th century, the pastoral alternative to urban corruption. In fact, the era was seized with the ideal of “Garden Cities” and “Green Belts” where morality would be rejuvenated. But crime was a contagion of the streets and suburbs were as vulnerable to moral decay as were the avenues of Manhattan. Photographers like Weegee drove around New York with police radios and were first on the scene of a murder or suicide. Weegee had a “dark room” installed in the trunk of his car and could deliver his gory prints of corpses in pools of blood before anyone else – and his pictures appeared everywhere in the tabloids. He was mining an old prejudice with his flash bulbs and Speed Graphic cameras – he was simply proving the point that the city bred pestilence and destruction. Often his photographs included the laughing, leering faces of the crowd gathered to gawk at the twisted body of a victim. Their faces expressed a kind of carnival hilarity, a joyful celebration of the underworld’s preeminence in life. Walter Winchell reported the malfeasance and scandals of the upper world in his gossip columns, while the reporters on the City Desk sifted through police bulletins looking for any lurid events. Noir films comlpete the picture of a culture obsessed with urban treachery. It doesn’t seem that strange that the cable news, the electronic tabloids of our time, from CNN to Fox News should dwell obsessively on murder stories, the endless replays the O.J. Simpson car chase and trial; the Trayvon Martin case, and all the other episodes like it, where a youth is shot by the police in a nondescript neighborhood. Eric Garner becomes an instant symbol of the generic victim of police brutality. “I Can’t Breathe” is on t-shirts, in the latest album by the Russian girl-group, “Pussy Riot.” The names are symbolic of something much deeper and more pervasive, a fear rooted in an ancient prejudice against the secular world. For the city is not religious or sacred in the modern world; it stands for the separation from religion, and the elevation of commerce and mere survival without the influence of the church. The city is where the soul perishes for lack of divine intervention or instruction. The modern city is that construct that emerged the moment religion’s grip on the world loosened, according to the moral pessimists of the press.

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At the U.S. Open, Novak Djokovic Isn’t the Most Beloved Player, But He Is the Best Naomi Osaka’s U.S. Open Victory Against Serena Williams, Nearly Ruined by a Call, Is Redeemed by Empathy and Grace America’s Only Deaf Football Team Decides What to Do During the National Anthem Man allegedly sent threatening letters to Taylor Swift Apple CEO defends pricing of new iPhones Penny Cats Find the most interesting news Home > World > North and South Korea just signed a major agreement. It may be bad news for Trump. North and South Korea just signed a major agreement. It may be bad news for Trump. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in are in the middle of a dramatic three-day summit that has featured warm hugs, elaborate musical performances, and throngs of Pyongyang’s residents lining the streets to catch a glimpse of the historic moment. Late Tuesday night, the pageantry turned into actual business as both leaders vowed to improve their fraught relationship and announced an agreement in which Kim offered the concrete steps toward dismantling his country’s nuclear program. The problem is their agreement is extremely vague — and may actually prove bad news for the United States. Here’s some of what they agreed to: Kim said that he’d travel to Seoul by the end of the year — a first for any North Korean leader — and that both sides will work to reduce tensions at their heavily militarized border. Kim and Moon even agreed to jointly bid to host the Olympics in 2032. But on the issue that matters most to the United States — the dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear program — no one can claim much progress. Kim said he’d allow international inspectors into the country to watch as he destroys a missile engine testing site and a major nuclear facility, but experts say Pyongyang doesn’t actually need those specific sites anymore, which makes that a much less significant concession than it sounds. Kim added the caveat that he’d follow through on his concessions if the US makes unspecified concessions of its own. That’s a pretty important caveat: The North Korean leader has basically offered to give up very little while expecting America to concede more before anything happens. “North Korea is still expecting Washington to make the first move,” Duyeon Kim, a nuclear and Koreas expert at the Center for a New American Security think tank, tells me. “The needle hasn’t moved at all.” President Donald Trump, however, claimed victory on Twitter, noting all the agreements between the two Koreas and Kim’s vow to take down some of his nuclear installations. That underscores how Kim’s high-wire strategy to keep Trump happy — while still quietly improving North Korea’s nuclear arsenal in the background — may just pay off for the North Korean dictator. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in made a lot of promises to each other on September September 18, 2018. Pyeongyang Press Corps/Getty Images The two Korean leaders signed what is formally titled the “Pyongyang Joint Declaration of September 2018.” It contains a lot of plans to improve inter-Korean ties over the coming years. The agreements break down into roughly three categories: military, economic, and societal. Moon and Kim agreed to withdraw 11 guard posts from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) — the official (and somewhat confusing) name of the heavily fortified border between the two countries — by the end of the year. Though the Korean War functionally ended in 1953, it ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. That means both sides technically remain at war, which is why troops remain on both sides of the border. Removing some of those guard posts, then, means that both sides have downgraded their war-like posture toward each other. It by no means ends the standoff, but it does reduce it somewhat. The two sides also agreed to create a joint military committee to help lower tensions at the border and maintain communications in case of a flare-up; disarm a jointly controlled border village, in part by removing land mines; and set up a joint search party to look for the remains of troops who fought and died during the war. Moon and Kim agreed to create east coast and west coast connections between the two Koreas via rail and road, which will help businesses on both sides ship their products across the border and thus hopefully improve commercial ties between the two countries. They also promised to work to reopen — and keep open — a joint industrial site and tourism center that were both previously shut down over increasing tensions. That will stimulate their economies and allow Koreans from the North and South to mingle with one another. The tourist site, known as the Mount Kumgang Tourism Project, could also serve as a place for families separated by the war to reunite — an important issue because many haven’t seen their family members in decades. Kim also said he would visit Seoul by the end of the year, which would be a first for any North Korean leader. While Kim stepped into South Korean territory in April, visiting his southern neighbor’s capital city will prove one of the most dramatic moments in the long, tense history of the divided peninsula. Should the bonhomie continue over the coming years, both sides also said they would like to jointly bid to host the 2032 Summer Olympics. That would be incredibly symbolic, especially since the serious peace talks between the two Koreas began after North Korea sent a delegation — including athletes, musicians, cheerleaders, and high-level politicians — to the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. It’s unclear, of course, how many of these announcements will come to fruition. North Korea in particular has a history of promising positive steps toward good relations with South Korea only to back out of them later. What is clear, though, is that what Kim promised Moon is much more significant — and much more likely to happen — than what the North Korean leader promised Trump. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump during their Singapore summit on June 12, 2018. Kevin Lim/The Strait Times/Handout/Getty Images One of the reasons Moon traveled to Pyongyang was to try to break the current impasse in the nuclear talks between North Korea and the United States. Kim wants Trump to sign a peace declaration — an agreement that says the Korean War is over and that America will never attack North Korea — before he makes any nuclear concessions. Trump promised Kim he’d do that soon after their June summit in Singapore. The Trump administration, however, insists that Kim must first cut his nuclear arsenal by 60 to 70 percent — or offer some other major concession — before the US will sign a peace declaration. So although Kim’s offer Tuesday night to tear down a missile engine testing site and nuclear facility with international inspectors present may seem like a big deal at first glance, the reality is that it is still contingent on the US offering concessions — such as signing the peace declaration. Which means the two sides are still at an impasse, with both sides refusing to move until the other side moves first. Still, Trump tweeted his pleasure with Kim’s offer on Wednesday morning. Kim Jong Un has agreed to allow Nuclear inspections, subject to final negotiations, and to permanently dismantle a test site and launch pad in the presence of international experts. In the meantime there will be no Rocket or Nuclear testing. Hero remains to continue being…….. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 19, 2018 ….returned home to the United States. Also, North and South Korea will file a joint bid to host the 2032 Olympics. Very exciting! That’s good news for Kim: He received Trump’s praise for saying he’ll do what the president wants, even though it seems like he has little intention of actually doing anything unless the US makes a concession as well. Meanwhile, Kim has grown closer to Moon and has shown that the two Koreas can improve their relationship without America’s help. That could potentially weaken US-South Korea ties in the future. And if that’s the case, Kim will have kept his nuclear weapons and damaged an alliance that he fears plots his overthrow. “That’s Kim’s endgame, and he’s scored another major leap forward with this sham summit,” says Sung-Yoon Lee, a Koreas expert at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. German energy company: saving threatened forest ‘illusion’ Doctor, girlfriend accused of drugging, raping women Hospital staff singing ‘no more chemo’ song to young cancer patient goes viral Microsoft says it stopped a Russian cyberattack on conservative think tanks Suicide risk nearly double for traumatic brain injury sufferers: Study Prison Strike Organizer Warns: Brutal Prison Conditions Risk “Another Attica” We publish original, timely and entertaining content that’s worth every penny of your attention. What does Michael Cohen’s plea deal mean for Trump? Dear James Mattis: Why Haven’t You Quit Yet? © 2020 Penny Cats. All rights reserved.

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TRAF5, a novel tumor necrosis factor receptor-associated factor family protein, mediates CD40 signaling T K Ishida, T Tojo, T Aoki, N Kobayashi, T Ohishi, T Watanabe, T Yamamoto, and J Inoue PNAS September 3, 1996 93 (18) 9437-9442; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.93.18.9437 T K Ishida T Tojo T Aoki N Kobayashi T Ohishi T Watanabe T Yamamoto J Inoue Signals emanating from CD40 play crucial roles in B-cell function. To identify molecules that transduce CD40 signalings, we have used the yeast two-hybrid system to done cDNAs encoding proteins that bind the cytoplasmic tail of CD40. A cDNA encoding a putative signal transducer protein, designated TRAF5, has been molecularly cloned. TRAF5 has a tumor necrosis factor receptor-associated factor (TRAF) domain in its carboxyl terminus and is most homologous to TRAF3, also known as CRAF1, CD40bp, or LAP-1, a previously identified CD40-associated factor. The amino terminus has a RING finger domain, a cluster of zinc fingers and a coiled-coil domain, which are also present in other members of the TRAF family protein except for TRAF1. In vitro binding assays revealed that TRAF5 associates with the cytoplasmic tail of CD40, but not with the cytoplasmic tail of tumor receptor factor receptor type 2, which associates with TRAF2. Based on analysis of the association between TRAF5 and various CD40 mutants, residues 230-269 of CD40 are required for the association with TRAF5. In contrast to TRAF3, overexpression of TRAF5 activates transcription factor nuclear factor kappa B. Furthermore, amino-terminally truncated forms of TRAF5 suppress the CD40-mediated induction of CD23 expression, as is the case with TRAF3. These results suggest that TRAF5 and TRAF3 could be involved in both common and distinct signaling pathways emanating from CD40. You are going to email the following TRAF5, a novel tumor necrosis factor receptor-associated factor family protein, mediates CD40 signaling T K Ishida, T Tojo, T Aoki, N Kobayashi, T Ohishi, T Watanabe, T Yamamoto, J Inoue Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Sep 1996, 93 (18) 9437-9442; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.93.18.9437

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POLITICO Magazine The Friday Cover is POLITICO Magazine's email of the week's best, delivered to your inbox every Friday morning. The Supercandidate Allan Levene is running for Congress in two different states. It may be crazy, but it's legal. By BEN SCHRECKINGER Ben Schreckinger is a reporter for Politico. Allan Levene is what you might call a way outside-the-Beltway candidate. That’s not just because he is British-born and grew up in West Ham, on London’s dodgy East End, playing in the rubble of bombed-out buildings leveled by the Blitz. Or because he’s running for Congress in Hawaii’s 1st congressional district, 5,000 miles away from Washington. It’s also because Levene is running for Congress in Georgia’s 11th district (where he lives) and tried to mount runs from Minnesota’s 6th, Michigan’s 8th and Michigan’s 14th districts—all in the same election cycle. So far as anyone can tell, Levene is the first person in the history of the Republic to run for Congress in multiple states simultaneously. If that sounds illegal, it isn’t. The Constitution requires only that a candidate for the House be at least 25 years old, hold U.S. citizenship for at least seven years and reside in a state at the time he or she is elected to represent it. The FEC has weighed in, and Levene can go ahead with his campaigns, as long as he raises funds separately in each state. Of course, now that he’s passed muster with the regulators, he still has to face voters, and winning them over will be a harder task. Citing logistical issues and charges of carpetbagging—to say nothing of his unusual views—political observers have written off his chances. And a poll conducted in late March found he had just 0.3 percent support in the six-way Georgia Republican primary, though two-thirds of the participants remained undecided. Given the long odds, what would compel someone to take on not just one but multiple congressional campaigns? Levene, driven by premonitions of economic doom and a naturalized citizen’s love of his adopted country, is just unconventional enough to try. And the campaign he’s running is so shot-through with urgency, so indifferent to political orthodoxy that you have to believe a Congressman Levene would shake up Washington. “I’m doing this in parallel, not in series,” he says, as if his political career were a math problem. He’s multiplied his chances of winning, but now he’s down to two shots—and even that almost certainly isn’t enough. Levene does not want me to think he’s a Don Quixote. He sends me an email to this effect after I have raised the possibility that his multi-state run is a “quixotic” quest. His message concludes, “I’m a practical man, and day-dreaming is something I never do.” A young Levene in Britain. The first time we talk over the phone, he announces, “I’m all meat and potatoes. I drive a minivan because it’s practical.” Point taken. It turns out Levene is less Man of La Mancha, more a mix of Julian Assange and Alexis de Tocqueville. He shares with the WikiLeaks founder an aptitude for computers, a visceral disgust for the U.S. government and a strongly held worldview forged in youthful wanderings. Levene has also lost the East End accent of his childhood, and to my crude American ears his accent now sounds Australian, like Assange’s. “People say South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, England, Brooklyn,” he says. “People hear what they want to hear.” Washington And The World Samantha Power Is Back By RICHARD GOWAN The Book Every Plutocrat Should Read By CHRYSTIA FREELAND Like de Tocqueville, Levene came to the United States as an outsider during a time of prosperity and became an enthusiast of the American way of life. Born in London in 1949, he remembers the postwar rationing enforced in the England of his youth, which whetted his appetite for a land of plenty. After saving money from various jobs, he escaped Britain on an airplane in 1970, alone and only 21 years old, and landed in New York. From there, he stuck his thumb out on a New Jersey expressway, and off he went. His intention was to circumnavigate the globe, though he didn’t have much in the way of a plan. What he did have was a Union Jack on a stick, which he figured would make him more intriguing to motorists than the average hitchhiker. “I had to make myself sufficiently different that people would stop out of curiosity,” he says. “And they did. And I had a wonderful time zig-zagging across America.” Aiming for Los Angeles, then Hawaii, Asia and finally the road back home to England, Levene instead ran out of money in San Diego, Calif.—a city he had never even heard of before coming to the United States. He got a job selling insurance, and soon opened his own business. By his mid-20s, he had six people working for him. He even retired for a year-and-a-half to surf. “I thought I had died and gone to heaven,” he says. Never one for routine, though, Levene awoke from his American dream after his surfing phase, and decided to go into the municipal bonds business. In the 1980s, he left San Diego for Atlanta, and he has since done stints in Michigan, Florida and Colorado. His career has also meandered, from insurance and finance to computer hardware sales and IT. He’s done wedding photography, too, and has sold steam-and-sauna equipment online since 2000, when he attempted to demonstrate his online design skills with a demo webpage and got more than he bargained for. “I did such a good job of it,” he says of the site, “that people started buying steam-and-sauna equipment from it. And I was shocked—pleasantly shocked.” Along the way, Levene, who now works as an IT specialist in Atlanta , earned his U.S. citizenship in the mid-70s. But since then, he has watched the land of opportunity slide to the brink of economic disaster, he says. Concerned for his adopted homeland’s future and feeling he owed a debt of gratitude, he ran for the House as a write-in candidate in Georgia’s 11 th in 2012, challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Phil Gingrey. In total, Levene garnered just 30 votes. Following his failed 2012 bid, Levene was stuck—both in his quest for office and, one day, in a traffic jam—when he opened a pocket Constitution to Article I and read the qualifications to run for the House. That’s when the idea of simultaneous runs struck him. Because of widespread gerrymandering and the difficulty of unseating an incumbent, Levene surmised that the surest route to Congress would be to win a primary for an open seat, preferably in a district tilted toward his party, the GOP. He’s focusing first on the spot being vacated by Gingrey in Georgia’s 11 th, in the suburbs northwest of Atlanta. As a backup, he chose Hawaii’s 1 st district because it’s an open seat with an August primary, which will give him time to refocus his efforts if he loses in Georgia on May 20; although he’s visited Hawaii multiple times, he has never lived in the state. He gave up on Minnesota’s 6 th earlier this year, when local GOP officials showed little interest in his run. In Michigan, he recently failed to secure the 1,000 signatures required to get his name on the ballot in both the 8 th and the 14 th districts, a setback he attributes to an unusually cold winter that made canvassing difficult—for his small group of volunteers, not Levene himself: He hasn’t visited the state to campaign, and while he once lived near the 8 th and 14 th districts (within 10 miles), he never officially resided in either. Levene is willing to attempt, and finance, simultaneous campaigns across the country because he says he doesn’t have the time to run “in series”—the 64-year-old is convinced he’ll be dead within 10 years. More importantly, he’s convinced that in four years the country will face certain calamity, unless he’s able to intervene. Levene in 1989. Levene’s agenda is a long one: He wants to effectively term-limit Congress by stripping pensions from long-serving incumbents. He thinks there should be not one but three independent committees for investigating national tragedies, to help put conspiracy theories to rest. Levene, who is Jewish, has also called for the creation of a “ New Israel,”a sliver of land on Texas’s Gulf Coast that would be set aside as sovereign Israeli territory to complement the old Israel in the Middle East. And those are just a few of his more original proposals. But the animating forces behind his campaign are his prediction of fiscal doom and his plan for salvation from it. Levene believes the U.S. financial system will collapse when other countries stop lending to us in 2018—2019 if we’re lucky—precipitating a downturn he thinks will be “far worse” than the Great Depression. “The Democrats will blame the Republicans, and the Republicans will blame the Democrats. And they’ll all go out for drinks after,” Levene says. “And the public will suffer.” Foremost among his proposals to stave off this scenario is the elimination of the corporate income tax, which he says would create a “gold rush” as American businesses repatriated cash and the United States eventually became a global tax haven. Levene, who disclaims, “I am not an economist,” predicts that scrapping the tax would create a windfall so big that a replacement tax would be unnecessary. “It would do magic, that’s spelled M-A-G-I-C, for our economy,” he tells me. “I don’t do hyperbole.” Later, he adds, “I will provide almost limitless jobs.” While he’s at it, Leven tells me, “I also know what the NSA is up to.” They’re trying to store “everything imaginable, forever,” according to an analysis on his campaign website, which draws on his 33 years working in IT. He claims he would be the only member of Congress with the technical chops to oversee the NSA. And he says his English roots would make him uniquely suited to foster international collaboration through his contacts in Britain and European governments, including Nigel Farage, a member of the European Parliament and the leader of the UK Independence Party. (Levene concedes, though, that his European counterparts might be turned off by his plan to make the U.S. a tax haven.) In all this, Levene evinces a self-confidence and sense of his own distinctiveness that is very, well, American. “When I was 19, I took out a provisional patent on an inflatable tent in England,” he notes. “I do things that other people do not do.” It would be easy to dismiss Levene as just another long-shot wannabe politico with a big head. But in his personal odyssey traveling across the continent, he has convinced at least a few Americans that there’s something different about him. “He once again finds a way to do something that nobody’s done before. His mind finds ways,” says Pat Kane, who has passed out flyers for Levene’s campaign in Georgia. She met him in the 1990s through the UPSCALE Club, which Levene founded to help Atlanta’s professional singles mingle. (He used to send out event invitations to hundreds of people with an automated fax program.) “He’s an innovator,” adds Rick Jacobson, who met Levene when the two worked in computer hardware sales in Michigan in the 1980s. When Jacobson got married in 1986, at a farm outside Detroit, he hired a professional photographer to record the day but liked Levene’s own shots better; they still grace Jacobson’s walls. Little wonder Levene thinks he can waltz in again and a do a better job than the professionals. But despite these votes of confidence, his campaign is sputtering. Levene’s view of politics boils down to money and name recognition. Money buys recognition, and uninformed voters will pull the lever for the name they know. By those metrics, he’s in a hole. His primary opponents include former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, who had raised $662,000 through the end of March, and Ed Lindsey, the Georgia House Republican whip, who had raised $452,000. Levene had raised less than $500 in Georgia through the end of last year, the last period for which he has filed a campaign finance disclosure. He says he’s now raised $10,000. He refuses to campaign door-to-door, one of several points of contention with his former campaign manager, who stopped returning his calls several weeks ago (and didn’t respond to mine), leaving Levene at the helm of a one-man operation. Instead, Levene proposes policies and explains them in minute detail in hundreds of posts on his campaign websites. (He has one for each state.) If Georgia doesn’t work, the road gets harder. Hawaii’s 1 st district is deep blue. In the Republican primary, Levene is facing a formidable opponent in former Rep. Charles Djou, who was elected to seat in a May 2010 special election, but lost in the November general election six months later. If, by some extremely long shot, Levene were to win the primaries in both states, he would have to choose to either remain a resident of Georgia or become a resident of Hawaii. If, by an even longer shot, he remained on the ballot and ultimately won in both states, his election would only be constitutionally valid in the state in which he lived on Election Day. As unlikely as that all is, Levene insists fundraising will pick up as his name gets out there. This is America, after all, and if you’re famous, you don’t have to worry about money. He says he’s developing proprietary methods for boosting name recognition, but he won’t tell me the details. He’s not sure that anyone’s ever done it before. “I have a message that nobody else has,” he says. “I have a better message than anybody else. And the message will out. And I’ll win. Hopefully in Georgia, because I like Georgia.” More from POLITICO Magazine There’s a Surprisingly Plausible Path to Removing Trump From Office By Juleanna Glover History Says Bloomberg 2020 Would Be a Sure Loser By Jeff Greenfield I Thought Being a Health Care Reporter Would Make Cancer Easier. I Was Wrong. By Alexandra Glorioso More on Magazine POLITICO Magazine Links POLITICO Home Blogs, Columns & Cartoons Josh Gerstein Morning Agriculture Morning Cybersecurity Morning Defense Morning Education Morning eHealth Morning Energy Morning Media Morning Money Morning Score Morning Shift Morning Tax Morning Tech Morning Trade Morning Transportation Prescription Pulse

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Earth's Water Is Older Than The Sun Why that’s good news for alien hunters A Star Is Born. Some of Earth's water started out in an interstellar cloud (top left) that later got incorporated into the fledgling solar system.Bill Saxton, NSF/AUI/NRAO Since water is one of the vital ingredients for life on Earth, scientists want to know how it got here. One theory is that the water in our solar system was created in the chemical afterbirth of the Sun. If that were the case, it would suggest that water might only be common around certain stars that form in certain ways. But a new study, published today in Science, suggests that at least some of Earth's water actually existed before the Sun was born -- and that it came from interstellar space. That's certainly something to ponder the next time you drink a glass of water. But the discovery is also cool because it means water -- and maybe life -- may be ubiquitous throughout the galaxy. "If water in the early Solar System was primarily inherited as ice from interstellar space, then it is likely that similar ices, along with the prebiotic organic matter that they contain, are abundant in most or all protoplanetary disks around forming stars," study author Conel Alexander explained in a press release. The researchers concluded that a significant portion of Earth’s water came from interstellar space by looking at the relative abundance of hydrogen and deuterium. Deuterium is like hydrogen's heavier brother. Both atoms have one proton in their nuclei, but deuterium contains an extra neutron, and it mostly forms under special conditions. In interstellar space, for example, water ice contains lots of deuterium, thanks to the freezing cold temperatures and ionizing radiation. Earthly water contains some deuterium, too, but in low quantities -- up to 30 times less than interstellar water. Looking at a water sample’s ratio of hydrogen to deuterium can tell you about what conditions were like when the water formed. But until now, scientists weren’t sure whether Earth's deuterium came from space, or whether it was cooked up in the birth of the Sun. To find out, researchers used mathematical models to virtually recreate the young solar system's protoplanetary disk -- the cloud around the newborn Sun. They found that, based on the temperature and radiation conditions that would have existed back then, it wasn't possible for the young solar system to create the ratios of hydrogen and deuterium that scientists observe in Earth's oceans and on comets. Because of that, the researchers estimate that anywhere between 7 and 50 percent of Earth's water had to have come from the interstellar medium in which the solar system was born. And since other solar systems would have formed in the same interstellar medium, the findings suggest that the origins of water on Earth were not unique, and that the thirst-quenching, life-supporting substance may be common on exoplanets throughout the galaxy.

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How to Evacuate Before a Storm or Flood In an evacuation, you need to be ruthlessly efficient. Grab the kids and pets, then gas up and go! Jon Blair - Flickr CC What do you do when you know the flooding of your home is imminent, and what happens when the water recedes and you come home? PM's editors tell you what you need to know about preparation and recovery when it comes to your home, your gadgets and your car. Take The Most Important Stuff First All hard copies of important financial, health, school, insurance, and family information must be packed and ready to go. If it's near and dear to you, like pictures of your kids and parents, take it. But for the most part, take only the stuff you are sure you can't live without. Along with securing all vital records and maybe a piece of memorabilia or two, remember to get any medications and the family first aid kit. Next comes clothing, basic necessities like a kit of hand tools and valuables. In an evacuation, you need to be ruthlessly efficient. Unless you've rented a full-size moving van, and have the time and help to load it, you won't have as much room as you think to transport everything you'd like. If all you've got is a pickup truck, you're going to have to be pretty efficient—with a car, even more so. That's what makes an evacuation different from an ordinary move across state lines: A lot of important possessions will stay behind. Digital Prep Make sure you don't lose all your important digital files, either. Back up your computer, your phone and any other devices you have to an external hard drive, and make sure to take the drive with you. Or, even better, use an off-board cloud-based backup service such as Mozy to back up your files. If your files are on the cloud and you don't have to grab extra disks and drives, that's one less thing to worry about while hurriedly packing up the car. If you can take your devices (and their chargers), do so. Anything you leave behind should be migrated to an upper floor and tied off in contractor bags. Securing The Structure The worst thing that can happen to a structure is that it's flooded with the electricity still flowing and utilities turned on. So the last thing you need to do before you head out the door is kill the power and shut off the gas. Throw the main electrical disconnect at the service panel; it's nothing more than a switch. Turn off natural gas at the meter by turning the stubby metal projection on the valve near the meter. Use an adjustable wrench or a meter wrench to do this and turn it 90 degrees, either clockwise or counterclockwise, whichever is easier for you. If you have propane gas, close the shutoff valve at the tank underneath the tank cover. If you have questions about how to do either, contact your gas supplier. (And never attempt to turn gas back on after a flood; that's strictly the job of your utility or propane supplier.) If there's any hope that the flooding will be minor (yes, a contradiction in terms), move as much as you can to higher floors. Again, start with the most important stuff. If it's likely that the structure will be submerged to the eaves, though, there's not much else to do. An attic only has so much room, and moving belongings into it is not practical in most cases. Also, you might consider removing anything that will leave behind a particularly nasty mess. For example, get the barrel of pool chlorine out of the garage, along with cans of gasoline, and empty the refrigerator's contents into trash bags. The stench from a flooded house is bad enough, let alone the odor given off from a refrigerator lying on its side and filled with rotten food. When You Come Home Federal and state authorities will keep an area off-limits until it's been thoroughly inspected and secured by utility crews and other emergency workers. Take it seriously, and don't try to break in—authorities, often on the lookout for looters, don't like unauthorized entrants. The utility company may send crews around to pull the electrical meter face from each house. This prevents people from being electrocuted in a flooded basement (or elsewhere in the house) when the power is restored. It also reduces the likelihood of electrical fires developing as the grid comes back into operation and people try to return to their lives, though the house's electrical equipment remains damaged. Never go into a flooded basement with the meter face still intact. It's unlikely that the grid would be energized while you're down there fishing around trying to rig up a pump, but it's not worth taking the risk. Assuming the meter face is removed, wear chest waders even if the water is only, say, knee-deep, and bring a bright flashlight. Take your time. The floor will be as slippery as a skating rink. That note of caution goes for the rest of the home, too. A flooded house is almost as dangerous as one that's on fire. Floors are slimy and slippery, and stuff is lying all over the place, ready to tangle your feet. To Salvage Or Not To Salvage There's no formula for salvaging a flooded house. A lot depends on your point of view, your physical capacity, how much time you have to tend to the structure and the extent of the flood damage. Aside from a sump pump, there isn't anything in a house that's meant to withstand being submerged in water. You'll need to replace any electrical wiring, switches, outlet receptacles, and lighting fixtures that were submerged. In almost all cases, the same applies to any appliance or heating and cooling equipment. In rare instances, heating and cooling equipment may be repaired and returned to service. A qualified technician can evaluate the equipment and tell you whether it's possible, but replacing the equipment is usually the more cost-effective move anyway. Equipment that's been thoroughly submerged has a bad reputation for being unreliable. The National Electrical Manufacturer's Assocation (NEMA) provides a handy checklist about what to save, what to replace and what might be salvaged. As for your gadgets, there may not be much hope if they've gotten soaked thoroughly, but don't write them off immediately, because it's worth a shot to try to save them. The most important thing with a wet gadget is not to immediately turn it on. Many devices, whether they're as basic as a TV remote or as complex as a laptop computer, can actually survive a soaking; it's only when electricity is introduced into the equation while components are still wet that they're actually destroyed. As soon as possible, place a damp gadget in a well-ventilated area, or, if possible, under or next to a running fan. For devices that can be opened or have a reasonable degree of internal air circulation, 48 hours should be enough. Closed, complicated gadgets should be left for up to a week. For smaller gadgets, like MP3 players or phones, survival odds can be improved with submersion in a bowl of uncooked rice or silica gel packets—items that will soak up water. Dealing With A Flooded Car First, find the waterline. If it's not immediately visible, look for water inside the doors and the taillights, and dampness in the carpets and interior trim. If you know how high the water rose, you'll know how much you need to clean. Frankly, if the water has reached as high as the dashboard (especially if it's salt water), you're probably better off trying to talk the insurance adjuster into totaling it and getting another car. If you're going to clean up the car, however, the first thing to remember (as with gadget recovery) is not to try to start it, which will compound the damage. Check your oil and transmission dipsticks for water, and if you find any, change the oil and filter. (You'd be smart to remove the oil pan and wash out the mud, too.) Check the fuel line for water, too; if you find it, you'll probably need to replace the fuel filter. Wheel bearings and constant velocity joints will need to be cleaned and repacked. For more information about salvage titles and saving a flooded car, check out PM's more detailed coverage. Then, move on to the hard and dirty work of home recovery. That means cutting away damaged drywall and exposing wall and ceiling cavities to permit air movement and drying. Wall-to-wall carpet needs to be cut away, rolled up and disposed of as rapidly as possible. Do whatever you need to do to get soggy contents out of the house. Use fans to keep air moving inside. Constantly patrol for mildew, which will grow in anyplace you can think of, and probably others. Also be prepared for creeping damage as things dry out—even items that were not flooded but were exposed to the unusually high humidity in a flood zone. Doors will warp; plywood subflooring will bubble up; vinyl flooring will peel away. Just when you feel like you've got things under control, the house will seem to take on a life of its own. But remember, eventually you'll beat back the damage. Receding floodwaters also reveal hope. More From Outdoors What To Do If Your Ship Sinks 44 Well-Designed Gifts for Cycling Enthusiasts The Best Gifts for the Adventurer in Your Life What To Do If Moose Are Fighting in Your Driveway The 25 Coolest Shipwrecks In the World Snowboard Legend Jake Burton Carpenter Dies at 65 How to Winterize Your Boat Is Fracking Safe? The Top 10 Controversial Claims About Natural Gas Drilling Winter Road Trip Survival : A Worst-Case -Scenario Guide 22 Steps to Save Yourself When Natural Disaster Hits Confessions of a Reality-Show Survival Guide Know Your Stuff: The 110 Best DIY Tips Ever 5 Pro Painting Tips Every Amateur Should Know: DIY Guy

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England > Kent > New Romney > Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway Pictures of Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway in the town of New Romney, in the county of Kent Take a picture tour of Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway.. About Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway First opened to traffic in July 1927 as the 'World's Smallest Public Railway' and now covering a distance of 13.5 miles from the picturesque Cinque Port of Hythe, near the channel tunnel, to the fishermans cottages and lighthouses at Dungeness. Take a picture tour of Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway or book a hotel or cottage near Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway Please upload your photos of Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway or see below for towns & villages near Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway and a list of other nearby attractions to visit. Add attraction to favourites Recommended towns & villages near Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway Camber (25 Pictures) a Seaside Town in the county of East Sussex (7.9 miles, 12.6 km, direction SW) Backed by the Walland Marsh, Camber has one of the finest stretches of pure sand and sand dunes found along the East Sussex coast... Hythe (40 Pictures) in the county of Kent This delightful seaside resort is one of the five original Cinque Ports, it can trace its noble history all the way back to AD732 when it was granted a charter by the Saxon King Ethelred... Rye (380 Pictures) (9.8 miles, 15.8 km, direction W) Regarded by many as the prettiest town in England, Rye is a very popular place to visit along the south coast of England in Sussex. Standing on a hill, Rye is full of pretty..... Winchelsea (44 Pictures) a Historic Market Town in the county of East Sussex (11.5 miles, 18.5 km, direction SW) This is a pretty, busy little town tucked along a ridge overlooking Pett Level... Chilham (43 Pictures) a Picturesque Village in the county of Kent (17.8 miles, 28.7 km, direction N) A wonderful historic village set in the beautiful Kent Downs, above the valley of the River Stour. The village's medieval square gives a real sense of history, with its stunning timber-framed buildings, ancient church and fantastic medieval castle... All towns in Kent Recommended attractions near Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway Dungeness Lighthouse (3 Pictures) Rye Castle Museum (9 Pictures) Rye Castle Museum, also known as 'Ypres Tower', in the beautiful maritime town of Rye, occupies a commanding position..... Samphire Hoe (11 Pictures) (16.5 miles, 26.6 km, direction NE) The newest part of Kent, made from 4.9 million cubic metres of chalk marl dug to create the Channel Tunnel. Samphire Hoe was..... Western Heights Defences (2 Pictures) The Western Heights in Dover are remains of fortifications built mainly during the Napoleonic Wars when England was under a real..... Bodiam Castle (96 Pictures) (17.9 miles, 28.8 km, direction W) The wonderful parapet, walls and high round towers of 14th-century Bodiam Castle are gloriously reflected in its broad moat. It..... All attractions in Kent The peculiar looking Sir John Boys House (Crooked House), is said to be the most photographed building in Canterbury, Kent.

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Original Sin Unleashed WALMART Santa Elwyn Crocker Sr. Charged After Kids Are Found Buried In His Backyard... Cause of death a mystery for kids found buried in South Georgia As expected by authorities, autopsies have confirmed the identities of two children found buried in their family’s backyard in Effingham County, though many questions remain about the deaths, coroner David Exley said Monday. “The cause and manner of death is still pending,” he said, adding it could take weeks. The trouble, he said, is partly that Mary Crocker and Elwyn Crocker Jr. had been buried so long ago — Mary for perhaps a few months, Elwyn for maybe as long as two years. The remains of the siblings, who were both 14 years old when they were last seen but hadn’t been reported missing, were discovered Thursday in the rural town of Guyton by the Effingham Sheriff’s Office. Deputies went to the house after a tipster called 911 to express concern regarding the whereabouts of the girl. An interview with the father, Elwyn Crocker Sr., revealed information that sent deputies to check the backyard for the bodies. Source This Is How Tattooed Fornicating Scum Zachary Paul Koehn & Cheyanne Harris Celebrate Christmas....Later...Both Get Arrested For Killing Their Bastard Child With Diaper Rash.... I Bet They Even Took The Day Off From Their Work..... Court hears how four-month-old boy's maggot-infested body was found in a baby swing after he went unchanged for a week and died of extreme 'diaper rash' as his father faces trial for murder A court heard devastating testimony about how a four-month-old baby boy's maggot-infested body was found after he died of extreme 'diaper rash' at the start of his father's trial for murder. Sterling Koehn had been in the same diaper for nine to 14 days when his body was found in the swing August 30, 2017, at his parents' apartment in Alta Vista, jurors were told. The baby's father, 29-year-old Zachary Paul Koehn, is charged with murder and child endangerment. Source Evangelical Nadejda Reilly, 31, Smashes Car Into Oncoming Traffic Waiting To See If God Will Protect Her..... Evangelical was OK...But the two in the other car were injured.. Police: Pennsylvania Woman Drives Into Path Of Oncoming Vehicle While Waiting For Calling From God WEATHERLY, Pa. (CBS/AP) — A Luzerne County woman drove into the path of an oncoming vehicle as a way to test her faith, then exhibited no concern about the people who were injured in the crash, state police said. Bail was revoked this week for Nadejda Reilly, 31, of Drums, who is charged with aggravated assault and other offenses over allegations she purposely caused the wreck on Route 93 near Weatherly on Jan. 7. An investigator said Reilly told him she had been driving around for a few hours, waiting for a calling from God, when she decided to drive through the oncoming vehicle. “Reilly related God took care of her by not having her injured,” wrote Trooper Bruce Balliet in an arrest affidavit. “Reilly expressed no concerns or remorse for the victims. Reilly also stated she did not care if the other people were injured b… Best Friend Commits Suicide: In Memory Of Jarom Hadley Nathaniel Rihari. Haka 'Tau Ka Tau'....... They lost their best friend and brother to suicide and this is the haka done at his tangi. This shows the pain of those left behind from suicide.Source UPDATE: Jeffrey Epstein May Have Died From Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation, Not Suicide..... Epstein Died While Masturbating.... Photos show Jeffrey Epstein as he’s wheeled into Downtown Hospital Paramedics frantically tried to revive convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein early Saturday morning after he was found unresponsive in his cell in downtown Manhattan, exclusive photos shot by The Post reveal. The 66-year-old disgraced financier hanged himself in his cell in 9 South at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, according to multiple sources. A call was placed to first responders around 6:30 a.m. as MCC staff tried to revive him, said the FDNY and Bureau of Prisons. Photos of Epstein taken around 7:30 a.m. show the convicted pedophile still wearing his orange prison jumpsuit as he’s wheeled on a gurney into York Downtown Hospital. The images show a drawn, ashen face with closed eyes, and EMTs using a breathing apparatus in an attempt to revive the multi-millionaire convicted pedophile. Source Epstein ‘Needed’ Three Orgasms A Day, Witness Testified A woman who served … Boston Mother Commits Suicide Jumps Off Parking Garage Roof With Her Two Children BOSTON (CBS/AP) — New details emerged Thursday as authorities continue to investigate the deaths of a woman and two young children who were found unconscious near a Boston parking garage on Christmas Day. Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins the woman who died was the mother of the two young children. The woman was 40 years old and the children were 4 and 15 months. Rollins said the deaths appeared to have been related to a suicide. She added that it appears the two children fell first, then the mother. The woman and children were found unconscious Wednesday around 1:30 p.m. on a sidewalk near the Renaissance Parking Garage. They were rushed to an area hospital, where they were pronounced dead. “Today is a tragedy,” said Boston Police Commissioner William Gross, during a Christmas Day news conference. Video showed police looking at an SUV, with several doors wide open, parked on the top level of the parking garage, which is adjacent to the Ruggles MBTA rail station. Gross sai… UPDATED: CHRIS CORNELL KILLS SELF BY MEANS OF AUTO-EROTIC ASPHYXIATION! 20 JULY 2017 UPDATE:Linkin Park Singer Chester Bennington KILLS SELF BY MEANS OF AUTO-EROTIC ASPHYXIATION! On Chris Cornell's Birthday 20 JULY NEWS ACCOUNT Rocker Chris Cornell, who gained fame as the lead singer of the bands Soundgarden and Audioslave, has died at age 52, and police said Thursday that his death is being investigated as a possible suicide. Cornell, who had been on tour, died Wednesday night in Detroit, Cornell's representative Brian Bumbery said in a statement to The Associated Press. Cornell had performed a Detroit concert with Soundgarden that night. Bumbery called the death "sudden and unexpected" and said his wife and family are in shock. The statement said the family would be working closely with the medical examiner to determine the cause and have asked for privacy. Detroit police spokesman Michael Woody told AP Thursday morning that he couldn't release details about why police are investigating the death as a possible suicide, but noted… Livestreamed Suicide Of Razorback Drummer Brian Velasco Shirtless Wonder Austin Smith, 22, Of Marion, Indiana, Shoots His AR-15 From The Backseat Killing The Driver Annalysa McMillan.... Teen driver, 19, is shot dead by back seat passenger, 22, after AR-15 rifle he was holding fired through her seat A teenager was killed while driving her car after a passenger in the back fired an AR-15 rifle and hit her through the seat on Tuesday, police say. Annalysa McMillan was driving her car in Marion, Indiana, when the rifle discharged behind her and struck her in the back. Police say the single bullet went straight through driver's seat and hit the 19-year-old in the back. The shooting led to a minor car accident with another car, and officers who rushed to the scene could not resuscitate her. Austin Smith, 22, has been preliminary charged with reckless homicide in her death, police said. Officers say Smith was holding the weapon when it went off. He is being held on $1,005 bail.Smith also faces a charge of criminal recklessness while armed with a deadly weapon. Both counts are felonies. Two other people in the vehicle, aged 19 and 18, were not hurt, police s… Linkin Park Singer Chester Bennington KILLS SELF BY MEANS OF AUTO-EROTIC ASPHYXIATION! Another rocker dead by means of AeA. NEWS ACCOUNT Law enforcement sources tell us the singer hanged himself at a private residence in Palos Verdes Estates in L.A. County. His body was discovered Thursday just before 9 AM. Chester was married with 6 children from 2 wives. The singer struggled with drugs and alcohol for years. He had said in the past he had considered committing suicide because he had been abused as a child by an older male. TMZ Another famous person dies by means of Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation. Grunge rocker Chris Cornell was found dead - police investigation: possible suicide. 18 MAY 2017 Today Linkin Park Singer Chester Bennington killed himself by hanging. - police investigation: possible suicide. 20 JULY 2017 Dead on Chris Cornell's birthday 20 JULY As was with most who die by means of Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation - the body is found with a rope, or a belt around the neck, pants down etc. The police will claim that the death is an apparent suicide. Better to commit s… Sins Of Gluttony #52: ATHEIST Tamy Lyn Murrell Turns To Comfort Food To Mourn Death of Father Atheism at such a young age........ Now if she were a God believing Roman Catholic the little girl would have prayed for her deceased father instead of turning to comfort food..... Lessons learned.... Morbidly obese comfort eater who managed to shed almost HALF of her 591lb bulk reveals her husband walked out as she battled to lose the weight on My 600lb Life Tamy Lyn Murrell, 45, from Covington in Kentucky, began overeating when she was just eight years old after witnessing her father's sudden death from a heart attack and the mental decline of her depressed mother. The mother-of-one appared on the TLC series My 600lb Life, having turned to Dr Younan Nowzaradan for help with the weight battle that had plagued her life to the point where folds of skin on her stomach were virtually dragging on the floor. The surgeon immediately put her on a 1,600 calorie-a-day diet, and promised to removed the lymphedema mass - or swelling - to her stomach if she lost weight. Within seven mont…

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Four Food Facilities Honored For Integrated Pest Management Excellence Four food facilities have been named 2011 Gold Medal™ IPM Partner Award winners by Orkin, The IPM Institute of North America and NSF International for their outstanding commitment to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) partnerships. IPM is an environmentally friendly pest management approach that emphasizes multiple methods of nonchemical pest control and prevention. The four winning facilities were honored for their adherence to comprehensive IPM programs that focus on vigilant sanitation, prompt adherence to structural pest management recommendations, diligent record keeping and staff participation in IPM training sessions. “The key to any successful IPM program is partnership,” said Orkin Director of Quality Systems Zia Siddiqi, Ph.D. “By working closely with their Orkin teams, the 2011 award winners have proven that a strong partnership goes a long way in earning high scores on third-party audits and achieving pest management goals.” The 2011 Gold MedalTM IPM Partner Award winners, selected from an elite group of approximately 50 nominees from across the country, are: PETCO Distribution Center #198 (Joliet, Ill.)—One of four main distribution centers for the leading specialty retailer of premium pet food and supplies. PETCO Distribution Center #499 (Aurora, Colo.)—One of six regionally based distribution centers for the leading specialty retailer of premium pet food and supplies. Tarrier Foods Corp. (Columbus, Ohio)—One of the country’s largest producers and co-packers of chopped candies, ice cream toppings and salad toppings. Turano Florida Bun (Orlando, Fla.)—A state-of-the-art baking facility offering world-class soft bun products to the Southeast restaurant and foodservice markets. Now in its eighth year, the Gold MedalTM IPM Partner Awards began as an effort by Orkin and The IPM Institute of North America to encourage the use of IPM and other environmentally friendly pest management practices. “It’s great to see these companies utilizing an IPM program to proactively manage pests in their facilities,” said Dr. Thomas Green, president of The IPM Institute of North America. “Implementing IPM tactics like sanitation and facility maintenance can go a long way to help prevent pests, which also results in fewer chemical treatments, both of which benefit the business overall.” As a co-presenter, NSF International brings to the program its food safety knowledge and auditing expertise. “The 2011 award winners understand that a successful IPM program is critical to food safety and quality assurance, and they’ve worked diligently to earn superior third-party audit scores and protect their products, employees, customers and the environment,” said Jim Bail, director, Food Safety & Quality, NSF International. About the Awards Jury Jim L. Bail, director, Food Safety & Quality, NSF International Austin M. Frishman, Ph.D., B.C.E., founder, AMF Pest Management Services, Inc. Dawn H. Gouge, Ph.D., associate professor and associate specialist—Community IPM, University of Arizona Thomas A. Green, Ph.D., president, The IPM Institute of North America, Inc. Ron Harrison, Ph.D., director of Technical Services, Orkin, LLC Frank Meek, BCE, International Technical and Training director, Orkin, LLC Zia Siddiqi, Ph.D., BCE, director of Quality Systems, Orkin, LLC About Orkin, LLC Founded in 1901, Atlanta-based Orkin is an industry leader in essential pest control services and protection against termite damage, rodents and insects in the United States, Canada, Europe, Central America, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Asia and the Mediterranean. With more than 400 locations, Orkin’s almost 8,000 employees serve approximately 1.7 million customers. The company serves homeowners and numerous industries, including food and beverage processing, foodservice, hospitality, healthcare, retail, warehousing, property/facilities management, schools and institutions. Orkin is proud to be recognized by the National Pest Management Association as a QualityPro and GreenPro-certified company, addressing not only our customer’s pest control needs, but also their concern for protecting the environment. Learn more about Orkin at http://orkin.com. Orkin is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rollins Inc. (NYSE: ROL). About The IPM Institute of North America The IPM Institute of North America, Inc. is an independent nonprofit organization formed in 1998 to foster recognition and rewards in the marketplace for goods and service providers who practice IPM. The Institute’s mission is to accelerate adoption of IPM in agriculture and communities through consumer education and development of IPM standards for self-evaluation and IPM certification. The Institute is funded by grants from government, private foundations and industry, memberships and fees for services and programs. Learn more at www.ipminstitute.org. About NSF International NSF International is an independent organization that certifies products and writes standards for food, water and consumer goods (www.nsf.org). Founded in 1944, NSF is committed to protecting public health and safety worldwide. NSF is a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Food and Water Safety and Indoor Environment. NSF offers certification to global food safety standards, such as British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Safe Quality Food (SQF). These global food safety certification systems promote consistency across the supply chain and provide independent certification that a product, process, or service complies with international, regulatory, and other specified standards. NSF's Global Food Safety Division Services offered by NSF's Global Food Safety Division include: foodservice equipment certification; food safety auditing and certification for the produce, agriculture, poultry, egg and livestock industry; consulting & technical services; Global Food Safety Standards certification (SQF, BRC, GlobalGAP, FSSC 22K, IFS); restaurant and supermarket food safety; seafood testing and auditing, Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification, Aquaculture Certification Council (BAP ACC) certification, HACCP validation and inspection, bottled water/flavored beverage quality certification; organic and gluten-free certification, and education and training. Additional NSF International services include dietary supplement and nutritional ingredient certification, drinking water certification and safety audits, management systems registrations (e.g. ISO 14001); and sustainable business solutions.

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FEATURES/JANUARY 2019 Dawn of the Dream An audience at a high school in Rocky Mount got an early preview of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic words, “I have a dream.” A long-lost audiotape of that 1962 speech casts new light on the meaning of his famous phrase then — and now. written by Jeremy Markovich photograph by Flip Schulke Archives/Corbis Premium Historical/Getty Images If you wanted to know whether the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said “I have a dream” in a speech well before those words rang out from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, there has long been a way to find out. The evidence is inside a thin, orange, hardcover book in the stacks of Braswell Memorial Library in Rocky Mount. Few people know about it. Even fewer have ever pulled it off the shelf. It’s more of a scrapbook, really. Inside: Some Rocky Mount Telegram articles. A local pastor’s letter inviting King to town (“Dear Mike,” it begins). A black-and-white picture of King speaking in the gym at the all-black Booker T. Washington High School. A transcript of everything he said to some 1,800 people gathered there on a clear, crisp night in November 1962. That last item, a typewritten readout with handwritten notes, is actually a clue that something else exists. Something bigger. A recording. W. Jason Miller, a professor of English at North Carolina State University, had been researching the influence of the poet Langston Hughes on King. In the fall of 2013, he’d been collecting recordings and transcripts of addresses from across the country when he heard about a transcript of the speech in Rocky Mount. If there was a transcript, he surmised, there had to be audio. He emailed Traci Thompson, a research librarian in Rocky Mount. Yeah, she told him, we have a transcript. And somebody just dropped off a tape, too. The next day, Miller went to the library. It took six more weeks of research for Miller to figure out what to do with the 1.5-millimeter acetate that had been sitting in storage for more than 50 years. The plastic on the reel was cracked. The end of the tape was frayed. The thing that saved it, initially, was the inscription penciled on the cardboard box that housed it: “Dr. King’s Speech. Nov 27, 1962. Please do not erase.” The tape had been made by someone sitting in the front row and then stashed away in an attic for 38 years, which helped it survive floods. In 2001, the tape was found, brought into the open, and played. But the audio quality was poor and staticky. Local leaders, with some chagrin, felt that it had lost its value, and they didn’t know who could restore it. So the reel was tucked in a closet at the offices of the local school district, where it remained until someone dropped it off at the library. Listen to excerpts from the Rocky Mount speech and hear people describe how the address changed their city in this episode of Our State’s podcast, Away Message: Miller’s research led him to George Blood, one of the nation’s foremost audio restoration experts. Blood said to drop the tape in the mail — but then Miller told him what was on it. Blood asked him to drive it up from North Carolina instead. When Miller arrived in Philadelphia two days later, Blood fed the tape into a machine, adjusted the levels, and pushed play. The audio was still scratchy, but the cadence was familiar, the voice was unmistakable, and the words were almost all discernible. About 51 minutes into the 55-minute speech, King pauses. “And so, my friends of Rocky Mount,” he says, “I have a dream tonight.” With dignitaries behind him and a crowd of 1,800 before him, King spoke in Rocky Mount in 1962. A recorder preserved his now-legendary words. photograph by J.B. Harren, Courtesy of Andre Knight In 1962, nobody seemed to remember the part about the dream. “King Presents Case for Nonviolence,” read the headline in the Rocky Mount Telegram. The story didn’t mention the dream. The speech was part sermon, part civil rights address, part pep rally. It was invigorating, but the individual words didn’t linger. “It’s like anything else, you know,” says Herbert Tillman, who saw the speech in person at age 17. “It just kind of fades away.” But King’s appearance in Rocky Mount in 1962 changed lives. “In the days that followed, people wanted to vote,” says Dr. Tolokun Omokunde, a pastor in Oxford who was 15 years old when he met King before the speech, then stuck around for the address. “In the days that followed, people wanted to go and press for desegregation. In the days that followed, people would no longer accept mediocrity. In the days that followed, I wanted to be a better student. I wanted to actually preach. I saw myself as being a little bit more important.” Same with the rest of the city. After the speech, Omokunde says, “it was bad business to be racist.” The city didn’t change overnight, but the impact was felt. When Booker T. Washington High, home of the Lions, merged with the local white school, home of the Blackbirds, the new, integrated school made its mascot the Gryphon, a mythical creature with a bird’s head and a lion’s body. But that integration didn’t happen until 1969, 15 years after Brown v. Board of Education ordered it. Tillman’s uncle, Rocky Mount’s first black police officer, was once barred from arresting white men. He later earned the rank of captain. Tillman himself was denied a promotion at Burlington Mills in 1966 — it’d cause a race riot, his boss told him. “Well, let’s have the riot,” he remembers thinking. “Don’t hold me back for something I’m not guilty of.” But rather than agree to small, conciliatory gestures, Tillman held out for a bigger change. When a better job opened up at Abbott Laboratories across town, Tillman demanded to be treated equally. Managers agreed. He got the job. After Rocky Mount, King kept traveling. He went to Edenton, and continued packing venues around the South. And then, in the August 1963 March on Washington, during the final speech from the Lincoln Memorial, King looked up from his prepared notes. “I have a dream,” he began. Tillman was listening on the radio. You know, he thought, I believe we heard some of that. Herbert Tillman remembers the crowd’s reaction when King spoke at the gym: “Everybody just burst out in joy and jubilation.” photograph by roger winstead/nc state university People in Rocky Mount had been moved by King’s speech, but the rediscovery of the tape allowed for a closer examination of his words, how he said them, and why he chose them. Audio makes that kind of analysis possible, whereas a transcript can only take you so far. “If you’re a sports fan,” Miller says, “it’s the difference between the box score and the game.” Listening to the speech over and over — Miller did so at least 75 times — can connect dots in a way that reading the words cannot. There’s anecdotal evidence that King first said “I have a dream” in a speech in Albany, Georgia — a week and a half before Rocky Mount. But in Albany, the audience was reportedly tired and didn’t react to the phrase. In Rocky Mount, they did: There’s uproarious applause on the tape as King declares, “I have a dream that one day, we will be free.” The next year, during a speech in Detroit, “I have a dream” connected with the audience again. The phrase became such a strong set piece in King’s speeches that, as he came to the end of his prepared remarks during the March on Washington, the singer Mahalia Jackson cried out, “Tell them about the dream, Martin!” It’s unclear if King heard her, but, moments later, he put his notes down, looked out at the 250,000 people in front of him, and delivered from memory the most famous portion of his most famous speech. The words are not exactly the same ones he spoke nine months earlier in Rocky Mount. In that gym, they had more emphasis. More energy. The crowd was closer. On the tape, you can hear King pounding on the podium, his papers rustling. The speech was not a rehearsal for the March on Washington — which wasn’t even being planned yet — but rather a testing ground for what worked. What connected. What called people to action. For that, King turned to poetry. The words “I have a dream” were adapted from Langston Hughes’s poem “I Dream a World,” rearranged for maximum impact, in a way that’s part metaphor, part prophecy, and part poetry. “Poetry is where memory breathes,” Miller says. “So the unforgettability of that phrase goes back to what he’s taking from Langston Hughes. Without that, we just have words that come to us and leave as soon as they appear. But with metaphor and with poetry, we have something that remains.” The Phrase remains because, eventually, it became a refrain. When King said “I have a dream” in D.C., it was popular, but it was quickly folded into the larger story of the civil rights struggle and King’s successes (Selma) and failures (Chicago). Before his death, King wondered aloud in speeches whether his dream would ever be realized. It wasn’t until after his assassination in 1968 that people started to reconnect with the phrase, which represented what might have been King’s most idealistic, hopeful, and public moment. After a federal holiday was named for him in 1986, portions of the “I Have a Dream” speech were rebroadcast on television every January, a sort of ritual. The sound, the spirit, and the repetition moved the words from the brain to the heart. In Rocky Mount, the dream was always there, hidden away on a plastic reel. After the audio was extracted from the magnetic acetate tape, the significance of the tape itself faded into the background. (Miller has preserved it in an undisclosed location.) It’s the message that matters, not the medium. Now, anyone can listen to excerpts of the speech online. But Miller’s students at NC State find it, honestly, a little depressing. Many of the issues that King spoke about, including voting rights and racism, have become the struggles of a new era and another generation. But in Rocky Mount, the tape has turned “I have a dream” into words that can be felt, connected to, and reckoned with. And so, on a cold February night in 2018, people gathered once again in the gymnasium where King had spoken 56 years earlier. The place has barely changed. A riser stood up front, a black curtain hanging behind it. People shuffled in. Rosa Andrews Brodie took her seat. She, like a handful of others, had been in the gym for the first speech. “The Lord just put me at this place at that time,” she said. At a reenactment in February 2018, a choir performed some of the songs that were sung during King’s visit 56 years before. photograph by Charles Harris Several local officials talked about the legacy of King’s visit and the remarkable resurfacing of the tape. Miller gave a hearty thank-you to the people of Rocky Mount and to the film crew that was present to record what happened next: The lights lowered. Someone pushed play. And for the second time, King’s words filled the gymnasium. The audience reacted with joy and laughter, “yeahs,” and applause, just like the first time. And the crowd was brought to its feet by King’s conclusion: “Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.” That left Herbert Tillman — despite the years, the hindsight, the bad and the good — feeling the same way he had as a teenager in this place decades before. “I love it, I love it, I love it,” he said. “If that doesn’t inspire you, I don’t know what to say.” This story was published on January 2, 2019 Jeremy Markovich Jeremy Markovich is a digital manager, writer, and podcast host at Our State. If You Give a Kid a Goat Cart The Outer Banks Society That “Believes” the Wright Brothers Never Flew The Long Way Back to The Sphinx Away Message’s Season 3, Episode 6: First There Were Ghosts. Then Bigfoot Came. Now, There’s A Museum. The Governor’s Wet Suit

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Jeter unfairly asked to turn back the clock At 40 years old and in his final season, the shortstop should not be asked to carry the load Jeter unfairly asked to turn back the clock At 40 years old and in his final season, the shortstop should not be asked to carry the load Check out this story on poughkeepsiejournal.com: https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/sports/2014/06/26/jeter-unfairly-asked-turn-back-clock/11439335/ Westchester Published 9:38 p.m. ET June 26, 2014 Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter reacts after failing to turn a double play against the Toronto Blue Jays during the seventh inning of Wednesday’s game in Toronto. (Photo: AP ) On the day Derek Jeter turned 40, this was one of the early-morning comments from a reader of The Lohud Yankees Blog: “JETER RETIRE…you suck…you’re the worst all around player in the game today! go home!” Capitalization and punctuation issues aside, it’s a fairly telling bit of commentary. Even if it’s coming from a vocal minority, there’s an unmistakable segment of the Yankees’ fan base that has truly turned on The Captain. He gets standing ovations when he’s on the road, but he’s booed at home. “I really don’t sit down and look at my age and try to adjust or compare,” Jeter said on Wednesday, his final game as a 39-year-old. “I’ve just never done that. I figure I probably shouldn’t start now.” Thursday was Jeter’s birthday, and he went over the hill with a .268 batting average. He’s hit for very little power this year, but has done a decent job getting on base. He’s been healthy enough to stay on the field, but he’s already matched his error total for all of 2011. He’s been a capable major-league player, just not a particularly good one, and that should be enough for a Hall of Fame player in his final season. But it’s not enough for Jeter. Given constant attention — still hitting second in the order, still playing a key defensive position, still wearing that iconic number on his back — Jeter’s final season sometimes seems worse than it is. Using the Yankees’ previous opponent as a reference, Jeter’s offensive production has been basically the same as Blue Jays right fielder Anthony Gose, who’s Toronto’s No. 9 hitter. Jeter’s given the Yankees similar production to what the Red Sox have gotten out of catcher A.J. Pierzynski (and quite a bit more than they’ve gotten offensively out of center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr.). He’s also done more offensively than Orioles third baseman Manny Machado, and his hitting has been very similar to that of Rays shortstop Yunel Escobar. Yet Jeter has become a kind of scapegoat for the Yankees’ overall struggles. He’s old, and he’s slower than he used to be, and manager Joe Girardi’s kept him in a role that’s usually reserved for high-impact players. That makes him an easy target for fan frustration. It would be one thing if Jeter were simply a weak link in an otherwise strong Yankees infield, or if he were a singles-hitting No. 8 hitter chipping in from time to time. If the Yankees were winning, and Jeter were doing his part, it might be easy to appreciate him as a 40-year-old who’s still holding his own. But the Yankees haven’t played well, their offense has been unimpressive, and their infield defense has been full of holes. Jeter’s been right in the middle of all of it. Instead of surrounding him with rangy infield to help make up for his own limited defensive ability, the Yankees have paired Jeter with a similarly aging second baseman and an out-of-position third baseman. Instead of putting his depleted bat at the bottom of the order, the Yankees have kept Jeter in the No. 2 spot, where his production is easy to criticize. On the day the Derek Jeter turned 40, expectations from his team, from his fans and from Jeter himself were that he be as dynamic a player as he was 10 years ago, and that’s a shame. Jeter’s carried the load plenty in his career. It’s not fair to ask him to do it again. Twitter: @LohudYankees Reach Chad Jennings at cjennings@lohud.com. Follow Chad Jennings on The Lohud Yankees Blog at yankees.lhblogs.com Hopewell's Panik signs minor league deal with Toronto Blue Jays Wyanokie High Point rewards hikers with several views Varsity scores and schedule Lourdes swimmer Michael Faughnan breaking records, aiming high Marist women expect more battles after overtime loss to Rider

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Coal, Gas GE completes installation at Vanderbilt University power plant HOUSTON, Texas, Oct. 2, 2002 — GE Power Systems announced the successful completion of a power plant upgrade project at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Vanderbilt has been using steam to generate power for over 15 years with its coal-fired boilers and steam turbines and has recently added two GE5 industrial aeroderivative gas turbines, with heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs), to satisfy 30% of the campus load. The 10-megawatt facility will supply approximately 60,000 lbs of steam to support the heating and cooling systems for both the University and the new Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s hospital located on the south side of the campus. Installation began in August of 2001, and was completed on May 24, 2002 when Vanderbilt declared the plant commercial. The units are located inside a newly constructed building. With the exception of the stacks, the new building goes virtually unnoticed by the dormitory located just 100 feet away. The five-megawatt GE5 turbines operate on natural gas and utilize a dry low emission (DLE) combustor to meet local environmental regulations. The units will primarily be operated in conjunction with the grid, but are capable of operating in island mode and have demonstrated the ability to withstand a complete load rejection without tripping and remain on-line. In addition to the equipment, GE will be providing plant maintenance for the next six years. Since its creation in 1970, Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital has shared facilities with Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). Due to the growing need for advanced health care for children in middle Tennessee, southern Kentucky and northern Alabama, the construction of a new free-standing building was started in May 2000 and is scheduled to be completed in mid-2003. GE Power Systems (www.gepower.com) is one of the world’s suppliers of power generation technology, energy services and management systems with 2001 revenues exceeding $20 billion. The business has the largest installed base of power generation equipment in the global energy industry. GE Power Systems provides equipment, service and management solutions across the power generation, oil and gas, distributed power and energy rental industries. Fire causes two-hour evaculation at historic Capitol Power Plant

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Air Pollution Control Equipment Services, Coal, Gas, New Projects UK’s Powerfuel to build 10 MW demonstration unit of ‘near carbon-free’ gas fired plant The first near carbon-free gas fired power plant in the UK is set to begin operating within a year in response to government efforts to stimulate carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The Financial Times reports the pilot plant is to be jointly built by Powerfuel, a mining and power company, and Calix, an Australian cement maker that has pioneered a method of removing carbon dioxide from gas before it enters power station turbines. Calix and Powerfuel have set up a joint venture to build the works next to the latter’s Hatfield colliery near Doncaster, where it is also building a 900 MW coal fired power plant equipped with CCS with public subsidy. The 10 MW demonstration plant will help the companies bid for UK and European Union funds. Its Endex reactor will capture 90 per cent of the carbon dioxide in fuel gas. Adam Dawson, chief executive of the government’s Office of Carbon Capture and Storage, said it had earmarked GBP1bn ($1.56bn) for CCS demonstration projects in spite of cuts elsewhere. It had also changed the rules recently to allow gas fired projects to bid for funds. Dawson praised plans in Yorkshire for a pipeline network to take carbon captured from power stations, refineries and steelworks into depleted gasfields in the North Sea. Brian Sweeney, of Calix, said part of the decarbonization process was already being used in making dolomitic cement, which is more robust than common portland cement, but it would be perfected in the UK. “We are coming to Europe because that is where the market is,” he said. It aims to sell its reactor in the UK, Ireland, Germany and Poland. Michael Gibbons, director of Powerfuel Power, said the plant was a “world leading project”. Powerfuel, run by Richard Budge, the mining entrepreneur, is to receive EUR180m ($235m) of EU money to build a demonstration plant at its new coal fired power station next to its Hatfield colliery. The GBP2.4bn plant will require more funding if it is to be built by 2015. However, Gibbons said the design plans had been drawn up and contracts were in place, including one with National Grid to pipe away the captured carbon. “The biggest market failure in history is in front of us. How do you reward capturing carbon when it costs more than not doing it?” He added a carbon price of at least GBP20 a tonne would be necessary to make it commercially viable. Dominion entity responds to deadly gas line explosion in NC

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South Carolina Utility sues State over Rate cut tied to Abandoned Nuclear Project Rod Walton 7.3.18 One of the two utilities responsible for abandoning work at a South Carolina nuclear plant is suing to challenge the constitutionality of a temporary rate cut approved by state leaders last week. South Carolina Electric and Gas filed a lawsuit against the new state law which implemented a 15-percent rate cut while the state looks at who will pay for billions of dollars run up in construction on reactors at the V.C. Summer generating station. SCE&G and partner Santee Cooper abandoned work on the $9 billion facility in August 2017 after years of work, delays and cost overruns. Last week, South Carolina state leaders passed a bill authorizing the temporary rate cut reducing much of the amount of the customers were paying for the ill-fated Summer work. Customers have already footed about $2 billion in costs for the nuclear reactor project. SCE&G, which is a subsidiary of SCANA Corp., asked for an injunction prohibiting the South Carolina Public Service Commission from implementing the new rate reduction law. The case was filed in Washington D.C. federal court. In addition to cutting previously approved rates, the new law “supplies definitions of key terms that would heighten the evidence required to establish SCE&G’s ability to recover its costs associated with the new nuclear project,” reads a company statement announcing the utility’s lawsuit. “In its lawsuit, SCE&G assets the rate reduction and other aspects of the new law constitute an unlawful taking of private property, deny its due process of law, and constitute an unlawful bill of attainder, all in violation of various provisions of the United States Constitution.” SCE&G and Santee Cooper have put much of the blame for the Summer project failure on contractor Westinghouse Electric’s March 2017 bankruptcy. Utility officials also said they went to the Trump Administration for help and were denied. Virginia-based Dominion Energy, meanwhile, is trying to acquire SCANA in a deal valued at between $10 to $15 billion. The potential merger partners have promised to cut rates if and when the deal is completed. Video: Duke Energy explains nuclear power using candy

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Reporting & Editing Ethics & Trust at Poynter Bring Poynter to You Poynter Teaching Team Building & Location Office Space & Event Rentals In-Person Training at Poynter’s Campus in St. Petersburg, Florida Home Reporting & Editing 3 ex-newspaper columnists team up to launch college football site 3 ex-newspaper columnists team up to launch college football site Photo by Daniel X. O'Neil via Flickr. September 1, 2016 Ed Sherman Boston GlobeChicago TribuneCollege FootballFreelancingLos Angeles Times Category: Reporting & Editing Chris Dufresne hopes this comparison to Starbucks carries over to his new college football website. “You see people standing in line in Starbucks every day ready to pay $5 for whatever coffee they want,” Dufresne said. “Why do they do it? The only reason is because they are addicted to caffeine. Well, in a weird sort of way, I think there is an addiction to college football. Every July, I used to get emails saying, ‘I can’t wait for the season to start.’ ‘I need my fix now.’” Yes, but will college football fans be addicted enough to pay for Dufresne’s new site? He and his partners will find out soon enough. In July, Dufresne, the former long-time college football writer for the Los Angeles Times, teamed with Mark Blaudschun, formerly of The Boston Globe, and Herb Gould, formerly of the Chicago Sun-Times, to launch TMGCollegesports.com. The trio is the latest example of sportswriters trying to remain relevant and viable in their post-newspaper careers. Together, they have more than 100 years of experience in press boxes throughout the country and have some of the deepest connections among reporters covering college football. Their perspectives, though, aren’t free. TMG College Sports is charging readers a $19.95 annual fee. The genesis for the site came after Dufresne took a buyout from the Times last December. However, at 58, he wasn’t ready to retire, and he still loved writing about college football. “College football probably is the only thing I’m attached to as a writer,” Dufresne said. “I love it because it is all interconnected with every aspect of society and life. Everyone went to a school somewhere. There’s nothing else like it.” Blaudschun and Gould feel the same way, and were still writing about college football after leaving their respective papers. Blaudschun’s “A Jersey Guy” website had more than 1 million pageviews last year, and Gould has a strong following in the Midwest. Meanwhile, Dufresne is known by “Rankman” among his loyal college football readers at the Times. With that kind of reader base, they figured it made sense for them to combine forces in one website. Dufresne, though, was adamant about one thing: He wasn’t going to do it for free. “Maybe I’m being pig-headed to think we are offering anything different, but if I’m going to do this, I’m not going to do it for nothing,” Dufresne said. The next step was figuring out the revenue model. They knew the advertising route wasn’t going to work. It’s very hard for an independent site with three writers to sustain itself that way. So, they decided to go with subscriptions. Dufresne asked people how much they would pay for a college football site. After getting some feedback, they settled on $19.95 per year. “It’s like a nickel a day,” Dufresne said. That isn’t much in that context, but people are reluctant to pay for anything these days, especially when there’s so much free content available. Dufresne, though, is confident there’s sufficient interest. They offered a free preview when the site launched on July 19. He reports TMG College Sports has had 67,000 pageviews and 32,500 unique visitors through late August. Currently, the site has 250 paid subscribers. Dufresne likened the current pace to “a herd of cattle going through the door one at a time.” “I told the guys don’t be surprised if there’s a trickle,” Dufresne said. “People don’t really start getting into it until the season starts.” Dufresne admits he isn’t sure if $19.95 is the right price. He also said the site might do more free previews during the season in an attempt to lure more paid subscribers. However, the bottom line is that the bottom line doesn’t have to be huge for Dufresne, Blaudschun and Gould. At this stage in their lives, they aren’t dependent on a big paycheck from TMG College Sports, Dufresne said. They just want to make enough to cover travel expenses to games and have something leftover to make the venture worthwhile. “We have the luxury of time here to build this thing,” Dufresne said. “In no way did I think going into this website was (going to be a financial boon). This still is about doing it because we love it.” Search Media Jobs 801 Third Street South About Poynter Jobs at Poynter ⓒ All Rights Reserved Poynter Institute 2019 | Privacy Policy

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