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Moseley House-Farm (Blackberry River Inn)
This house dates to 1763. It was extensively renovated in the 1920s by architect Alfredo Taylor, who was commissioned to do alterations on multiple buildings in the area during this time period (including the nearby Church of the Immaculate Conception). Taylor was well-known for his Georgian Revival designs, as exemplified by the Moseley House-Farm. The property is now a Bed & Breakfast under the name Blackberry River Inn.
Moseley House-Farm, photographed by David Ransom in 1978 (link below)
Alfredo Taylor was born in Florence, Italy. Upon graduating from Harvard (class of 1894), he traveled to Italy, where he sketched a number of buildings and design details, focusing especially on masonry work. He then studied at the Columbia University School of Architecture and the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Between 1915 and 1930, Taylor designed numerous Georgian Revival buildings and transformed multiple older houses into the style, which was extremely fashionable at the time. The purpose of this building prior to Taylor's renovations is unknown, though it likely served as a house in the 18th century.
Ransom, David. "Historic Resources Inventory Form: Blackberry River Inn (Moseley House/Farm)." Connecticut Historical Commission. October 1978. Accessed March 03, 2017. https://npgallery.nps.gov/pdfhost/docs/NRHP/Text/84001077.pdf.
Ransom, David. "National Register of Historic Places Inventory--Nomination Form: Alfredo S.G. Taylor Thematic Group." U.S. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service. November 12, 1978. Accessed April 29, 2017. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset?assetID=f962287b-5a07-45f5-9f37-e557d938e4e2.
David Ransom, https://npgallery.nps.gov/pdfhost/docs/NRHP/Photos/84001077.pdf.
Official website of Blackberry River Inn
538 Greenwoods Road West
Norfolk, CT 6058
Created by Amelia Kennedy on March 3rd 2017, 3:26:27 pm.
Last updated by Amelia Kennedy on April 29th 2017, 5:34:21 pm.
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Innovative 8th Grader Utilizes Projection Tech to Eliminate Blind Spots
(YouTube/Paul Gassler)
It doesn’t matter if you have a brand new driver’s license or if you’re a veteran behind the wheel with decades of experience under your belt – everyone struggles with blind spots. It’s simply not possible to see certain things due to the pillars between car windows.
Most folks would write this off as an unfortunate and unfixable problem, but there might be a surprising solution thanks to technology designed by a 14-year-old.
Alaina Gassler, an industrious 8th grader from West Grove, Pennsylvania, created an innovative system that essentially eliminates the A-pillar blind spot between the windshield and front seat windows.
“Many car accidents are caused by drivers not being able to see hazards due to blind spots,” Gassler wrote. “My prototype is designed to get rid of those blind spots by displaying an image of the area behind them onto the spot. I used a small projector as the displaying device and a webcam as the recording device. The webcam is mounted onto the outside of the car, and the projector displays the image only the A-pillar of the car.”
Granted, the system could benefit from some image stabilization, but it’s pretty extraordinary nonetheless. It’s basically like riding in Wonder Woman’s invisible jet.
The Broadcom Foundation MASTERS (Math, Applied Science, Technology, and Engineering for Rising Stars) Program and the Society for Science & the Public were impressed by the inventive teen and awarded her the Samueli Foundation top prize of $25,000.
Gassler says the idea came to her while riding in the car, noticing her mother struggling with her blind spots.
“I wanted to find a way to get rid of them,” Gassler told Popular Mechanics. “And my older brother, Carter, just started to drive, so it was a big safety concern.”
Gassler and her father have searched for patents and found a few similar inventions, but they’re over a decade old and never went into production. The family hopes to acquire those patents or figure out a way to make the teenager’s model unique enough for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to issue Gassler her own patent.
Instead of starting her own line of products, though, Gassler hopes to sell her idea to a company that can really utilize the tech.
“Tesla is always looking for the future in their cars and I feel like my project would be something they’d be interested in,” she said.
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Southern Food: Good, But Not Good For You
Beth Fontenot, MS, RD, LDN
Registered dietitian Beth Fontenot knows Southern cooking...and why it's one of the tastiest and unhealthiest cuisines around.
Heart disease and stroke are among the top five causes of death in Louisiana, my home state. The American Heart Association ranks the Pelican State as having the seventh highest death rate from cardiovascular disease in the nation. Other southern states are in the top six.
Born and raised in the South, I grew up eating fried everything, vegetables seasoned with bacon grease, buttered cornbread, and dessert every night — all washed down with a glass of sweet (that is, sugar-sweetened) tea.
My cooking and eating habits changed as I became a registered dietitian, much to the chagrin of my Southern/Cajun family.
Traditional Southern fare doesn’t rate far up on the healthy meter, and most Southerners know that. The fact is, a lot of people love their greasy food and don’t care. But they should.
Out of five dietary patterns evaluated in a study just published in the journal Circulation, the “Southern” diet was the only one that raised the risk of heart disease. Other research has linked the Southern diet to an increased risk of stroke, too.
The study compared the dietary habits of over 17,000 white and African-American adults from different regions of the US and from socioeconomically diverse populations. The men and women in the study were 45 years of age or older and participants in the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences Stroke (REGARDS) study. None of the people was known to have heart disease when the study started. They were interviewed by phone, received an in-home physical exam, and completed a food frequency questionnaire over the course of the research.
The foods regularly consumed by the participants were grouped into five dietary patterns: convenience, plant-based, sweets, alcohol/salads, and Southern.
The “convenience” group included pasta dishes, Mexican food, Chinese food, pizza, and mixed dishes. Fruit, vegetables, cereal, beans, poultry, fish, and yogurt were in the plant-based group. The sweets group consisted of desserts, chocolate, candy, and foods with added sugars. Beer, wine, liquor, tomatoes, green leafy vegetables, and salad dressings made up the “alcohol/salads” group. Finally, the Southern pattern included fried food, eggs and egg dishes, organ meats, processed meats, added fats, and sugary beverages.
Those who ate a Southern diet most often had a 56 percent higher risk of heart disease than those who ate Southern foods less frequently. People from North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana were the highest consumers of the Southern diet. Males, African-Americans, and those who didn’t finish high school were also more likely to eat Southern fare often.
“Regardless of your gender, race, or where you live, if you frequently eat a Southern-style diet you should be aware of your risk of heart disease and try to make some gradual changes to your diet,” James M. Shikany, lead researcher and a nutritional epidemiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Division of Preventive Medicine, said in a statement.
My cooking and eating habits changed as I became a registered dietitian, much to the chagrin of my Southern/Cajun family. Healthy Southern cooking is a balance between reducing the calories, fat, and salt in foods, while retaining good flavor, as well as limiting how often certain foods are served.
Changing Southern cooking and eating habits is really not so bad. And it’s definitely better than being one of the 9,781 people who died from heart disease just in Louisiana last year.
Make Eating Well A No-Brainer
Fried Foods and Gestational Diabetes
Fast Food, Slow Brain
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The Sequester Game of Chicken
Getty Images/The Fiscal Times
By Bruce Bartlett, The Fiscal Times
It was said of the French arististocracy before the revolution that they learned nothing and forgot nothing. So too with the Republican Party, which is still fighting budget battles from the past. The sequestration battle cannot be understood outside this context.
The critical subtext for today’s sequestration battle is the 1995 government shutdown, in which Bill Clinton not merely beat congressional Republicans, but humiliated them. Sequestration is their revenge.
When Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, they were full of themselves. I know. I was in many meetings at which plans were formulated for what they would do with this extraordinary opportunity.
Recall, too, that Republicans hadn’t held both houses of Congress since 1954 and had essentially been out of power almost continuously since 1932. That is a long time for one party to be shut out of power on Capitol Hill. Republicans were giddy when they finally regained it.
Republicans deluded themselves that their election represented a fundamental shift in the nation’s ideology; that a majority of Americans finally wanted government slashed to where it was small enough to drown in a bathtub.
That was false. Republicans misinterpreted a shift in party alignment with a shift in ideology. In fact, Americans were no more conservative than they had always been. The only difference was that there was no longer a large bloc of conservatives in the Democratic Party.
Democratic conservatives, the vast bulk of whom were Southerners, had been shifting into the Republican Party for 20 years; by 1994 the shift was complete. This shift had little to do with ideology and more to do with political forces set in motion by the civil rights revolution of the 1960s.
Nevertheless, Republicans sincerely believed they had a mandate from the American people to slash government. In their hubris, they tended to forget that Democrats still held the White House. When this fact was called to their attention, it was dismissed as no more than a speed bump on the road. Congress made the laws—that’s all that mattered, Republicans thought.
The Republicans’ strategy centered on the annual appropriations bills that Congress must pass to keep the government from shutting down. They believed that during the 1980s, Democrats had used the threat of a government shutdown to bludgeon Ronald Reagan into backing down from implementing conservative policy.
Hence, Republicans thought they held all the high cards when the fiscal year ended on September 30, 1995. They would simply refuse to fund the government until Clinton surrendered to their agenda. Republicans also thought they could hold an increase in the debt limit hostage to their demands.
Among the Republican demands was a sharp cut in Medicare in order to prevent a government shutdown and default on the debt. Clinton refused to accept these demands and the government shut down in November.
Rather than force Clinton to back down, Republicans backed down when blowback from the shutdown landed mainly on them. The public primarily blamed the leader of the budget hardliners, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whom they viewed as a petulant child.
Ever since then, Republicans have been seeking revenge. When they regained control of Congress in 2010, the same hubris that infected them in 1995 returned with a vengeance. In the summer of 2011, they held the debt limit hostage to their demands to slash government. A default on the debt was avoided only when Democrats agreed to an automatic $1.2 trillion cut in appropriations beginning on January 1, 2013, which was subsequently delayed to today.
Just as in 1995, Republicans believe they hold all the high cards. They are 100 percent certain that Barack Obama will buckle and accede to their demands because voters will blame him, rather than them, for any negative consequences resulting from sequestration. The fact that polls universally show that people primarily blame Republicans in Congress appears not to have penetrated their consciousness.
My guess is that the sequestration will be of short duration. In fact, it will last exactly until March 27. That is the day when the appropriations for fiscal year 2013, which began on October 1 last year, run out. Republicans have persistently refused to do their basic work by funding the federal government because they think, just as they did in 1995, that the threat of a government shutdown will force a Democratic president to bow to their will.
Thus far, there is no evidence that Obama is in a mood to be rolled by Republicans. He does not have to run for re-election and he feels confident that the public will blame Republicans in Congress rather than him when the you-know-what hits the fan. I think he believes the government can weather a brief sequester and that Republicans will, ultimately agree to end it when they are forced to finally pass 2013’s appropriations.
I think this is a reasonable assumption. A new report from the Bipartisan Policy Center notes that past sequesters have never been permitted to run their course. It’s such an incredibly stupid way to cut spending that Congress has always relented.
It’s childish and immature for Republicans to behave as if control of one house of Congress somehow gives them a mandate to impose their will on the entire government. But such is the sad state of the Republican Party today, in which a desire to avenge past slights carries more weight than responsibility does.
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Bruce Bartlett
Bruce Bartlett’s columns focus on the intersection of politics and economics. The author of seven books, he worked in government for many years and was senior policy analyst in the Reagan White House.
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The full name of Chester Cathedral is'The church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary',since 1541 it has been the centre of worship in Chester.The Cathedral and Monastic buildings were restored in the 19th century and a free standing bell tower was added in the 20th century.
Chester Museum
Grosvenor Museum is in Grosvenor Street, Chester, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. Its full title is The Grosvenor Museum of Natural History and Archaeology, with Schools of Science and Art, for Chester, Cheshire and North Wales.
Chester Race course
Known as the Roodee,is the oldest racecourse still in use in England.Horse racing in Chester dates back to the sixtnteenth century.It is thought to be the smallest racecourse of significance in England at 1 mile and 1 furlong long.
The City Walls
The roman walls of Chester have stood for almost 2000 years. Reinforced over the years to protect the city until their military purpose was no longer required. The walls were changed into a fashionable walkway during the 18 century and remain so today.
Chester Literature Festival
The Chester Literature Festival will welcome some of the literary world’s greatest talent to the city between October 10 and October 25. With a packed programme of talks, workshops and lectures, it’s the perfect event for any book lover.
Chester Zoo is a zoological garden at Upton by Chester, in Cheshire, England. It was opened in 1931 by George Mottershead and his family, who used as a basis some animals reported to have come from an earlier zoo in Shavington. It is one of the UK's largest zoos at 111 acres
The races start in may and run every two weeks until September.
The Golden Eagle (27 Evaluaciones de los Huéspedes) 81 %
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Esta página web es editada por The Golden Eagle, 18 Castle Street, Chester, Cheshire, CH1 2DS, Reino Unido. Utilizamos cookies para asegurarnos de que tenga la mejor experiencia y cualquier información personal compartida durante su visita esté protegida por nuestra política de privacidad
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Blog - The Green Writing Desk
The Green Writing Desk
The Five Stages of Grief and Plastic Surgery
2020-12-27 2020-12-27 by Jenn
I got plastic surgery five weeks ago. I was so excited about the surgery (I got an elective double mastectomy without nipple grafts—you can read the story here) that it didn’t seem to me that I could feel anything other than wildly excited about having my dream of not having breasts come true.
However, I had enough sense to know that I would likely experience many different emotions after the surgery—and not all of them would be positive.
As the surgery got closer, I became less excited and more anxious, despite knowing that I had made the right decision. Of course, I couldn’t anticipate the exact emotions that I would feel after the surgery. I was surprised by some of them. In the months before my surgery, I wondered: would I miss my breasts? Would I think I had made a huge mistake? What I went through was a little like the five stages of grief after my plastic surgery procedure.
It didn’t feel like my breasts were gone for a while after the procedure. It’s hard to explain this to people. I had two wounds on my chest after my surgery, two long incisions starting in the middle of my chest and extending to the end of each armpit. I had stitches. I didn’t feel “free” or unburdened by not having breasts anymore. Instead, I couldn’t lift my arms over my head and I had a bandage on that was wrapped so tight that I couldn’t take a deep breath.
For the first week, before the bandage came off and I got to see my new chest for the first time, I literally felt like I was wearing a corset and that my breasts were simply smushed underneath that white binder (it didn’t help that my chest was numb, so I couldn’t really feel anything).
In a way, it felt like I was in denial that I had just had major surgery and that both my breasts were gone. When the surgeon removed my bandages at my post-op appointment and I saw my new chest for the very first time, I finally realized that they weren’t there. They were gone forever.
Why did I do this to myself?
It was hard not to wonder this in the first week, where for two days, I was so nauseous from the anesthesia that I couldn’t walk to the bathroom by myself. Where I couldn’t even lift a glass to my mouth and had to drink from a straw. Where I cried and thought that it was stupid of me to have maxed out two new credit cards to pay for this elective procedure.
I felt mad simply at the fact that I wanted so badly to have my breasts removed that I had actually gone through with this expensive and life-changing procedure. It was hard not to feel like the whole thing had been a giant mistake. My husband was very reassuring and told me my feelings were normal. After all, I couldn’t take a deep breath, bathe, or take care of my beautiful bunnies. It was natural that I’d be pissed, but at the time, it was hard to not be hard on myself.
What if I had gotten a different procedure done? The surgeon had asked me if I considered a breast reduction or another surgery such as a breast lift to “correct” my breasts. But my desire to get my breasts removed wasn’t about the way they looked; it was about the way I felt, and I just wanted them completely gone.
Should I have gotten a double mastectomy? Maybe removing my breasts wasn’t the right decision. Maybe I would miss them one day. Maybe I would find that, years from now, I would want to live my life as a woman with boobs.
I know this isn’t quite like the traditional bargaining stage of grief, but it’s difficult not to wrestle with yourself and consider if you might have taken another path. What I was facing in that moment—a lifetime with a new body that I was still getting used to—felt unbearable in a weird way, and thinking about alternatives to my decision was a result of that.
This is the part where I cried and told Ian (my husband) that I was afraid he wouldn’t love me anymore. Ian has always been amazing and so reassuring. We had so many conversations about my decision to remove my breasts, and have talked a lot about my feelings about my breasts over our 10 years of knowing each other and our two years of marriage.
I think what got to me was that almost every single person I told about the surgery asked about Ian first.
“What does Ian think?”
“Is Ian ok with this?”
“Did Ian know you were thinking about doing this before you got married?”
“I feel bad for Ian.”
After the surgery, I was feeling very emotional and experiencing a lot of feelings and I think I didn’t allow myself the space to acknowledge how much it had affected me that so many people had asked about Ian’s feelings about my body. News flash: Ian didn’t marry me for my breasts, and it’s my body, not his.
But lying in bed on the third day after surgery, Ian held my hand while I cried and I told him that I was afraid he wouldn’t love me anymore or find me attractive. I finally gave myself space to process these feelings. He was reassuring and we talked about our feelings, but I still felt depressed that not only was I recovering from major surgery, but that I had made a decision that I couldn’t take back (not that I wanted to take it back, but there’s something very sobering about making a decision that you can’t change).
I saw my new chest for the first time a week after the surgery. I was lying back on the chair in the exam room at my plastic surgeon’s office while the surgeon and an assistant unwrapped my bandages. There was a part of me that felt like my breasts were going to pop out after they unwrapped the bandages. I watched, looking down as the last bandage was removed and my new chest felt the cold air for the first time. “Welcome to your new chest,” the surgeon said.
It was strange looking down and seeing how small my chest looked. My breasts were a DD cup, and I had some fat around them, so I had also had liposuction during the procedure to prevent “dog ears”—pockets of fat left in the armpit area after a double mastectomy, as they’re known in the transgender community.
When I saw my new chest, I was amazed at how good it looked. Like I’d been dreaming for the past 15 years. Yes, I had stitches and purple marker and some blood around the wounds, but this was how I had wanted to look for so long. When I saw my new chest, I felt acceptance blooming in my heart, a love for something I could have only imagined in my other life.
It’s only been a little over a month, but I love my new chest. I’m still processing all the feelings that I’m experiencing as a result of choosing to get my breasts removed at age 30. But as I navigate my new body and my new life, I’m grateful to be able to say that my surgeon did an excellent job, the people in my life have been mostly encouraging and supportive, and I’m very happy with my new body.
Posted in bodyTagged: double mastectomy, plastic surgery, surgery, top surgeryLeave a Comment on The Five Stages of Grief and Plastic Surgery
© 2020 The Green Writing Desk|Created by Mocha Websites
Created by Mocha Websites
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Murdoch family abandons plans to take full control of BSkyB
By Daily Mail City & Finance
No bid: James Murdoch last night said there were no plans for the family firm to take full control of BSkyB
James Murdoch last night said there were no plans for the family firm to take full control of BSkyB.
Murdoch, the deputy chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox, said a bid for the 60 per cent of the pay-TV firm it does not already own was not on the cards.
‘We have no intention of bidding for the rest of BSkyB today or in the near future,’ he said. ‘We have no plans about that.’
The comments appeared to suggest that the Murdoch family no longer has ambitions to take full control of BSkyB – at least for now.
News Corporation, the media empire founded by Rupert Murdoch, James’ father, was forced to abandon its bid to take full ownership of the satellite broadcaster two years ago.
The deal was scuppered by the News of the World phone-hacking scandal at News Corp’s newspaper arm.
Swisscom boss Carsten Schloter discovered dead in suspected suicide
BSKYB SHARES: Check the latest price here
News Corp has since been split into two – with 21st Century Fox taking on the broadcasting business, including the 40 per cent stake in BSkyB.
Shares in BSkyB fell 20p to 830p.
James Murdoch: No plans for BSkyB takeover
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Medieval mooch around Monteriggioni
Monteriggioni, with its formidable ring of walls and towers, dominates the surrounding hills. Monteriggioni was built in 1213 to guard the northern borders of Sienese territory. In 1554 a major betrayal cost the town its freedom and it fell into Florentine hands, presaging the final loss of the Republic of Siena to Florence in 1555. Fortifications like this played an important role in medieval Tuscany. These walled hilltop towns, often known as borghi, are emblematic of the Tuscan cityscape. Like Montepulciano and Buonconvento, Monteriggioni provides proof that preserving walls helps preserve a distinct identity.
The slopes leading upto the medieval borgo are swathed in olive trees, vineyards and even poppies, a bucolic view changing with the seasons. Porta Franca, the Siena-facing main gateway, guards the entrance to the borgo and once had a fearsome drawbridge. Instead, the Porta di Ponte arched gateway faces Florence and displays a quotation by Dante about Monteriggioni’s mighty walls. Monteriggioni in Arme, the Museum of Arms, is the place to put yourself in the shoes of a legendary knight of old. It’s not surprising that the town inspired the popular Assassin’s Creed video game. The museum displays reproductions of medieval and Renaissance armour and weaponry and also introduces you to siege engines and siege techniques. Walking the battlements gives you a true sense of what it must have been like to be a medieval knight or a night-watchman doing the rounds. Once on the ramparts, you can take in expansive views of the poppy-strewn countryside stretching towards the Chianti region and the Val d’Elsa. The ramparts are currently being restored but can still be partially explored. This is a place for what Italians call il dolce far niente, the sweet art of doing nothing at all. Before heading off to lunch, visit the stone-arched parish church, typical of the medieval air that swathes Monteriggioni. Even if wine may be on your mind, look out for signs of water. The abundance of wells and fountains in the tiny town squares reminds us of the importance of water during sieges.
Address: Monteriggioni tourist office
Piazza Roma 23
Web: www.monteriggioniturismo.it
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This Tornado Warning System Listens for the Telltale Sound of a Twister's Birth
Michael d'Estries
State University of New York at Geneseo
Michael d’Estries has been writing about science, culture, space and sustainability since 2005. His writing has appeared on Business Insider, CNN, and Forbes.
Scientists have decoded the inaudible infrasound that storms produce up to an hour before a twister forms. (Photo: Niccolò Ubalducci/flickr)
Most experts agree that waiting until you've heard a tornado's signature jet engine roar is a recipe for disaster. With only five to 13 minutes of advanced warning possible using current technology, your best bet is to seek shelter at the first hint of danger. By the time you hear the churning vortex of a twister, it's often too late.
Unbeknownst to many, however, is that tornadoes and the storms that spawn them generate something called infrasound. These sound waves have frequencies below 20 hertz (cycles per second) or beyond the lower limit of human audibility. Infrasound stations have been created around the world to monitor both man-made events (such as nuclear explosions and sonic booms) and natural events (such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and avalanches).
Tornadic thunderstorms emit infrasound up to two hours before "tornadogenesis" when the tornado forms its signature shape. Figuring out how to collect and decipher these sounds could buy communities precious time to prepare.
Brian Elbing, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Oklahoma State University, believes infrasound warning systems could revolutionize tornado prediction services.
"By monitoring tornadoes from hundreds of miles away, we'll be able to decrease false alarm rates and possibly even increase warning times," Elbing said ahead of a presentation on the idea at the 175th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. "It also means storm chasers won't need to get so close."
A different kind of microphone to pick up a different sound
An infrasound array monitoring station in Qaanaaq, Greenland. Ebling and his team have created a similar setup for listening to tornado infrasound. (Photo: The Official CTBTO Photostream/flickr)
Elbing and his team have been collecting and decoding infrasounds generated over a tornado's lifecycle using a specialized microphone array at Oklahoma State University. Arranged in a triangle and spaced some 200 feet apart, these infrasound sensors look more like spider webs than traditional microphones.
"First, these are larger for greater sensitivity to lower frequencies," Elbing said in a statement. "Second, we need to get rid of wind noise. ... We seal the microphone inside a container with four openings. A soaker hose — just like the ones used in gardens — is attached to each of these openings and stretched out in opposite directions."
In an interview with Wired, Elbing said normal wind entering the hose openings is incoherent and random. The infrasound generated by an approaching storm capable of spawning tornadoes presents a pressure wave that's much more uniform. "Those waves that go into the hose and go into the microphone, those will add together instead of canceling each other out," he added.
While the system is still in its early stages, there are reasons to believe it will one day be a useful tool for tornado prediction. On May 11, 2017, the infrasound station at Oklahoma State University picked up a tornado signal 12 miles away and 10 minutes before a twister descended from the sky. Its estimated size was 150 feet in diameter, a number later confirmed by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The ultimate goal for Ebling and his team is to create a system that detects a possible tornado forming and then leverages drones equipped with sensors to perform follow-up observations. Used in conjunction with current prediction technology, infrasound would enable meteorologists to create advanced warnings with a greater degree of certainty.
"Since infrasound is an independent data source, combining it with existing methods should help reduce false alarms," said Ebling. "Today, 75 percent of tornado warnings are false alarms and tend to be ignored."
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TMR 098 : Transcript : Dr. Stephanie Seneff : On Why The World Must Round-Up Glyphosate
We welcome Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a Senior Research Scientist at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, for an in-depth (and sometimes slightly technical) conversation on the subject of glyphosate, the world's most popular herbicide.
Marketed as Roundup by Monsanto, and most famously used in combination with Roundup Ready® GMO crops, glyphosate is officially considered to be of minimal risk to human beings when used as directed. But is that really true? After several years of research - drawing upon studies into the effects of glyphosate on animals, and persuasive statistical correlations between the increase in glyphosate usage and the upsurge in various human illnesses, most notably autism - Dr. Seneff reaches a conclusion very different from the official line: Glyphosate, she believes, is a major risk to human health and needs to be removed from our environment as soon as possible.
Audio Link Notes
Transcribed by Sarah Brand. Proofread by Mark Campbell
Julian Charles: Hello everybody. This is Julian Charles of themindrenewed.com, coming to you as usual from the depths of the Lancashire countryside here in the UK, and on this 4th of February 2015, I am very pleased to welcome to the programme Dr. Stephanie Seneff, who is a Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. She holds numerous degrees from MIT in subjects such as Biophysics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and has authored more than 150 peer-reviewed journal and conference proceeding papers. Until 2007 her research was mostly in natural language processing, but since then she has focused on the environment, nutrition and health and, most recently, on the pervasive toxicants aluminium and glyphosate and their effects upon human health. Dr. Seneff, welcome to The Mind Renewed. It’s great to have you on.
Stephanie Seneff: I’m delighted to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
JC: Now, it’s very good to be speaking with you, and I’m very much hoping we’re going to be having a more relaxed conversation than we might have had a few weeks ago when I first contacted you, because then you were abroad, and you were, you said to me, doing some talks at the time, so it might not have been quite so relaxed as I hope it will be today. Anyway, thanks ever so much for agreeing to spend time with us now. Now, I’m going to be asking you specifically today about your research into this substance called glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, which I’m sure people will be more familiar with because of its use in connection with GM crops, and of course the serious concerns that you have about its effects on human health. But I think one question that I’d like to start with—because I suspect this will have come up in people’s minds given the introduction I just said—is how is it that you as a scientist working in computer science and artificial intelligence turn out to be working in this area of environment, toxicants and human health?
SS: It is indeed quite a transition and it happened over the past seven or eight years. About seven or eight years ago, I started to notice this alarming rise in the rate of autism in the United States, which I saw as an exponential growth. It worried me, and I was especially worried because it didn’t look like other people were looking into environmental practice. Most of the research was directed towards genetics. Things that go up exponentially are not genetic, and so I felt it was paramount that somebody should try to find out what are the environmental chemicals that might be causing what I perceived as a looming epidemic, and of course I was right. It has continued to go up exponentially, and if you project that exponential curve into the future, you will find that half the children born in 2032 will end up on the autism spectrum according to that trend line, so this is very scary to me. You know, in less than 20 years from now we’ll have half the child population with autism. It’s not, of course, tenable, it will completely derail the school system for one thing, and certainly cause huge healthcare costs and whatnot, so we need to figure this out as soon as possible. And once we’ve figured it out we need to stop whatever it is that’s causing it.
Now, I have computer science skills that allow me to do interesting analyses of literature, analyses of databases. I looked at the VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] Database, found some interesting associations with vaccines. I worked for probably five or six years on this topic, gaining a very deep understanding of the complexities of autism – it’s a very difficult and complex disease – but still frustrated because I hadn’t found any chemicals that could explain some of the features I was seeing in autism. And that was when I heard a talk by Professor Don Huber, who is a retired professor from Padua University, an expert in plant physiology and plant pathology, and he laid out how glyphosate, which is Roundup, could be causing gut dysbiosis, an imbalance in the gut bacteria, which was something that was very clear was going on in autism, and so I really perked up when I heard that. And then it turned out other things that he said in his talk explained other features of autism that I was puzzled about, and once I heard that talk I basically dropped everything else I was doing and started studying glyphosate as much as possible, finding and poring over all the research literature. I linked up with Anthony Samsel, who is also an expert on glyphosate, and he and I have written a couple of papers now, and a third paper is about to appear on the links between glyphosate and manganese – manganese disruption in the body – so it’s been quite a journey. It wasn’t what I had expected to be doing at this point in my life, but I feel compelled because I think that we are facing a crisis.
JC: That trend line that you were talking about, am I right in thinking that back in the 1970s it was a very small percentage of the population that was affected by autism? Was it something like one in ten thousand?
SS: That’s right.
JC: Yeah. Well, we’re coming back to autism in a few minutes. But I think we need to get our heads around this substance glyphosate itself, and I’d like to ask you that in relation to genetically engineered crops, because I also understand it’s not exclusively used in connection with GM crops, but that does seem to be the context in which it’s mostly used, so could you give us a kind of brief introduction to GM crop technology and how glyphosate fits into that picture.
SS: Yes, when they talk about GM, they like to advertise the nice things, like modifying rice to include vitamin A and things like that. And they say how wonderful this is, that we can improve the quality of the crop. But most of the GMOs that are out there involve either resistance to a herbicide, or they’ve got a DNA coding for a toxin that’s produced by a bacteria that will kill insects. So it’s either the plant itself that will kill the insects because it’s producing the toxin, or the plant can be sprayed with glyphosate and won’t die. And it’s the latter that is really a huge problem, because this means that the plant soaks it up. And the person spraying doesn’t have to be careful about avoiding the plant, which makes it very easy to control the weeds; you just fly the airplane over the crops and spray it everywhere, and it gets into the food chain. But no-one’s bothering to look, because everyone thinks it’s safe. So it’s a very, very insidious situation that we’re in, where we don’t know how much glyphosate is in our food. We can assume it’s there, and certainly the EPA has a huge list of foods that have regulations on what’s the upper limit that’s allowed, so clearly they know it’s there. They change those limits when they find that it exceeds it. So, instead of saying: “Oh my gosh! You’ve exceeded our safety limit,” they say: “Oh yes, you’ve exceeded our safety limit, let’s raise the limit so that you won’t next time we look.” You know.
JC: Yeah. And you say that the crops actually absorb this material?
SS: Yes, they soak it up and they don’t die, and so it gets into the seed, it gets into the food. It’s been shown for example in GMO soy. There was a study that was done and it compared organic soy, conventional soy, where the herbicide glyphosate was used to control the weeds, and then GMO Roundup-ready, and they had ten samples of each, and only the Roundup-ready soy had glyphosate in it in measurable amounts, and those amounts were exceeding even a limit that [Roundup manufacturer] Monsanto had said would be extremely high.
JC: So what crops are we talking about? Obviously about corn and soy, and is there anything else?
SS: Yes. Corn, soy, canola, sugar beats, alfalfa, cotton and tobacco.
JC: Those are the main ones?
SS: Yes, that’s the exhaustive list. There was GMO Roundup-ready wheat they tried to release, but the farmers didn’t want it. I think they were afraid of it, so that exists but has not been marketed. I’m sure they’re developing other ones now as I speak, but I don’t know what they are. They focused on the core crops, the ones that are feeding into the processed food industry, because the US lives off of these very few crops. We have a very strange view towards food in our country that you only need corn and soy to survive, it seems. They really enjoy these processed foods, these soy bars, soy drinks and whatnot, corn chips, you know.
JC: Soy is certainly advertised as being a very healthy thing to consume, isn’t it?
SS: I know, and that annoys me! [Laughs]
JC: So this has been going on for quite some time, hasn’t it, because, am I right in thinking that Monsanto patented glyphosate back in the 1970s?
SS: Yes, in fact it was earlier patented as an anti-microbial agent and as a chelating agent, which means that it binds to metals and makes them unavailable [for chemical reactions], and those are both important in the consideration of its toxicity when we discuss that later on, and then it was patented when they discovered that it killed plants. In fact it kills all plants except for those few that have been engineered to avoid it, and that’s pretty impressive in itself. It kills plants and it kills microbes. I think the claim that it’s quite non-toxic to humans is false. Yes, the patent ran out in 2000 and then of course it started to become even more widely available because the price dropped. China makes huge amounts of glyphosate. I think they make the most now. These days it’s actually manufactured in China.
JC: I thought that China was quite resistant to GMO technology?
SS: I think they have a bigger fight than we do. I think they’ve embraced it less well. They have the same problem that we do in that there’s a strong pressure from the industry to get China to embrace it, but China’s fighting back, so it’s going to be interesting to see where that ends up.
JC: So nowadays would you say it’s the number one herbicide in the world?
SS: It definitely is, and it’s by far the number one in the United States, and the United States uses by far the most, so 25% of the world’s market is in the US, and we certainly don’t have 25% of the world’s population.
JC: And it doesn’t just get used for GMOs, does it? You can just buy it at the hardware store, can’t you? And I understand also that it can be used for something called crop ‘desiccation’. Can you tell us what that’s all about?
SS: Yes, this was something that I only found out later. When I first started looking, I didn’t imagine that that could be true, and I got interested in gluten intolerance because it was clear to me that there was a sudden epidemic in the United States. I don’t know what it’s like in the UK, but this gluten intolerance just appeared out of nowhere, and you started getting these gluten-free sections in all the grocery stores. All different kinds of gluten-free foods became available on the market, and when you look at the data, celiac disease—which is gluten intolerance—is going up astronomically in step with the use of glyphosate on wheat. Glyphosate is used on wheat right before the harvest in order to desiccate it. You know the plant dies of course because it isn’t GMO, but that’s what they want. They’re about to harvest the seed, they let the plant die and that reduces the residue, which makes it easier for the combine harvester to gather the seed, and it also gets a head start on next year’s weeds, and also apparently makes the soil more suitable for no-till farming. No-till farming is really catching on. People have been advocating that as a sound method. An ecological sound method of farming is to not till the soil, and instead basically you have to kill the weeds chemically, and you do that before you harvest the crop, which I find asinine, but you know…[Laughs]
JC: That’s the thing, isn’t it? That’s absolutely incredible. Is that necessary to do it that way do you think?
SS: I can’t imagine that it’s necessary. I think everything’s about convenience, and then when you think something is harmless, you don’t see why you shouldn’t do it. And it’s always the measure of cost effectiveness, and of course labour is expensive, so anything that can reduce labour costs. When you’re not thinking in terms of poisoning your population, when you’re not even considering that aspect of the problem, you think it’s fine, you know.
JC: I’ve noticed that this desiccation business seems to be the cause of quite a lot of glyphosate in foodstuffs in the UK. I mean according to GM Freeze, they were looking at . . .well there was a study from 2012 where they were looking at cereal bars and bread – I won’t mention the particular companies involved because they might have changed their practices by now – and there was glyphosate turning up in those particular products, and in the particular chart that I saw it was mentioned ‘desiccation’, ‘desiccation’, ‘desiccation’…I thought, good heavens! What you’ve just said, that seemingly unnecessary doing it before the harvest, is actually going on, and apparently compromising our foodstuffs here in the UK.
SS: Right, and of course it seems to be causing kidney failure in many parts of the world. In Sri Lanka, India and Central America they have had an alarming problem with kidney failure in young agricultural workers, and it’s correlated with the desiccation on the sugar cane crop. It’s definitely linked to glyphosate, and there’ve been papers written on that, that the glyphosate seems to be the reason why these people are getting kidney failure.
JC: And as I said before, you can actually go and get it from the hardware store just to use on weeds or something on your own property. Are there any cases of people being poisoned because of that?
SS:Definitely. In fact, I think my own sister’s an example. She bought Roundup and was using it to kill weeds in her yard and she started to develop a kind of neuropathy, so I explained to her this link, and of course she stopped using Roundup and she got better, so in her case she was able to recover. But I suspect there are many people who are suffering from conditions that they don’t realise are due to their careless handling of Roundup in their yard. It’s astonishing to me that we allow people to just go down to the hardware store, even pregnant women. A pregnant woman could go buy some Roundup and put it on her yard and breathe it in, which could be devastating for her infant, and she would have no clue that she might be damaging her child. People’s lack of awareness in thinking it’s pretty harmless makes it so deadly.
JC: One of the other things you point to is this business of superweeds, which is leading agribusiness to experiment with perhaps even more dangerous herbicides. So how does the use of glyphosate promote the proliferation of these so-called superweeds?
SS: Yes, this is a really interesting story, because when they first introduced glyphosate, the GMO Roundup-ready crops, in the late 1990s, the thought was that this was going to be wonderful, because it would reduce the requirement for herbicides. It turned out to do the exact opposite, as you can see from the charts. Fortunately, the United States does keep data on glyphosate usage on corn and soy crops, and we have done a lot of correlations. I’ve worked with Nancy Swanson on this, and we’ve come up with many different diseases that are rising in frequency in the United States in step with the rise in the use of glyphosate on these corn and soy crops. So what happens really is the same thing as with antibiotics: the weeds get clever and they figure out how to acquire a resistance to the Roundup themselves when they’re exposed to huge amounts. And then you have to put more in to kill them, so you just have to increase the toxicity in order to kill these resistant weeds, and they’ve been doing this now steadily over the past 10, 15 years, and now they’ve reached a point where they realise they’re going to have to use so much glyphosate, and even using so much glyphosate these superweeds just don’t die. They’re going to have to add an alternative herbicide on top of the Roundup to treat these weeds, and the way they can do that is to design a GMO resistance to these other herbicides, and this includes 2,4-D and Kamba, both of which are considered to be much more toxic than Roundup.
JC: This kind of experimentation on these alternative herbicides is going on I understand in Hawaii – you have a lot of connections with Hawaii – and I read somewhere that companies like Dupont, Pioneer, Syngenta, Dow and BASF – not Monsanto I notice in that list – are developing these GM crops to be resistant to these other herbicides. What kind of environmental effects is that having in Hawaii?
SS: Yes, it’s devastating. In fact I think Hawaii is Ground Central, and that’s why I’ve been devoting quite a bit of my time there giving talks on glyphosate, which is what I was doing when you contacted me. Monsanto is present in Hawaii, but just not in Kauai. Kauai is where I have a home, so Monsanto has a presence in Maui, and in fact there’s the Maui miracle, which just happened, and is the only good news out of the last election in America. They put a bill on the ballot for a vote that would declare a moratorium on growing GMO crops in Maui County. So it’s a county-level bill, to declare a moratorium until studies could be done to show that it is in fact not harming the population. So this would have required—which is wonderful—actual studies of humans and their health issues in relationship to their proximity to these fields where they’re putting all these toxic chemicals. Kauai is where I have a home, and they had another initiative a year or two ago, which I was very heavily involved with—Bill 2491—and it got passed also. So it’s actually pretty amazing that these counties are getting these bills passed by the population. And Kauai is where there is not a Monsanto presence.
But there are all these other companies, and the people in Waimea, which is the little town in the middle of all these fields, are getting a lot of health issues that are almost certainly a consequence of being downwind of all these herbicides that are being sprayed. And there’s an accountability issue there, because the new law requires that the companies are accountable—that they say what they’re spraying, where they’re spraying it, when they’re spraying it—so that the people can get themselves out of harm’s way. It’s a very simple request, but of course there’s a huge fight from the company. In relation to the moratorium, Maui County were outspent by the chemical industry 90-1, so the chemical industry spent $90 for every $1 spent on the side of voting this bill in, and they lost. So we’re very, very happy about this. Ninety times the amount of money can’t fix the problem. Of course now there’s a bunch of lawsuits. In both cases, both of these laws are caught up in lawsuits, so the immediate reaction by the industry is to sue, and they just cause you so much trouble that you finally just get so discouraged and so tired of it all that you just give up. This is their mind-set of how they can keep these regulations out.
JC: And you say that people have to dodge the spray effectively. Is it also getting into the water supply?
SS: It is for sure, yes. It’s going into the water, the air, the food. Certainly I recommend anybody listening to this to adopt an organic diet. I try to eat exclusively organic food, certainly at home. Going out it’s much harder because it’s very difficult to get organic food at a restaurant, so I mostly eat at home! [Laughs] You can eat organic food but it’s very difficult to keep it out of your water, especially if you’re living near an agricultural field, and your air, because the wind will blow it in, and you’ll breathe it and that’s going to be very toxic also, so it’s extremely difficult to avoid.
JC: Well, I want to ask you a little bit more about that advice on eating organic a little bit later on; I’ll come back to that. I want to ask you about the toxicity of this substance really, first of all with respect to lab testing. Now, my understanding is that the official position in the US, and I guess here in the UK too, because it’s apparently widely used here as well, is that glyphosate is of negligible risk to human health. It has a certain rating which indicates that possibly there is some risk but it’s extremely low, and indeed the EPA, the US Environmental Protection Agency, said in 1993 that based on dietary exposure studies, and this is their quote: “The agency concluded that the chronic dietary risk posed by glyphosate food uses is minimal.” Now, your investigations obviously challenge that position and you point, in particular, to the research of a guy called Séralini on rats fed with Roundup-ready corn and soy. Can you tell us what his group discovered?
SS: Yes, this was a great study, and in fact I should say that part of the thing is that the Industry defines the rules of how you test, and one of those rules is that if you’re doing animal studies you only have to do it for three months. If you don’t see any problems after three months, you’re done, everything’s good. Séralini did his study for the entire lifetime of the rats. He fed them GMO Roundup-ready corn and soy. He didn’t see any statistically significant differences at three months, so this would confirm that he’s getting the same thing they’re getting – no problem as long as you only look for three months. The problem is that it’s an insidious effect that takes time to develop because it depletes your minerals. One of the key things is that it depletes your minerals and it stresses your liver and kidneys, so eventually you get things like kidney or liver failure. The female rats had massive mammary tumours and statistically a significantly shorter lifespan for the ones that were eating the GMO versus the organic. So, we’re seeing significant damage to these rats, which began to be seen at four months.
JC: At four months! Right. So this will always be not picked up by the industry itself because of that ruling?
SS: That’s right. And there’s another point I should make, which is that another rule of the regulatory process is that you should only test the active ingredient in isolation, that is to say pure glyphosate; so when tests are done by independent studies on Roundup, when the industry’s considering whether Europe should continue to not restrict glyphosate, they throw out studies that are done on Roundup because Roundup is not pure glyphosate. But it turns out that these formulations are designed to increase the toxicity of the active ingredient, and in fact the extra surfactants and adjuvants that are added to the mix can increase the toxicity of the active ingredient by as much as a thousand-fold, so it’s really astonishing to me that they’re not required to test these things in the actual way in which they’re actually used on the crops.
JC: In that case with Séralini, the Roundup-ready corn and soy was actually testing crops that had been sprayed with Roundup, not just glyphosate?
SS: Yes, that’s right—Roundup not glyphosate. So he was testing a more natural setting really, what you would expect to happen in practice, which is not what they’re testing; and in fact the regulations require that that’s not needed, it should be thrown out because it doesn’t follow the rules.
JC: Incredible! Could you also tell us about some studies that have been done on pigs? I understand this is not the same research group, but you certainly spoke in one presentation about some tests on pigs. This is again using Roundup-ready corn and soy, and there were some amazing differences in the size and colour of stomachs in comparison with pigs that were not fed on GM crops.
SS: That’s right, and this is work done by Judy Carman in Australia, and she showed this inflamed gut, which is again of course what autistic kids have, so this is what had perked me up when I heard Don Huber talk. The autistic kids have issues with their gut. A lot of issues with their gut is associated with autism, and these pigs also had issues with their gut, and the female pigs had an enlarged uterus, so she was definitely seeing issues with these pigs. There are also studies that have been done on piglets, and in fact deformed piglets that were born dead, and they were finding glyphosate residue in their urine. So, there’s significant evidence from pigs that they are being harmed by glyphosate in ways that reflect things that are showing up in autism.
JC: And glyphosate was actually found in the muscle tissue, is that right, of pigs?
SS: Yes, it’s found in the muscle tissue. That’s been shown also in chickens, so when you eat chicken meat and the chickens are all fed GMO Roundup-ready feed, you’re eating glyphosate in chicken meat, in the muscles, in the brain, in the spleen. I mean it’s showing up in the organs, and of course also in breast milk in humans. This is actually a really neat study that was done by Moms Across America. Zen Honeycutt is a ‘Mom’, and she took the initiative to do this study, and found significant levels of glyphosate in breast milk, in fact 1,600 times higher. In the worst case 1,600 times higher than the level allowed in water in Europe was in the breast milk.
JC: And what about the levels that human beings are consuming when they eat chicken meat, chicken that’s been fed on this kind of feed? Is that going way above in terms of exposure rates?
SS: I don’t know actually. I’m sorry to say, I don’t know what the levels are. I would imagine that you’d be getting more by eating corn and soy that are GM Roundup-ready than you would be by eating chicken meat, but I’m not sure because it could be that they are concentrated in their muscle tissue. You can see that kind of effect on some of the other toxins in the water. Silent Spring, the book written many years ago by Rachel Carson, talked about how these chemicals can become concentrated in certain organs in the animals as you go up the food chain, so we need to know really how much is there in what foods, so we know which foods to avoid, and in the absence of that we have to go a hundred per cent organic.
JC: And you mentioned very, very high rates of correlation in various studies, and you said that you’d been working on celiac disease. Perhaps it would be a good idea to tell us what celiac disease is, and just how close those correlations are.
SS: Right. Celiac disease is a form of gluten intolerance. You can also have gluten intolerance without celiac disease, and this of course means that you can’t eat wheat-based products. In America a lot of wheat is eaten and so that makes it hard for you to avoid eating those products. It’s a complex disease like autism with a lot of different symptoms. Mostly it’s a digestive problem that you cannot break down the wheat. The wheat is a complex protein and your body has trouble breaking it down. You also have a leaky gut so that this unbroken-down protein gets into your blood, and that can cause allergic reactions and things like that. You can get autoimmune responses and things, so it’s a pretty nasty disease and it’s associated with a shortened lifespan, mostly because you have a higher risk to cancer and in particular non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma has also been linked to glyphosate in studies of agricultural workers, so there’s an indirect link that way.
I think glyphosate actually binds to the wheat, and there’s a process with the wheat that usually happens automatically in the wheat that makes it easier for the body to break it down, and that process gets disrupted. We, Anthony Samsel and I, talk about this in our paper. It’s a theoretical approach that we are using based on our knowledge of chemistry that the glyphosate would bind and disrupt a sort of cross-linking activity that’s supposed to take place in the wheat to make it easier to break down.
JC: So what kind of correlation have you found between the increase in celiac disease and the use of glyphosate?
SS: Well, the two curves line up quite well; not quite as well as the line-up between autism rates in the United States and glyphosate usage on corn and soy crops—that one is absolutely amazing. The autism one has a 0.998 correlation co-efficient. 1.0 is the highest you can get. That’s an exact match. The two curves would be exactly matched if it was 1.0. The gluten one – I forget the number – is probably more like .93 or something, so it’s still very high, but not as high as the autism to corn and soy.
JC: So let’s move on to that autism one then. So this correlation that you mentioned at .99, this is looking at data between about 1990-ish, is it, up to 2011? And this is in the US?
SS: Yes.
JC: Can you sort of explain to us what a .99 correlation means in terms of an alternative explanation, say this happening by chance? What would that mean?
SS: Right, so mathematically you talk about a p-value [probability value]. A significant p-value is anything less than 0.05, so a small p-value means that it is extremely unlikely for a correlation to have occurred just by chance, and the correlation for many of these diseases, the correlations with a rise in glyphosate, have p-values that have several zeros after the decimal point before you get the first significant zero, so 0.0000000 +1 maybe, that kind of thing—extremely small p-values meaning that it’s extremely unlikely to be a chance occurrence.
It’s interesting that the pro-GMO folks like to pound people with the message that correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation. They’re using that desperately to try to deny this correlation means anything. Nancy Swanson has published a paper where she has all these diseases—it’s quite stunning—including some cancers like pancreatic cancer, thyroid cancer and then all these gut disorders and autism and Alzheimer’s disease and kidney failure, just a huge list of diseases that match well. They’re all going up which is also scary. They’re all going up in incidence in the United States, and they match very well with the rise in glyphosate usage on corn and soy crops. The example that the pro-GMO folks like to use to say: “Oh well, correlation doesn’t always mean causation,” , is they like to show a plot of the rise of organic, which is also rising in step with autism, therefore also in step with glyphosate usage on corn and soy crops. I mean, the thing is, the correlation there makes a lot of sense to me because it is simply that people are getting sick, they’re switching to an organic diet. It’s working, they’re feeling better and they continue to do so, and that’s why we’re getting a growing buy-in on organic food. It’s crazy to me that they would choose that as an example to deny what I’m saying.
JC: Yeah, that seems pure sophistry really, doesn’t it?
SS: Right. Anyone who is trying to find a toxic chemical that is causing some known problem, you wouldn’t look at something that’s going down. So, for example there, you could say, well, maybe lead is causing the autism epidemic, but lead in the environment is going down, so you would immediately rule that one out. You wouldn’t be looking at something that was going down. It has to be something that’s also going up. When you see something that matches perfectly, you’d be foolish not to then start to look. Well, what is the biological mechanism of this toxic chemical, and does it explain the pathology of autism? And when you look you find out that everything works, and then you become absolutely convinced, as I have, that glyphosate is the cause of the epidemic. Not to say that it is the only thing that causes autism, but it is the thing that’s causing the epidemic.
JC: And how does it compare with something like the possible link between, say, cholesterol and heart disease?
SS: Exactly, yes, it’s much, much better. In fact, with cholesterol, if you take the same time plots, and you apply it to cholesterol and heart disease, you can see that in fact cholesterol levels are going up in the United States in recent years. We’ve looked at this data from the CDC’s [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] Hospital Discharge Data. High serum lipids: “Oh, you’ve got high serum LDL, you need to start taking a statin drug.” That’s going up despite the increase in the use of statin drugs, so it should be going up even more sharply if people weren’t taking these statin drugs, and in fact it’s also going up in step with glyphosate usage on corn and soy crops, which is remarkable, and I can actually argue why glyphosate would cause elevated cholesterol. What is not going up at the same time is heart disease. Heart disease is actually going down, slightly down in the United States, despite this alarming rise in LDL. So, if you think about correlation and causation, you cannot argue that high LDL actually causes heart disease on the basis of that, because it is not correlated.
JC: And yet that’s officially accepted to be so.
SS: Right, and of course they’re handing out statin drugs like candy, which I find very, very disturbing also.
JC: So what does the FDA and the EPA and the like make of this .99 correlation that you’ve identified?
SS: As far as I can tell, they’re ignoring it. I mean certainly Anthony has been in constant contact with them, and he barely gets an acknowledgement. Having said that, actually Anthony Samsel has managed to get some materials from them. Anthony is my co-author on these papers, really an amazing guy by the ways, really a fascinating person and very dedicated. He’s managed to get the EPA to release to him some documents from Monsanto that were the studies that were done way back when, that supposedly show that glyphosate is non-toxic; so he’s rummaging through those right now, finding some interesting things. He can’t share those documents with anyone else, but he was able to get the EPA to give those documents to him, so that ‘s a kind of a victory.
JC: You mentioned before the interview that there is, in your view, a connection between glyphosate and vaccines with respect to autism. Could you explain what you mean by that?
SS: Yes, it’s very interesting. As I said, I started looking at vaccines when I first started looking at autism. I looked into the vaccine issue because many parents in America believe that vaccines cause their children’s autism. The pro-vaccine versus anti-vaccine issue is a passionate topic in this country right now. I think those parents are correct, but I think it’s the vaccine working synergistically with the glyphosate, and I had been looking at vaccine adverse reactions from the VAERS Database, which the US maintains through the CDC, a very useful database that reports the events that occur and gives details of what happened during the event. My skills in computer science allow me to analyse this data, and I’ve looked at aluminium in the vaccines and its correlation to autism, which does exist, and then also MMR [Measles, Mumps and Rubella]. MMR also correlates with autism.
MMR is the one that Andrew Wakefield wrote about in The Lancet over there in the UK, and eventually lost his licence, had his paper retracted, and is since now over here in the United States. So, MMR is very interesting because it does not contain aluminium or mercury, though aluminium and mercury are known neurotoxins and people have really been concerned, especially of course about mercury, but aluminium is also very toxic and the aluminium in the vaccines has gone up a lot since 2000 in step with the reduction in mercury. So they reduced the mercury and increased the aluminium, and then said: “Oh well, the autism rates didn’t go up, therefore the mercury didn’t cause it.” But, actually, they kind of did a hot swap because you had the aluminium instead of the mercury. But the bigger problem was that at the same time glyphosate was going up sharply at that same time when they were doing that experiment around 2000/2001, and this is reflected in the VAERS Database. What you see if you look at the MMR reactions after 2002—all the data on MMR after 2002 versus before 2002—you can again do these analyses to see what’s the likelihood that the distribution of adverse events could have occurred by chance, and what you find is that after 2002 there’s a lot more incidences of events of things like seizures, anaphylactic shock and autism.
JC: And those can’t be put down to changes in the vaccines themselves in any way?
SS: Well, I don’t think so, because I think the MMR has not particularly changed since then, and it doesn’t have aluminium and it doesn’t have mercury, so I was very puzzled about the MMR actually. I understood that Wakefield thought it was causing autism. I confirmed that it’s associated with autism. Autistic kids are much more likely to have an adverse reaction to MMR than non-autistic kids for one thing, so there’s something going on between MMR and autism. Several things puzzled me, but certainly why were they getting seizures and anaphylactic shock in response to a vaccine that did not contain either mercury or aluminium? I think I have finally found that answer, and I only found that answer very recently, and I think the answer’s glutamate. Glutamate is actually present in only a few of the vaccines, but this includes MMR, varicella (which is chicken pox), rabies and then a flu vaccine. All these contain glutamate. Glutamate is a known neurotoxin, but usually the body can handle it because it will convert it to glutamine using an enzyme called glutamine synthase that depends upon manganese. So this gets a little complicated, but the problem is that glyphosate, I’m suspecting, severely depletes the availability of manganese, and that means that you can’t detoxify the glutamate.
JC: Actually this is very interesting, because this does bring me on to my next question, which is the toxicity of glyphosate from a kind of theoretical point of view rather than from a lab-testing point of view. My understanding is that glyphosate interferes with plant biology, and therefore can work as a herbicide, but the official wisdom goes that it doesn’t interfere with human biology, and so it’s quite safe for us to use in a human context. But from what you’ve just said, this indicates that you don’t agree with that. Can you explain why you don’t agree with that?
SS: No, I certainly don’t agree with that. I think it’s one of those things where you can say: “Well, something causes X, and X is not something humans have, and therefore it’s something safe.” But if you don’t mention that it also causes Y, Z and W, you’re missing a large part of the story. So they’re focusing on this one pathway called the shikimate pathway, which is indeed found in plants, but not in humans. Humans themselves don’t have the shikimate pathway, and there are several reasons why even if that was the only thing it did, it still would not be non-toxic to humans, and that’s because our gut bacteria does have the shikimate pathway, and the shikimate pathway is absolutely essential to them in order for them to produce these acids. Of course that’s the same problem with the plants— that’s why the plants die, because they can’t make these really important aromatic amino acids. Now they’re crucial to our health.
This is one of the things we’re really waking up and realizing in the last few years, and there have been a lot of delightful papers looking into the gut microbes. Now, all of a sudden, they realize these guys are really, really important to our health, and when they get out of whack, we get sick, and glyphosate preferentially kills the beneficial bacteria leaving room for the pathogens to overgrow, and that’s how you get the inflammatory gut, the leaky gut, and then you get autoimmune disease. I mean a lot of things follow from that, and you get into toxins in the brain and then these neurological disorders. But the shikimate pathway produces these aromatic amino acids and those are essential to us precisely because we don’t have that pathway, so we depend upon our microbes to make those products for us, and those amino acids are precursors to incredibly important human molecules like serotonin, dopamine, melatonin, thyroid hormone, folate and melanin. I mean these are all really, really important molecules in our body that are derived from the product of the shikimate pathway that is produced by our gut microbes; so you can see how lack of shikimate pathway would lead to disease in humans.
JC: Yeah, so am I right in thinking that these are enzymes like, is it, tryptophan and tyrosine?
SS: You are right, you are exactly right.
JC: And so if our gut bacteria are not producing those, then that gives us this lack, so we have things like obesity, autism and Alzheimer’s because of that lack?
SS: Exactly. For example, Serotonin deficiency is linked to depression, it’s linked to autism, it’s linked to obesity and then there’s melatonin deficiency, which is linked to sleep disorder, and sleep disorder is linked to all of these neurological diseases. Sleep disorder is also an epidemic in our country going up in step with glyphosate usage on corn and soy crops. So, you need the melatonin to sleep, but you need the shikimate pathway to produce the melatonin.
JC: Is that also something to do with this – and I don’t even know whether I can even pronounce it correctly! – cytochrome P450? [Laughs]
SS: You’re very good, that’s right. And we call them ‘Sype’ enzymes, which is kind of a really cute nickname for ‘CYP’. CYP enzymes are really, really important enzymes throughout the body, but especially in the liver. The liver has a whole bunch of CYP enzymes, and it uses them for many different purposes, one of which is to detoxify other environmental chemicals. Glyphosate has been shown to disrupt the CYP enzymes in rat studies in the liver, so that means you will be more sensitive to the other toxic things that you are exposed to, because you can’t metabolise them.
So, for example, Tylenol has been implicated in autism. If a child gets a vaccine and takes a Tylenol to cut the fever, the child can’t then get rid of the Tylenol, can’t metabolise it, because of the lack of the CYP enzyme activity, and that can cause autism. Papers have been written about that. But what they don’t realise is that the glyphosate is what’s causing the defective CYP enzyme. It’s also used in the liver to activate vitamin D, and we have a vitamin D deficiency epidemic in America as well today, which, I think, is due to an inability to activate it in the liver by a CYP enzyme, and CYP enzymes are also important for producing the bile acids, and we have a lot of issues in the United States with impaired bile flow, which is causing some gall bladder issues and of course digestive issues, because the bile acids are really important for the health of the gut. Those are produced by the liver and then they’re shipped out, temporarily stored in the gall bladder, and shipped out to the intestines, and they’re basically providing a bunch of nutrients to the microbes, which will keep them healthy as well, so the fact that the bile acids aren’t flowing becomes an issue for the microbes as well.
JC: And also infertility? You mentioned sperm construction.
SS: Fertility, right. In fact the manganese deficiency plays in there too, because manganese is needed by the sperm to produce their flagella, so that the sperm become immobile and if the sperm can’t swim, then you’re going to have fertility issues because of the manganese deficiency induced by glyphosate.
JC: So do you think there’s a likely link then between the global problem in sperm construction and this increased use in glyphosate?
SS: I do think so, and there are other things too. They’ve done studies on other cells that support the sperm, like nerve cells for the sperm, and they’ve shown that glyphosate is very toxic to them, so I think there are going to be a lot of issues. Also glyphosate disrupts the synthetase, or aromatase, which convert testosterone to oestrogen, and that probably plays a role in autism as well. Autism is known to have aromatase deficiency, so aromatase is affected by glyphosate as well.
JC: You also said to me that you’d like to talk about the measles outbreak at Disneyland. Could you tell us what your concerns are there?
SS: Yes, I could. In fact I’m very concerned because of course there’s a big war going on in the United States between the pro-vaccine folks and the anti-vaccine folks. People are very, very polarised over here, and each one, of course, sees the benefits of their side and can’t see the downside of the other person’s point of view. But there was an outbreak of measles that is believed to have begun in Disneyland, and there have been about a hundred cases, but nobody has died. In fact nobody has died from measles, I think, in America over the past ten years. However, there were, I think, close to 100 deaths associated with the MMR vaccine over the past ten years, so actually if you think in terms of saving lives, the vaccine is killing more people than the measles is right now. When I was a kid, you know, measles was a rite of passage, and actually there are several studies that have shown that measles is beneficial. It’s been shown to help with psoriasis, with arthritis (arthritis in children), it’s caused tumours to shrink and go into remission, it’s improved allergy problems; so measles, I think, is actually protective. I believe that.
JC: What, you mean if you actually contract measles, this is healthy?
SS: If you contract the measles, yes, you gain health. I think this is maybe
true for all of the childhood diseases. You know the ones that we used to get, the measles, the mumps, the chicken pox, that used to be a ‘rite of passage’ when I was a child, and I remember the measles—it was wonderful, as I got an excuse to stay at home from school for two weeks because we had a rule, but I didn’t ever feel sick. I had a few spots on my stomach and it was fine. I had a great time, you know! [Laughs]
JC: You probably learned something during that time.
SS: And then it probably cured my allergies – just kidding! – but I think that by suppressing these childhood diseases, we’re disrupting a natural process, and what’s happening instead is that we’re getting all these issues with psoriasis, with allergies, with asthma, with eczema, and of course autism, ADHD, depression, obesity; I mean, all of these problems that American children are facing. Over half of our kids have at least one of these various conditions today. We have sick kids in America, and I believe they’re sick in part because of all these vaccines, which are first of all introducing toxic chemicals that are depleting their defences, depleting their sulphur and getting into their brain and causing lots of problems – the toxic chemicals that are in the vaccines, of course, on top of the glyphosate which is working synergistically with them, and then the lack of those childhood diseases which is making their immune system weak, rather than strong. So basically you’re protecting them against that one bug that you’re immunising them against, but at the expense of a loss of general immunity, and therefore an increase in autoimmune diseases, because you have to increase the activity of the immune system to be able to protect yourself from disease in general.
JC: So you’re talking about this synergistic relationship between glyphosate and these vaccines. Is this going back to what you were talking about—these enzyme deficiencies?
SS: Yes. Well, so I explained the glutamate, which is the lack of the manganese, which prevents you from detoxifying the glutamate. Also, I believe glyphosate opens up the blood-brain barrier, which allows the glutamate to get into the brain, and the same thing is true for the aluminium. I think glyphosate actually escorts the aluminium into the brain, particularly into the pineal gland, which is outside of the blood-brain barrier so is very accessible. It’s been shown that the pineal gland accumulates more than twice as much aluminium as other parts of the brain when the exposure is there.
JC: So, all these adjuvants that people talk about in vaccines, you’re saying that glyphosate is like a limousine, and the adjuvant jumps into the limousine and the glyphosate takes it on a trip through to the brain?
SS: That’s exactly what I’m saying. I like that metaphor; that’s very cute. And then unloads it into the acid environment of the pineal gland – it needs an acid environment to let it go, so it just escorts it and drops it off in a place where it is very dangerous because the pineal gland is very, very important to your health. That’s where the melatonin is made, and then if you don’t have melatonin you have this sleep disorder, and as I said the sleep disorder is linked to all these diseases, including depression by the way. Depression is also an epidemic in America, and violent behaviour. I think that violent behaviour is linked to the serotonin deficiency that’s caused by the glyphosate. That’s well established that serotonin deficiency is linked to violent behaviour, and we’ve had all these school shoot-outs and things like that in this country. We have a lot of people in jail.
JC: There was one thing that you said in one of your presentations, and my ears pricked up immediately when you said it, and that was to do with endocrine disruption. And the reason why I’m bringing this up particularly is because we had a guy called Dr. Frederick vom Saal talking about bisphenol A, which is an endocrine disruptor, he says. So, can you say in what way glyphosate is functioning in a similar kind of way? I mean, he was talking about parts per trillion working, not according to the normal paradigm of toxicology, but you know parts per trillion! Is this the same with glyphosate, you’re saying?
SS: It is indeed, yes, and in fact you know they only study glyphosate at the minimum as parts per million, and then they don’t realize these endocrine disruptors have a U-shaped curve. There’s a point at which there’s a minimum toxicity, but if you go below that, the toxicity starts to go up again; so at very minute amounts they start to behave like endocrine disruptors, because they are imitating hormones that we release, also at these very minute amounts that have very potent effects on certain receptors, and so what has been shown in the case of glyphosate is that at parts per trillion, glyphosate induces breast cancer cells to multiply. So that means it will make a tumour grow, and of course we saw those massive tumours in those rats in Séralini’s experiments, which kind of corroborates that thought.
I actually looked at the data on breast cancer because I was expecting it perhaps to correlate with glyphosate usage on corn and soy crops, and in fact it doesn’t. The breast cancer data is very interesting because going from 1998 to 2010 the breast cancer rates are going down steadily until about 2006, and then they make a U turn and start going back up again. And then we have the data end at 2010, so I would love to know what’s happening in 2011, 2012 etc… You know, I don’t have data for that, but they’re going sharply up until 2010. It turns out that, if you look more closely, if you separate between the whites and the blacks, you find that it’s only the Caucasians who have their rate going down, the blacks are flat up to 2006, whereas the Caucasian rate is going down. And I’m suspecting that it has to do with Hormone Replacement Therapy, because we were very enchanted with HRT to treat menopause, but then it was discovered that it was causing breast cancer. It was causing an alarming increase in breast cancer, so now women are advised not to take HRT, and so I think the number of women exposed to that is going down, and that’s causing this decrease; whereas the glyphosate is causing a superimposed increase. So if you use a simple exponential model to match the data before 2006 on the Caucasians, and then you subtract that model, you then get a new curve that does correlate very well with glyphosate usage on corn and soy crops, so that’s how I would explain the breast cancer. I think glyphosate probably does cause breast cancer.
JC: And that would be to do with these very small parts per trillion levels?
SS: Right.
JC: If that’s the case, then presumably, as I said to Frederick vom Saal, any level, even the smallest level of this stuff in our diet, well, we need to get rid of it.
SS: Yes, that’s right. I feel that way.
JC: I wanted to ask you sort of more general questions really about your reflection on the whole situation, because, I mean, do you see this use of glyphosate, this increased use of it, as part of the price we pay for these modern lives that we want to live, with all our technology and the like? I mean, is it possible to make a change without putting the clock back?
SS: I know. This is a very good question, because I certainly feel we need to really assess the situation and decide whether we think it’s worth it to suffer from all these diseases with no end in sight. They’re all getting worse, and they’re going to continue to get worse because we’re at war with these weeds, and we’re losing that war, and what we’re going to do is to poison ourselves more and more over time and get more and more sick, to reach a point in the population with all these issues where anyone who is well is going to spend all their time taking care of sick people. Do we want that path, or would we rather return to more conventional, safer and sustainable styles of agriculture, where we put people back in the fields? We don’t have this very tiny portion of our population doing agriculture. We need to face the fact that we need people working on the farms, because it takes human power to deal with weeds if you’re not just going to spray chemicals to do it, and we need to face the fact that we need to have manpower. It’s not like we can’t do that; it’s not like we can’t feed the world by growing food that way, you know, and we just have to recognise that we’re making a very bad choice here to accept this massive poisoning of the population in exchange for people not having to work in the fields. It’s not an exchange that I would want to take if I had a choice.
JC: Well, I see the logic of that, but then on the other hand is it not possible to say there must be some way of doing what you’ve just suggested without losing everything that we have, that we value, in our technological society? Surely, there must be some way of balancing this in a way that doesn’t sort of throw everything out?
SS: Right, well I certainly think so. You know, I think of all the people who are taking care of all the Alzheimer patients, all the autism kids, all the people with depression, all the violent behaviour, people in prison. I mean, when you think of all these people: people with heart failure, you know, all these ill people, people in wheelchairs who are requiring huge amounts of effort. If you could free them up from those jobs because those people were no longer sick, and you could put those autistic kids to work because they no longer had autism, they could actually contribute to society instead of being a burden. I mean that would be a huge gain in the workforce that would compensate for the fact that you’re not poisoning the population. People would be spending time growing crops instead of spending time taking care of children with autism, you know; it’s a good exchange. I think people would rather grow crops than to have a child with autism, rather than a child that could be a productive member of society.
By the way, I’m also looking into glyphosate’s potential impact on global warming, or global climate change I should say. Right now we have global cooling here in Boston with huge amounts of snow, but I think that glyphosate is a major player. I’m doing research right now and I’m finding a potential role for glyphosate in global climate change because of glyphosate’s disruption of the management of hydrogen in soil, and it turns out that nitrous oxide is actually a much worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It’s estimated to be 300 times worse than carbon dioxide. It’s also estimated to be about 7% of the greenhouse gases present. Seven percent at 300 times comes out to be 22 times more important than carbon dioxide in global climate change. So we should be studying nitrous oxide. I believe that glyphosate and then the use of the nitrogen-based fertilisers, the chemical fertilisers plus the glyphosate, is disrupting the soil in such a way that the nitrogen is not getting fixated into the soil. Carbon is not either, so both the carbon and the nitrogen are compromised by this chemical agricultural approach, such that agriculture is playing a very important role in climate change. So, by reverting back to organic methods in agriculture, we will also be able to improve the situation with regard to global warming.
JC: Certainly, it does say to us that we need to rethink the way in which we’re living our lives; I certainly take that point very clearly. What hope do you think there is, practically, that we can make a change on an individual level, but also on a cultural level? What hope do you see?
SS: You know, I’m picturing, I’m hoping – I do have a hope – and I’m hoping technology might save us.
JC: Ah ha!
SS: What I’m hoping is that technology will allow smart people – chemists and whatnot – to develop devices that will be reasonably cheap, that even people might be able to somehow use their cell phone at the grocery store to probe with some sensors or something, and to be able to probe a cereal box and say: “Oh gosh, this has glyphosate, I’m not buying it.” In other words to have a sensor in your phone that will allow you when you go shopping to just decide what to buy on the basis of what has or does not have glyphosate. And if you simply introduce that into the market, and I think people would really want to buy it, then I think the companies are going to be terrified. They’re going to say, “I’ve got to get the glyphosate out of my food”, right?
JC: Sure.
SS: Or else people won’t buy it. And all of a sudden they’re going to find a way to deal with the problem.
JC: Well, I’ve been very encouraged by things that I’ve seen with regard to the drinks companies getting rid of—well not completely getting rid of—aspartame, sulphate, but certainly moving over to using stevia, and I presume that’s consumer pressure that’s brought that about, and also BPA-free products seem to be in the supermarkets a great deal these days, and again I presume that’s because people are just not buying those that don’t say ‘BPA-free’. So it certainly works.
SS: Yeah, consumer demand; I think consumer demand is the answer. The Government is unfortunately so in bed with the industry that it doesn’t seem like they are willing to respond at all, which I find very, very disturbing, but I have accepted it, you know. I feel that political pressure is just a waste of time almost; I’m so discouraged.
JC: On your website you have a link to this article of a former Monsanto employee put in charge of GMO papers at the Food and Chemical Toxicology journal, a guy called Richard Goodman, that has the revolving door there straight away.
SS: Yes, exactly. I think they’re controlling the media, they’re controlling the governments, and they’re controlling the research. I mean it’s very sad, but that’s the world we face today. It’s a strange world we live in, and I really hope the future is brighter. I mean, I really hope people are going to wake up and change their ways, and I do think it’s going to happen grassroots, consumer-driven; I think that’s the solution. That also empowers the individual, so anyone who is listening to this recording can make a commitment to buy organic, you know, and that’s just one person’s vote, but it counts. Voting with your pocket book really counts.
JC: Yeah, and if we do that on an individual level, can we actually kick this glyphosate out of our system, or are we sort of just stuck with what we have, and we have to live with that and it’s not getting any worse, or can we just kick out the whole lot?
SS: Yeah, well that’s an excellent question, and I wish I could give you a definite answer. I believe that glyphosate does bioaccumulate, and I suspect that if it gets in the brain, it’s much harder to get it out. But they’re doing treatments with animals with fulvic acid, humic acid and bentonite clay. These are contained in soil. Quite interestingly, they can feed these animals things that are derived from soil, which are basically organic compounds in the soil that can help to get the glyphosate out of your system. They’ve shown that in animal studies just coming up very recently, and so you could use those as a way to expedite the process of getting rid of glyphosate. It will eventually, I think, work out of your body. Of course you may be continually exposed through the water and the air, even though you’re eating organic food; so I feel that all countries ought to be banning it. We ought to get that thing out of the market. Because it is so dangerous in so many ways, it needs to be removed.
JC: But you’re convinced that it’s going to have to happen by consumer pressure, that it’s not going to happen in any other way, so we just have to, if we can afford it, move on to organic eating?
SS: Yes. And I think, for example, as you can get organic eggs, which is a pretty good product, that’s a way to get healthy food. Eggs are really healthy in general, and not expensive, more expensive if they’re organic, but worth every extra penny because they’re much healthier than the non-organic ones, just in terms of the yellow yoke, the large yoke, the sturdy white, the thick shell, these are all indicators that that egg is a much healthier egg, and therefore has a lot more nutritional value than the non-organic egg. So, for example, just eat a lot of organic eggs, which is not too expensive and is very good for you.
JC: Excellent. Well, thank you ever so much, Dr. Seneff, for joining us on the programme and sharing with us all this information. It certainly has been a bit of a challenge to speak to you, I must say. I try to imagine what the world might be like if we did try to live in a different way! And I must just say before we end that obviously nothing that has been said in this interview should be taken as health advice or dietary advice. We’ve been sharing information and opinion and, well, having said that let me say once again: thank you very much indeed for joining us on The Mind Renewed, and for giving up some of your very valuable time to be with us today. It’s very good of you.
SS: Thank you, my pleasure.
Disclaimer: The views expressed by Dr. Seneff in this interview are her responsibility alone; they do not necessarily reflect those of The Mind Renewed.
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Long-Term Unemployment Is Surging. Here’s What to Do If You Can’t Find Work
Brenda Milian gathers with other showing their support for the 2020 Basic Income March at the Utah State Capitol on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2020, in Salt Lake City. While the overall unemployment rate has dropped each month, jobs in hospitality, events, performing arts, and many others haven’t rebounded. Rick Bowmer / AP Photo
Losing a job is tough no matter what. Add a pandemic into the mix, and now millions of Americans are out of work for months at a time, creating a surge in long-term unemployment.
For most out-of-work folks, it’s taking about 21 weeks to find a new job, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But for a record-breaking number of Americans, good replacement jobs are scarce, and it’s taking them much longer than that.
Even as the overall unemployment rate drops each month, large sectors of the economy such as hospitality, events, performing arts, and many others haven’t rebounded.
Some time between jobs is to be expected since you’ll want to find a good match. But once you’re unemployed for such a long period of time, it can have a cascading effect.
“In general, the longer somebody is unemployed, the harder it is for them to find new work,” said Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project.
Harder, but not impossible. Experts say no reasonable hiring manager is going to hold coronavirus-related unemployment against you. However, the economic situation might put you into some fierce competition on the job hunt.
We’ll cover exactly what long-term unemployment means and what you can do to recover if you find yourself in that situation.
What Is Long-Term Unemployment, Exactly?
The phrase “long-term unemployment” is often used colloquially to describe any extended period of time that you’re out of a job. But the term has an important technical meaning, too. The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines long-term unemployed people as those who have been jobless for 27 weeks or longer — while actively searching for work within the last four weeks.
The BLS uses this definition to track trends in long-term unemployment, and lately the metric is surging due to the pandemic.
“The number of long-term unemployed workers grew from 1.6 million in August to 2.4 million in September — the largest month-over-month increase ever recorded,” Evermore wrote in an recent report.
October didn’t look much better. The latest employment report shows that number increased by another 1.2 million, bringing the total of long-term unemployed Americans to 3.6 million.
In other words, one third (32.5%) of all unemployed Americans have been out of work for six months or longer.
Effects of Long-Term Unemployment
The consequences of losing a job for any amount of time can be wide-ranging and devastating.
But in some cases, being unemployed for an extended period of time could be to your advantage. According to a recent white paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, longer and more generous unemployment benefits programs help people find better replacement jobs during a recession.
“We find that UI [unemployment insurance] generosity allows workers to search longer and eventually find jobs better suited to their skills,” the report states.
That’s because looking for and finding the right match takes time.
“You don’t necessarily want people taking the first temporary, low-paying, low-hour job that comes along,” Evermore said. “You want them, if they’re unable to find work, to be in training or to be really actively searching for a good replacement.”
It’s all about striking a balance. Take the first job you see, and it probably won’t be a good replacement. Stay out of work too long, and you might exhaust your unemployment benefits and wind up with a big gap in your resume. That, in turn, could lead to discrimination from hiring managers.
It’s common for employers to disregard your job application if you’ve been unemployed for a long time, according to the employee-rights nonprofit Workplace Fairness. However, because pandemic-driven job losses have affected so many workers, that strand of employment discrimination may be diminished in the current climate, says Executive Director Edgar Ndjatou.
“You’ll see some of that leniency,” he said, noting that employers are likely to have a lot of options for candidates — those with resume gaps and those without them.
So it’s up to you to keep your skills fresh while continuing to search for work, no matter how long it’s been.
“You don’t necessarily want people taking the first temporary, low-paying, low-hour job that comes along.”
In the eyes of government economists, if you stop searching for work for four or more weeks, you’ll be considered a “discouraged worker” and thus no longer part of the labor force. Being excluded from the labor force has little personal consequence, but it can artificially lower the unemployment rate.
In October, for example, when the unemployment rate dropped to 6.9%, that figure did not include discouraged workers. The BLS tracks a different unemployment rate through a lesser known method that includes discouraged and underemployed workers. In October, that number was almost double the official unemployment rate, 12.1%.
In addition, when the official unemployment rate drops, states receive less funding for unemployment benefits programs.
Clients line up outside the Mississippi Department of Employment Security WIN Job Center in Pearl, Miss., on Aug. 31, 2020. Rogelio V. Solis / AP Photo
What to Do If You’re Out of Work for a Long Time
After months of applying to jobs with no luck, you may be tempted to internalize your unemployment situation. Remember that there are a lot of economic factors involved here — especially during a recession — that are out of your control.
Here are 5 strategies you can adopt while you’re hunting for jobs.
1. Extend your unemployment benefits. If you meet the BLS definition of long-term unemployed, then chances are your state-level unemployment benefits —if you’re collecting them — have expired or are expiring very soon. Emergency pandemic legislation created a federal 13-week unemployment insurance extension that you likely qualify for. Your state may have an additional extended benefits program available after you exhaust the federal extension.
2. Seek (free) career services. You don’t have to go through it alone. Several organizations provide career coaching or advice for free. Many Goodwill branches provide pro bono career development and coaching services. And if you’re a college alum, your alma mater may have a career-services department available to you. The Department of Labor runs extensive career advice and training programs as well.
3. Experiment a little. While you’re searching for a new job, it’s important to also fill this time with something that will benefit you professionally. Get creative. You could enroll in a course at a local college or online provider; volunteer at a local nonprofit; consider gig work; or take a bridge job or seasonal job.
4. Update your resume. You’ll want to show a potential employer what you were doing while you were unemployed. And if you were laid off due to coronavirus-related reasons, make that clear on your resume so the recruiter knows you weren’t at fault for your job loss. Be sure to include any new certifications, courses or temp gigs too. Even if you Ubered a little bit, career experts recommend putting gig work on your resume. If you’re switching industries, you may want to reorganize your resume entirely to highlight your transferable skills
5. Prepare to talk about your employment gap during interviews. Unemployment discrimination can be pretty overt. You will likely be asked about your time out of work directly and possibly even in an accusatory manner. Have an honest, straightforward response ready and highlight any professional developments or skills you picked up during your employment gap.
Adam Hardy is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. He covers the gig economy, entrepreneurship and unique ways to make money. Read his latest articles here, or say hi on Twitter @hardyjournalism.
Side Hustles Remote Jobs
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‘Having an opinion in this day and age is not a good thing’ – James Haskell
More in FEATURES:
Q&A – Gavin Cattle & Alan Paver : We’ve had top-flight offers but our loyalty is with Dicky 16 January 2021
Young Guns: Harlequins tighthead prop Fin Baxter 16 January 2021
WillGriff John tells Sharks he’s off back to Wales 12 January 2021
“I’m pretty aware people don’t like me,” says James Haskell with the brashness that some people revile him for on the day he launches his autobiography, What a Flanker.
Since being forced into retirement through injury in May 2019, Haskell has continued to put himself through the blender with a Mixed Martial Arts career (currently on hold), a stay in the I’m a Celebrity jungle, and a series of podcasts which dig into rugby past and present, and his personal life.
Now he has written a book, delving into the fiasco of the 2011 Rugby World Cup, taking guns into Pennyhill Park, team socials as a teenager in the great Wasps side of the 2000s, and how Stuart Lancaster worked the longest hours without reward in 2015.
“To be completely honest, I wasn’t sure my career warranted an autobiography when you have people like Eddie Jones and Sir Alex Ferguson talking about all the amazing things they have done – I just didn’t think anyone would be interested,” the 77-cap Haskell told The Rugby Paper.
“I was adamant that I did not want it to be an ordinary autobiography. We decided it would be a laugh, emotional, with short stories to get down to the nitty gritty.
“I didn’t want to do it while I was still playing because it is very difficult to speak up about things. Then I retired and it became something open to me, and I really enjoyed the process.”
As one third of The Good, the Bad and the Rugby podcast alongside Mike Tindall and Alex Payne, Haskell has a platform to speak his mind, although his opinions don’t go down well with everyone.
Living with the feeling of not being universally liked is a by-product of Haskell’s need to express himself, avoiding an insular existence that can come from the pressures of representing a club or the RFU that has led a number of rugby players into battles with mental health.
Asked where the pressure comes from Haskell replies: “It is the media, it is the fans. I think I have always divided opinion – and having an opinion in this day and age is not a good thing. If you stick your head above the parapet you are going to get chewed out.
“I went on Five Live recently and spoke about coronavirus in the UK and the crowds and everything else. In England coronavirus was 24th on the causes of death list for August yet we are treating it as if it is No 1. But you put that opinion out there and people come back saying ‘shut the f*** up you don’t know what you’re talking about’ and ‘stick to rugby you d***head’ – people get arsey about it.
“I’m aware I’m an acquired taste, I’m a bit brash and big, and it is all part and parcel of being a player – I don’t want to be boring.”
Life in rugby at the moment is anything but boring, with the Premiership season reaching its finale and the Autumn Internationals on the horizon.
Haskell believes criticism of the RFU is unfair with chief executive Bill Sweeney having had to make hard decisions such as making over 140 staff redundant in the face of £138m projected losses.
“It is a hard situation the RFU are dealing with,” Haskell says. “I like Bill Sweeney, I have a lot of time for him and think he is doing a good job. He is a good man and has made some cuts that I think have needed to happen for quite a while.
Steering the ship: RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney and chairman Andy Cosslett. David Rogers/Getty Images
“Rugby is an expensive sport to run and the stakes are high across the sport. Most Premiership clubs have been precariously balanced for a long time and that is something that the public take for granted.
“For the grassroots clubs, who is going to help them out? They are all struggling but there just isn’t enough money. We have to find a way of getting people back into grounds. We may lose some clubs next season if we don’t get fans back in – but I just don’t think they are going to be allowed to compete.
“It is wrong to focus on Bill because he is not the government. The government do what they want and at the moment they don’t appear to know their arse from their elbow.
“If the infection rate is going up but the death rate stays the same then the NHS is not under severe pressure. We can’t keep running away from this virus because it is not going away anytime soon. The common cold keeps coming back and 30,000 people die of obesity-related illness every year yet we still sell fast food – why don’t we do anything about that?”
One thing Haskell does feel he knows the answer to is what needs to happen at the top end of the game. “The Premiership has got to be treated as a different entity to everything else,” he says. “We should ring-fence that and re-align things to make a global season.”
The revival of Wasps has helped Haskell to forget about the perilous financial state the sport finds itself in, heralding the work of Lee Blackett and the club’s academy for sparking a play-off push.
“Lee has won the boys over, they are playing with a lot of confidence and seem to all be pulling in the same direction,” Haskell said. “It is a team full of young players keen to get out there and play.
“Wasps had a brilliant academy system going back to my own early days there – Tom Rees, Danny Cipriani, Dom Waldouck all came through. But we went away from that for a while and I don’t think there was the right academy people in charge. Now it has got back to a point where the academy is integrated with plans for the first team.
Prodigy: Wasps flanker/hooker Alfie Barbeary. Alex Pantling/Getty Images
“This (Alfie) Barbeary lad, we had heard about him as a prodigy even when I was there. He looks incredible all around the park and the set piece looks like his bread and butter whether it be at hooker or in the back row.
“He is just one of a number of players coming through and it has been a long time coming because the most notable person to came through the academy prior to these guys was probably Christian Wade.”
Haskell adds: “Academies are so important – you see it with any quality team. Just look back at Michael Cheika and what he did at Leinster. With all the guys that came through the development process there, they were able to build a dynasty.
“You can’t just go and spend big money and expect players to buy into the club. You need to develop people from within and it looks like Wasps are back on track.
“The form of some of their England players together with those around the Premiership should create a real problem for Eddie Jones when it comes to selection.
“I don’t think there will ever be a settled England squad, I don’t think Eddie wants that. Constantly bringing in new competition and keeping them on a cycle of form, you will see a lot of players involved all the way up to the World Cup when Eddie will then lock down on the guys he trusts most.
“I am really excited by the back row. Jack Willis is on fire at the moment for Wasps with double the number of turnovers than anyone else in the league. Sam Simmonds down at Exeter has done a great job and deserves his nomination for European Player of the Year.
“Being settled in comfort breeds failure and that’s not what Eddie wants.”
No.1 Sunday Times best-seller What a Flanker by James Haskell (HarperNonFiction, £20) is available to buy now in hardback or as an audiobook.
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Wrockwardine Wood B.C
Latest News...
Covid 19 Latest : The Greens remain open with additional players now allowed to play at the same time. The Covid-19 Info page has been updated to reflect the new guidelines. The booking system has also been updated so that three 'blocks' can be booked, using the staff option, in the same time slot to enable up to six players per green. Each booking can still only accommodate two players, therefore if you wish to book a larger group this will need to be done separately and select a different block. If you wish to use this facility you must be a member of WWBC and have booked a slot using the 'Book Online' facility.
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Frankoma Pottery acquires Paschal Studios
Frankoma Pottery, one of Oklahoma’s oldest companies, celebrates its 75th anniversary by expanding into the decorative tile business. According to owner, Joe Ragosta, the addition of tiles builds on Frankoma’s long-term presence in Oklahoma kitchens.
Frankoma purchased the assets of Paschal Studios (Tulsa, OK) to quickly build a tile portfolio. Initially, Frankoma will produce the products designed by Paschal, but will also add their own products in the coming months, including products designed to more closely match Frankoma dinnerware. Frankoma tile products now appear on the Frankoma web site (http://www.frankoma.com/) and the Frankoma retail factory store.
Paschal Studios products are distributed by high end decorators and tile stores. These tiles are hand-made in Oklahoma as are other Frankoma products. As with other Frankoma products, Frankoma will offer custom tiles for corporate, non-profit, and private customers. In addition to the tile products, Frankoma has released a number of other new products in honor of its anniversary.
The new products include a series of limited edition anniversary vases. The vases stand 17” tall and were designed by noted Native American Artist, Murv Jacobs. The vases are available in Sky Blue, Black Cherry, New Prairie Green, and Dark Sapphire and are available either unsigned or signed by the artist. The design includes hummingbirds and trumpet flowers on a conical background.
At the same time, Frankoma announces "Traditions" its first new product line in several years based on a return to Frankoma’s rich heritage of using colors based on local nature and variegated coloring such as the colors which made Frankoma famous – Prairie Green and Woodland Moss. The new line of dinnerware and accessories is available in Moss Green, Stormy Gray, and Black Cherry and is available immediately.
Finally, Frankoma announces a variety of Easter and Spring time products including hearts, Easter bunnies, planters, Easter eggs, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day mugs and Frankoma’s first Passover Seder plate.
Frankoma continues to offer a wide range of Made in Oklahoma products for shoppers and visitors from throughout the State. The new owner of Frankoma Pottery, Joe Ragosta, is enthusiastic about Frankoma’s anniversary and new products. He recently remarked, “We’re very proud to be offering a range of new products that will please our loyal friends and new customers alike. After a number of years of getting away from our historical appeal, we wanted to return to where we came from”. With these new products, we’re launching Frankoma on its next 75 years.
John Frank launched Frankoma Pottery in the middle of the Great Depression in 1933 and Frankoma has been an Oklahoma institution since then. It remains one of the last remaining potteries manufacturing 100% of its products in the United States and mines its clay just a few miles from the Sapulpa factory. Its products have been praised by celebrities like Martha Stewart and Paula Deen and are consistently rated as the top in their category on www.cooking.com.
The recently renovated show room facilities and Ray and Sherry Stoll Frankoma museum made their debut as part of Frankoma’s 75th Anniversary celebration, and along with Factory tours have already demonstrated their appeal as visitor attractions and established the Pottery as one of the State’s most popular tourist destinations.
Frankoma’s factory store is open from 9 am to 5 pm Monday through Saturday at the Frankoma factory at 9549 Frankoma Road, Sapulpa, OK, 74066. Frankoma products are also available from retailers across the nation.
This entry was posted in Business on March 2, 2009 by admin.
← Spending spree to continue at the expense of American families The 27th Annual OKC St. Patrick’s Day →
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Remembering 9/11: A Roundup of 2020 TV Specials & Documentaries
Meaghan Darwish September 11, 2020, 9:30 am
9/11 Memorial and Museum/Jin S. Lee
It's been nearly 20 years since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 occurred and shook the nation.
In 2020, some networks are paying their respects to those lost and the heroes that came forward during the tragic events of 9/11. Find out how TV is remembering the historic day through specials, documentaries, and more special programming.
Below, find the lineup for these TV specials:
9/11: The Final Minutes of Flight 93 (8 p.m. ET/PT)
This documentary pieces together a gripping minute-by-minute account of the hijacking of United Flight 93 which crashed in rural Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. Using previously classified streams of evidence including secret service documents, air traffic control transmissions, phone records, voicemails, first person testimony and a top-secret audio recording, the events leading up to United Flight 93's final moments will be clarified. Don't miss this story of heroism in the face of tragedy.
9/11: The Pentagon (9 p.m. ET/PT)
Sixty years to the day that construction for the Pentagon broke ground, it was attacked after a hijacked airliner crashed into the building. The men and women who were on scene that day speak about the what happened within the government building that day, detailing the minutes after impact and sharing stories of tragedy, heroism and survival.
(Credit: 9/11 Memorial and Museum/Jin S. Lee)
9/11 Remembered: The Day We Came Together (8/7c)
This hour-long special which was filmed on May 15, 2014 marks the opening of the 9/11 Memorial Museum by President Barack Obama. The program reflects on the courage, compassion and sacrifices that were born that fateful day. Other highlights from the special include inspiring stories about those who died and survived, their families and the first responders who were on scene.
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Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UKEssays.com.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Building Restoration
13th Jun 2018 Architecture Reference this
Using examples explore the advantages and disadvantages of allowing redevelopment and reconstruction of historic buildings.
For the purposes of this discussion it is primarily important to determine what is meant by historic and to rationalize the terms redevelopment and reconstruction. The terms will be used in the context of preserving and conserving buildings. This includes maintaining their predominant features and characteristics, whilst enhancing new features in keeping with the style and building constraints relating to traditional use of materials and resources. According to English Heritage buildings exist across the UK that span over a thousand years.
They also work with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and local authorities to allocate buildings such as these according to their criteria for listing – or categorizing for the purposes of their historic importance. These are identified using the following criteria:
Those having architectural interest: buildings which are nationally important for the interest of their architectural design, decoration and craftsmanship; also important examples of particular building types and techniques.
Those deemed of historic interest: this includes buildings which illustrate important aspects of the nation’s social, economic, cultural or military history.
A variety of places that have a close historical association with nationally important buildings or events.
Places which have group value, especially where buildings are part of an important architectural or historic group or are a fine example of planning (such as squares, terraces and model villages) [1]
English Heritage define historic in relation to a number of factors. All buildings constructed before 1700 are automatically listed. Similarly this is the case with most properties up to 1840. A number of post 1945 buildings are also included in these terms. A comprehensive breakdown of listed buildings statistics across the UK is illustrated below:
38% are domestic dwellings
15% date from before 1600
nearly 20% date from the 17th century
31% from the 18th century
3% from 1900-1944
0.2% from 1945 or later[2]
Introducing conventional features can have negative consequences on properties such as those defined above. Not only for cosmetic or domestic purposes but also in relation to implementing safety measures into a property. and accessibility by way of lifts and hand rails etc for the benefit of people with disabilities.
There is also a trend for interpreting properties of historical interest into entertainment or ‘edutainment’ orientated experiences which can be argued devalues the historic importance and often encourages historical inaccuracy from the learning perspective. The final consideration to be made in relation to this essay question is the notion of whether old buildings should remain preserved exactly as they are without any enhancement, improvements, additions or restorations. That they should reflect the period they were constructed in and be immortalized as a historical or scientific study.
This paper will seek to exemplify many of these issues relating to the redevelopment and reconstruction of historic buildings which covers a broad argument for discussion.
The English Tourist Board published a paper in 1991 entitled ‘Maintaining the Balance’ which proposed new schemes designed to ensure that historic town environments worked in sync with their communities whilst providing the visitor with a traditional experience. Visitor Management Plans were adopted and Town Centre Managers were recruited as means of taking these initiatives forward. The conservation and preservation of built heritage often involves maintaining tight restrictions and limited planning opportunities which is not conducive to new housing projects or business opportunities which could generate enterprise and economic benefits. Instead many of the UK’s classified historic towns remain stagnant and non progressive.[3] Similarly there are currently plans to renovate and restore the city centre of Amsterdam in keeping with its cultural heritage. The city centre is divided by two groups of residents. One enjoys the aesthetic benefits of living in this area, while the second are simply living centrally for the purposes of work and being close to amenities. This second group is unconcerned with the historical importance of the city and is not prepared to invest in maintaining or developing it as such. Often when areas such as this are under preservation orders high costs are incurred for maintenance and renovation in the style accustomed to the period. This in turn raises the rents of properties which become too high for existing residents to afford, eventually forcing them out of their homes, as is feared in Amsterdam.[4]
When considering the practical aspects of individual houses, when a building is disassembled or exposed for the purposes of renovation or reconstruction, a great many vital elements which are original to its heritage can be lost. This might include clay or lime mortars used in between joist, foundations and chimney linings. Wooden frames held together by pegs can fracture if disengaged and it is crucial that that high levels of carpentry skills and traditional craftsmanship techniques are applied when rebuilding and renovating buildings.[5]
There are an abundance of sites, Museums and stately homes which are testaments to ‘living history’ and function for the benefit of the public across the world today. Colonial Williamsburg and the Historic Charleston Foundation in the United States, Slave Forts in Africa and Weald and Downland Open Air Museum in the UK to name a few. They all encourage the preservation of old buildings. With this redevelopment comes the opportunity of numerous availability of grants and Heritage Lottery funding to help with this process. They enable people to remain aware of what is important historically and that reflects the lives and communities from which we all originate. People managing these processes need the necessary expertise with which to achieve these renovations and reconstructions. Acquiring documentation of age is essential as is being true to the period in which it was built architecturally. Architectural historians in the United States for example have divided buildings into around half a dozen significant periods of half a century each. These phases are then sub-divided into over-lapping periods. Even then not all of these categories are universally recognized.[6] This suggests reason enough for ensuring that each building selected for re-development is accurately assessed and renovated accordingly and appropriately. It is important also to remember that this is not a new phenomenon. In 1877 the painter and writer William Morris wrote a manifesto against the proposed restoration of Tewkesbury Abbey. During this and subsequent periods architects considered restoration to be about changing a building for the purposes of altering it to reflect its key historical importance. For example during the late nineteenth century many Anglo-Saxon churches in the UK were ‘restored’ into Gothic interpretations. This was a reflection of people’s attitudes then surrounding medieval masons, who were deemed uninitiated into religion. Consequently the Gothic form and design purported to purist representations and was in essence closer to God.[7]
It is important then to remember that when renovating buildings they do not become exploited for the benefit of contemporary tastes and trends. It can be argued that many of these ‘living history’ experiences have become just that and are able to be devalued very easily.
Accuracy based on the facts available to the architects is what should remain of paramount importance when reconstructing any historic building.
One of the most exceptional examples of reconstruction to be seen today is with the city of Warsaw in Poland. During the Second World War over 85% of the city centre was destroyed. A huge campaign and total restoration took place over a number of years. The results of which stand today including replica churches, palaces and a market places all sensitively and historically representative of a history which spans some eight hundred years in its reconstruction. [8]
On the other hand reconstruction is never going to be entirely accurate in some instances and it is these examples that encourage debate. Take for example the tourist reconstruction site at Mount Vernon in Washington where the coach house, slave quarters/ greenhouse and ‘stercorary’ have all been restored following fire damage that occurred in the mid nineteenth century. Some of which was based on documents and reminiscence accounts from past generations. Parts of the stercorary were rebuilt in 2001 incorporating the original cobbled stones and brickwork uncovered by archaeologists with research sourcing a drawing from 1807 which provided structural accuracy to be maintained. However when builders came to reconstruct the blacksmiths shop the old plantation ledgers illustrated detailed records pertaining to its location and activities. Whilst other archives provided details relating to the working blacksmiths themselves. Nonetheless contradictions began to appear relating to the shop’s exact location and its appearance during the year 1799. This contention has raged for over fifty years and has raised all the issues regarding physical reconstruction and the amount of evidence that is required in order to support the justification for re-building the property without sufficient authenticity.[9]
Another similar example of this where reconstruction has been curtailed is with the handling of Franklin Court in Philadelphia, the residencies of the former President Benjamin Franklin. During the 1970’s an extensive programme of research both archaeological and archival was carried out on the assumption that the house and grounds would be renovated and fully furnished into an interpretative museum. But the research revealed little evidence of any pictures or drawings of what the house had actually looked like. Consequently no reconstruction took place other than the outbuildings and grounds which had retained more documented evidence. Proving that accuracy is reassuringly not always taken for granted in this type of work.
Future functional requirements of a building are also aspects of development to consider within a historic building, as the law now governs that public buildings need to comply with the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) by ensuring they have accessible routes both internal and external as well as ramps, lifts and toilets where necessary. This legislative requirement has had an impact on the way in which many historic buildings have had to alter their environment, which is of course an enormous and necessary benefit for people with a disability; although it remains one more area of concern where public renovations and redevelopments are taking place.
The most heated debate in terms of redevelopment of historic buildings is of course a matter of architectural and archaeological appreciation. Some sites are considered simply not available to be rebuilt. Sites such as Pompeii for example or the Pyramids of Egypt. They are revered as preserved examples of the past, museums in their own right. They consist of ruins which are fragile and vulnerable. If these ruins become too fragile or it becomes impossible to maintain them then it is understandable that some sort of structure may have to be built around them. This may of course eventually decrease the visual enjoyment of a historical building which is why so many sites of importance are now being re-built. Such historical monuments are now able to be reconstructed far more easily by way of digitization. Several digital projects of this type exist for educational purposes and are becoming more widespread. In addition many historic houses like the Queens House in Greenwich, London provide significant 3D models that demonstrate the different architectural development of the construction and alterations over time. [10]Technology has become so precise and truthful in its interpretations that this may prevail as the preferred method of reconstruction and development in the future.
Many historic buildings get demolished just because they are old, so the modern appreciation for rebuilding and conserving these properties are essential to maintaining the cultural heritage of nations throughout the world. However it is important that the historic environment from which they have descended is fully understood. The right skills, techniques and materials from an archaeological perspective are fundamental to ensuring this process is achieved accurately and sensitively.
Deben, L, Salet, W (2004) Cultural heritage and the future of the historic inner city of Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis
Smith, M.K, Robinson, and S.M (2006) Cultural Tourism in a Changing World: Politics, Participation and (re)presentation: Channel View Publications
Paravalos, P (2006) Moving a House with Preservation in Mind: Rowman Altamira
Nash, G (2003) Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes: Taunton Press
Sickles-Taves, L (1999) The Use of and Need for Preservation Standards in Architectural Conservation: ASTM International
Jameson, J.H (2004) The Reconstructed Past: Reconstructions in the Public Interpretation of Archaeology and History: Rowman Altamira
Fitch, J.M (1990) Historic Preservation: Curatorial Management of the Built World: University of Virginia Press, 1990
Sourced from: http://www.worldheritagesite.org/sites/warsaw.html, Date accessed, 20/11/08
Sourced from: http://www.nmm.ac.uk/visit/scenic-attractions/architecture-and-views/greenwich-architecture-and-views, Date accessed, 20/11/08
[1] Sourced from: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.1373, Date accessed, 19/11/08
[3] Smith,M.K, Robinson,S.M (2006:292) Cultural Tourism in a Changing World: Politics, Participation and (re)presentation: Channel View Publications
[4] Deben,L,Salet,W (2004:247-248) Cultural heritage and the future of the historic inner city of Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis
[5] Paravalos,P (2006: 62-63) Moving a House with Preservation in Mind: Rowman Altamira
[6] Nash,G (2003:21) Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes: Taunton Press
[7] Sickles-Taves,L (1999: 14) The Use of and Need for Preservation Standards in Architectural Conservation: ASTM International
[8] Sourced from: http://www.worldheritagesite.org/sites/warsaw.html, Date accessed, 20/11/08
[9] Jameson,J.H (2004: 80) The Reconstructed Past: Reconstructions in the Public Interpretation of Archaeology and History: Rowman Altamira
[10] Sourced from: http://www.nmm.ac.uk/visit/scenic-attractions/architecture-and-views/greenwich-architecture-and-views, Date accessed, 20/11/08
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{{cite web|last=Answers |first=All |url=https://www.ukessays.com/essays/architecture/advantages-disadvantages-building-6275.php?vref=1 |title=Advantages and Disadvantages of Building Restoration |publisher=UKEssays.com |date=November 2018 |accessdate=17 January 2021 |location=Nottingham, UK}}
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Dissertation Resources at UKDiss.com
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Travel Competitions Australia
... your next win is a click away!
WIN $5,000 CASH, GIFT CARDS, HOLIDAYS
and sign up to competitions.com.au
Win a trip for 2 to the Gold Coast for a SurfStitch.com shopping spree!
Added: 05-May-14
Closes: 21-May-14
Entry is open to all residents of Australia. However, employees and their immediate families of Network TEN, Salmat Digital Pty Limited, and their associated agencies and companies are not eligible to enter.
The competition commences on Friday 2 May 2014 at 11:00 (AEST) and concludes on Monday 19 May at 23:30 (AEST).
The competition will be advertised on but not limited to, www.tenplay.com.au.
To enter, participants must log onto www.tenplay.com.au and register their details including (but not limited to) name, address, phone number, e-mail address.
Entrants under the age of 18 must obtain the prior permission of a parent or guardian over the age of 18 to enter.
A limit of one online entry per email address per day applies. However, only one prize per household is permitted (SA residents are entitled to win more than one prize).
One (1) Major Prize Winner and their guest will win a trip to the Gold Coast, QLD, with
the chance to grab a Surfstitch wardrobe by participating in a warehouse dash at Surfstitch Headquarters, plus the major prize winner will receive a styling session, valued up to a maximum of AUD$8319.90. The prize includes:
Two (2) return economy flights for the Major Prize Winner and one guest from the winner’s nearest capital city to the Gold Coast, QLD valued at a maximum of $2500.00
Return transfers between the airport and the hotel for the Major Prize Winner and their guest, valued at a maximum of $300.00
Three (3) nights’ twin share accommodation for the Major Prize Winner and their guest in a minimum 3 star hotel, valued at a maximum of $900.00
Two (2) day passes to Wet n' Wild, valued at a maximum of $59.95 each
One (1) Surfstitch styling session and apparel for the Major prize winner,
valued at a maximum of $500.00
Surfstitch Warehouse Dash* for the Major Prize winner and their guest to
grab a wardrobe, valued at a maximum of $2000.00 each
*The Surfstitch Warehouse Dash included in the Prize is subject to the Supplier’s own terms and conditions, as outlined in Appendix A
Total Major Prize pool is valued at a maximum of $8,319.90
One hundred (100) Runner Up prize winners will each receive:
One (1) x $50.00 Surfstitch gift card^
^The Prize is subject to the Supplier’s own terms and conditions. SurfStitch gift cards are valid for a period of 6 months only. Any unused value after the expiry date will be forfeited. Gift cards cannot be exchanged for cash.
Total Runner Up prize pool is valued at a maximum of $5,000.00
Total prize pool valued at a maximum of $13,319.90
Travel Competitions
Travel Competitions Australia takes no responsibility for the outcome of any competition, or the reliability of any information provided on this website.
Privacy Policy | Expired Competitions
Cash Competitions | Travel Competitions | Car Competitions | Charity Competitions | Prize Competitions |
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Easton Corbin in Concert
7 Clans First Council Casino
12875 N Hwy 77
Newkirk, OK 74647
Catch country music star Easton Corbin as he makes his way to the 7 Clans First Council Casino in Newkirk. After an afternoon spent exploring the city, come see Corbin perform his top hits, like "A Little More Country Than That," "Roll With It" and "I Can't Love You Back," as well as songs from his new album. Corbin's drawl and twangy guitar playing have made him popular in country music since he arrived on the scene in 2009. See Corbin live in action at this entertaining show in Newkirk.
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Lawsuit Nixes Auction of Valerie Harper's Emmy Awards
The Television Academy argues that the sale would "destroy the exclusivity and value" of the trophies.
By Jordan Hoffman
By Noam Galai/Getty Images
Even in our topsy-turvy world of coronavirus chaos, one thing stands firm: thou shall not sell old Emmy awards on the open market.
The United States District Court serving the Central District of California has issued a temporary restraining order on behalf of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences against Julien’s Auctions. The brokers of pop culture artifacts were planning to put four statuettes awarded to the late Valerie Harper up for bid at their “Hollywood: Legends & Explorers” event. Harper won the Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in Comedy three years in a row for the role of Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, then won the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for the spin-off Rhoda.
Online bidding had already begun, according to The Hollywood Reporter, with numbers reaching as high as $8,000 for each prize. That’s when the TV Academy argued that the sale of Harper’s trophies would cause damage to the integrity of the Emmys, charging that the group's “economic existence depends on the exclusivity and achievement symbolized by possession of an Emmy statuette.”
While you might think that when someone wins something it then becomes their business (or their estate's business) to do with it what they damn well please, technically the Academy merely gives the awards “on loan.” Though winners may keep the lovely paperweights for life, and then pass them on to their heirs, the TV Academy is technically the owner.
“The Television Academy retains title and has a policy that copies of the Statuettes cannot be sold,” attorney Eric Bakewell wrote. “It would be unfathomable that any winner in a high profile acting category (much less an individual who has won multiple awards in a high profile acting category) would be unaware of the policy,” his statement continued.
Emmy Awards from 1978 onward have been issued with physical notices restating this policy. Harper’s awards, however, are from 1975 and earlier, thus leading to some gray areas.
The TV Academy has posted a $15,000 bond to Julien’s, which would be used to cover the auction house’s cost claims for advertising and potential repetitional damages.
Meanwhile Julien’s “Hollywood Legends & Explorers” weekend seems to be going well, with a printed Marilyn Monroe eulogy from Joe DiMaggio netting $24,320.
— Cover Story: Viola Davis on Her Hollywood Triumphs, Her Journey out of Poverty, and Her Regrets About Making The Help
— Ziwe Fumudoh Has Mastered the Art of Putting White People on the Spot
— Netflix’s Unsolved Mysteries: Five Burning Questions Answered About Rey Rivera, Rob Endres, and More
— Watch the Celebrity-Filled Fan-Film Version of The Princess Bride
— Carl Reiner’s Fairy-Tale Ending
— The Secrets of Marianne and Connell’s First Sex Scene in Normal People
— From the Archive: Uncovering the Secret Snaps of Sammy Davis Jr.
The Weeknd, Hailee Steinfeld, and More Stars Who Could Win Emmys as Songwriters
By Katey Rich
See Leslie Jones’s Game of Thrones Cast Candids from the Emmys
By Hilary Weaver
The Emmys Are Still Happening, and Jimmy Kimmel Will Host
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(-) Spencer C Tucker (2)
(-) Anthony S Pitch (1)
(-) Edward J Marolda and Robert J Schneller Jr (1)
(-) Fred Schultz (1)
Shield and Sword
The United States Navy and the Persian Gulf War
By Edward J. Marolda and Robert J. Schneller Jr.
Essential reading as part of the Chief of Naval Operation's Professional Reading Program!
Though not so well known as the land and air campaigns, the campaign at sea in the 1991 Gulf War was vital in subduing Saddam Hussein's invasion forces and driving them out of Kuwait. U.S. Navy surface ships and submarines launched hundreds of cruise missile attacks ...
Andrew Foote
Civil War Admiral on Western Waters
By Spencer C. Tucker
This biography traces the life and career of one of the U.S. Navy’s first admirals, Andrew Hull Foote. As flag officer of the Union’s western naval forces, Foote was a key figure in the February 1862 Union victories at Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee and helped open the Confederate heartland to the Union.
Handbook of 19th Century Naval Warfare
Great technological advances were made in almost every area of maritime military activity between 1793 and 1914. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Napoleonic wars marked the zenith of fighting sail and wooden hulls. By the dawn of the twentieth century, heavily armed iron-hulled warships, powered by oil-fired burners and driven by screw propellers, pointed to the shape ...
History Makers
By Fred Schultz
An anthology of writings by those who participated in historic events, and those who reported on them, profiles undersea explorers and navy veterans, and addresses the importance of naval history to historians and journalists.
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Call centre star Nev Wilshire launches blazing attacks on Assembly and Welsh NHS in Question Time debut
Big Nev avoided David Brentisms under the spotlight but is unlikely to have won fans in Cardiff Bay.
David WilliamsonPolitical Editor
Neville Wilshire regards the NHS in Wales as "appalling" and was disappointed by the experiences of his mother, father and son.
Want to keep up to date on Welsh politics?
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CALL Centre star Nev Wilshire entered a new realm of reality television tonight when he made his debut on Question Time and gave his opinion on subjects ranging from the NHS and more powers for the Assembly to the World Cup, Europe and prisoner exchanges.
Anybody hoping that the Swansea call centre boss would defend the Welsh NHS from criticism fired by Welsh Secretary David Jones would be disappointed.
He said: “I speak from personal experience. The Welsh NHS is appalling.
“My son waited seven hours in A&E in Morriston with a broken arm, no care whatsoever. My mother and father have recently been in Morriston hospital. My mum had a hip operation, got an infection.
“She wanted a nurse to just lift her up - ‘Can you give me a hand up, nurse?’ She wanted to sit up. ‘No, I haven’t been trained.’ It’s pathetic.”
He gave a withering analysis of World Cup politics as speculation swirls about the future of Qatar’s plans to host the football competition.
“The playing in 50 degrees heat was never on, was it?” he said. “But it’s no surprise, is it, that Qatar get the World Cup and we find it was corrupt... I would forward the suggestion that the Russian World Cup will have gone the same way.”
Supporters of tax powers for the Assembly are unlikely to recruit Mr Wilshire as an ally.
He said: “I’d be absolutely concerned about the Welsh Assembly having tax-raising powers. Maybe it’s a lack of confidence, maybe it’s the people who are running it, I don’t believe that we have first-rate politicians running the Welsh Assembly.
“If I was running for politics I’d want to be in Whitehall, not the Welsh Assembly and I think most of the better MPs would be there. We now have four levels of Government...
“Now we’ve got the Welsh Assembly and we’ve got Europe and it’s no coincidence our levels of taxation have gone up and up and up. It is more waste - thank you for that.”
On Britain’s future in the EU, he was impatient for a referendum.
He said: “I can remember when Tony Blair and John Major were vying for the election and the Referendum Party, which was gathering an awful lot of votes, was put to bed because they both agreed that whoever got in was going to have a referendum.
“Was that 18 years ago? Where is it?
“Let’s have a referendum. Let’s get on with it.”
The people of Scotland will get to vote on independence in the September referendum. Mr Wilshire expects them to wave goodbye to the UK.
He said: “It does concern me Scotland do look like they are heading for independence. I think the Commonwealth Games being held in Scotland, the Ryder Cup, the 200th anniversary of Bannockburn - they’ll play Braveheart on the television the night before the vote - and I think it’s doomed.”
And when asked his what he thought about the deal to free a US soldier in exchange for five Taliban militants, he said: “I agree that if it was my son I would want him home under any circumstances. As a businessman, five to one is not a very good deal.”
The final question concerned cold-calling. He said he was shocked to learn how much tele-canvassing politicians did when certain figures were out to “nobble” his industry.
He survived his debut, establishing himself as a devo-sceptic with a populist touch, and even managed to get a plug for his sector.
Will he be back? Big Nev is unlikely to say never again.
Wales football team
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Jazz Carlin
Welsh swimming golden girls Jazz Carlin and Georgia Davies triumph in Barcelona
Britain’s best swimmers signed off from the Mare Nostrum in Barcelona with 13 medals and two championships records
Welsh golden girls Jazz Carlin and Georgia Davies helped Britain’s best swimmers sign off from the Mare Nostrum in Barcelona with 13 medals two Championships records.
Carlin added gold in the 400m Freestyle to her 1500m Freestyle title from day one as she continued her strong run of form through the Mare Nostrum Series.
The Swansea University swimmer touched in 4:04.03 to take the Championship record and equal her Welsh record.
Davies (British Gas NTC Loughborough) stormed to gold in the 50m Backstroke with an impressive 27.94 to add to her silver in 100m Backstroke from the first day. Lizzie Simmonds (British Gas NTC Bath) finished in 8th place with a time of 29.14.
Hannah Miley (Garioch) finished fourth in 4:10.75 and Rebecca Turner (City of Sheffield) took seventh place in 4:21.50.
Siobhan-Marie O’Connor also swam to a Championship record as she won gold in the 200m Individual Medley.
O’Connor (British Gas NTC Bath) led throughout the final and swam close to the British record as she touched in 2:09.63. Japan’s Kanako Watanabe won silver in 2:12.42.
Brit Aimee Willmott (Middlesbrough) won the bronze in 2:12.43 with Miley finishing in 2:13.60 for fifth place. Sophie Allen (British Gas NTC Bath) took seventh place in a time of 2:15.52.
After breaking the 100m Breaststroke British record yesterday, Adam Peaty impressed again with silver in the 50m Breaststroke.
The City of Derby swimmer took on Russia’s Andrei Nikolaev but was beaten to the gold by a new Championship record.
The Brit, who lowered the British 50m Breaststroke record to 27.19 in Canet, took his silver in 27.57 with Mark Tully (East Lothian) taking fifth in 28.17 and Ross Murdoch (University of Stirling) finished in seventh place in 28.19.
Georgia Davies
Sprint specialist Francesca Halsall backed up her gold on the first day of competition with silver in the 100m Freestyle.
British Gas NTC Loughborough’s Halsall turned in seventh place and swam an impressive final 50m to take the silver medal. She touched in 54.34. Amy Smith took fifth place in 55.23 and Jessica Lloyd finished 8th in 56.04.
Olympic silver medallist Michael Jamieson (British Gas NTC Bath) continued his medal winning form in the 200m Breaststroke with silver in a time of 2:10.47. Peaty and Murdoch swam home in 2:12.72 and 2:12.89 for sixth and seventh place respectively.
Millfield’s James Guy added to his medal tally with silver when he touched in 1:48.22 in the 200m Freestyle showing his impressive form in the Freestyle events this year. Robbie Renwick (City of Glasgow) touched in 1:49.15 to just miss the medals in fourth place.
Simmonds, who finished fourth in the Olympic final, won silver in the 200m Backstroke with a time of 2:09.30. Jessica Fullalove (Manchester Aquatics) finished in eighth place in a time of 2:15.95.
In the 200m Butterfly, Willmott added a second bronze to her tally after touching just ahead of team-mate Jemma Lowe (British Gas NTC Bath) in a time of 2:09.88.
Lowe finished in 2:09.97 with Alys Thomas (Swansea Performance) taking fifth place in 2:11.51. Elena Sheridan (British Gas NTC Loughborough) finished in seventh place in 2:12.41.
Roberto Pavoni (British Gas NTC Loughborough) took the bronze in the 400m Individual Medley with a time of 4:18.44 while Tom Haffield (City of Cardiff) finished in fourth place in 4:21.03. Max Litchfield (City of Sheffield) secured fifth place after touching in 4:21.19.
The 100m Backstroke saw Chris Walker-Hebborn (British Gas NTC Bath) finish in third place for his second bronze of the Barcelona leg. He touched in 54.53.
Perth’s Stephen Milne impressed in the 1500m Freestyle with a bronze after finishing in a time of 15:15.82.
Molly Renshaw (British Gas NTC Loughborough) finished in fourth place in the 100m Breaststroke with a time of 1:09.10 and Sophie Allen (British Gas NTC Bath) finished just behind in 1:09.54 for fifth.
Ben Proud (Plymouth Leander) took fourth place in the 50m Freestyle in a time of 22.29. Adam Barrett (British Gas NTC Loughborough) took seventh place in the 100m Butterfly in 53.77.
The 50m Butterfly saw Lowe and Rachael Kelly take sixth and seventh place respectively. Lowe touched in 26.95 while Kelly finished in 27.09.
Jemma Lowe
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Merthyr RFC
Merthyr RFC revolution underway as the Ironmen capture Ebbw Vale scrum-half Rhys Downes on three-year deal
Multi-millionaire Sir Stan Thomas has revealed ambitious plans to transform the sleeping giant of Merthyr into a major force in Welsh club rugby
Rhys Downes
The Merthyr rugby revolution is starting to take shape after Ebbw Vale announced scrum-half Rhys Downes will step down a league and join the Ironmen on a ‘lucrative’ three-year contract.
Multi-millionaire Sir Stan Thomas has revealed ambitious plans to transform the sleeping giant of Merthyr into a major force in Welsh club rugby.
Thomas - the brother of Cardiff Blues chairman Peter - is ready to help finance a £1.25m ground redevelopment plan that would see the construction of a new stand, floodlights, changing room and the installation of an artificial pitch.
Club patron Thomas wants to put something back into his home town and provide a facility for the whole community, turning it into the fittest town in Wales.
His plan is for the Ironmen to win the Championship next season and then have the ground redevelopment in place for the 2016-17 campaign, enabling them to take up a place in the semi-pro Premiership.
He has also undertaken a player recruitment drive, which has seen him target a number of Welsh internationals, as he sets his sights on securing Premiership status for the Championship side. And Ebbw Vale have revealed Downes will become part of that process.
MORE: Merthyr RFC and Cardiff Blues the winners in Stan Thomas' grand plan... and Pontypridd RFC can have no complaints
The Ebbw Vale statement read: The recent news of major investment in facilities and players at the Ironmen has brought the unwelcome news of Rhys Downes accepting a substantial three year contract to be part of the latest revolution in Merthyr Tydfil.
Rhys, who is due to start a three-year University course in September, has conducted himself in an open and honest manner and goes with the blessing of the club who fully realise that this contract will allow him to complete his university studies without financial pressure.
Club chairman Jon Jones added: “Rhys has been a pleasure to deal with in his season at the club and has been a hugely impressive performer in the number nine position. He will always be welcome at Eugene Cross Park and we wish him every success on the field and in his academic studies.”
Downes, 25, is a former Bedwas, Cardiff, Newport and Pontypridd scrum-half who also played one regional match for the Newport Gwent Dragons in the 2012/13 season.
Thomas also wants to see Merthyr become a third Premiership feeder club for Cardiff Blues and a valleys alternative to Pontypridd RFC, who he feels have been unfairly critical of the Blues.
Pontypridd refused to be drawn into a war of words earlier this week although club press officer Guto Davies has today responded in a media blog on the official club’s website.
Pictures: Rising stars of the Principality Premiership
He wrote: “After the final whistle blew and Ponty were again crowned as league champions, the rugby season ended and it seems that the silly season got underway.
“We have found ourselves as a club embroiled in an escalating row over representation in next season’s British & Irish Cup and the role of the Premiership in the structure of our national game.
“Pontypridd RFC has acted with dignity and showing respect to all others in its discussions with various parties in attempting to resolve these issues. We have refused to be drawn into a public slanging match despite being vilified by some sections of the press last week.
“We know our place, and know our standing in Welsh rugby.
“We are not bankrolled by millionaires but we have thousands who stand on our terraces and we are proud to represent our community. The club has played its part in nurturing generations of rugby players to the highest level, offering them a good environment to develop and prosper.
“In the recent Premiership Awards Dinner, WRU chief executive Roger Lewis praised Pontypridd RFC for its achievements and for what it stands. “Others do not always see it that way.
“Whatever the outcome of the current debate about our role, and the role of other clubs in the structure of Welsh rugby, Pontypridd RFC has a self belief and an understanding of right from wrong.
“Come what may we will be back playing rugby next season, well supported, to the highest standard allowed by the power brokers of the game.”
Welsh Rugby Union
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National programming for Besh ending after sexual misconduct allegations
Updated: 11:00 AM CDT Oct 25, 2017
Celebrity chef John Besh’s cooking shows have been pulled across nationwide programming.American Public Television, which syndicates programs, withdrew from national distribution two cooking shows "in view of... serious allegations of sexual improprieties," said Jamie Haines, a company spokeswoman. The changes were effective as of Tuesday, she said.The company runs Create TV, which features “do-it-yourself” programs, and createtv.com web pages for Besh currently don’t list details.PBS did not immediately respond to comment. But pages for Besh on the network’s website are listed as “Page Not Found.”Besh is departing the restaurant group he founded, Besh Restaurant Group, amid allegations of sexual misconduct.A newspaper reported that 25 women who are current or former employees of the business said they were victims of sexual harassment by male co-workers and bosses.The allegations were published Saturday by NOLA.com and The Times Picayune after an eight-month investigation. Women interviewed said male bosses in the Besh Restaurant Group touched or verbally harassed them and, in a few cases, tried to leverage positions of authority for sex.Besh acknowledged a sexual relationship with an employee, saying in a written statement to NOLA.com and The Times-Picayune that it was consensual, despite the woman's assertions in a complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that she felt pressured.Nine women interviewed for the NOLA.com story agreed to the use of their names, including Madie Robison.A Besh Group spokesman said none of the thousands of current or former employees has ever filed an internal complaint alleging sexual harassment in the company's 12 years of existence. Besh and Mantilla said during an Oct. 16 interview that in the past the company had lacked a human resources department to process such claims. The company has one now - its first ever director of human resources took the job Oct. 11, the spokesman told NOLA.com.In his separate, written statement to NOLA.com, Besh said he was working to "rebuild my marriage" and publicly apologized to employees "who found my behavior as unacceptable as I do.""I alone am entirely responsible for my moral failings," he added. "This is not the way the head of a company like ours should have acted, let alone a husband and father."Raymond Landry, an attorney for the restaurant group, gave the news outlet a written statement as well, not mentioning specific allegations, but saying the company is implementing a better procedure for receiving and dealing with complaints."While we've had a complaint procedure in place that complies with all existing laws, we now recognize that, as a practical matter, we needed to do more than what the law requires and we have revamped our training, education and procedures accordingly," Landry's statement said.The Associated Press contributed.
Celebrity chef John Besh’s cooking shows have been pulled across nationwide programming.
American Public Television, which syndicates programs, withdrew from national distribution two cooking shows "in view of... serious allegations of sexual improprieties," said Jamie Haines, a company spokeswoman. The changes were effective as of Tuesday, she said.
Chef John Besh to step down from his restaurant group amid sexual harassment allegations
The company runs Create TV, which features “do-it-yourself” programs, and createtv.com web pages for Besh currently don’t list details.
PBS did not immediately respond to comment. But pages for Besh on the network’s website are listed as “Page Not Found.”
Besh is departing the restaurant group he founded, Besh Restaurant Group, amid allegations of sexual misconduct.
A newspaper reported that 25 women who are current or former employees of the business said they were victims of sexual harassment by male co-workers and bosses.
The allegations were published Saturday by NOLA.com and The Times Picayune after an eight-month investigation. Women interviewed said male bosses in the Besh Restaurant Group touched or verbally harassed them and, in a few cases, tried to leverage positions of authority for sex.
Besh acknowledged a sexual relationship with an employee, saying in a written statement to NOLA.com and The Times-Picayune that it was consensual, despite the woman's assertions in a complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that she felt pressured.
Nine women interviewed for the NOLA.com story agreed to the use of their names, including Madie Robison.
A Besh Group spokesman said none of the thousands of current or former employees has ever filed an internal complaint alleging sexual harassment in the company's 12 years of existence. Besh and Mantilla said during an Oct. 16 interview that in the past the company had lacked a human resources department to process such claims. The company has one now - its first ever director of human resources took the job Oct. 11, the spokesman told NOLA.com.
In his separate, written statement to NOLA.com, Besh said he was working to "rebuild my marriage" and publicly apologized to employees "who found my behavior as unacceptable as I do."
"I alone am entirely responsible for my moral failings," he added. "This is not the way the head of a company like ours should have acted, let alone a husband and father."
Raymond Landry, an attorney for the restaurant group, gave the news outlet a written statement as well, not mentioning specific allegations, but saying the company is implementing a better procedure for receiving and dealing with complaints.
"While we've had a complaint procedure in place that complies with all existing laws, we now recognize that, as a practical matter, we needed to do more than what the law requires and we have revamped our training, education and procedures accordingly," Landry's statement said.
The Associated Press contributed.
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Frontline Communities Weigh in on Clean Power Plan, Hopeful it Moves Forward
Contact: Brooke Havlik, 212-961-1000 ext. 320, brooke@weact.org
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard arguments to determine if the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the legal authority to implement its Clean Power Plan (CPP), which calls for a 32 percent emissions reduction from 2005 levels, nationwide by 2030. Today, environmental justice advocates attended a panel discussion at Georgetown Law School entitled, “Get an Insider’s View Following Oral Arguments in the Clean Power Plan Case.” The event provided an opportunity to hear from attorneys who argued on both sides of the case.
Since the rule was proposed in 2014, WE ACT for Environmental Justice and its frontline allies from the Environmental Justice Leadership Forum on Climate Change (EJLF) have called on the EPA to require that the state implementation of the plan moves the United States toward a clean energy future for all, especially as carbon emissions disproportionately impact communities of color and low income communities nationwide. For example:
68% of African Americans live within thirty miles of a coal plant;
80% of Latinos live in environments that do not meet U.S. EPA air quality standards;
Black children are 4.4x more likely to be hospitalized due to asthma attacks than their white peers; and
Latino kids are 60% more likely to be hospitalized for asthma than their white peers.
The current plan allows flexibility with customized implementation plans for each state in order to protect public health and stop climate change on community residents’ terms. “WE ACT advocates for state plans that prioritize community benefits, such as green jobs, among populations that are most burdened by pollution and poverty associated with the energy sector, ” says Dr. Adrienne Hollis, Director of Federal Policy at WE ACT.
Reverend Leo Woodberry of Kingdom Living Temple in South Carolina and ELJF member stated that, “Opposition to the Clean Power Plan is about fossil fuel companies maintaining a vertically integrated, ‘natural monopoly’ that ensures their dominance and profitability in the least competitive environment. The continued advances in energy efficiency, improved building construction, decreasing solar costs and a national and global consensus to reduce carbon emissions reflect the will of the people. It is our prayer that the Court holds firm to its mandate to protect our rights, not place profits over people.”
“The DC Circuit argument made it obvious that EPA has the legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants” said Shana Lazerow, staff attorney at Communities for a Better Environment, an organizational member of the EJLF. “During the argument, however, EPA was not able to point to any authority to set up a pollution trading scheme for GHGs, which would deprive communities of the pollution reductions they need most. The Clean Air Act set up trading schemes for other pollutants, but not for GHGs. EPA cannot create that authority for itself. Our communities support the Clean Power Plan, but not pollution trading.” Lazerow added that, “In addition to dooming our planet, these plants are polluting low income communities and communities of color.”
Dr. Hollis added, “As it appears the CPP is here to stay, we are focused on ensuring that representatives from communities most adversely affected by climate change are included in a state’s implementation plan. This way the needs of those most impacted by climate change will be heard.”
Dana Beasley Brown of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth expanded the conversation outside the CPP adding, “Across Kentucky people are pulling together to build a just, clean energy economy and a healthier future for our children. Our political leaders have failed to step up to their moral responsibility. So it’s up to us. We are excited to share our ideas this weekend at the Empower Kentucky Summit, one of largest and most diverse gatherings ever in our state focused on shaping a bright energy future – for all of us.”
Looking forward, WE ACT and EJ Forum allies will continue to work with local and state governments and state agencies to develop strong, equitable, and just implementation plans.
In Categories: Press Release
In Issues: Clean Air Climate Justice
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50 Cent Defends George W. Bush Against Kanye West
by Tom Breihan
“Now if you don’t sell five mil, they’ve had enough of him / Let me find out hip-hop’s turning Republican.”
-Joe Budden, “Dumb Out”
Budden’s line comes in the context of “Dumb Out,” a staggering seven-minute mixtape rant. Budden is pissed that no one seems to know what label he’s even on, that no plans seem to be in place to put out any of his music, that his career is maybe over after his first album sold badly. He’s bitter that a guy who showed great promise but didn’t sell too many albums the first time out wouldn’t get a second chance, as he should be. But Budden’s line takes on a larger significance with this morning’s news that 50 Cent has defended George W. Bush against Kanye West’s criticism, telling Contactmusic.com, “The New Orleans disaster was meant to happen. It was an act of God … What Kanye West was saying, I don’t know where that came from.”
50 Cent is a smart guy, and he knows exactly why Kanye said what he said. He almost certainly knows that money was diverted from the construction of levees in New Orleans, that the toady Bush installed to run FEMA proved to be woefully incompetent. So why is 50 defending Bush against another rapper? Is he turning Republican?
Now that rap is big business, now that Jay-Z can buy shares of basketball and soccer teams and appear on the cover of Fortune, now that successful rappers are basically expected to become business moguls, doesn’t it make sense that rappers would take on corporate politics as they enter the corporate world? If 50 Cent loves his money as much as Kenneth Lay does, doesn’t it make sense that he’d hate paying taxes just as much? 50 may have been poor, but is that any indication that he wouldn’t become Republican after getting rich? He wouldn’t be the first to do so.
Or is it a publicity stunt? Eazy E once attended a Republican fundraiser luncheon, explaining that the $2500 he spent on the luncheon bought him a million dollars’ worth of publicity, that he didn’t even vote. With 50’s movie about to open and his video game about to hit stores, he’s in the midst of a huge publicity push? Why wouldn’t he say something to get the exurban white public on his side? If it makes him money, why should he give a fuck?
But the real reason for 50’s defense of Bush probably has more to do with the epic, unspoken beef that has dominated East Coast rap for at least a year, 50’s boardroom feud with Jay-Z. It’s no coincidence that 50 has signed Mobb Deep and M.O.P. and Mase, all guys that Jay has had problems with at one point or another. And Jay’s guest list at last week’s “I Declare War” show included plenty of guys who don’t like 50: Nas, D-Block. Jay had announced, of course, that he was going to be going after someone, and the whole night seemed to be gearing up for an attack on 50; it’s not hard to believe that a last-minute phone call might’ve been all that kept their mutual animosity from coming out into the open. Jay seemed to be massing his army (Nas, Kanye, Diddy, Beanie Sigel), drawing a line between his people and 50’s. And even if nobody mentioned 50 Cent by name, it wasn’t hard to figure out who Nas was talking about when he said “a lot of niggas is making money and still fucking mad at the world.” 50 has even taken shots at Kanye before, claiming that people were looking for something “nonconfrontational” after his success and releasing Tony Yayo’s bullshit album on the same day. But 50 doesn’t seem to care much about Bush or Kanye. He cares about taking another shot at Jay.
The feud began years ago, when 50 was going at everyone on mixtapes and Jay fired back. It began again in 2003 when both rappers did a coheadlining tour and 50 took shots at Jay from the stage. But there’s a philosophical difference at work as well. Jay-Z is certainly flashy, but he takes rap very seriously. His own work is full of loaded details and intricate phrases and deft little allusions. 50 is a strong rapper, but subtlety isn’t his thing; “Candy Shop” might be the dumbest song to hit #1 this decade, which is saying something. Jay works with people outside his camp, superstar producers like Timbaland and the Neptunes and legendary veteran rappers like Scarface and Bun B and indie-backpack types like Talib Kweli. He seems to enjoy pushing himself outside of his comfort zone. Other than Dr. Dre, 50 doesn’t generally work with star producers; he prefers journeymen like Hi-Tek and Denaun Porter. And he rarely collaborates with people who aren’t close to him; the Get Rich or Die Tryin’ soundtrack album doesn’t include a single verse by anyone unaffiliated with G-Unit. His world is more insular, less cosmopolitan than Jay’s. And unlike Jay, he seems to see rap as a means to an end. He said earlier this week that he’d be willing to work with Jadakiss despite openly beefing with him earlier this year. If it’ll make him more money, he’ll put aside a beef that never seemed to mean much to him anyway. After that, it’s not a big leap to defend George W. Bush. Everything is business, nothing is personal, and the more I think about it, 50 Cent is George W. Bush to Jay-Z’s Bill Clinton. Hip-hop’s turning Republican.
This article from the Village Voice Archive was posted on November 3, 2005
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Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund celebrates �50 million milestone
The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF) has invested more than �50 million across the Northern Powerhouse region, supporting in excess of 260 small and medium growing companies, according to latest figures.
The significant achievement was announced by Ken Cooper, Managing Director, Venture Solutions at the British Business Bank as he spoke to investee businesses, key stakeholders, partners and fund managers at NPIF�s one-year anniversary event in Leeds (Tuesday 9 March).
The �400 million Fund, which is supported by the European Regional Development Fund, HM Government and the European Investment Bank, was launched by the British Business Bank as a key part of the government�s �Northern Powerhouse� vision, which aims to create economic prosperity in the North of England. Roger Marsh OBE, Chair of the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and member of the Combined Authority, is Chair of the NPIF Strategic Oversight Board.
To date, NPIF investment - provided through appointed fund managers - has already supported Northern-based SMEs across a range of sectors. The funding has been used to launch new products, employ new staff, enter new markets and launch new facilities.
Recent deals include:
Leeds-based photography company Powerhouse, whose clients include major supermarkets and food producers, received a �250,000 investment from NPIF � Mercia Debt Finance. This has enabled the company to purchase and fit out new premises which they will be moving into imminently.
A �250,000 investment from NPIF � Maven Equity Finance into Preston-based eOrigen, a digital media production company producing award winning training and educational content. The investment, facilitated by Maven Capital Partners, will support the firm�s aim to be at the forefront of digital learning by assisting with research and development of emerging technologies and learning innovations.
A �125,000 investment made by NPIF - FW Capital Debt Finance is helping Darlington-based craft supplier and manufacturer Debbi Moore Designs Ltd on its industry-leading position to break into the lucrative US market and create four jobs in Tees Valley.
Cheshire-based CSols Labs Ltd, which develops software for the international laboratory instrument industry, received a �50,000 loan from NPIF � BFS & MSIF Microfinance. The finance, delivered by MSIF, will provide the business with the working capital needed to develop two innovative software products set to disrupt the analytical laboratory market.
A �25,000 loan from NPIF � BEF & FFE Microfinance to Derbyshire food specialist Original Recipes in order to fulfil its growing order book for its range of mouth watering p�t�s and terrines.
Speaking at NPIF�s one-year anniversary event, Ken Cooper, Managing Director at British Business Bank, said: �NPIF investments have impacted all corners of the Northern Powerhouse area, unlocking finance for businesses across the North West, Yorkshire and the Humber and the Tees Valley. With deals ranging from a design, engineering and project management business in Grimsby to a cheese maker in Cumbria and advanced manufacturing businesses in Hull and Liverpool.
�The success of NPIF has played a key role in our regional agenda of tackling historic regional disparities in funding, not just here in the Northern Powerhouse region but we have been able to build on the successful model used here to develop funds in the Midlands, through the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF) which we launched in February, and we will soon be launching a fund for Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Fund.�
Roger Marsh, OBE, Chair of the NPIF Strategic Oversight Board and Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP) said: �It�s really great news that the NPIF has invested over �50 million so far, supporting growing businesses and boosting the economy as a result. As NPIF celebrates its first anniversary this week I am delighted that we have hit this investment milestone and that businesses across the region and North are benefiting.�
The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund provides micro-loans, debt and equity investments, ranging from �25,000 to �2 million to help a range of small and medium sized businesses to start up, scale up or stay ahead. The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund is delivered by The British Business Bank.
The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund project is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and the European Investment Bank.
Find out more about the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund.
The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund
will invest in Microfinance, Business Loans and Equity Finance sub-funds which will offer financing ranging from �25,000 to �2m, specifically to help small and medium sized businesses secure the funding they need for growth and development;
is operated by British Business Financial Services Limited, wholly owned by British Business Bank, the UK�s national economic development bank. Established in November 2014, its mission is to make finance markets for smaller businesses work more effectively, enabling those businesses to prosper, grow and build UK economic activity;
is supported by the European Regional Development Fund, the European Investment Bank, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and British Business Finance Limited, a British Business Bank group company;
covers the following LEP areas: Tees Valley Combined Authority, Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Warrington, Cumbria, Liverpool City Region, Lancashire, Humber, Leeds City Region, Sheffield City Region, York, North Yorkshire and East Riding.
The funds in which Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund invests are open to businesses with material operations, or planning to open material operations, in, Yorkshire and the Humber, the North West and Tees Valley. The British Business Bank has published the Business Finance Guide (in partnership with the ICAEW, and a further 21 business and finance organisations). The guide, which impartially sets out the range finance options available to businesses and provides links to support available at a regional level, is available online.
European Structural and Investment Funds
The project is receiving up to �140,359,192 of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The�Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is the Managing Authority for European Regional Development Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regeneration.
Find out more about the European Structural and Investment Funds programme.�
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Yu, J. et al.
Importance of FSH-releasing protein and inhibin in erythrodifferentiation.
Inhibin is a hypophysiotropic hormone which selectively suppresses the secretion of pituitary follicle-stimulating hormone. It has been isolated from gonadal fluids and characterized as a protein heterodimer consisting of an alpha subunit and one of two beta subunits (beta A or beta B). FSH-releasing protein ( FRP), also named activin, is a dimer consisting of two inhibin beta-chains. A factor from conditioned medium of a leukaemia cell line has been isolated which can induce mouse Friend cells to become benzidine-positive, and which shares a similar N-terminal sequence with porcine FRP. In this report, we find that FRP and inhibin modulate both the induction of haemoglobin accumulation in a human erythroleukaemic cell line, K562, and the proliferation of erythroid progenitor cells in human bone marrow culture. These two proteins could constitute a novel humoral regulatory control of erythropoiesis which would involve two types of related protein dimers with functionally opposite effects.[1]
Importance of FSH-releasing protein and inhibin in erythrodifferentiation. Yu, J., Shao, L.E., Lemas, V., Yu, A.L., Vaughan, J., Rivier, J., Vale, W. Nature (1987) [Pubmed]
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Category Archives: “The New Twilight Zone”
The Dead: In the Twilight Zone
For those keeping count, today’s piece is (gulp) the 666th posted since Zero to 180 began December 12, 2012. What better way to face down this (meaningless) milestone by paying tribute to a classic television series – and also a musical ensemble – that bravely broke the bounds of conformist thought, intrepid travelers who dared to confront “the fifth dimension.” No, the band in question is not The 5th Dimension (although, good guess) but in actual fact The Grateful Dead, who (not everyone seems to be aware) recorded the theme music to the revitalized TV series in 1985:
Opening & Closing Theme – “Twilight Zone” The Grateful Dead 1985
As Blair Jackson would note in Garcia: An American Life — “The band and [Merl] Saunders worked out a new main theme, which was a short dissonant burst of ‘space‘ ending in a variation of the original Twilight Zone theme by Marius Constant.”
Merl Saunders (courtesy DISCOGS)
Dennis McNally would document some of the historical particulars of the Twilight Zone experience in 2002’s A Long Strange Trip:
“Few shows could possibly have been more appealing to the Dead and Garcia, who remarked, ‘Man, I live in the Twilight Zone.’ They leaped at the chance to record their own version of the signature three-note motif that identified the show. They didn’t stop there. [Producer Rick] DeGuere and his music director, Merl Saunders, came to a board meeting to discuss the band’s doing all of the music for the show, the ‘stings’ and ‘bumpers’ that set the atmospheric soundscape. Garcia left the meeting early, announcing that he voted yes. Lesh was ‘adamantly opposed,’ recalled DeGuere, and the decision was made to proceed without him.
They set to work, and while their music was appropriate and effective, the deal’s business aspects were badly handled, dooming the project to continuous friction among all parties involved. [Grateful Dead legal counsel] Hal Kant had delegated the negotiation of the arrangement with CBS to an associate, who didn’t know the Dead very well and produced a fairly standard contract. The head of the music department at CBS [Robert Drasnin, presumably] didn’t like the deal, since he now had no control, which put Merl in the middle of both an unhappy CBS and the Dead. Very quickly, Mickey Hart took the lead for the Dead in the studio, and proved to have a gift for sound design. Just as they began, he went into the hospital for back surgery, and ordered that all the necessary equipment be set up in his room. At first [road manager] Ram Rod vetoed this seeming insanity, but Mickey pleaded, ‘When I wake up, I want to go to work.’ The Demerol he’d gotten for his surgery proved to be aesthetically stimulating, and he produced music for the first four episodes from bed.”
The loss of Phil Lesh, the band member most closely linked to the musical avant-garde, is a notable one.
Composer, Robert Drasnin, as Variety noted in its obituary posted on May 15, 2105, would have a central role to play:
“While head of CBS’ music department in the 1980s, he worked with the Grateful Dead on music for the revived Twilight Zone series, along with scoring several episodes himself.”
Robert Hunter would later recall in his online journal entry for February 4, 2005:
“I’m still grateful that a steady salary for the two seasons The Zone ran
helped make the house payments and put food on the table for our family
of five back when the GD was staggering financially and I was set
running around the country doing low paying solo gigs to support us.
‘Touch of Grey’ was soon to solve that problem.”
Is it merely a coincidence that, just last month, a 1985 Twilight Zone contract between CBS Entertainment and The Grateful Dead — signed by all members of the band — would sell on Ebay for $29,470.70? It is curious the extent to which The Twilight Zone ‘reboot’ is under-remembered, given the caliber of talent that went into not only the music but the writing and acting, as well — as pointed out in arts blog Delusions of Grandeur:
“Writers such as Harlan Ellison, George R. R. Martin, Rockne S. O’Bannon, Jeremy Bertrand Finch, and Paul Chitlik wrote screenplays for the show. It was directed by many different talents including Wes Craven and William Friedkin. Many different mainstream stars made their appearance in the series including Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Season Hubley, Morgan Freeman, Martin Landau, Jonathan Frakes, and Fred Savage. The theme music was composed by Jerry Garcia and performed by The Grateful Dead.”
How funny to see the inclusion of a Grateful Dead track – “The New Twilight Zone” – on TV theme compilation Television’s Greatest Hits, Volume 6 from 1996.
Hooterollin Around music blog (an “appendix to Lost Live Dead“) writes a fascinating piece that draws many musical connections between Jerry Garcia and stalwart session guitarist, Howard Roberts, a musician who is best remembered for having played the original haunting Twilight Zone guitar riff.
Zero to 180 cannot close this piece without reminding everyone of that uncanny musical ‘Twilight Zone’ moment: last July’s discovery of Germany’s The Dead-Heads, who released their debut single in 1966 — just one year after the The Grateful Dead’s official formation!
Zero to 180’s Gallery of Grateful Dead 45 Picture Sleeves
Given the band’s famous disregard towards commerce, I thought it would be great ironic fun to pull together all of The Grateful Dead’s 7-inch picture sleeves from around the world. Interesting to see domestic marketing efforts lag behind Warner Brothers’ international arm overseas, as the Dead would not see comparable investments on single releases, curiously enough, until the band’s tenure with Clive Davis’s Arista label, especially after the unexpected success with “Touch of Grey”:
UK (1977)
Rear sleeve of German 45 “One More Saturday Night”: Mini fold-up coffin! 45 above references “neu” Jerry garcia solo 45 “Sugaree” / “Deal” (below)
honorable mention: Colombian EP from 1967
This audio playback format was once considered state of the art
While the rare “Good Lovin'” US picture sleeve illustrated above can fetch $75 at auction, you might be surprised by the number of picture sleeves that go for three (and even four) figures.
Twilight Zone reference in this brilliant TV Guide/MTV spoof by Blair Jackson
Posted in "The New Twilight Zone", "The Twilight Zone", Film & TV Soundtracks, Halloween & Horror, Instrumentals, Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders, The Grateful Dead | Leave a reply
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Conservation/Preservation
Extractive Res.Currently selected
Explosives and Aggregate
FAQ Aggregate Reclamation
Questings
What is the Surface-mined Land Conservation and Reclamation Act (SMLCRA)?
The purpose of this law is to provide for the conservation and reclamation of land affected by surface mining in order to restore it to optimum future productive use including, but not limited to forests, pasture land, cropland, wildlife, and residential, recreational or industrial sites
Who must comply with SMLCRA?
SMLCRA covers all operators engaging in non-coal surface mining. Surface mining means the mining of any minerals by removing the overburden lying above natural deposits and mining directly from the natural deposits. Minerals include materials such as stone, clay, sand, gravel, peat, silica and other materials surface mined, except for coal. Active operators must register with the Explosives and Aggregate Division (EAD) and are subject to annual fees.
What are the permitting requirements?
Before beginning any surface mining activity, contact:
Illinois Department of Natural Resources
Office of Mines and Minerals
Explosives and Aggregate Division
One Natural Resources Way
An initial determination will be made if a surface mining permit will be required.
A permit is required where the overburden is greater than 10 feet or where the operation will affect more than 10 acres in a fiscal year; from July1 through June 30.
Yearly affected acreage is the acreage total of the areas from which overburden is removed and deposited, not including the previous year(s) disturbance.
Areas that are used for mineral processing or storage, and have not been surface mined are not considered affected acreage under the Act.
A EAD field representative will be available to discuss site conditions and to provide guidance for questions on the application.
Completed applications are required to be filed in duplicate with the County Clerk in the county where the operation is sited and must be submitted in triplicate to the Office of Mines and Minerals, along with a receipt signed by the County Clerk as proof of filing.
The County Board may request a public hearing or submit comments on the proposed reclamation plan within 45 days after the filing of an application. The application is also forwarded to the Department's endangered species coordinator for endangered species evaluation unless the operator has previously undergone a review.
Site descriptions may be submitted for endangered species evaluation up to three years prior to submittal of a surface mining application.
The Department may not act on an application prior to 60 days after filing, and must take action within 120 days, unless written notice is given to the applicant to extend the review period.
If the application is approved, the applicant must post a suitable reclamation bond, letter of credit, or certificate of deposit to insure adequate reclamation of the site.
Bond amounts range from $600 to $10,000 per acre.
Permit fees are $150 per acre.
The permit term is a maximum of ten years for overburden removal, but does not limit the time for mineral extraction.
Permittees are required to obtain a separate permit for all areas used for disposal of waste material (refuse) that are directly connected with the cleaning and preparation of minerals mined by surface mining.
What are the registration fees?
Annual registration fees are charged for the previous year's activity, regardless of whether a site is permitted or not. Fee rates are: $475 per operator, $175 per active site and $375 per active site which conducts blasting operations. Operators will be billed on July 1 of each year.
What if the Act is violated?
The Department shall give written notice to the operator for any violation of the Act or regulations. If corrective measures are not commenced by the operator within 45 days, the EAD may proceed with bond forfeiture. Any person required by the Act to have a permit who engages in surface mining without a permit is guilty of a business offense and shall be fined not less than $50 nor more than $1,000 per day. The EAD, through the Attorney General’s Office, may close down at once any operator found to be surface mining without a permit or in violation of the Act.
Who administers the Act?
The staff of the Explosives and Aggregate Division makes routine inspections of all permitted sites and periodic inspections of non-permitted sites to check on-site conditions and the necessity for a permit. All field representatives have the authority to enter upon the land of an operator at all reasonable times for the purpose of inspection to determine compliance with the Act.
What Reclamation is required?
Reclamation means the reasonable rehabilitation of the affected land to useful purposes, while keeping to a minimum the impact on the surrounding areas. The permit must contain a reclamation plan that outlines the method to be used in restoring the land to a condition suitable for its future use. Common examples of uses for reclaimed land include pastures, forests, wildlife areas, and residential, recreational, and industrial sites. Grading and revegatation of areas to the required slopes must be completed within three years after the expiration of the active use of the land. The bond is held by the EAD until successful reclamation has been completed. In the event the operator fails to complete reclamation a violation may be issued and the bond can be seized and utilized by the EAD to complete reclamation.
What about blasting?
The Act was amended in June of 1995 authorizing the regulation of blasting. Blasting regulations went into effect on July 1, 1997. The regulations include; air blast and ground vibration standards, the training, examining and licensing of all persons responsible for blasting, restricting blasting to licensed blasters, maintenance of blasting records, ability to issue notices of violations and/or cessation orders and assess civil penalties for blasting non-compliance. (Please see the “Aggregate Blasting “ page.)
What are the laws for other agencies?
The issuance of a permit under the Act does not relieve the permittee from his/her duty to comply with other applicable state and local laws regulating the commencement, location and operation of surface mining facilities, with the exception of blasting. Blasting regulation is a sole function of the state and may not be pre-empted by local ordinance.
Explosives & Aggregate
Aggregate Blasting
Aggregate Reclamation
Aggregate Reclamation Forms
Coal Blasting
Explosives Handling & Storage
Aggregate Reclamation FAQsCurrently selected
Aggregate Blasting FAQs
Coal Blasting FAQs
Training & Testing
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U.S. Sanctions Could Prompt J.P. Morgan to Push Venezuela From Bond Index
Investors staying tuned for possible changes to J.P. Morgan’s benchmark index
Demonstrators wave a Venezuelan flag during an opposition protest against the government in Caracas on Aug. 12.
Photo: Nathalie Sayago/Zuma Press
Emily Glazer
@emilyglazer
Emily.Glazer@wsj.com
Aug. 24, 2017 6:37 pm ET
What will J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. do? That question is weighing on emerging-markets debt investors as the Trump administration considers sanctions that could affect the ownership or trading of Venezuelan debt.
The reason: J.P. Morgan is the backer of the most widely followed emerging-market bond index, the J.P. Morgan Emerging Market Bond Index. Depending on their form, sanctions could in some cases require the bank to remove Venezuelan debt from the index.
That, in turn, could roil the emerging-markets bond world. Pension and investment funds globally could try to dump the debt for fear of falling out of step with the benchmark index’s performance.
So far, it isn’t known whether the U.S. government will take action. The Trump administration is considering banning trading by U.S. banks of new debt issued by Venezuela or its state-owned entities, and possibly imposing restrictions on some existing debt, The Wall Street Journal reported this week. Potential moves would be aimed at weakening a government that Washington says has moved toward dictatorship.
“In the event that there would be a ban, it would certainly require market participants to try to liquidate positions,” said Sean Newman, a senior portfolio manager who runs Invesco Ltd.’s emerging-market fixed-income team. He added that investors still think it is very unlikely the U.S. government would take such a dramatic step.
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Spain’s Amazon workers call first ever strike at Madrid hub
Alejandro López
Amazon workers in Spain’s capital, Madrid, are set to strike on Wednesday and Thursday against planned cuts to pay and reduced allowances for overtime. It is the first strike to hit Amazon in Spain.
Support for the planned 48-hour strike is overwhelming. Seventy-five percent of the workforce voted last week for strike action to maintain current rights. This follows similar action by Amazon workers in Italy, Germany and France during November’s Black Friday sales.
The 77,000-square-meter warehouse in San Fernando de Henares is the oldest and largest Amazon facility in Spain. It employs 1,100 permanent staff, 900 temporary workers and holds 165 million products.
Amazon dominates the country’s e-commerce market, which is worth an estimated €22 billion annually. Launched in Spain in 2011, the company invested €240 million there in 2016 alone.
For more than a year, Amazon has been negotiating with the unions—CGT, CCOO, UGT and CSIT—to impose the Provincial Collective Agreement of Logistics and Packing of the Madrid Region, which would replace the previous warehouse agreement and drastically reduce workers’ rights.
Currently, workers earn on average around €20,000 to €21,000 annually ($24,800 to $26,000) but the collective agreement would reduce this to €19,000. Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, has a personal fortune estimated at more than $100 billion, while Amazon’s market capitalization stands at almost $700 billion.
The new agreement at San Fernando de Henares would mean:
• Lower wage increases, with wages falling below the inflation rate
• No more pay increases based on seniority
• A 25 percent reduction in sick pay
• A two-tier wage system, with new hires earning €3,000-5,000 less than current inventory workers
• Cuts to overtime for working “extraordinary hours,” including holiday and night shifts
In Toledo, Amazon is set to open another logistical centre of about 100,000 square metres, equivalent to 12 soccer pitches. Amazon has another four warehouses throughout Spain, one in Madrid and three in Barcelona.
The recently opened warehouse in El Prat de Llobregat in Barcelona, covers an area of over 63,000 square meters, has the capacity to store 25 million products and employs 700 workers—set to rise to 1,500 over the next three years. It is to become the new hub for the whole of Southern Europe, a result of the regional Catalan government’s participation in a global bidding war to lure Amazon. As former Catalan regional premier Carlos Puigdemont said last year, “We have a series of well-prepared territorial resources: the port of Barcelona, the airport, the sectors of economic activity in the Llobregat delta.”
The attack on workers at San Fernando de Henares is part of a European-wide and global strategy by Amazon. The company offers cut-price goods delivered through sweatshop conditions, with its globally integrated half-a-million-strong workforce subjected to relentless speed-ups, total surveillance, back-breaking quotas, and minimal toilet and meal breaks.
These conditions cost the lives of three workers in the US at the end of last year.
Workers from San Fernando de Henares, or any other Amazon warehouse, cannot defeat transnational corporations like Amazon without a unified international fight. This was proven by the words of Fred Pattje, Amazon’s General Manager of Operations in Spain and Portugal, who made it clear the company was in advanced stages of efforts to break the strike by using its national and international logistical hubs.
At a press conference, Pattje said that Amazon would use its immense logistical network to break the strike. “We work with a network of 46 centers in Europe and, through it, we can meet the demand of all of Europe,” he said. In Madrid’s facility “we can easily receive 18,000 or 20,000 packages… There will be delays, but I do not think they will go beyond a few days.”
If Pattje can boast of the company’s strike-breaking preparations, this is due to the role of the unions who act as facilitators for the exploitation imposed by Amazon.
The unions have isolated the strike, refusing to extend it to other Amazon warehouses throughout Spain, like those in Getafe, El Prat de Llobregat and Martorelles, or to workers at the dozens of sub-contractors used by Amazon to transport goods. The call for a consumer boycott a week ahead of the strike aims only to cover for this imposed isolation.
Marc Blanes, leader of the CGT at the warehouse, told eldiario.es that the boycott call was born as “another measure of pressure on the company” since they consider that the effect of the strike may be minimized by the network of logistics centers in other parts of the continent. “Amazon has an almost strike-breaking logistic network, with 46 centers in Europe,” he added.
In fact, the main strike-breakers have been the unions. During 17 months of negotiations with the company since the collective agreement expired, they have not even tried to coordinate actions with Amazon strikes in Europe.
On November 24, Black Friday, traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year, Amazon workers at distribution centers in Germany, France and Italy held a strike. The CGT, CSIT, CCOO and UGT not only rejected joining the strike, but played the role of strike-breakers. In the words of Blanes to eldiario.es, during the Black Friday strike, “We had to cover the demand from France, where they had a conflict, [and] they asked us to do extra hours and so on.”
The CGT is also giving leeway to Amazon to use temporary workers during the strike. The CGT told Business Insider that the temporary staff—almost 900 of the 2,000 people who work in the warehouse—also have the right to strike, but “we do not want to do the same level of pressure on them, some of them which may be about to renew their contracts.”
The despicable role being played by the anarcho-syndicalist CGT is another demonstration that workers need new organisations—rank-and-file workplace committees, independent of the unions, that they control democratically. The CGT, the third-largest union and promoted by various pseudo-left groups as a radical alternative to the social-democratic UGT and Stalinist CCOO unions, supports the same nationalist divisions as its counterparts. It plays a pernicious political role by sucking in workers disenchanted with the bigger union federations with radical and militant phraseology. When they are in dominant positions like they are in Amazon warehouses and in some sections of the auto industry and transport, they capitulate as quickly as their social democratic and Stalinist competitors.
The International Committee of the Fourth International and its sections internationally have established the International Amazon Workers Voice as a platform of opposition, aimed at developing independent workplace committees that can link workers in each plant with their brothers and sisters in a worldwide fight against exploitation and for social equality. The newsletter exposes dictatorial working conditions, introducing workers to socialism, and providing regular news and analysis of world politics from the World Socialist Web Site.
Amazon workers are encouraged to write to the International Amazon Workers Voice to share their stories and expose injustice at their workplace. The newsletter will respect the anonymity of all workers and will take steps to ensure they are not subject to retribution. For regular updates, subscribe to the newsletter, like our Facebook page, and share them with your co-workers.
Amazon workersSpainWorld NewsEuropeSouthern EuropeGlobal class struggle
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3 men charged with shooting into Chester home, injuring girl
Updated: 12:58 AM EDT Sep 19, 2015
Three men have been charged with shooting at a Chester home earlier this month, injuring a teenage girl in the hand.Chester police told local media Thursday that 19-year-old Timothy L. Franklin III, 24-year-old Jeffrey T. Hall and 22-year-old Desean Moses have each been charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, two counts of discharging a firearm into a dwelling and first-degree assault and battery.Authorities say the shooting occurred on the night of Sept. 5. A 17-year-old girl who was shot in the hand was treated at a hospital and later released.Officials have not released a motive for the shooting.It is unclear if the men have attorneys.
CHESTER, S.C. —
Three men have been charged with shooting at a Chester home earlier this month, injuring a teenage girl in the hand.
Chester police told local media Thursday that 19-year-old Timothy L. Franklin III, 24-year-old Jeffrey T. Hall and 22-year-old Desean Moses have each been charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, two counts of discharging a firearm into a dwelling and first-degree assault and battery.
Authorities say the shooting occurred on the night of Sept. 5. A 17-year-old girl who was shot in the hand was treated at a hospital and later released.
Officials have not released a motive for the shooting.
It is unclear if the men have attorneys.
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Justice Department Files Race Discrimination Lawsuit Against Housing Authority in Oklahoma
Written by YNN YNN
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma - The Justice Department announced Tuesday that it has filed a lawsuit alleging that the Housing Authority of the Town of Lone Wolf, Oklahoma, along with its former employees, David Haynes and Myrna Hess, violated the Fair Housing Act and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when they denied housing to an African-American applicant and her young child because of their race.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, stems from the experience of an African-American mother and her then-five-year-old daughter who, in 2015, were living in a shelter and, with the help of the Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma Inc., were seeking affordable housing.
“Denying people housing opportunities because of their race or color is an egregious violation of the Fair Housing Act,” said Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband of the Civil Rights Division. “Discrimination by those who receive federal taxpayer dollars to provide housing to lower-income applicants is particularly odious. The Justice Department will not tolerate illegal housing discrimination in any form and we will continue to fight to protect the rights of all Americans to rent and own their homes without regard to their race or color.”
“Families have a tough enough time finding decent affordable housing without having their options limited because of their race,” said Anna María Farías, Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. “HUD applauds today’s action and will continue working with the Justice Department to take appropriate action when the nation’s fair housing laws are violated.”
The complaint alleges that when a Legal Aid employee first contacted the Housing Authority on behalf of the woman, the Housing Authority told the employee that units were available and invited the woman to apply. But when the Housing Authority learned from her application that she and her child are black, the Housing Authority denied the application and falsely told the applicant that no apartments were available. Legal Aid then conducted testing confirming that the Housing Authority was discriminating against African-American applicants. As the complaint alleges, defendants told the white tester that there were multiple apartments available to her and her daughter and showed her three vacant apartments. By contrast, the next day, defendants told the African-American tester that no apartments were available for her and her granddaughter and did not show her an apartment. The Housing Authority receives funds from HUD and manages 25 apartments.
The applicant and Legal Aid subsequently filed a complaint with HUD. After an investigation, HUD determined that the defendants had violated the Fair Housing Act and Title VI and referred the matter to the Department of Justice for litigation.
The lawsuit seeks monetary damages for the complainants and a court order barring future discrimination.
Individuals who believe they have been victims of housing discrimination at the Housing Authority of the Town of Lone Wolf should contact the Department of Justice toll-free at 1-833-591-0291 or by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Individuals who have information about this or another matter involving alleged discrimination may submit a report online at https://civilrights.justice.gov .
The federal Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin and disability. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the ground of race, color, or national origin in programs or activities that receive federal funds. More information about the Civil Rights Division and the laws it enforces is available at https://www.justice.gov/crt .
The complaint contains allegations of unlawful conduct. The allegations in the complaint must be proven in court.
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Category: Education Science History Language Art Internet Technology Business Food Beauty Miscellaneous Industry Anatomy Health Crafts Cars Home Finance Medicine Fashion Fitness United States Environment Travel People World Law Hobbies
What is the Difference Between Career Goals and Objectives?
Dale Marshall
Career goals are very significant results one strives to achieve, generally expected over the longer term, while career objectives are intermediate, less significant accomplishments. Often thought of in terms of title, authority or compensation, career goals can also include such concepts as job satisfaction. Career objectives, on the other hand, are most often skills and abilities to be acquired in the process of accomplishing career goals.
A career coach may help a person set long-term career goals.
Most job coaches and employment counselors believe that setting career goals and objectives is a crucial part of maximizing one’s potential. Those who earn their living through sales, for example, report that regular goal setting is essential to their success, and that they’d stagnate without it. Anyone in any job can set career goals and objectives, even if the overriding goal is to find a better job!
Setting new career goals can help someone become re-engaged in their job.
Setting serious goals and objectives for a career helps people to focus their work activities. Goals should generally be practical, objectively measurable, and achievable. For example, “I want to start my own company and achieve annual sales of $500,000 US Dollars (USD) by my 30th birthday,” is an excellent career goal because it’s easily measurable. Some abstract or imprecise goals are acceptable, though. To be so satisfied with one’s job that it’s more than simply a way to make money is also an excellent career goal.
Some career goals may be very long term, such as having a particular amount of accumulated resources upon retirement. There should also be shorter-term goals along the way. Goals shouldn’t be rigid, though. Innovation and opportunity may occur in the midst of one’s career, providing justification for sweeping changes — even changing careers entirely; in such cases, existing goals shouldn't stand in the way.
Career objectives, while important, don’t rise to the level of career goals. “Becoming a good leader” is a career objective sought by many, but it’s not the kind of result that one would strive to achieve above all others — it’s not a career goal. Career objectives can be thought of as the stepping stones to career goals. Thus, in setting career goals and objectives, it is good to identify the goal and a handful of objectives which should be accomplished in reaching that goal.
An important point to remember is that goals and objectives shouldn’t be so easy that no significant effort is required to accomplish them. Their achievement shouldn’t just fall into one’s lap, although objectives may be easier to accomplish than goals. Many professionals belong to organizations which recognize exceptional competence with professional designations such as real estate broker, Professional in Human Resources (PHR®) or Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU®). Most count achieving these kinds of designations among their career objectives; although these objectives are achievable, they’re by no means easy.
Failure to reach career goals and objectives on schedule, or at all, can be frustrating and disillusioning. It’s easy to brood over such failures and inflate their importance. This can have a very negative effect on one’s performance, especially in the short term. A more productive approach is to evaluate the failed goals and objectives, determine why they weren’t met, and then either set new schedules for reaching them, or set new goals and objectives right away and start working toward them.
Sometimes career goals and objectives will be accomplished early. This is an excellent indication that one’s career is going well, and is cause for celebration, but shouldn’t be used as an excuse to relax and stop trying. Instead, when they are reached ahead of schedule, it’s time to set new goals or objectives to ensure that one keeps striving.
Education Science History Language Art Internet Technology Business Food Beauty Miscellaneous Industry Anatomy Health Crafts Cars Home Finance Medicine Fashion Fitness United States Environment Travel People World Law Hobbies
What Are Big Hairy Audacious Goals?
What Is the SMART Criteria?
What are Short-Term Career Goals?
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sigla del massachusetts
Most of Massachusetts has a humid continental, with cold winters and warm summers. The Route 128 corridor and Greater Boston continue to be a major center for venture capital investment,[226] and high technology remains an important sector. [269] Service between the two islands is also offered. Seuss". [127] The 1969 closure of the Springfield Armory, in particular, spurred an exodus of high-paying jobs from Western Massachusetts, which suffered greatly as it de-industrialized during the last 40 years of the 20th century. [246] Massachusetts also charges a use tax when goods are bought from other states and the vendor does not remit Massachusetts sales tax; taxpayers report and pay this on their income tax forms or dedicated forms, though there are "safe harbor" amounts that can be paid without tallying up actual purchases (except for purchases over $1,000). Massachusettsan (recommended by the U.S. GPO)[9], Massachusetts (/ˌmæsəˈtʃuːsɪts/ (listen), /-zɪts/), officially known as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. His younger brother Edward M. Kennedy held that seat until his death from a brain tumor in 2009. In 2015, the United Health Foundation ranked the state as third-healthiest overall. [293], The Government of Massachusetts is divided into three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. [316] In 2008, Massachusetts voters passed an initiative decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana. [320] The fourteen counties, moving roughly from west to east, are Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire, Hampden, Worcester, Middlesex, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Bristol, Plymouth, Barnstable, Dukes, and Nantucket. [319], There are 50 cities and 301 towns in Massachusetts, grouped into 14 counties. Inoltre, il Dipartimento del Massachusetts di Conservazione e ricreazione mantiene un certo numero di parchi, sentieri e spiagge in tutto lo Stato. Nel 1692, la città di Salem e le zone circostanti hanno vissuto uno dei maggiori episodi di isteria di massa negli Stati Uniti, le streghe di Salem. Massachusetts (/ ˌ m æ s ə ˈ tʃ uː s ɪ t s / (), /-z ɪ t s /), officially known as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous state in the New England region of the northeastern United States.It borders on the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island to the south, New Hampshire and Vermont to the north, and New York to the west. Some major museums and important historical sites are also located there, and events and festivals throughout the year celebrate the state's history and heritage. [354] Other outdoor recreational activities in Massachusetts include sailing and yachting, freshwater and deep-sea fishing,[355] whale watching,[356] downhill and cross-country skiing,[357] and hunting. The Pilgrims were soon followed by other Puritans, who established the Massachusetts Bay Colony at present-day Boston in 1630. [182][183] Lowell is home to the second-largest Cambodian community of the nation. [318] Following the approval of a ballot question endorsing legalization in 2016, Massachusetts began issuing licenses for the regulated sale of recreational marijuana in June 2018. New Jersey", "#26 The Governors Academy, Byfield, Mass", "Harvard Plans to Name First Female President", "These Are the Best Private High Schools in America, According to a New Ranking", "How States Are Spending Money in Education", "Are the nation's twelfth-graders making progress in mathematics and reading? I più grandi laghi sono il Quabbin Reservoir e il Wachusett Reservoir, entrambi di origine artificiale. This was followed by a round of tax limitations during the 1980s—a conservative period in American politics—including Proposition 2½. La sigla del Massachusetts. [89] Unlike the Plymouth colony, the bay colony was founded under a royal charter in 1629. [131], In 1987, the state received federal funding for the Central Artery/Tunnel Project. It is the most irreligious region of the country, along with the Western United States. [353], Long-distance hiking trails in Massachusetts include the Appalachian Trail, the New England National Scenic Trail, the Metacomet-Monadnock Trail, the Midstate Trail, and the Bay Circuit Trail. A great majority of interstates in Massachusetts were constructed during the mid-20th century, and at times were controversial, particularly the intent to route I-95 northeastwards from Providence, Rhode Island, directly through central Boston, first proposed in 1948. [79] Villages consisted of lodges called wigwams as well as longhouses,[80] and tribes were led by male or female elders known as sachems. Luglio è il mese più caldo, con medie di circa 22 °C, rispetto ai -3 °C di gennaio, il mese più freddo. [69] It has been translated as "near the great hill",[70] "by the blue hills", "at the little big hill", or "at the range of hills", referring to the Blue Hills, or in particular the Great Blue Hill, which is located on the boundary of Milton and Canton. info]), ufficialmente Commonwealth del Massachusetts, è uno dei cinquanta Stati federati che compongono gli Stati Uniti d'America ed è situato nella regione della Nuova Inghilterra. [113], During the 19th century, Massachusetts became a national leader in the American Industrial Revolution, with factories around cities such as Lowell and Boston producing textiles and shoes, and factories around Springfield producing tools, paper, and textiles. Another eight years later, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren was a frontrunner in the Democratic primaries for the 2020 Presidential Election, but suspended her campaign and then endorsed presumptive nominee Joe Biden. The ensuing manhunt ended on April 19 when thousands of law enforcement officers searched a 20-block area of nearby Watertown. Plymouth is the largest municipality in the state by land area, followed by Middleborough. [141], The primary biome of inland Massachusetts is temperate deciduous forest. Out of the state house's 160 seats, Democrats hold 127 seats (79%) compared to the Republican Party's 32 seats (20%), an independent sits in the remaining one,[311] and 34 out of the 40 seats in the state senate (85%) belong to the Democratic Party compared to the Republican Party's six seats (15%). Nel corso del XX secolo, l'economia del Massachusetts è stata spostata dalla produzione ai servizi. Prima della guerra civile americana, il Massachusetts era un importante centro per i movimenti trascendentalisti e abolizionisti. [67], Massachusetts is home to 121 institutions of higher education. Both Senators and all nine Representatives are Democrats; only one Republican (former Senator Scott Brown) has been elected to either house of Congress from Massachusetts since 1994. The governor of Massachusetts heads the executive branch; duties of the governor include signing or vetoing legislation, filling judicial and agency appointments, granting pardons, preparing an annual budget, and commanding the Massachusetts National Guard. [104] Future President George Washington took over what would become the Continental Army after the battle. In questo Stato sono nati e sono state codificate le regole di due degli sport di squadra più praticati in assoluto: il basket a Springfield e la pallavolo a Holyoke; le due città sono oggi rispettivamente sedi del Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame e del Volleyball Hall of Fame, in cui vengono ricordati le più grandi personalità legate alla pallacanestro e alla pallavolo. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, and Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as "Dr. Massachusetts is the fastest-growing state in New England and the 25th fastest-growing state in the United States. [135] In 1966, Massachusetts became the first state to directly elect an African American to the U.S. senate with Edward Brooke. [63] Kendall Square in Cambridge has been called "the most innovative square mile on the planet", in reference to the high concentration of entrepreneurial start-ups and quality of innovation which have emerged in the vicinity of the square since 2010. Nello stato sono frequenti venti anche forti e tempeste marittime, spesso molto violente, che interessano tutta la regione del New England. Nonostante le dimensioni ridotte, il Massachusetts dispone di numerose regioni distinte: a ovest, le dolci Berkshire Mountains circondano la fertile valle del fiume Connecticut (l'ultima delle quali contiene l'area metropolitana di Springfield) nel centro del Massachusetts, le rurali città di collina che circondano Worcester, mentre l'est comprende i dintorni urbani della Greater Boston, le spiagge sabbiose di Cape Cod, e le coste rocciose della costa settentrionale. Massachusetts has a long political history; earlier political structures included the Mayflower Compact of 1620, the separate Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies, and the combined colonial Province of Massachusetts. [168], Foreign immigration is also a factor in the state's population growth, causing the state's population to continue to grow as of the 2010 Census (particularly in Massachusetts gateway cities where costs of living are lower). [258] Four heritage railways are also in operation: Amtrak operates several inter-city rail lines connecting Massachusetts. [294] The Massachusetts House of Representatives and Massachusetts Senate comprise the legislature of Massachusetts, known as the Massachusetts General Court. [145] There are currently 219 endangered species in Massachusetts. Il National Park Service gestisce una serie di siti storici e naturali in Massachusetts. [239], As of January 1, 2019, Massachusetts has a flat-rate personal income tax of 5.05%,[240][failed verification] after a 2002 voter referendum to eventually lower the rate to 5.0%[241] as amended by the legislature. Canals and railroads were used for transporting raw materials and finished goods. [152] Protected areas such as the Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge provide critical breeding habitat for shorebirds and a variety of marine wildlife including a large population of grey seals. [295], Abilities of the Council include confirming gubernatorial appointments and certifying elections. Plimoth Plantation and Old Sturbridge Village are two open-air or "living" museums in Massachusetts, recreating life as it was in the 17th and early 19th centuries, respectively. Several regional and short line railroads also provide service and connect with other railroads. [168] Population growth was largely due to a relatively high quality of life and a large higher education system in the state. Both Protestant and Roman Catholic communities have been in decline since the late 20th century, due to the rise of irreligion in New England. [388] The New England Revolution is the Major League Soccer team for Massachusetts and the Boston Cannons are the Major League Lacrosse team. [170] Exurban Boston and coastal areas grew the most rapidly, while Berkshire County in far Western Massachusetts and Barnstable County on Cape Cod were the only counties to lose population as of the 2010 Census. [246] The sales tax is charged on clothing that costs more than $175.00, for the amount exceeding $175.00. [91][92], In 1641, Massachusetts expanded inland significantly, acquiring the Connecticut River Valley settlement of Springfield, which had recently disputed with, and defected from its original administrators, the Connecticut Colony. [217] As of January 2020, Massachusetts state general minimum wage is $12.75 per hour while the minimum wage for tipped workers is $4.95 an hour. Some colleges and universities also operate campus television and radio stations, and print their own newspapers. FCS play includes Harvard University, which competes in the famed Ivy League, and College of the Holy Cross of the Patriot League. Al 2018 la popolazione del Massachusetts contava 6 902 149 abitanti.[2]. [278] Massachusetts has 39 public-use airfields[279] and more than 200 private landing spots. Il clima è più freddo ma più secco nel Massachusetts occidentale, ma in questa zona le nevicate invernali possono essere più intense che in prossimità della costa. Although the documentation is incomplete, about 1,700 letters of marque, issued on a per-voyage basis, were granted during the American Revolution. [209] In 2013, Massachusetts scored highest of all the states in math and third-highest in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. [47] Modern Massachusetts is a global leader in biotechnology, engineering, higher education, finance, and maritime trade.[48]. [208], Massachusetts's per-student public expenditure for elementary and secondary schools was eighth in the nation in 2012, at $14,844. ", "Massachusetts Students Score among World Leaders on PISA Reading, Science and Math Tests", "East Squantum Street (Moswetuset Hummock)", Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, "Why do we call Massachusetts a 'commonwealth'? Nell'anno 1621 ebbe luogo la prima festa del ringraziamento. Le precipitazioni annue medie sono abbastanza abbondanti in tutte le stagioni dell'anno (si aggirano sui 1070 mm a Boston e sui 1120–1140 mm a Worcester e a Pittsfield, rispettivamente nelle regioni centrali e occidentali). [137] Other notable Bay State politicians on the national level included John W. McCormack, Speaker of the House in the 1960s, and Tip O'Neill, whose service as Speaker of the House from 1977 to 1987 was the longest continuous tenure in United States history. [222] Billionaires living in the state include past and present leaders (and related family) of local companies such as Fidelity Investments, New Balance, Kraft Group, Boston Scientific, and the former Continental Cablevision. [304], Massachusetts routinely votes for the Democratic Party, with the core concentrations in the Boston metro area, the Cape and Islands, and Western Massachusetts outside Hampden County. [125] Massachusetts is home to the oldest school in continuous existence in North America (The Roxbury Latin School, founded in 1645), as well as the country's oldest public elementary school (The Mather School, founded in 1639),[203] its oldest high school (Boston Latin School, founded in 1635),[204] its oldest continuously operating boarding school (The Governor's Academy, founded in 1763),[205] its oldest college (Harvard University, founded in 1636),[206] and its oldest women's college (Mount Holyoke College, founded in 1837). Drafted by John Adams, the Massachusetts Constitution is currently the oldest functioning written constitution in continuous effect in the world. Questa pagina è stata modificata per l'ultima volta il 16 nov 2020 alle 03:16. At least 11 other states have, too", "Swampscott celebrates neighbor turned governor", "Number of Legislators and Length of Terms in Years", National Conference of State Legislatures, "Geographic Boundaries of United States Courts of Appeals and United States District Courts", "Distribution of 2004 and 2008 Electoral Votes", National Archives and Records Administration, "Does 'Massachusetts liberal' label still matter? [73][74], The official name of the state is the "Commonwealth of Massachusetts". [86] This was the second successful permanent English colony in the part of North America that later became the United States, after the Jamestown Colony. I fiumi principali sono il Taunton, il Connecticut, il Charles e il Merrimack. [98], The most destructive earthquake yet known in New England occurred in 1755, causing considerable damage across Massachusetts. [283] Other major interstates include I-91, which travels generally north and south along the Connecticut River; I-93, which travels north and south through central Boston, then passes through Methuen before entering New Hampshire; and I-95, which connects Providence, Rhode Island with Greater Boston, forming a partial loop concurrent with Route 128 around the more urbanized areas before continuing north along the coast into New Hampshire. [380], The state of Massachusetts is a center for medical education and research including Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute[381] as well as the New England Baptist Hospital, Tufts Medical Center, and Boston Medical Center which is the primary teaching hospital for Boston University. In 2004, Massachusetts senator John Kerry who won the Democratic nomination for President of the United States narrowly lost to incumbent George W. Bush. [194][195] Many Puritan descendants also dispersed to other Protestant denominations. Il Massachusetts ha contribuito al servizio nazionale di molti politici di primo piano, compresi i membri della famiglia Adams e della famiglia Kennedy. [140] Along with twelve national historic sites, areas, and corridors, the National Park Service also manages the Cape Cod National Seashore and the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. Ricerca - Avanzata Parole. I-495 forms a wide loop around the outer edge of Greater Boston. Diversamente dagli altri stati del New England l'agricoltura e l'allevamento non costituiscono una voce importante nell'economia del paese, mentre è assai sviluppata la pesca e Boston è il primo porto peschereccio degli USA. [142] [67] The state has been ranked as one of the top states in the United States for citizens to live in, as well as one of the most expensive. [97] Protests against British attempts to tax the colonies after the French and Indian War ended in 1763 led to the Boston Massacre in 1770, and the 1773 Boston Tea Party escalated tensions. Two pressure cooker bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, at around 2:49 pm EDT. Nel XXI secolo, il Massachusetts è un leader nei campi dell'istruzione superiore, tecnologia sanitaria, alta tecnologia e servizi finanziari. [64][65] Both Harvard and MIT, also in Cambridge, have been ranked among the most highly regarded academic institutions in the world. [280] Some airports receive funding from the Aeronautics Division of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration; the FAA is also the primary regulator of Massachusetts air travel.[281]. Freshwater fish species in Massachusetts include bass, carp, catfish, and trout, while saltwater species such as Atlantic cod, haddock, and American lobster populate offshore waters. The Pennsylvania Gradual Abolition Act of 1780[110] made Pennsylvania the first state to abolish slavery by statute.) [231][232], As of 2012, there were 7,755 farms in Massachusetts encompassing a total of 523,517 acres (2,120 km2), averaging 67.5 acres (0.273 km2) apiece. [339][340] Tanglewood, in western Massachusetts, is a music venue that is home to both the Tanglewood Music Festival and Tanglewood Jazz Festival, as well as the summer host for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Nel Massachusetts si sono sviluppati importanti movimenti culturali, come il Trascendentalismo di Thoreau ed Emerson. Roger Williams fondò pertanto la colonia di Rhode Island e Thomas Hooker quella del Connecticut. The most common varieties of American English spoken in Massachusetts, other than General American, are the cot-caught distinct, rhotic, western Massachusetts dialect and the cot-caught merged, non-rhotic, eastern Massachusetts dialect (popularly known as a "Boston accent"). [60] Many prominent American political dynasties have hailed from the state, including the Adams and Kennedy families. [213] The public University of Massachusetts (nicknamed UMass) features five campuses in the state, with its flagship campus in Amherst, which enrolls more than 25,000. È il 7º più piccolo e il 15º più popoloso tra i 50 stati degli Stati Uniti. Il Massachusetts è il 6º Stato degli USA per PIL pro capite[5], con un PIL generale di 484.943 milioni di dollari nel 2015. [165], As of 2014, in terms of race and ethnicity, Massachusetts was 83.2% White (73.7% Non-Hispanic White), 8.8% Black or African American, 0.5% Native American and Alaska Native, 6.3% Asian American, <0.1% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, 2.1% from some other race, and 3.1% from two or more races. Massachusetts is also the home of rowing events such as the Eastern Sprints on Lake Quinsigamond and the Head of the Charles Regatta. "[161], The United States Census Bureau estimated that the population of Massachusetts was 6,892,503 on July 1, 2019, a 5.27% increase since the 2010 United States Census. [148] White-tailed deer, raccoons, wild turkeys, and eastern gray squirrels are also found throughout Massachusetts. [248] In 2018, renewable energy was about 7.2 percent of total energy consumed in the state, ranking 34th. Nonostante i Puritani si fossero trasferiti nel Nord America per poter professare liberamente il loro culto, al tempo stesso si dimostrarono intolleranti nei confronti di altre religioni: personaggi famosi come Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams e Thomas Hooker dovettero abbandonare lo Stato perché perseguitati per le loro convinzioni. [116] At first, the new industries drew labor from Yankees on nearby subsistence farms, and later relied upon immigrant labor from Europe and Canada. The Hartford Line connects Springfield to New Haven, operated in conjunction with the Connecticut Department of Transportation, and the Valley Flyer runs a similar route but continues further north to Greenfield. Eleven communities which call themselves "towns" are, by law, cities since they have traded the town meeting form of government for a mayor-council or manager-council form. [369] Massachusetts has the most doctors per 100,000 residents,[370] the second-lowest infant mortality rate,[371] and the lowest percentage of uninsured residents (children as well as the total population). Massachusetts was the first state to recruit, train, and arm a Black regiment with White officers, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. [221] According to a 2013 study by Phoenix Marketing International, Massachusetts had the sixth-largest number of millionaires per capita in the United States, with a ratio of 6.73 percent. Mary Baker Eddy made the Boston Mother Church of Christian Science serve as the world headquarters of this new religious movement. Questo sito o gli strumenti terzi utilizzati utilizzano cookie necessari al funzionamento e alle finalità illustrate nella cookie policy. Il primo esploratore europeo fu l'italiano Giovanni da Verrazzano che, a capo della flotta organizzata dal re francese Francesco I per esplorare il Nord America, arrivò nella zona nel 1524. MBTA Commuter Rail services run throughout the larger Greater Boston area, including service to Worcester, Fitchburg, Haverhill, Newburyport, Lowell, and Plymouth. [284] A massive undertaking to bring I-93 underground in downtown Boston, called the Big Dig, brought the city's highway system under public scrutiny for its high cost and construction quality.[132]. Harvard University in Cambridge is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States,[61] with the largest financial endowment of any university,[62] and Harvard Law School has educated a contemporaneous majority of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. [52] In the 18th century, the Protestant First Great Awakening, which swept Britain and the Thirteen Colonies, originated from the pulpit of Northampton preacher Jonathan Edwards. ", "Number of Farms Numbers Continue Slight Rise in 2012", "Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources", "Waltham nonprofit WATCH CDC recognized at Statehouse", "2016's States with the Highest & Lowest Tax Rates", "Massachusetts Implements Reduction in Personal Income Tax Rates", "Income tax rate to fall on Jan. 1—The Boston Globe". [303] Since the 1950s, Massachusetts has gained a reputation as being a politically liberal state and is often used as an archetype of modern liberalism, hence the phrase "Massachusetts liberal". Il Massachusetts si trova nella regione del Nuova Inghilterra nel nord-est degli Stati Uniti, e ha una superficie di 27 336 chilometri quadrati. Vieni a scoprire la risposta su cruciv.it [170], By sex, 48.4% were male, and 51.6% were female in 2014. Di seguito la risposta corretta a SIGLA DEL MASSACHUSETTS Cruciverba, se hai bisogno di ulteriore aiuto per completare il tuo cruciverba continua la navigazione e prova la nostra funzione di ricerca. Transportation is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions by economic sector in Massachusetts.[253]. Roman Catholics make up 34% and now predominate because of massive immigration from primarily Catholic countries and regions—chiefly Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Quebec, and Latin America. [393] A number of major golf events have taken place in Massachusetts, including nine U.S. [328], Massachusetts has contributed to American arts and culture. [132] The project included making the Central Artery a tunnel under downtown Boston, in addition to the re-routing of several other major highways. Eight years later, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (Republican nominee) lost to Barack Obama in 2012. Divenuto Stato nel 1776, il Massachusetts fu roccaforte degli indipendentisti; ratificò l'Unione il 6 febbraio 1788 e divenne il sesto Stato federato. [324] In this structure, incorporated towns—as opposed to townships or counties—hold many of the responsibilities and powers of local government. [343] Film events in the state include the Boston Film Festival, the Boston International Film Festival, and a number of smaller film festivals in various cities throughout Massachusetts.[344]. Italians form the second-largest ethnic group in the state (13.5%), but form a plurality only in some suburbs north of Boston and in a few towns in the Berkshires. Since 2009, there has been a significant increase in the number of Great white sharks spotted and tagged in the coastal waters off of Cape Cod.[153][154][155]. A Commonwealth de Massachusetts (en inglés, Commonwealth of Massachusetts) é un dos 50 estados dos Estados Unidos de América.Localízase ao nordés do país, a uns cantos quilómetros da fronteira con Canadá.Massachusetts é o sexto menor estado dos Estados Unidos pero, a pesar do seu pequeno tamaño, é o décimo terceiro en poboación. The European corn borer, a significant agricultural pest, was first found in North America near Boston, Massachusetts in 1917.[157]. [324] Most of the county governments were abolished by the state of Massachusetts beginning in 1997 including Middlesex County,[325] the largest county in the state by population. Michael Mullett: "Curwen, Thomas (c. 1610–1680)", Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem, United States Declaration of Independence, Northern theater of the American Revolutionary War after Saratoga, Constitutional Convention (United States), List of U.S. states by date of admission to the Union, Pennsylvania Gradual Abolition Act of 1780, Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, Department of Conservation and Recreation, Lowell Power Canal System and Pawtucket Gatehouse, African Americans migrated to Massachusetts, List of colleges and universities in Massachusetts, List of engineering schools in Massachusetts, List of school districts in Massachusetts, National Assessment of Educational Progress, List of Massachusetts locations by per capita income, List of Massachusetts locations by unemployment rate, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Lowell National Historical Park Trolley Line, to route I-95 northeastwards from Providence, Rhode Island, directly through central Boston, United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, Political party strength in Massachusetts, United States presidential elections in Massachusetts, Government of Massachusetts § Local Government, Springfield Armory National Historic Site, New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, National Shrine of The Divine Mercy (Stockbridge, Massachusetts), List of television stations in Massachusetts, Governorship of Mitt Romney § Health care, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, "Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 2, Section 35: Designation of citizens of commonwealth", "States where English is the official language", "Language spoken at home by ability to speak English for the population 5 years and over—2014 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates", "Black-Capped Chickadee:Massachusetts State Bird", "Wild Turkey:Massachusetts State Game Bird", "Right Whale: Massachusetts State Marine Mammal", "Morgan Horse: Massachusetts State Horse", "Boston Terrier: Massachusetts State Dog", "Garter Snake: Massachusetts State Reptile", "Cranberry Juice: Massachusetts State Beverage", "Blue—Green—Cranberry: Massachusetts State Colors", "Square Dance: Massachusetts State Folk Dance", "Corn Muffin: Massachusetts State Muffin", "Baked Navy Bean: Massachusetts State Bean", "Boston Creme Pie: Massachusetts State Dessert", "Chocolate Chip Cookie: Massachusetts State Cookie", "Boston Cream Donut: Massachusetts State Donut", "Dinosaur Tracks: Massachusetts State Fossil", "Babingtonite: Massachusetts State Mineral", "Blue Hills of Massachusetts: Massachusetts State Poem", "Can you guess the state sport of Massachusetts?
Niccolò Presta Matrimonio, Lauren Amici Finale, Pokémon Go Scoperta Straordinaria Ottobre 2020, Ristorante San Domenico Imola, Mappa Concettuale Sull'alimentazione Scuola Media, 26 Maggio Festa, Località Turistica Significato, Frase Al Contrario I Topi, I Patriarchi Della Bibbia Per Bambini, Clinica Sant'anna Offerte Di Lavoro, Stella Parenti Montalbano,
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Commentary OpinionTHE SQUEAKY WHEEL
It's official -- I'm not running!
Exclusive: Burt Prelutsky posits reason Obama didn't attend Paris rally
By Burt Prelutsky
Published January 29, 2015 at 7:36pm
Although even Hillary Clinton, who vowed at the age of 4 to one day be president, is acting coy about making a run in 2016, I am trying to set a good example for others by announcing that under no circumstances will I be tossing my hat in the ring.
That being said, I don't understand why so many Republicans who are also not running seem so upset at the prospect of Mitt Romney giving it another try. The notion that just because he failed to defeat John McCain for the nomination in 2008 or Barack Obama in 2012, he shouldn't run again is just plain goofy. After all, any sane person would acknowledge that we have all lived long enough to rue the results of both those races.
Besides, when I was a kid, Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, was always being held up as a model of grit, all because between the years of 1832 and 1860, he ran and was defeated in eight elections for the state legislature, the House and the U.S. Senate. So how is it that persistence was a virtue back then, but is deemed wickedly self-indulgent today?
Understand that while I like and admire Gov. Romney, I have a list of Republicans I would enthusiastically support in 2016. I just don't think it's improper for Romney to consider waging another campaign. If anything, I give him credit for forgiving us our past mistakes and his willingness to let us make amends.
According to Aaron Goldstein, writing in the American Spectator, during a closed-door meeting involving Barack Obama and Senate Democrats, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., pushed Obama to renew sanctions against Iran. He contended that in exchange for removing the original sanctions, Iran has shown no willingness during one year's worth of negotiations to curtail its nuclear ambitions. In rebuttal, Obama said he was aware of the pressures placed on senators by their donors.
Menendez, who is brighter than the average Democrat, managed to break the code, understanding that by "donors," Obama meant Jewish donors, Israel being the natural and most convenient target of Iranian nukes.
Experience more of Burt Prelutsky's humor and wit in his books -- at WND's Superstore.
Sen. Menendez could, in turn, have accused Obama of caving to the pressures of wealthy environmental loons when it came to funding solar panel companies and General Motors with our tax dollars or nixing the Keystone pipeline, but he didn't, so I will.
Neither did Menendez question Obama over his open animosity toward America's only ally in the Middle East, Israel, and her prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, so once again the task falls on my tiny shoulders.
However, these days, even the world "ally" has been sullied through misuse. For instance, even though Saudi money was behind 9/11 and even though Saudi Arabia considers the proper punishment for daring to criticize Islamic clerics to be 50 lashes a week for 20 weeks and that a death sentence is the only way to deal with those who convert to Christianity, our president, like his predecessor, continues to embrace these medieval creeps like long lost brethren.
Speaking of the man who refused to join arms with his fellow national leaders in the "Je Suis Charlie" demonstration in Paris, lest, perhaps, he might have found himself having to link arms with a Jew, Obama doesn't even try to make a real case for emptying Guantanamo of its Islamic jihadists. Instead, he falls back on the old chestnut about Gitmo being a recruiting tool for our enemies, although to this day he refuses to identify just who those folks happen to be.
My question to him is whether he also favors shutting down San Quentin, Attica, Lewisburg, Leavenworth, Folsom and Sing Sing, because bank robbers, rapists and kidnappers are using them as recruiting tools.
I wouldn't want anyone to think that we're the only nation saddled with a limp-wristed appeaser. There's David Cameron, who perfectly exemplifies the rapid decline of the human race when we consider that England has gone from the highs of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher to the depths of Mr. Cameron in a relatively few decades.
After meeting with Obama, the prime minister emerged to report that he agreed that the best way to deal with the madmen of Iran was to bend over and touch his toes. Mr. Churchill would have been aghast, but Mr. Chamberlain would have nodded, winked and said, "That's my boy."
While recently watching a documentary about the Nazi blitz of Britain, it occurred to me that one simple way to distinguish between the good guys and the bad ones in any conflict is to see how they treat their children. During World War II when German bombs rained down on London, English parents sent their young ones off to the countryside and to Canada to ensure their safely, knowing that the separation could be for months, years or, worst case scenario, forever. The Germans not only did nothing to safeguard their own kids, they stuck them in oversized uniforms, handed them rifles and told them to defend the Fatherland.
Today, we see the Israelis doing everything in their power to protect their children while the vermin on the other side place their kids in harm's way so that little mangled bodies are always among the victims when Israel finally retaliates against incessant missile attacks. As we saw recently, when a 10-year-old girl was used successfully as a suicide bomber, there is absolutely no depth to which the Islamists won't stoop.
Finally, whenever I hear liberals attempt to make the case that the federal government and its legion of bureaucrats and experts know best how the rest of us should live, I recall that G.K. Chesterton's clerical crime-solver Father Brown once sagely pointed out that the professionals built the Titanic, but it was an amateur who built the Ark.
Media wishing to interview Burt Prelutsky, please contact [email protected].
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Burt Prelutsky has been a humor columnist for the L.A. Times, a movie critic for Los Angeles magazine and a freelance writer for TV Guide, Modern Maturity, the New York Times and Sports Illustrated. His latest book is entitled ""Barack Obama, You're Fired! (And Don't Bother Asking for a Recommendation)."
5 rules governing male-female relations
Those poor, poor Muslims
Cheerleading for Trump
Idiots and socialists -- but I repeat myself
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Politics U.S. WorldWND EXCLUSIVE
The fatal hole in Obama's nuke deal with Iran
Regional players have secret overseas programs to neuter pact's impact
By F. Michael Maloof
Published April 4, 2015 at 8:41pm
WASHINGTON – The nuclear "framework agreement" worked out between Iran and the Western powers has drawn a broad range of reactions, from celebration by the White House to cautious optimism from Tehran's archenemy Saudi Arabia to strong criticism from Israel.
President Obama said the interim deal is designed to insure that the Middle East doesn't engage in a nuclear arms race.
He said it would “cut off every pathway” to Iran developing a nuclear weapon, and he hoped it would lead to a fundamental change in relations between the United States and the Islamic Republic.
House Speaker John Boehner, in contrast, warned that the "parameters" represented an "alarming departure" from initial U.S. goals.
He said his "immediate concern is the administration signaling it will provide near-term sanctions relief," referring to a provision calling for U.S. and European Union sanctions relief once inspectors verify Iran's progress toward the nuclear-related steps of the deal.
"Congress must be allowed to fully review the details of any agreement before any sanctions are lifted," Boehner said.
Saudi Arabia, which has threatened to have its own nuclear program, gave cautious support for the framework.
“Everyone wants a serious agreement,” said the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Adel al-Jubeir.
However, he wanted to wait for more details of the deal before commenting further.
Meanwhile, Iran’s nuclear negotiator, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, received a rock star’s welcome in Tehran following the announcement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the framework agreement threatens the survival of Israel and legitimizes Iran’s nuclear program, adding that it “would not block Iran’s path to the bomb (but) would pave it.”
"Such a deal would increase the risks of nuclear proliferation in the region and the risks of a horrific war," he said.
Some observers affirm that with the U.S. shift in opening relations with Iran, the Saudis and other Gulf Arab countries might pursue their own nuclear weapons, concluding they can no longer rely on the U.S. for security.
Iran insists it has no intention of developing nuclear weapons but wants to use its nuclear development program for peaceful purposes. Obama has referred on a number of occasions to a fatwa, or Islamic legal pronouncement, from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei against developing nuclear weapons.
Skeptics of Iran's intentions, however, point to the declaration of Iranian Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi that "erasing Israel off the map" is "nonnegotiable" and Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei recently joining a crowd in chanting "Death to America."
Iran claims it has an “absolute right” to a nuclear development program as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Terms of the NPT only forbid the transfer of nuclear weapons to another country or bringing together the necessary components to make a nuclear device. However, it doesn’t forbid making the components, even though all would be subject to IAEA inspection. The NPT also allows Iran to enrich uranium, even though the level at which Iran has enriched to date – 20 percent – is of concern. Israel doesn’t want Iran to have any enrichment capability.
A 2012 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran was moving more rapidly to produce nuclear fuel than many outsiders expected, using a deep underground site that Israel and the United States have said is better protected from attack than Iran’s older facilities. At the same time, the New York Times reported, U.S intelligence analysts said they had no hard evidence Iran had decided to build a nuclear bomb. A 2007 intelligence said Iran had given up its nuclear weapons program as early as 2003. Nevertheless, at the time of the 2012 report, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, told a Senate panel that American officials believed Iran was preserving its options for a nuclear weapon.
Assist from North Korea
Regardless of any deal to which Iran may agree, Asia expert Gordon Chang said North Korea for years has been helping Tehran in a “secret program” to develop nuclear weapons.
It's questionable, he said, that a secret program outside Iran's borders would be covered under the deal with the West.
“The international community wants the preliminary arrangement … to ensure that the country remains at least one year away from being able to produce an atomic device,” Chang said.
“But no inspections of Iranian sites will solve a fundamental issue,” he added. “As can be seen from the North Korean base housing Tehran’s weapons specialists, Iran is only one part of a nuclear weapons effort spanning the Asian continent.
“North Korea, now the world’s proliferation superstar, is a participant. China, once the mastermind, may still be a co-conspirator,” he said.
“Inspections inside the borders of Iran, therefore, will not give the international community the assurance it needs.”
Pakistan is seen as the likely source for the Saudis and the Gulf Arab countries to acquire their own nuclear weapons, if needed, sources tell WND, since the Saudis financed Islamabad’s own nuclear development program and the weaponization that grew out of it.
Saudi Arabia already has ballistic missiles it received from China years ago.
Sources also have told WND that Pakistan already may have sent some nuclear devices to the Saudi kingdom for safekeeping in the event Sunni jihadi groups were to threaten the Pakistani government.
Similarly, Israel, assessed by the U.S. intelligence community to have more than 200 tactical nuclear weapons and a similar number of strategic nuclear devices, developed its nuclear weapons program with the help of South Africa before that country renounced its own nuclear weapons program.
Unlike Iran, Israel is not a signatory to the NPT. Nor is it a member of the IAEA. Sources say that the reason for not signing the NPT or becoming a member of IAEA is to prevent international disclosure of its nuclear arsenal.
Arab countries for years unsuccessfully have been calling for Israel’s full disclosure of its nuclear weapons.
Sources tell WND that there not only will be increased scrutiny of Iran’s own nuclear program but also monitoring of the travels of Iranian nuclear scientists to North Korea when the Hermit Kingdom undertakes future underground nuclear tests.
Whether any alleged overseas development could be convincing enough to be regarded it as a potential violation of any nuclear agreement with Iran remains an open question.
Experts, such as Chang, don’t think so.
Nevertheless, the agreed-upon framework says Iran will either dilute or ship abroad its stockpile of enriched uranium. While Iran has been enriching up to 20 percent, which is consistent for medical purposes, the total accumulation at that level, U.S. officials say, would give Iran a supply of enriched uranium should it have a breakthrough to enrich up to the weapons-grade level of 90 percent or better.
It no longer will be allowed to produce fissile material. A reactor at Arak would be rebuilt with international help to insure that it won’t be able to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
The virtually bomb-proof facility at Nantanz would continue to be allowed to enrich uranium for a 15-year period but under IAEA scrutiny.
In turn, the European Union and U.S. agreed to end most of their economic and financial sanctions, but only after IAEA confirms Iran has fulfilled its commitments under the deal.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, will have access to any facility for inspection, although it won’t be allowed intrusive, unannounced inspections, a provision sought by Western negotiators to prevent the ability to hide evidence.
PARAMETERS OF THE AGREEMENT
An outline of the deal’s framework is broken down into parameters for “a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program.”
Referred to as the JCPOA, the parameters are broken down under enrichment, conversion of Iran’s Fordow facility to prevent it from enriching uranium, reactors, reprocessing and phasing.
Iran agrees to reduce by some two-thirds its installed centrifuges. That number will go from 19,000 to 6,104 installed centrifuges, with only 5,060 allowed to enrich uranium for 10 years.
In addition, all of the 6,104 centrifuges will be IR-1s, Iran’s first generation centrifuge.
Iran also agrees not to enrich uranium over 3.67 percent for at least 15 years. Nuclear reactors need between 3 to 5 percent enrichment for U-235. In addition, Iran agreed not to build any new facilities to enrich uranium for 15 years.
Iran also has agreed to reduce its current stockpile of some 10,000 kilograms of low-enriched uranium to 300 kilograms of 3.67 percent for 15 years.
All excess centrifuges and enrichment infrastructure will be placed in IAEA-monitored storage and will be used only as replacements for operating centrifuges and equipment.
Iran’s breakout timeline – the time that it would take for it to acquire enough fissile material for one weapon – is currently assessed to be two to three months. That timeline will be extended to at least one year, for a duration of at least 10 years.
Fordow facility conversion
In converting the Fordow facility to no longer enrich uranium, it also will not be able to do so for 15 years.
Fordow facility it also is to be converted for “peaceful purposes only" into a nuclear, physics, technology, research center.
At Fordow, Iran won’t be allowed to conduct research and development associated with uranium enrichment or keep any fissile material for 15 years.
Some two-thirds of its centrifuges and infrastructure is to be removed. The remaining centrifuges will not enrich uranium. All centrifuges and related infrastructure will come under IAEA monitoring.
Uranium enrichment at Nantanz
Iran will only enrich uranium at Nantaz, with only 5,060 IR-1 first generation centrifuges, for 10 years.
The 1,000 IR-2M centrifuges currently installed at Natanz are to be removed and place in IAEA-monitored storage for 10 years.
Iran will not use its IR-2, IR-4, IR-5, IR-6, or IR-8 models to produce enriched uranium for at least 10 years. It can engage in limited research and development with its advanced centrifuges, according to a schedule and parameters which have been agreed to by the Western countries.
For 10 years, enrichment and enrichment research and development will be limited to ensure a breakout timeline of at least one year.
Beyond 10 years, Iran is to abide by its enrichment and enrichment research and development plan submitted to the IAEA, pursuant to the JCPOA under the “additional protocol” resulting in certain limitations on enrichment capacity. Those limits were not spelled out in the framework.
Inspections and transparency
The IAEA will have regular access to all of Iran’s nuclear facilities, including Iran’s enrichment facilities at Nantanz and Fordow. The IAEA will use its “most up-to-date modern monitoring technologies."
Inspectors will have access to the supply chain that supports Iran’s nuclear program. The new transparency and inspections mechanisms will closely monitor materials and/or components to prevent diversion to a secret program.
For the next 25 years, inspectors will have access to uranium mines and continuous surveillance at uranium mills, where Iran produces yellowcake.
Inspectors will have continuous surveillance of Iran’s centrifuge rotors and bellows production and storage facilities for 20 years. Iran’s centrifuge manufacturing base will be frozen and under continuous surveillance.
All centrifuges and enrichment infrastructure removed from Fordow and Natanz will be placed under continuous monitoring by the IAEA.
As an additional transparency measure, a dedicated procurement channel for Iran’s nuclear program will be established to monitor and approve, on a case by case basis, the supply, sale or transfer to Iran of certain nuclear-related and dual use materials and technology.
Iran has agreed to implement the Additional Protocol of the IAEA, providing the IAEA much greater access and information regarding Iran’s nuclear program, including both declared and undeclared facilities.
Iran will be required to grant access to the IAEA to investigate suspicious sites or allegations of a covert enrichment facility, conversion facility, centrifuge production facility, or yellowcake production facility anywhere in the country.
Iran has agreed to implement Modified Code 3.1 requiring early notification of construction of new facilities.
Iran will implement an agreed set of measures to address the IAEA’s concerns regarding the Possible Military Dimensions (PMD) of its program.
Reactors and reprocessing
Iran has agreed to redesign and rebuild the Arak heavy water research reactor, based on a design agreed to by the West. It will not be able to produce weapons-grade plutonium but will support peaceful nuclear research and radioisotope production.
Iran will ship all of its spent fuel from the reactor out of the country for the reactor’s lifetime.
Iran has committed indefinitely to not conduct reprocessing or reprocessing research and development on spent nuclear fuel.
Iran will not accumulate heavy water in excess of the needs of the modified Arak reactor and will sell any remaining heavy water on the international market for 15 years.
Iran will not build any additional heavy water reactors for 15 years.
Western sanctions are to be relaxed if Iran abides by its commitments.
U.S. and EU nuclear-related sanctions will be suspended after the IAEA has verified that Iran has taken all of its key nuclear-related steps. If at any time Iran fails to fulfill its commitments, these sanctions will snap back into place
The “architecture” of U.S. nuclear-related sanctions on Iran will be retained for much of the duration of the deal and allow for snap-back of sanctions in the event of significant non-performance.
All past U.N. Security Council resolutions on the Iran nuclear issue will be lifted simultaneous with the completion by Iran of nuclear-related actions addressing all key concerns of enrichment, Fordow, Arak, PMD and transparency.
However, core provisions in the U.N. Security Council resolutions – those that deal with transfers of sensitive technologies and activities – will be re-established by a new U.N. Security Council resolution that will endorse the JCPOA and urge its full implementation.
It will also create the procurement channel of new technologies, which will serve as a key transparency measure. Important restrictions on conventional arms and ballistic missiles, as well as provisions that allow for related cargo inspections and asset freezes, will also be incorporated by this new resolution.
A dispute resolution process will be specified, which enables any JCPOA participant to seek to resolve disagreements about the performance of JCPOA commitments.
If an issue of significant non-performance cannot be resolved through that process, then all previous U.N. sanctions could be re-imposed.
U.S. sanctions on Iran for terrorism, human rights abuses and ballistic missiles will remain in place under the deal.
For 10 years, Iran will limit domestic enrichment capacity and research and development, ensuring a breakout timeline of at least one year. Beyond that, Iran will be bound by its longer-term enrichment and enrichment research and development plan it shared with the western countries.
For 15 years, Iran will limit additional elements of its program. For instance, Iran will not build new enrichment facilities or heavy water reactors and will limit its stockpile of enriched uranium and accept enhanced transparency procedures.
Important inspections and transparency measures will continue well beyond 15 years, although it wasn’t specified in the framework.
Iran’s adherence to the Additional Protocol of the IAEA is to be permanent, including its significant access and transparency obligations. The robust inspections of Iran’s uranium supply chain will last for 25 years.
Even after the period of the most stringent limitations on Iran’s nuclear program, Iran will remain a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which prohibits Iran’s development or acquisition of nuclear weapons and requires IAEA safeguards on its nuclear program.
F. Michael Maloof
F. Michael Maloof, contributing writer for national security affairs for WND and G2Bulletin, is a former senior security policy analyst in the office of the secretary of defense, and is author of "A Nation Forsaken."
@ANationForsaken
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US Releases Video It Claims Shows Iran Removing Unexploded Mine From Gulf Tanker
The United States has blamed Iran for an attack on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, releasing video footage that it claims shows an Iranian patrol boat removing...
Published: 6:51 AM EDT June 14, 2019
Updated: 6:50 AM EDT June 14, 2019
The United States has blamed Iran for an attack on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, releasing video footage that it claims shows an Iranian patrol boat removing an unexploded mine from one of the vessels’ hulls.
The Kokura Courageous and Front Altair tankers were attacked in international waters Thursday, prompting the evacuation of both vessels and raising fears of further confrontation in one of the world’s most strategic shipping lanes at a time of high tensions between the US and Iran.
The explosions, which sparked a fire on at least one of the two ships, are still under investigation. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran for the incident, citing intelligence assessments, the weapons used, the level of expertise required and the similarity to other recent attacks.
On Thursday night, US Central Command released a video which it said shows Iranian sailors removing a mine from the Kokura Courageous’ hull.
In the video, a smaller boat is shown coming up to the side of the Japanese-owned tanker. An individual stands up on the bow of the boat and can be seen removing an object from the tanker’s hull. The US says that object is likely an unexploded mine.
“Iran did do it, and you know they did it because you saw the boat,” President Donald Trump said during a phone interview on Fox and Friends Friday morning, referring to the video.
A senior diplomatic source of a US ally told CNN Friday, “It is a virtual certainty Iran was behind this latest attack. The video now nails it.”
The source added that the goal of the response from the US government thus far is all about publicly exposing Iranian actions and intensifying maximum pressure.
After the United States withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, adopted a policy of maximum economic pressure and sent a carrier group to the region, the source said this “Iranian retaliation is designed to show they can disrupt, and push oil prices up.”
The Trump administration predicted that the pressure from the United States would bring Iran to the negotiating table, but European leaders disagreed, believing it would empower the hardliners, the source continued.
Iran has denied any involvement in the incident, with its foreign minister suggesting that the US was quick to make allegations “without a shred of evidence.”
On Friday, the president of the Japanese shipping company that owns the Kokuka Courageous held a press conference in Tokyo, in which he denied that a mine had been used in the tanker attack.
The President of Kokuka Sangyo Marine, Yutaka Katada, said he believed there was “no possibility of mine attack” owing to the attack being “well above the naval line.”
Katada said he had not seen the images released by the US military, but referenced the account of a crew member who witnessed the second blast and saw a “flying object.”
The International Association of Independent Tanker Owners (Intertanko) said the vessels were hit “at or below the waterline, in close proximity to the engine room,” and added that the attacks “appeared to be well-planned and coordinated.”
Another of US official told CNN that multiple Iranian small boats have entered the area where the USS Bainbridge continues to be on the scene, prompting US Central Command to issue a statement saying, “No interference with USS Bainbridge, or its mission, will be tolerated.”
The attack could provide more fodder for Iran hawks within the US administration, whose recent Iran saber-rattling has frustrated President Donald Trump. One of them, national security adviser John Bolton, announced last month that the Pentagon was deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the Middle East in response to a “number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” from Iran.
The two tankers — one carrying oil and the other transporting chemicals — were attacked near the strategically important Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route that has been the focal point of regional tensions for decades. Roughly 30% of the world’s sea-borne crude oil passes through the strategic choke point, making it a flashpoint for political and economic friction.
Jonathan Cohen, acting US ambassador to the United Nations, said Thursday that he echoed Pompeo’s comments in a private meeting of the UN Security Council, describing the attack as “another example of Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region.”
The Iranian mission to the UN rejected the US’ claim.
Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman for the Iranian mission, tweeted a statement saying Iran “categorically rejects the US unfounded claim” that Iran is behind the attacks and “condemns it in the strongest possible terms.”
He added that Iran “expresses concern” over the “suspicious incidents.” And he called it “ironic” that the US, which withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, is now calling Iran to come back for negotiations and diplomacy.
Following the attack, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said “suspicious doesn’t begin to describe” this latest incident, noting that one of the tankers is Japanese owned and the attack took place as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was visiting Iran in an effort to calm tensions between Washington and Tehran.
“Reported attacks on Japan-related tankers occurred while PM was meeting with Ayatollah [Ali Khamenei] for extensive and friendly talks. Suspicious doesn’t begin to describe what likely transpired this morning,” Zarif tweeted Thursday.
After Khamenei met with with Abe, who was in Tehran on a visit widely viewed as an attempt to moderate US-Iran tensions, Iran’s Supreme Leader tweeted that he does not “consider Trump as a person deserving to exchange messages with; I have no response for him & will not answer him.”
Trump appeared to weigh in on Twitter, saying: “While I very much appreciate P.M. Abe going to Iran to meet with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, I personally feel that it is too soon to even think about making a deal. They are not ready, and neither are we!”
Thursday’s incident follows attacks on four oil tankers in the United Arab Emirates’ port of Fujairah in May. The US and Saudi Arabia suspect Iran was behind those attacks — though no evidence of its involvement has been presented. Tehran denied any involvement, and precisely who carried it out is still under investigation.
Initial findings from an international investigation of the attack last month concluded that a “state actor” was the most likely culprit.
The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Norway told the UN Security Council last week that there are “strong indications that last month’s attacks were part of a sophisticated and coordinated operation carried out with significant operational capacity.”
On Friday, a UK intelligence source told CNN that Britain had “no doubts” over the validity of the video released by the US Central Command. When asked about the remarks from Pompeo blaming Iran for the attack, Maja Kocijančič, a spokeswoman for the European Union, said Friday that the EU was still “gathering more information.”
“We have said repeatedly that the region doesn’t need further de-escalation it does need destabilization does need further tension and therefore we call for maximum restraint and to avoid provocations,” Kocijančič said.
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Jay Blades
Johnny Phillips
Jacqui Oatley MBE
Jack Rutter
Mark Rhodes
Anna Price
Wolves Foundation Ambassador
Jay Blades, originally from Hackney, is dyslexic and left school at 15 without any qualifications.
He eventually managed to get back on track studying for a degree in criminology and philosophy at Buckingham University before finding his true vocation in restoration.
He is now a modern furniture restorer, upcycler and eco-designer who is passionate about sustainability and the environment. He sources vintage and beautifully crafted pieces of furniture and re-imagines them into works of contemporary design.
Over the years Jay has also become an unlikely hero to lead the movement to save dying crafts in the UK, and is pioneering in the work he does to empower the lives and careers of so many talented and aspiring makers working across the UK.
Jay moved to Wolverhampton five years ago, and now divides his time between being a presenter on the BBC with having his own successful business in modern furniture restoration Jay & Co.
Jay is an inspirational motivator and was the former co-founder of award-winning social enterprises Out of The Dark and Street Dreams. Working with disengaged and disadvantaged young people, Jay was able to mentor and support thousands of individuals over the years to realise their full potential.
Having taken part in the first ever Molineux Sleepout in November, 2019, he was appointed as a Foundation ambassador in July, 2020.
Blades: “I’m so proud to have been asked to become an official ambassador for the Wolves Foundation. Wolverhampton is a place very close to my heart, and the city’s motto ‘Out of darkness cometh light’ resonates with me on so many levels.”
We are like a wolf pack. We are like a very big family.
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PhosAgro to buy all the shares of Apatit
6:58 AM, 21st February 2013
MOSCOW, RUSSIA: PhosAgro, a leading global vertically integrated phosphate-based fertilizer producer, decided to launch a compulsory buyout of all remaining shares owned by minority shareholders of OJSC Apatit. The Company’s stake in Apatit equals 95.95 per cent. PhosAgro has spent a total of RUB 5,904 million ($196.4 million) on the mandatory buyout. PhosAgro plans to finish the consolidation of its ownership in Apatit before the end of this year.
PhosAgro’s mandatory buyout offer was launched as a result of the company’s victory in the tender for the Russian Federation’s 20 per cent stake (26.67 per cent of ordinary shares) in Apatit. This resulted in PhosAgro’s ownership of Apatit exceeding 75 per cent, as it increased to 77.57 per cent. PhosAgro’s winning bid of RUB 11,110 million ($369.7 million) was the highest price offered by tender participants. “This decision is fully in line with our strategy of consolidating our ownership of the minority stakes in PhosAgro’s subsidiaries,” said Maxim Volkov, Chairman and CEO, PhosAgro.
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IMCD acquires Indian pharma distributor, Indchem International
ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS/ MUMBAI, INDIA: IMCD Group BV has acquired the business of Indchem International, an established player in the pharmaceutic ...
BHP Billiton CEO Marius Kloppers to retire
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA: BHP Billiton announced that Marius Kloppers will retire as Chief Executive Officer and a Director of the company on 10 May 201 ...
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IRVING, US/HAARLEM, THE NETHERLANDS: Fluor Corporation has secured a contract for engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) services ...
Air Products to build ASU for Shanxi Lu’An Mining’s coal gasification facility
LEHIGH VALLEY, US: Air Products announced the signing of a long-term agreement with Shanxi Lu’An Mining (Group) Co Ltd for Air Products to bui ...
Cabot launches new conductive additive for lithium-ion batteries
BOSTON, US: Cabot Corp launched LITX 200, a new conductive additive for high power lithium-ion battery applications. The lithium-ion battery market co ...
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