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The Most Relevant Technology and Entertainment News - Technology And Entertainment News
Road To Infinity War
Road To Endgame
Shang Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings
She Hulk
Man of Steel 2
Shazam 2
Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi
Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise Of Skywalker
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Howard Hughes Biopic (Rumored)
Hobbs & Shaw
Fast & Furious 10
Paatal Lok
Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker – All TV Spots Released Thus Far
A compilation of all the recently released Episode IX TV Spots.
DisneyMoviesStar WarsStar Wars: Episode IX - The Rise Of Skywalker
By Divij Sonak On Nov 30, 2019
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is approaching its release date in hyperspeed (well, not quite). And with each passing day arrives a bevy of promotional material in the form of posters, trailers, stills, covers and most of all, TV Spots. The last few days have seen plenty of TV Spots released for Episode IX so I thought it makes sense to put them all in a single post before the list grows too large. And here they are.
The first new TV Spot, titled End has a few new intriguing shots among which are Rey staring at the remains of Darth Vader’s helmet, Rey getting ready to fight Ren and some footage from the trio’s speeder chase. Check it out below:
The next TV Spot, titled Fate, has a more ominous ring to it. C-3PO’s line, “If this mission fails, it was all for nothing”, goes well with the goings-on in the spot, which contains a few new scenes including our first, clear look at the Knights of Ren. There are red stormtroopers, a stormtrooper taking off on what looks like a jet-pack, and some footage of Rey and Ren squaring off in what looks like it’ll be the film’s climax.
There are then two TV Spots fused together into one clip by a fan channel. They reveal quite a bit of dialogue, including Rey playing a Jedi mind-trick on the stormtroopers, causing Poe to wonder if she ever did that to Finn and himself. There are some other bits as well between Poe and Chewie and a line or two from Finn but it all goes by really fast given that both spots are less than 20 seconds long.
There’s lots more coming although some of those deserve their own pieces so stay tuned. For now, let us know which one of these spots is your favorite.
Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters on December 20, 2019. It will be directed by J J Abrams from a script he co-wrote with Chris Terrio and stars Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, Mark Hamill, Kellie Marie Tran, Billy Dee Williams, Naomi Ackie, Domhall Gleeson, Lupita Nyong’o and the late Carrie Fisher.
Black Widow Release Moved Up To April 2020 In India
Duel Of The Fates Used In Latest Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker TV Spot
The Suicide Squad Will Be Rated R, James Gunn Confirms
Chris Pratt Confirms Thor: Love And Thunder Role
WandaVision Character Posters Spotlight Agnes And Monica Rambeau
Wonder Woman 1984 Passes $100 Million At The Box Office
WandaVision Showrunner Jac Schaeffer Talks About Her Pitch And Scope Of The Disney+ Series
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Alle Artikel 60
Details The Global Art Compass: New Directions in 21st-Century Art
Details Basics Advertising 02: Art Direction (AVA Series, Band 2)
Details Art Theater (New Directions in Aesthetics)
Details The Art Lover: A Novel (New Directions Classics)
Details Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction
Details Showcase 500 Rings: New Directions in Art Jewelry (500 Series)
Details Structure and Cognition in Art (New Directions in Archaeology)
Details Magma Sketchbook: Design & Art Direction (Magma for Laurence King)
Details The Art of Videogames (New Directions in Aesthetics, Band 10)
Details The Arts Management Handbook: New Directions for Students and Practitioners
Details Art Direction and Production Design (Behind the Silver Screen Series, Band 9)
Details L' Art Du Vigneron: Pour Servir de Direction Aux Proprietaires de Vignes (1798)
Details Four Arts of Photography: An Essay in Philosophy (New Directions in Aesthetics, Band 15)
Details Quelques Ides Sur La Direction Des Arts Et Sur Le Maintien Du Got Public
Details Quelques Idees Sur La Direction Des Arts Et Sur Le Maintien Du Gout Public (1856)
Details Prodromus of a Practical Treatise on the Mathematical Arts: Containing Directions for Surveying and Engineering (1838)
Details The Art and Practice of Etching: With Directions for Other Methods of Light and Entertaining Engraving
Details Ad Hoc Anonymous Signatures: State of the Art, Challenges & New Directions (Cryptology, Steganography and Data Security)
Details Small Group Leadership as Spiritual Direction: Practical Ways to Blend an Ancient Art Into Your Contemporary Community
Details The Art of Working in Pasteboard: Upon Scientific Principles: To Which Is Added, an Appendix, Containing Directions for Constructing Architectural ... or the Art of Modelling in Paper
Details Lamps and Shades in Metal and Art Glass: Eighteen Complete Designs, with Working Drawings and Full Directions for Their Making
Details Ovarian Cancer: State of the Art and Future Directions in Translational Research (Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology (622), Band 622)
Details A Primer of the Art of Illumination for the Use of Beginners: With a Rudimentary Treatise on the Art, Practical Directions for Its Exercise, and Examples Taken from Illuminated Mss.
Details The Art of Natural Sleep: With Definite Directions for the Wholesome Cure of Sleeplessness: Illustrated by Cases Treated in Northampton and Elsewhere
Details Plain Directions for Acquiring the Art of Shooting on the Wing: With Useful Hints Concerning All That Relates to Guns and Shooting (1873)
Details Typographia; Or, the Printer's Instructor: A Brief Sketch of the Origin, Rise, and Progress of the Typographic Art, with Practical Directions for Cond
Details The Painter's Guide to the Art of Varnishing and Polishing: With Directions for House, Coach, Sign, and Ornamental Painting, Furniture and Cabinet Jap
Details A Treatise on Perspective, in Which the Whole of That Art Is Reduced to One General Rule: With Directions for Drawing from Models (1828)
Details Ministère de l'Instruction Publique Et Des Beaux-Arts. Direction de l'Enseignement Primaire (1919): . 5e bureau. Instruction du 10 juin 1919 sur les ... primaire supérieur (Sciences Sociales)
Details Typographia: A Brief Sketch of the Origin, Rise, and Progress of the Typographic Art: With Practical Directions for Conducting Every Department in an Office
Details The Compleat Surveyor: Or, the Whole Art of Surveying of Land, by a New Instrument Lately Invented: Containing Plain and Easy Directions in S
Details The Complete Fisherman; Or, Universal Angler: Containing Full Directions for Taking All Kinds of River Fish. ... to Which Is Added the Whole Art of Fl
Details The Journal of the Franklin Institute Devoted to Science and the Mechanic Arts, Published by the Institute, Under the Direction of the Committee on Publication
Details The Complete Manual for Young Sportsmen: With Directions for Handling the Gun, the Rifle, and the Rod; The Art of Shooting on the Wing; The Breaking,
Details A Practical Essay on the Art of Flower Painting: Comprehending Instructions in the Drawing, Chiaro-Scuro, Choice, Composition, Coloring, and Execution ... with General Observations and Directions...
Details Droit, arts, sciences humaines et sociales : (De)passer les frontières disciplinaires: SOUS LA DIRECTION DE SANDRINE CHASSAGNARD-PINET, PIERRE LEMAY, ... (DROIT ET SOCIETE RECHERCHES ET TRAVAUX)
Details The Archaeological Journal: Published Under the Direction of the Central Committee of the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, for ... Arts and Monuments of the Early and Middle...
Details Illustrated Catalogue of the Very Important Collection of Rare and Beautiful Oriental Art Treasures Belonging to the Estate of the Widely Known ... Sale by Direction of the Executors On...
Details Everybody's Paint Book: A Complete Guide to the Art of Outdoor and Indoor Painting, and Consisting of Practical Lessons. Precise Direction Are Given for Mixing Paints for All Purposes
Details First Lessons in Composition: In Which the Principles of the Art Are Developed in Connection with the Principles of Grammar: Embracing Full Directions ... Subject of Punctuation with Copious Exercises
Details The complete manual for young sportsmen: with directions for handling the gun, the rifle, and the rod, the art of shooting on the wing, the breaking, ... and sea fishing, etc., etc., etc. ... [1856]
Details The art of promoting the growth of the cucumber and melon in a series of directions for the best means to be adopted in bringing them to a complete state of perfection (TREDITION CLASSICS)
Details The Art of the Gruberova
Oeuvres de Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, Gounod, Thomas, Delibes, Offenbach / Edita Gruberova, soprano - Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra - Friedrich Haider, direction
Details The Art of Zino Francescatti
Zino Francescatti, violon - Pierre Fournier, violoncelle - Eugenio Bagnoli, piano - Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire - BBC Symphony Orchestra - André Cluytens & Sir Malcolm Sargent, direction
Details Leisure Arts-Modern Primitive Embroidery
Follow the directions to transfer a simple line drawing onto fabric. Then use basic stitches and easy embellishments to create modern textile beauty. Includes 12 designs. 36 pages. More Info: LEISURE ARTS-Modern Primitive Embroidery is the greatest ...
Details Of Musique,Poetrie,Art,and Love
3 Préludes pour piano - Of Musique, Poetrie, Art, and Love - Four Composer Portraits... / L. Melton, piano - E. Farnum, soprano - C. Wincenc, flûte - J. Sampen, saxophone alto - R. Schupp, percussion - Bowling Green Philharmonia - E. F. Brown, direction
Details Suite Für Klavier und Streicher/+
Giovanni Nesi, piano - Orchestra Nazionale Artes - Andrea Vitello, direction
Details Circular
Modern Art Orchestra - Kornél Fekete-Kovács, direction
Details Wagner/Strauss/Rimski
Œuvres de Wagner, R. Strauss & Rimski-Korsakov / Concerts Arts Symphony Orchestra - Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra - Erich Leinsdorf, direction
Details Divas of Mozart'S Day
Œuvres de Mozart, Righini, Salieri, Soler, Storace / Patrice Michaels, soprano - Classical Arts Orchestra - Stephen Altop, direction
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2020 NEW ZEALAND COLLECTION
Pisa/Central Otago, New Zealand
Amisfield is a Central Otago based specialist producer of Pinot Noir and aromatic white wines created from fruit grown on their Estate vineyard beneath the Pisa Mountain range in the Cromwell Basin, Central Otago. This privately owned company’s 200ha property, once a prominent high country merino station, is one of the largest single vineyard estates in the Central Otago region. Over 80ha is currently planted with the majority of the vines being over ten years old.
Amisfield wines reflect the company’s grape growing and winemaking philosophy underlining faithful expression of site, minimal winemaking intervention and ultimate fruit purity. Stringent yield management practices deliver concentrated fruit flavour, consistency and complexity derived from the range of soils found on the vineyard.
Amisfield is an accredited and committed member of the New Zealand Winegrowers’ Sustainable Winegrowing Programme centring on a quality management system and environmental sustainability.
Winemaker: Dr. Stephanie Lambert
amisfield.co.nz
17 Sauvignon Blanc 750ml
16/18 Chenin Blanc** 750ml
17/18 Pinot Gris 750ml
17/18 Rosé (Pinot Noir) 750ml
16 Pinot Noir (v) 750ml
15/16 Pinot Noir (v) 375ml
15 RKV Reserve Pinot Noir** (v) 750ml
*Limited (v) Vegan Friendly
Respect, patience, and adaptability – Each is an integral part of the Kumeu River success story, not only in the making of good wine, but also in the making of a thriving family business that spans many generations.Kumeu River’s Chardonnays are considered the best in New Zealand, and among the best Chardonnays produced anywhere. Often mistaken for top quality Grand Cru Burgundies, these wines offer fantastic value for money.
“Kumeu River and (winemaker) Michael Brajkovich MW have both become synonymous with New Zealand’s finest Chardonnay. For over two decades they have fashioned Burgundy-inspired wines (particularly Meursault) with their Mate’s Vineyard Chardonnay winning accolades far and wide.” – Robert Parker
Winemaker: Michael Brajkovich
kumeuriver.co.nz
16 'Village' Pinot Gris 750ml
16/17 'Village' Chardonnay 750ml
16 'Village' Pinot Noir 750ml
18 Pinot Gris 375ml
16/17 'Estate' Chardonnay 750ml
14 'Coddington' Chardonnay 750ml
15/16/17 'Coddington' Chardonnay 750ml
14 'Hunting Hill' Chardonnay 750ml
16/17 'Hunting Hill' Chardonnay 750ml
16/17 'Mates' Vineyard' Chardonnay** 750ml
Central Otago, New Zealand
The name might be different, but the approach is the same. As with its renowned sibling Amisfield, Lake Hayes wines reflect the land they’re grown from, with a style of winemaking that allows the fruit to express itself from vintage to vintage. The grapes for Lake Hayes come from some of the best growing areas in Central Otago.
Lake Hayes wines are made in an early drinking style with a fresh, fruity appeal. They are young and lively, yet balanced and sophisticated. Perfect for a picnic in summer or dinner by the fire in winter. Coming from Amisfield, they represent extraordinary value.
lakehayes.co.nz
(v) Vegan Friendly
Martinborough, New Zealand
Lighthouse Gin is the brainchild of Neil Catherall. Born and raised in Masterton, Neil was a beer man and worked as chief engineer at New Zealand Breweries in the 1970’s, before spending the next 20 years in finance until he retired with his wife to Greytown in 2001.
Handcrafted in Martinborough, Lighthouse Gin draws its name from the iconic Cape Palliser lighthouse on the southernmost tip of the North Island of New Zealand. Each hand-crafted and hand-distilled batch of Lighthouse Gin contains a unique blend of pure mountain spring water with individually distilled botanicals, including hand zested New Zealand navel oranges and Yen Ben lemons, with hints of native botanicals including Kawa Kawa, to create a batch distilled premium Dry Gin.
Double distilled in a 200 litre copper pot, each batch has its own subtle flavour, but carries the signature Lighthouse style, which may be best appreciated in a dry martini or in a refreshingly flavoursome gin and tonic.
lighthousegin.co.nz
Lighthouse Gin
NV Batch Distilled Gin (42% alc/vol) 750ml
Russian Jack
One of the most famous swaggers of the Martinborough region was a man known simply as Russian Jack ( Barrett Crumen, b.1878 -d. 19 September, 1968). Although his origins have been disputed between Russia and The Ukraine, he was actually born in Latvia in 1878. He joined the merchant marine when he was 24 and probably spent the next decade working as a seaman. His arrival in New Zealand was probably not intentional. He was working on a British ship, the Star of Canada, when she was caught in a storm off the coast of Gisborne. The ship foundered and the crew had to be rescued and brought ashore.
Legend has it that Russian Jack (as he would later be known) needed to get to Wellington to catch another ship. He started walking and although he eventually made it to Wellington, he never went to sea again. He just kept walking, mostly around the Wairarapa area. He was far more at home on the country roads and he gained quite a reputation. He was a big strong man in his youth and worked on farms to make a living. He was fond of a smoke and would often call on Bill Kemp, the Mayor of Masterton, who was known to grow and cure his own tobacco.There are many stories about Russian Jack and lots of people claim to have known him. They say his English was poor but he was very polite and meticulous in his grooming. He became deaf later in life, possibly because he stuffed his ears with paper soaked in lard “to keep the bugs out”. He was in his late 80s when he finally gave up the road. By then he was deaf, bow-legged and footsore. In 1965 he was admitted to Pahiatua Hospital with frostbitten feet and later transferred to Greytown Hospital where he died in 1968 at the age of 90. A statue celebrating his life can be found next to the Masterton Library.
Russian Jack was a pioneer of the Martinborough region. These rich and fertile lands that are now covered in picturesque vineyards produce world class wines thanks in part to the hard working nature of its people both past and present and this wine is named in the spirit of that tradition.
Winemaker: Paul Mason
martinborough-vineyard.co.nz
The stone-filled river terraces are free-draining while the top soils vary from slope to slope. A rain shadow effect created by the Rimutaka Ranges to the south-west and the Tararua Ranges to the west keeps the region dry.
This combination of ‘terroir’ factors means that Martinborough vineyards are typically low-yielding, enhancing fruit intensity. Martinborough’s long ripening season, with cool night and warm daytime temperatures, slowly builds the structure needed to create complex Pinot Noir’s and aromatic whites. Best known for our Pinot Noir across these core vineyards there are over 60 distinct Pinot Noir sites taking into account, clone, soil, trellising and vine density age and orientation. Our ‘gravity’ designed winery is ideal for minimal handling high quality Pinot Noir production with multiple small fermenters to enable specific blocks to be vinified separately.
Our flagship wine John Martin, made only in exceptional years, is named in honour of the founding father of the Martinborough Township with our winery and home vineyard located on part of his original land.
Winemaker: John Kavanagh
tekairanga.co.nz
17 Estate Sauvignon Blanc 750ml
17/18 Estate Pinot Gris 750ml
17 Estate Pinot Noir Rosé 750ml
16/17 Estate Pinot Noir 750ml
16/17 'Runholder' Pinot Noir 750ml
17 'John Martin' Chardonnay 750ml
16/17 'John Martin' Pinot Noir 750ml
Marlborough, New Zealand
This wine was named after the saddle in the range that separates the two main valleys in Marlborough, the Awatere & the Wairau. This saddle allowed travellers to “pass” between the two. This is also an indication of the selection of the fruit as the best parcels from Wairau and the Awatere valley are used in varying amounts each vintage to produce The Pass.
Combining fruit from both the Wairau and Awatere Valleys adds an extra dimension to The Pass Sauvignon Blanc, with the Wairau fruit lifting the aromatics and the Awatere adding an attractive mineral note. The wine exhibits bright lemongrass and citrus aromas. On the palate, intense citrus fruit flavors lead to a crisp finish.
Winemaker: Stu Marfell
vavasour.com
Awatere/Marlborough, New Zealand
The Vavasours arrived in New Zealand and established themselves in the Awatere Valley in 1890. Nearly a century later in 1985, Peter Vavasour identified the Awatere Valley as the new frontier for New Zealand wine growing and planted the first grapes there. Vavasour’s first vintage was 1989; within three years they were garnering high accolades and had officially put Awatere Valley on the map of great wine making regions.
It’s not just the grinding winds from the west or the imposing presence of Tapuae-O-Uenuku, the towering peak that looms over Marlborough’s Awatere Valley. It’s not just the deep, rocky soils formed millions of years ago by relentless glaciers that molded the landscape. It’s not just the arid climate marked by sundrenched days and cold nights. It’s the combination of all those things together that shape the inimitable character, flavours and textures of Vavasour wines.
16 Chardonnay 750ml
15/17 Pinot Noir 750ml
13 'Claudia’s Vineyard' Sauv. Blanc 750ml
15 'Anna’s Vineyard' Chardonnay 750ml
15 'Felix’s Vineyard' Pinot Noir 750ml
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Fernley Women’s Golf Club, Jan. 12
Divisional Round picks: Pining for a return to 1982
City’s Citizen’s Leadership Academy to be held virtually
Blame Trump, and others, for riot at U.S. Capitol building, Rep. Amodei says
56 new COVID-19 cases, 37 recoveries reported in Lyon County over weekend
Fernley’s Hometown News
City of Fernley
City ordinances would open door for medical marijuana dispensary
September 19, 2017 September 19, 2017 Robert Perea 0 Comments City of Fernley
Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter
The Fernley City Council is scheduled to consider a pair of ordinances that would pave the way for a medical marijuana dispensary in the city.
The first ordinance would amend the city’s business license regulations by adding a chapter to allow medical marijuana dispensaries to sell marijuana or marijuana infused products, license marijuana cultivation and production facilities and independent testing laboratories.
The second establishes the zoning requirements and other requirements that would govern such a facility.
The council earlier this year rescinded an ordinance it passed two years ago to prohibit medical marijuana establishments in the city. Sheriff Al McNeil has advocated the licensing of medical marijuana facilities, because that would prohibit home grows within 25 miles of the dispensary.
Planning Director Tim Thompson told the council the language in the proposed zoning amendment was taken from the city of Sparks.
The ordinance would require that a dispensary be located only in the commercial district and have direct access to either U.S. 50 or U.S. 95A, limiting it to well-traveled, well-lit and highly visible locations. That would allow a facility only on 95A between Sage St. and Main St., on Main St. between 95A and the roundabout, or on East Main St. between the roundabout and Interstate 80. An exception would allow a dispensary to be located on Newlands Drive or Chisholm Trail within 750 feet of Main St.
Other state regulations require a facility to be at least 1,000 from a school and 300 feet from any other community facility, such as a church.
The ordinance would limit hours of operation from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and deliveries from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
No drive throughs will be allowed, and many other security measures are required, including an alarm system that allows the sheriff’s office to remotely access cameras to gauge its response to an alarm.
The council will hear the two ordinances as second readings at Wednesdays meeting, where they can be adopted, rejected or amended.
If the city approves the regulations, Thompson said, the city would notify the state. After 45 days, the state would begin accepting applications and rank them for the city. Only current license holders in good standing with the state would be eligible to apply, he said.
City manager Daphne Hooper said if the ordinances are approved, staff would bring proposals to the council to consider the specific application fees.
The ordinances would also only allow medical marijuana facilities, not recreational marijuana.
Thompson said the state Department of Taxation is in the process of setting regulations for recreational marijuana facilities. Currently, the Department of Taxation has interim regulations in place, but he said the city wants to wait until permanent regulations are established by the state before proceeding with allowing a recreational marijuana dispensary.
← New volunteer organization aims to fight domestic violence
National Federation of Republican Women hosts convention →
LVN Editor Emeritus Ranson to speak to next meeting of Fernley Republican Women
WNC announces Fall Dean’s List
Nevada to prioritize elderly, essential workforce concurrently under new COVID vaccination rollout plan
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Blog Kiosk: 5/9/2017 - Dodgers Links - Bellinger, Wood and a Vin Scully Signing
What a fantastic photo of Alex Wood pitching under a blood red sky.
Last night Alex was fantastic in his five innings of scoreless work. He allowed only two hits while striking out eleven batters on 88 total pitches. Per Ken Gurnick at MLB.com:
"I felt good tonight, had all three [pitches] going and was on the same page with Yas [catcher Yasmani Grandal]," he said. "Obviously helped we had a lot of runs. When you get leads like that, you have to smell blood in the water. Just happy the result was there and hope to continue to be consistent and get ready for the next one."
Photo above via Jon SooHoo/LA Dodgers 2017. Go here to check out more pics bu Jon from yesterdays game. Below are more links to check out:
This Day in Dodgers History: In 1983 Ron Cey returned to Dodger Stadium for the first time since being traded to the Chicago during the offseason. Cey went 3-for-4 with three singles and a run scored but his Cubs lost, 4-3.
Happy Birthday, Alex Farmer & Aaron Harang!
Podcast: The Bullpen with David Aardsma and James the Greek speak with Eric Gagne. It starts at about the 45 minute mark. (podcast link)
Video: Dave Roberts speaks about Alex Wood's performance and the Dodgers' overall offense after beating the Pirates 12-1 in series opener. (video link)
Video: Kelli Tennant caught up with Chris Taylor after hitting a grand slam and 3 runs in Dodgers' 12-1 series opener against Pirates. (video link)
At the same time, minor league pitching prospect Leo Crawford was named Midwest League Pitcher of the Week, per the Great Lakes Loons on twitter. He pitched six innings of one-hit ball with five strike outs and just one walk.
Cody Bellinger was named the National League Player of the Week for the period ending May 7. Per a Dodger press release:
Bellinger hit .429 (9-for-21) with eight runs scored, a double, one triple, three home runs, 12 RBI and a stolen base over five games to claim his first career Player of the Week Award, and the first for a Dodgers position player since teammate Adrián González was awarded NL weekly honors on April 13, 2015. Among his NL counterparts, Bellinger finished the period first in RBI; tied for first in slugging percentage (1.000); tied for second in home runs; tied for third in batting average and runs scored; fourth in total bases (21); and tied for fifth in extra-base hits (5).
Per Tracy Hackler at The Knight's Lance; "Four Years Later, First Autograph Cards of Cody Bellinger are Heating Up the Hobby."
Per Andrea Canales at ESPN; "Jaime Jarrin and Vin Scully spoke the same language: baseball."
Responsibility didn't mean the job couldn't sometimes be fun. Scully purchased a book sold as a traveler's bible and used the restaurant recommendations inside it to visit new places with Jarrin in every city the Dodgers visited.
"We spent a lot of time on the road having dinner together," Scully recalled. "I just thought of him as one of my closest friends and still do, even though life has separated us a great deal. He's a wonderful human being."
Dodgers prospect Jack Murphy wrote a column for Next Level Ballplayer; "Having A Tough Day? Try Using This Commonly Used Phrase by Professional Ballplayers…"
That’s the life that all baseball players chose. We get to play sports for a living. That’s a gift. Most of us are thankful for every day we get out there on the field. It’s not something we take for granted. The boys of summer are truly a blessed group. But some days the game beats you down. And for those days, we have the shirts.
They are simple shirts. Plain with one phrase: “It’s All Part of It”. When you get sent down, flight at 6 am. Game in NH at noon. Eight-hour bus to Binghamton, NY postgame. You can whine. You can bitch. But guess what? It’s all part of it. This was the life we chose.
I don't often highlight private signings, but this one is too good not to share. I got the below flyer this morning. As you can see, Vin Scully is scheduled for a private signing in June. Go here for information. This is a very pricey signing opportunity -- ranging from $349 to $699 per each autograph.
By ernest at Tuesday, May 09, 2017
Labels: Alex Wood, Auto Op, Blog Kiosk, Cody Bellinger, Dave Roberts, Eric Gagne, Jack Murphy, Jaime Jarrin, Leo Crawford, Vin Scully
Vintage Dodgers' Memorabilia for the Collection - ...
Blog Kiosk: 5/9/2017 - Dodgers Links - Bellinger, ...
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Home S. Korea to eventually push for use of only ‘East Sea’: FM
S. Korea to eventually push for use of only ‘East Sea’: FM
SEOUL, Aug. 12 (Yonhap) — South Korea will eventually push for the international community to only recognize its name for the body of water between Korea and Japan, once it succeeds in establishing concurrent use of “East Sea” and “Sea of Japan,” Seoul’s foreign minister said Friday.
Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan’s remarks came amid renewed efforts to formally establish two names for the waters, which have long been a source of territorial rows between the Asian neighbors. Recent revelations that the United States advised the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) to call the waters the “Sea of Japan,” instead of Korea’s preferred name, the “East Sea,” rekindled anger among the South Korean public.
“The government has been pushing for the parallel use of ‘East Sea’ and ‘Sea of Japan’ ever since it joined the United Nations (in 1991), but that is not our final goal,” he told reporters during a regular briefing. “That is our immediate goal, but our ultimate aim is the singular use of ‘East Sea,'” he said. He noted that the appellation “Sea of Japan” is another legacy of Tokyo’s 1910-45 colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula, which “many nations do not agree” with.
On Tokyo’s fresh claims to the South Korean islets of Dokdo, which lie in the East Sea, the minister stressed the government’s unchanged position that their ownership is not up for debate. Japan’s Sankei Shimbun reported earlier this week that Tokyo was considering taking the Dokdo issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The report came shortly after four Japanese lawmakers attempted to visit a South Korean island adjacent to Dokdo to boost their territorial claim, and Tokyo’s release of a defense white paper laying claim to the set of rocky outcroppings.
“Japan already made a formal proposal to South Korea in 1954 that they take the issue to the ICJ. Foreign Minister Byun Young-tae, who was minister at the time, expressed our position in an official diplomatic letter,” Kim said. The letter described Japan’s proposal as another form of aggression against South Korea and flatly rejected any responsibility for Korea to prove its sovereignty over Dokdo at the ICJ, according to Kim. “Our government’s position has not changed in the least bit,” he said. All parties involved are required to consent to a case being handled by the ICJ.
Source : THE KOREA TIMES
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/08/113_93293.html
Singer Lee Seung-chul Denied Entry to Japan
Singer Lee Seung-chul was denied entry to Japan on Sunday, apparently due to his performance on Dokdo in celebration...
Review of the year in arts and culture
8,765 hours of singing. 365 days of dancing. 12 months of things we’ve seen, and some things we’ve never...
Korea Dropped the Ball Over Int’l Naming of East Sea
Korea Dropped the Ball Over Int’l Naming of East Sea 2011-08-11 The U.S. and United Kingdom have submitted letters...
Map collector embarks on patriotic mission
Museum director prepares for Gando battle with China By Kang Hyun-kyung SUWON, Gyeonggi Province — If her collection of...
◀ 앵커 ▶ 동해안에서 명태가 자취를 감췄는데 최근 들어 고성지역에서 하루에 수천 마리씩 명태가 잡히고 있습니다. 그동안 자원 회복을 위해 방류한...
S. Korean Navy holds naval training against N. Korea
South Korea’s Navy said Tuesday it has conducted massive live-fire drills in the East Sea in a show of...
Map Of East Sea, East Sea Location Facts, Major Bodies Of Water, Sea Of Japan
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Students win Georgia Tech's President’s Undergraduate Research Awards
Undergraduate Public Policy undergraduate students, Sophia Cohen and Emma Menardi, have both received one of the competitive President’s Undergraduate Research Awards, or PURA, to conduct undergraduate research with a Georgia Tech faculty
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Undergraduate Public Policy undergraduate students, Sophia Cohen and Emma Menardi, have both received one of the competitive President’s Undergraduate Research Awards, or PURA, to conduct undergraduate research with a Georgia Tech faculty member. Public Policy majors learn valuable research skills in their courses and many choose to apply these by doing independent research or working on professors’ projects. Many have received the PURA, which provides either a small stipend or support for research expenses.
In the Fall 2020, second-year BSPP student Sophia Cohen continued her work with Richard Barke, School of Public Policy undergraduate program coordinator, on options for improving passenger rail services in Georgia; she has contacted officials in the private and public sector about past and current efforts and spent much of the current semester developing a massive database of passenger rail policies, plans, institutions, and stakeholders in all fifty states (except Hawaii).
Emma Menardi is a second-year BBSP student, with a dual major in major in History, Technology, and Society, interested in research around HIV stigma and how it may affect health services provided to youth. She wrote an initial paper in a previous course on Law, Medicine, and Ethics offered through the School’s Law, Science, and Technology (LST) Program, and she is now enthusiastic to expand upon that research with her faculty advisor, LST Director Chad Slieper.
When asked about the PURA awards, Richard Barke, said “I’m delighted to hear of multiple students in our school receiving funding. Working on a research project alongside a faculty member is an excellent experience for young researchers.” He added that, “these early inroads to research, publishing, and networking can set up our students for careers in academia, consulting, law, and government service.”
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Home British Columbia Vancouver Island
Hockey Canada recognizes 12 WHL players for National Men’s Summer Under-18 Team selection camp
Hockey Canada has recognized 12 Western Hockey League players, as part of a group of 46 players invited to attend Canada’s National Men’s Summer Under-18 Team selection camp.
Six goaltenders, 14 defencemen and 26 forwards were set to compete for a chance to represent Canada at the 2020 Hlinka Gretzky Cup, which was scheduled for August 3-8 in Edmonton and Red Deer, Alta., before it was cancelled April 28 due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The breakdown of WHL players led by first-overall 2018 WHL Bantam Draft selection and 2020 WHL Rookie of the Year, Dylan Guenther of the Edmonton Oil Kings, includes two goaltenders, five defencemen and five forwards.
“It is important for Hockey Canada to recognize the work the players and coaching staff already put in to prepare for the summer and a chance to compete for gold on home ice,” said Scott Salmond, senior vice-president of national teams for Hockey Canada. “It was a difficult decision to cancel the tournament, as it provides the opportunity to showcase the top under-18 players in a best-on-best international showcase. We want to recognize the 46 players and our three coaches for this tremendous accomplishment, and we look forward to watching all players continue to develop as they look ahead to next season and a chance to compete at the IIHF U18 World Championship.”
With the release of the camps’ selection group also came the announcement that Everett Silvertips head coach Dennis Williams (Stratford, Ont. / Everett Silvertips) would have guided Team Canada as an assistant coach.
In 2018, the tournament was rebranded as the Hlinka Gretzky Cup and hosted in Canada, with Edmonton and Red Deer, Alta., serving as co-hosts. In 2019, Canada earned silver in Breclav, Czech Republic following a 3-2 loss to Russia.
Canada has won gold 22 times in 28 years of summer under-18 competition, along with three silver medals and one bronze.
With the cancellation of the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, focus will now turn to the 2021 IIHF U18 World Championship next spring; a host city has not yet been announced. The Czech Republic and Slovakia will host the 2021 Hlinka Gretzky Cup before it returns to Edmonton and Red Deer in 2022.
WHL Players – National Men’s Summer Under-18 Team
Name Position Height Weight Born Hometown WHL Team WHL Draft
Tyler Brennan Goaltender 6’3″ 187 09/27/03 Winnipeg, Man. Prince George Cougars PG 2018 (1, 21)
Thomas Milic Goaltender 5’11” 155 04/14/03 Coquitlam, B.C. Seattle Thunderbirds SEA 2018 (3, 55)
Nolan Allan Defenceman 6’2″ 185 04/28/03 Davidson, Sask. Prince Albert Raiders PA 2018 (1, 3)
Carson Lambos Defenceman 6’1″ 200 01/14/03 Winnipeg, Man. Winnipeg ICE WPG 2018 (1,2)
Kyle Master Defenceman 5’11” 159 04/09/03 Edmonton, Alta. Red Deer Rebels RD 2018 (1, 16)
Graham Sward Defenceman 6’2″ 170 09/12/03 Abbotsford, B.C. Spokane Chiefs SPO 2018 (1, 17)
Olen Zellweger Defenceman 5’9″ 165 09/10/03 Fort Saskatchewan, Alta. Everett Silvertips EVT 2018 (2, 42)
Dylan Guenther Forward 6’1″ 170 09/10/03 Edmonton, Alta. Edmonton Oil Kings EDM 2018 (1,1)
Conner Roulette Forward 5’11” 158 05/13/03 Winnipeg, Man. Seattle Thunderbirds SEA 2018 (2, 34)
Cole Sillinger Forward 6’0″ 187 05/16/03 Regina, Sask. Medicine Hat Tigers MH 2018 (1, 11)
Logan Stankoven Forward 5’7″ 165 02/26/03 Kamloops, B.C. Kamloops Blazers KAM 2018 (1, 5)
Zack Stringer Forward 6’1″ 165 04/10/03 Lethbridge, Alta. Lethbridge Hurricanes LET 2018 (1,8)
2021 Hlinka Gretzky Cup
National Mens Summer Under18 Team selection camp
Scott Harrigan
Former Canadian Amateur Hockey Association president and Life Patron of Hockey Canada passes at age 85
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Winning the Aluminum
The Olympics are over, which has been a tremendous blow for Cael who has taken a sudden and uncharacteristic interest in sporting events. The television-watching part is right up his alley, of course, but the paying-attention-to-something-long-enough-to-see-it-through-to-completion part is new and totally out of his element.
But then again, what captured his attention wasn't the sporting events; he's simply taken an interest in a million different things that Mommy just can't do.
It all started innocently with a conversation about Michael Phelps "swimming like a fish".
"Mommy, can you swim like a fish?"
"No, Mommy's not a good swimmer. Especially not like that man."
"Is he the best in the whole, wide world?"
"Yep, he sure is."
"And you're just not good?"
"When it comes to swimming, I guess not."
"I like the jastics."
"...The gymnastics, you mean?"
"Yeah, that's what I said. I like the jastics. Can you do those flips, Mommy?"
"Nope, those people practice for years to be able to do those things."
"And you're too young?"
"No, actually they are a lot younger than I am."
"So you had lots of time to practice, right?"
"I guess I could have been practicing to qualify for the olympic gymnastics team, yes. But instead I was busy cooking for you and doing your laundry and buying you toys and driving you to school."
"See? That's why you're just not good."
Cael wins the gold for bluntness, while Mommy wins the less-envied aluminum medal for being marginal at best.
"Well if you're so much better, you show me how to do those sports!"
"Okay, I will, but get ready... I'm AWESOME."
He's awesome at running races...
And he has an awesome gymnastics floor exercise routine....
He's very strong and awesome at weightlifting...
And although he didn't know what fencing was, I bet he'd be awesome at that too.
If only I hadn't been wasting these last nearly five years raising him, I could join him on the podium. Instead, I guess I'll have to settle for the aluminum.
Hand-Me-Down Routines
A Hare-Brained Scheme
The Best Part of Waking Up
A Symbol Worth One Thousand Words
Time Zoned Out
Times, They Are A-Changing
Rhyme Time
Evolution of an Inside Joke
Oh What a Wonderful Toy
Conflict and Resolution
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Business Leader Awards
Regional telecommunication firms delisting from stock exchanges
BY DAVID ROSE
Observer business writer
Following Cable and Wireless (C&W) Jamaica's delisting from the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) in March 2018 and C&W Barbados delisting from the Barbados Stock Exchange (BSE) in late October, Cable Bahamas Limited (CAB) will become the latest firm to delist from the JSE in January once its series 11 preference shares are redeemed.
CAB, which has its ordinary shares listed on the Bahamian International Securities Exchange (BISE), cross listed on the JSE in June 2017 through the issuance of a United State dollar (USD) Class A (CAB11A) and USD indexed Class B preference shares (CAB11B) for a total of US $14.5 million ($1.87 billion) to support its Aliv brand and working capital.
The preference shares, which were expected to be redeemed on June 30, 2023, are being redeemed early as the company reaped the BSD $112.2 million gain from the BSD $301.5 million ($44.4 billion) sale of its Florida-based Summit Vista subsidiary.
The owners of these preference shares were institutional investors in the form of pension funds, insurance companies and other collective investment schemes. Despite the preference shares never trading on the JSE, they held the distinction of being the most expensive securities with CAB11A costing US $1,000 while the CAB11B were for $1 million per share. CAB still has eight other preference share issues listed on the BISE with the series eight preference shares maturing in May 2024 for BSD $103.5 million ($15.2 billion).
Although CAB's revenue for the 2020 financial year ending June 30 grew by 6 per cent to BSD $192.9 million, the impact from Hurricane Dorian and 8 per cent increase in operating expenses resulted in the net loss from continuing operations worsening by 18 per cent to BSD $50.5 million. However, CAB ended the period with a net profit attributable to shareholders of BSD $85.2 million compared to the BSD $13.3 million loss incurred in the prior year. Total assets for the year declined by 11 per cent to BSD $616.2 million mainly due to the sale of Summit, but the company had BSD $174.9 million in cash and cash equivalents at the end of the period. A 20 per cent drop in total liabilities to BSD $541.3 million supported the 223 per cent rise of the equity attributable to shareholders.
CAB faced two significant troughs during the year in the form of Hurricane Dorian and COVID-19 which pushed the two peak months of revenue in July and February from BSD $11.4 million to BSD $10.6 million after the events. In spite of these events, the company's digital payment channels have risen from 25 per cent to 75 per cent with numerous options for customers to pay their bills. It was also able to successfully deploy the transformation phase for the Aliv brand, which managed to gain greater mobile subscription amid the post-Dorian events and current pandemic. CAB's main operations are in the provision of cellular, Internet, TV and voice services to clients across the archipelago of islands through their 4 core brands.
“We are confident in our ability to continue to support our Bahamian operations and to make the required investments in our network, customer experience and drive continued growth in our subscriber base in Aliv, Cable Bahamas Business Solutions, OURTV and REV. I'd like to acknowledge the work of our teams who have led the charge in the face of much adversity but, who have pivoted to ensure we provide our consumers with more ways to pay, better service and to effectively steward the business in the face of much uncertainty,” chairman of CAB Ross McDonald said in his report to shareholders.
SORE POINT!
Digicel names Jabbor Kayumov as new CEO
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New ice creamery wants an additional scoop of local market share
Brokers affirm Proven Investments APO as a buy
An explanation of the new Jamaica Stock Exchange Private Market platform
Defiance of COVID-19 dining bans in the US as restaurants flounder
NYC to terminate Trump contracts
Small businesses to benefit from virtual entrepreneurship expo
Samsung Electronics forecasts 25.7% jump in fourth quarter operating profit
The basics of money
Stocks drift on Wall Street; Treasury yields keep rallying
Caribbean, Latin American aviation groups urge rollback of flight bans, new travel restrictions
US job openings down in most industries, while layoffs spike
Carnival expects 2021 loss but says 2022 bookings are strong
Biggest electronic show goes virtual
Enterprise: Digital change management approaches
Sygnus Credit Investment pulls in record US $27.58 million in APO subscription
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All the latest from Jason Solomons
Live Events/Panels
Stars and film makers
The Canned in Film Festival: Day Six
Wow, Day 6 already… can’t believe it… Lockdown is official, so now I’ve really got you – no going nowhere – nights in, only – so, what to watch?
The idea of this was to bring you a mix of genres, of films you might not have seen but have heard of, or hadn’t dared watch, but might work to bring you and your household together. I hope it’s working…
let me know, leave comments, they’re so helpful…
Here’s the official selection for today:
For the kids after school – try Paranorman (2012) U from the Leika studio – it’s very inventive and they’ll like the lead character and the animation is so brilliantly different… it’s streaming cheapest on Rakuten TV.
My early evening, all the family pick is: Grease (1978) PG is the word, the word, that you heard. Have your kids seen it? Will they get it? Why are these school kids so old (Olivia Newton John was 30!)? – but I think it’s glorious, always have done – it’’s bright and bouncy and full of hit songs and it might be a risk for them, but it’s one of the great musical films they all have to know. And boy we need a musical right now.
It’s on Amazon Prime, Sky Store and Rakuten TV
And tonight, let’s get a bit more serious with a film that I hope can change the life of a young person seeing it for the first time. I’ve gone for The Kid with the Bike – Le Gamin Au Velo (2011) 12 – and it’s one of those gritty Belgians the Dardenne Brothers’ lightest and most lovely films, with Cecile de France as a hairdresser moved to care for a local 12 yr old kid. It won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2011, and is one of their most accessible and least harrowing social realist films, more poetic than anything. I really hope this reaches out to you – it’s a great film about childhood, children, parenting, caring – all things at the forefront of our minds right now and, as ever, with the Dardennes, there’s a social conscience beating through it, something of vital importance at the moment.
It’s on BFI Player, and others…
jasonsolomons
Latest Posts By jasonsolomons
Jason’s January Film Round Up
Jason’s Top Ten Films of 2020
10 Mogul Mowgli
9 White Riot
8 Da 5 Bloods
7 Women Make Film
6 Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
5 The Personal History of David Copperfield
4 Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool
3 Portrait of A Lady on Fire
2 Les Miserables
1 Rocks
Subscribe to my podcast
Tweets by JasonCritic
mrjasonsolomons
This man #kingsleybenadir joins me on my @totallyw
Director Sam Pollard is my guest on my @totallywir
Terry Gilliam at 80
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW0EWSzJiT0
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Relax
Jason’s Favourites
Hear my exclusive conversation with Woody Allen, his only UK broadcast interview
The Canned In Film Festival
Films of the Decade
Films of 2019
My Top 20 films of 2018 continued: countdown 10-1
My Top 20 films of 2018: Countdown 20-11
© Jason Solomons 2020
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- A-9A Survivors
- B-17 Survivors (Active)
- B-17 Survivors (Static)
- B-18 Survivors
› Ashland, NE
› Dayton, OH
› Galveston, TX
› Peru, IN
› Rantoul, IL
› Rosamond, CA
› San Antonio, TX
› Shreveport, LA
› Tucson, AZ
- C-124 Survivors
- F-107 Survivors
- F-20 Survivors
- P-59 Survivors
- SR-71 Survivors
- YF-17 Survivors
B-58 — The Hustler Survivors
Back in the 1950’s, the key factor that the Strategic Air Command was looking for was speed. Speed was the ability to deliver an H-bomb anywhere in the Soviet Union in just a few hours. Speed meant flying so fast that enemy defenses could not track you, and enemy fighters could not scramble in time to catch you. Finally, speed meant the ability to get off the ground ready to deliver a counter-strike in the event that the enemy launched a preemptive strike.
What SAC had in mind was a Mach 3 bomber that flew at 70,000 feet. This holy grail of bombers, the B-70, would fly higher than what Soviet missiles could reach, and faster than any Soviet fighter. But the B-70 would be a long time in coming. It pushed the edge on just about every system in the aircraft. It was also very controversial, especially in congress.
The result was a series of interim bombers. The B-36 was seen as interim until a jet bomber could be deployed. The B-47 was seen as an interim until a proper heavy bomber came about, namely, the B-52. Even the B-52 was seen as interim until the B-70 was ready.
One of these interim projects was a Mach 2 medium bomber. While the Mach 3 B-70 had to break new ground before it could be built, a Mach 2 bomber could be built from largely off the shelf parts. Thus was the genesis of the B-58 project.
The plan called for hauling a single atomic bomb to the heart of the Soviet Union, and return to a friendly airbase. The power to do this was available in the GE J79 engine. To haul the bomb, the plane would need to be about 60 feet wide and 90 feet long. To move this airframe, (4) of the J79’s would be needed. For supersonic flight, the wing needed to be delta-shaped. The problem was that the resulting plane was just too big and fuel hungry to have the combat range that was needed.
The innovative solution appeared when the plane was broken up into two parts. The main airplane would house the (3) crew members, engines, systems, and only the fuel for the return flight. A “mission pod” was then attached to the underside of the plane. This pod contained the atomic weapon and the fuel needed for the inbound flight. The entire mission pod would be dropped when bombing the enemy. This resulted in a much smaller and lighter airplane for the trip home, and one that was fully fueled. Add in in-flight refueling to top off the tanks after take-off, and you now have a 5000 mile combat range.
The B-58 Hustler entered service about 1960, and served 10 years. A total of 118 planes were built at a program cost of $3-billion. This meant that each plane was essentially worth more than their weight in gold. The Hustler did have a number of problems in service, especially a weak nose gear and a few loss of control crashes, and it had its share of opponents. In the end, the ICBM took away their primary mission, and the Hustler could not adapt to low level penetration flight. They were all but gone by 1970. Only 8 survive today.
B-58 Hustlers Currently On Static Display
55-663 YB-58
TB-58 Peru IN Grissom Air Park Displayed outdoors.
TB-58 Rantoul IL Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum Former Chanute AFB, last photographed outdoors but now is on display indoors. Marked as 61-2059 (the SAC Museum airframe).
TB-58 Jacksonville AR Little Rock AFB Formerly at Carswell AFB in Fort Worth. Nicknamed “Wild Child II” and “Peeping Tom”.
59-2437 B-58A San Antonio TX Kelly USA Nicknamed “Firefly II” and “Rigley’s Baby”. On display in front of the administration building at the former Kelly AFB.
59-2458 B-58A Dayton OH US Air Force Museum Displayed in cold war gallery. Nicknamed “Cowtown Hustler”.
61-2059 B-58A Ashland NE Strategic Air Command Museum Display in new museum building. Nicknamed “Can Do” and “Greased Lightning”.
61-2080 B-58A Tucson AZ Pima County Aerospace Museum Displayed outdoors. Last B-58 to be delivered.
Note—click on the Serial Number to see a photo of each airplane.
B-58 Hustler Projects And Hulks
44-83884 B-58A Shreveport LA 8th Airforce Museum Displayed outdoors. Fuselage only, rebuilt as a rocket sled.
TB-58 Rosamond CA Edwards AFB Nicknamed “Snoopy”. Aircraft used as a target on the photo range at Edwards AFB. In pretty bad condition and stripped of many parts.
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Università Partner nel mondo – Our partners in the world
Universidad de Belgrano, Buenos Aires (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering, Giurisprudenza/Law)
Universidad Austral, Buenos Aires (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering, Giurisprudenza/Law)
La Trobe University, Melbourne (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering, Giurisprudenza/Law)
Deakin University, Melbourne (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering, Giurisprudenza/Law)
Universidade Federal de Bahia (Economia/Economics)
Wilfrid Laurier University – Lazaridis School of Business and Economics, Waterloo (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering)
University of Ottawa (Economia/Economics)
Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s (Economia/Economics)
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering)
Hong Kong Baptist University, School of Business (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering)
Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai (Economia/Economics)
Universidad Mayor, Santiago (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering, Giurisprudenza/Law)
The Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotà (Economia/Economics)
Hosei University, Tokyo (Economia/Economics)
Kansai Gaidai University, Osaka (Economia/Economics)
Sophia University, Tokyo (Economia/Economics)
Management Development Institute, Gurgaon (Economia/Economics)
Taylor’s University (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering)
Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering)
Universidad Panamericana Mexico (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering, Giurisprudenza/Law)
UPAEP Universidad Popular Autonoma del Estado de Puebla, Puebla (Economia/Economics)
Sukkur IBA University, Sukkur Sindh (Economia/Economics)
St. Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance (Economia/Economics)
Singapore Management University (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering)
Soongsil University, Seoul (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering, Giurisprudenza/Law)
Kyonggi University (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering, Giurisprudenza/Law)
Kookmin University, Seoul (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering, Giurisprudenza/Law)
Solbridge International School of Business, Woosong University, Daejeon (Economia/Economics)
FHNW, University of Applied Sciences and Arts, School of Business, Olten (Economia/Economics)
National Chengchi University, Taipei (Economia/Economics)
Nanhua University – NHU (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering, Giurisprudenza/Law)
Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok (Economia/Economics)
Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering)
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering)
Florida International University (tasse agevolate) (Economia/Economics, Ingegneria/Engineering)
High Point University (Economia/Economics)
Attività extra didattiche
Regolamento per la mobilità
I prossimi bandi
Università Partner in Europa - Our partners in Europe
Università Partner nel mondo - Our partners in the world
Erasmus+ Programme per il Personale amministrativo
Università Partner Doppio Diploma - Our partners for the Double Degree
Erasmus+ Programme per Docenti
Doppio diploma
Winter o Summer Schools/Sessions
Home » INTERNATIONAL OFFICE » Studiare all’estero » Università Partner nel mondo – Our partners in the world
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info@livelifecycling.com
Testamonials
-Classics, Brewery and Cycling Tour 2020
-2021 Saint Malo- Monaco Tour
-ENQUIRE NOW
-2020 DOLOMITES TOUR
2020 - DOLOMITES TOUR-
DOLOMITES TOUR 2020
Using our in-depth knowledge of the Italian Alps and Dolomites , Live Life Cycling Adventures has created a unique 9 day itinerary to join together the most majestic climbs and unique culture that the Dolomites has to offer.. The riders will be supported by a follow vehicle, mechanic and soigneur. The trip is inclusive of breakfast, morning tea and lunch. Live Life Cycling Adventures offering is industry-leading, with Pro-level support, laundry, on-road support, route GPX files and an experienced ride guide.
Dates September 28th-October 6th
Self transfer of we will pick you up from the Milan Malpensa area. You will then be transferred to the start hotel in Bormio. The afternoon allows for final bike tune-up and settling in before dinner. We will spend 4 nights here. Please contact us for pick up times before booking
Today you will discover one of the hidden gems in the Bormio area, Lake di Cancano. Cancano is a plateau at almost 2000 m in altitude among the mountains of Bormio, Livigno and the Switzerland. There are two large artificial lakes which are used to power the nearby hydroelectric dam in Premadio. The view of the Fraele towers - the former defensive outpost in the Bormio area - is beautiful from there. The last part is full of hairpin bends, until you get to two small tunnels before the towers.
Total distance is 39km and 930m of climbing.
Option after this climb, is to climb the Passo di Gavia from the Bormio side
Total distance is 56km and 1520m of climbing
Today we will get to experience something very special, the Passo dello Stelvio. We will make our first ascent up from Bormio. Through the tunnels and open landscape, before descending into Switzerland and coming back up the classic side, negotiating the 48 hairpins on the way to the summit.
If the classic side is all you are after, then you can ride in the car up the first summit, then descend and climb the classic side.
Total distance is 105km and 3340m of climbing (2 ascents)
Total distance is 84km and 1950m of climbing (1 ascent)
The Mortirolo Pass is a legendary pass in the Italian Alps, and if you combined that with the Passo di Gavia from the side made famous by Andy Hampsten in the 1988 Giro d’Italia, it will make for a magical day in the saddle.
The Mortirolo Pass has featured several times in the Giro d'Italia, usually as the last or penultimate climb before the finish. Since the death of Marco Pantano in 2004, stages of the Giro that go over the Mortirolo feature a special prize to the first man at the top of the pass, called Cima Pantani .
The Passo di Gavia stands at 2652m and has often been on the route of the Giro d'Italia, with its magical views on the ascent on the lesser ridden side.
Total Distance 108km and 3097m of climbing
Today we will transfer by car to our hotel in the Alta Badia Valley where we will spend the next 5 nights. This will give you a chance to put your feet up and relax, or explore the surroundings.
This area of the Dolomites is famous for a route called the Sella Ronda. It is comprised of 4 climbs, the Passo Campolongo, Pordoi, Sella and Gardena. Today we will do it in a clock-wise direction.
Today we will start the famous Sella Ronda route in the anti-clock-wise direction, before turning off and tackling the Passo Falzarego from its southern side. At the top of the Falzarego is a WW2 monument and it leads to an amazing descent back down to the hotel
Total distance is 100km and 3100m of climbing
Today we will climb up to the mystical and breathtaking peak of the Tre Cime. With this being the last day of the tour you will get to test your legs before a well earned beer or wine.
Distance 65km and 2000m of Climbing
Transfer to Milan Malpensa airport. Please email us with departure times.
Inclusions: Transfers to and from the airport
· All breakfast, morning tea and lunches on ride days
· Cycling Laundry throughout the trip
· Bikes assembled, maintained and re packed
Trip details Based on double-occupancy.
Double/Twin Occupancy - $4,500 AUD / 2850 Euro / 2550 GBP per person
Single Occupancy - $675 AUD / 425 Euro / 380 GBP
Full GPX routes are provided prior to departure.
Live Life Cycling Adventures will provide luggage transport during the event from hotel to hotel. We do recommend guests pack appropriately but limit their luggage to 1 medium size bag and 1 hand carry item.
Bicycles are not included in the package. Bicycles Riders can fly from Australia with their personal bicycle. Alternatively it will be possible to hire a Pro-level bicycle from Live Life Cycling Adventures
Deposit Upon confirmation of the trip, each rider is required to pay a $1000 AUD deposit. Final Payment The remaining balance must be received by 60 days prior to departure.
Live Life Cycling Adventures reserves the right to change or modify any of the above itinerary.
Copyright 2021 by Lane Digital : Terms Of Use : Privacy Statement
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Jackass Star Ryan Dunn Autopsy Results Revealed
A coroner has claimed he died from the impact force of the car crash...
Wednesday, June 22, 2011 - 09:04
The results of Jackass star Ryan Dunn's autopsy have been released, stating that he died from the impact of the car crash.
As we previously reported, Dunn was killed along with another passenger when the Porsche GT3 he was driving crashed in suburban Philadelphia at 3am on Monday morning, with police claiming that speed could have been in factor in the accident.
MTV LOOK BACK OVER RYAN DUNN'S LIFE HERE
It has now emerged that Dunn and his passenger, Zachary Hartwell, were killed from the blunt force trauma of the crash, with the fire that engulfed the vehicle following the accident also contributing to their deaths.
TMZ also reports that the 34-year old and Hartwell were dead when police arrived at the scene.
According to the Guardian, a preliminary examination of the accident site stated that Ryan could have been speeding, driving the Porsche at over 100mph in a 55mph zone, before losing control and crashing into a tree.
Following reports that Dunn could have been over the legal drink-drive limit, toxicology results will be revealed in the next four to six weeks.
Ryan's brother, Eric Dunn, has since released a statement regarding his sibling's death, telling AP that his family are "devastated" before adding: "We appreciate the support of Ryan's fans during this time, and we are grateful for your thoughts and prayers. Ryan will be greatly missed, but he will forever remain in our hearts."
Dunn's Jackass co-stars paid homage to their pal on Twitter following his death, with Bam Margera even visiting the crash site, breaking down into tears.
More From Bam Margera
Taylor Swift Gets 'Punk'd' By Justin Bieber!
Bam Margera 'Can't Stop Crying' Over Ryan Dunn
Jackass Star Wee Man Gets Ryan Dunn Tribute Tattoo
Ryan Dunn Over Legal Drink Drive Limit At Time Of Crash
Lady GaGa Wins Best Song At The EMAs
Jackass Star Hospitalised
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Piattine e Profili Inox s.r.l.
Products / Packing
PIATTINE & PROFILI Inox srl, Via Luigi Zerbi, 67 – 20023 Cerro Maggiore (MI), VAT 04588280158, email: info@ppinox.it as data controller, informs you pursuant to art. 13 EU Regulation n. 2016/679 “GDPR” that your data will be processed in the manner and for the following purposes:
The information provided below describes, as required by the EU Regulation 2016/679, the processing operations performed on the personal data of the users visiting the Data Controller’s website for the following purposes:
a) allow navigation through the Site and process as well anonymous statistics on the use of the Site, to check its correct functioning and to ascertain any liability in case of offenses committed during navigation;
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The personal data you provide will be processed by the Data Controller on computer or electronic devices.
The information systems and software procedures relied upon to operate this web site acquire personal data as part of their standard functioning; the transmission of such data is an inherent feature of Internet communication protocols.
This data category includes the IP addresses and/or the domain names of the computers and terminal equipment used by any user, the URI/URL (Uniform Resource Identifier/Locator) addresses of the requested resources, the time of such requests, the method used for submitting a given request to the server, returned file size, a numerical code relating to server response status (successfully performed, error, etc.), and other parameters related to the user’s operating system and computer environment.
These data are necessary to use web-based services and are also processed in order to
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Browsing data are kept for no longer than seven days and are erased immediately after being aggregated (except where judicial authorities need such data for establishing the commission of criminal offences).
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Sending messages, on the basis of the user’s free, voluntary, explicit choice, to the Data Controller’s contact addresses and filling in and sending the forms made available on the Data Controller’s website entail the acquisition of the sender’s contact information as necessary to provide a reply as well as of any and all the personal data communicated in that manner.
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The personal data provided for the above-mentioned purposes will be stored only for the the time necessary to manage the request, except for conservation obligations designated by relevant legislation. At the end of the expected storage period, such data will be immediately deleted.
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Data Controller may communicate your data to Supervisory Bodies and Judicial Authorities where required by law.
The management and storage of personal data will take place on servers located within the European Union. The data will not be transferred outside Europe.
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Your rights are established by art 15-21 of the Reg. UE 2016/679 (Right of access by the data subject, Right to rectification, Right to erasure (‘right to be forgotten’), Right to restriction of processing, Notification obligation regarding rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing, Right to data portability, Right to object, right of complaint to the Supervisory Authority.
How to exercise rights
You can exercise your rights at any time by sending an email, a fax or a registered letter to the Data Controller.
Data Controller, Data Processors and person in charge of the processing
PIATTINE & PROFILI Inox srl, Via Luigi Zerbi, 67 – 20023 Cerro Maggiore (MI), VAT 04588280158, email: info@ppinox.it.
The updated list of Data processors and persons in charge of processing is kept at the headquarters of the Data Controller.
Extended Information Cookie
This website www.ppinox.it (hereinafter the ‘Website’) makes use of cookie with the aim to enhance the browse within its pages.
Cookies are small pieces of information needed to carry out statistics regarding use of the Website, to understand the experiences of navigation and accessibility needs. The data collected through the cookies are used to make the browsing experience more enjoyable and more efficient in the future.
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During the normal browse on Internet, user may receive two different kind of cookies.
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Moreover, cookies may be further distinguished according to their specific purposes: some of them allow a better browsing experience (so called ‘technical cookies’), others kind of cookies are used to monitor the browse of users, also with the aim to send advertising or to offer services on the basis of his/her specific interests.
The site uses cookies called ‘technical’. They ensure the normal browse and use of the Website, allow the procedure of purchase or the authentication for the access to restricted areas.
Cookies also enable to collect information, in an aggregate way, on the number of users and how they visit the Website.
Those cookies are essential in order to move around the Website and to allow the use its features, such as access to restricted areas of the latter. Without these cookies, some services, such as the shopping cart or e-billing, cannot be provided.
Cookies are used to store a unique identifier, in order to manage and identify each user as unique compared to other users at that time browsing the Website with the aim to provide the him/her with a consistent and accurate service.
Pursuant to section 122 of the Legislative Decree no. 196/2003, the Italian Data Protection Code (hereinafter the ‘Code’), as well as according to the prescriptions contained within the Cookie Provision, the data controller is not required to obtain the consent from data subject with respect to the use of technical cookies.
During the browsing within the Website, some cookies, that are not managed by the Data Controller, are installed in the device of users. This usually happens when user visits a page that includes third parties’ contents.
Our Website uses some kind of analytical cookies, provided by third parties, by means of which are collected some data, such as:
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These cookies, as well as the purposes for which they are used outside of the Site, fall under the direct and exclusive responsibility of the third party that provides to install them on the user’s device.
In case user wishes not to receive third-party cookies on his/her device, he/she may at any time, through the links listed below, access to information and consent forms of such third parties and exercise the right of opt-out.
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The following chart shows the instructions provided by each producer of the most frequently used browsers. If the browser that user is currently using is not one of those included in the table, we recommend to visit the support pages of the producer in order to understand how to proceed with disabling cookies.
Internet Explorer http://windows.microsoft.com/it-it/windows7/block-enable-or-allow-cookies
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The identity of the Data Controller and its address are shown in the introduction to this document.
The updated list of the data processors, appointed for this purpose, can be found at the premises of the Data Controller. Interested parties may request to inspect the list by writing to the email address web@ppinox.it
The user may, at any time and without any formality, exercise the rights under Art. 7 of the Code, by sending a communication to the e-mail address web@ppinox.it, or at the address above.
Please find below the text of Art. 7 of the Code.
Section 7 – Right to Access Personal Data and Other Rights
1. A data subject shall have the right to obtain confirmation as to whether or not personal data concerning him exist, regardless of their being already recorded, and communication of such data in intelligible form.
2. A data subject shall have the right to be informed:
a) of the source of the personal data;
b) of the purposes and methods of the processing;
c) of the logic applied to the processing, if the latter is carried out with the help of electronic means;
d) of the identification data concerning data controller, data processors and the representative designated as per Section 5(2);
e) of the entities or categories of entity to whom or which the personal data may be communicated and who or which may get to know said data in their capacity as designated representative(s) in the State’s territory, data processor(s) or person(s) in charge of the processing.
3. A data subject shall have the right to obtain:
a) updating, rectification or, where interested therein, integration of the data;
b) erasure, anonymization or blocking of data that have been processed unlawfully, including data whose retention is unnecessary for the purposes for which they have been collected or subsequently processed;
c) certification to the effect that the operations as per letters a) and b) have been notified, as also related to their contents, to the entities to whom or which the data were communicated or disseminated, unless this requirement proves impossible or involves a manifestly disproportionate effort compared with the right that is to be protected.
4. A data subject shall have the right to object, in whole or in part,
a) on legitimate grounds, to the processing of personal data concerning him/her, even though they are relevant to the purpose of the collection;
b) to the processing of personal data concerning him/her, where it is carried out for the purpose of sending advertising materials or direct selling or else for the performance of market or commercial communication surveys.
Piattine e Profili Inox S.r.l. | Via Luigi Zerbi 67 | 20023 Cerro Maggiore, MI | Italia | T +39 0331 535911 | C.F e P.Iva/VAT 04588280158 | CAP.SOC. € 520.000 I.V. | R.E.A. 102.5062
Info | Privacy | Quality
Questo sito utilizza dei cookie tecnici e di terze parti. Continuando con la navigazione l'utente accetta il loro utilizzo. Per maggiori informazioni e conoscere come disabilitarne l'uso, consulta l'informativa estesa. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkRead more
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About Prodways Group
Financial news release
Ethics and Anti-corruption
INITIAL 2 PRODWAYS GROUP 22 PRODWAYS MATERIALS 1 PRODWAYS TECHNOLOGIES 12
PRODWAYS GROUP
Prodways Group broadens its Industry 4.0 offering with the acquisition of AvenAo Industrie
Paris, 1 August 2017,
Prodways Group (Euronext Paris: PWG), a specialist in industrial 3D printing announces the acquisition of AvenAo Industrie, which has been integrating Dassault Systèmes solutions for over 15 years.
Acquisition of AvenAo Industrie
Founded in 2002 by Sébastien and Lenny Vercruysse, the AvenAo group provides innovative solutions for industries in the fields of design (CAD, simulation, PDM, documentation), production management (CAPE, ERP, accounting) and manufacturing (3D printers, 3D scanners, simulation, topological optimisation). In the past 15 years, the group has become one of the largest distributors of SOLIDWORKS applications from Dassault Systèmes and one of the largest distributors of 3D Systems in Europe.
AvenAo Industrie is the part of the AvenAo group with expertise in integration of Dassault Systèmes’ SOLIDWORKS applications in design and 3D development. AvenAo Industrie can handle all issues relating to the design function and offers consulting in 3D design and integrating 3D printing solutions. In 2016, AvenAo Industrie had 75 employees.
With this first significant acquisition since its initial public offering, Prodways Group is accelerating its commercial development and bolstering its consolidation strategy along the entire industrial 3D printing value chain by offering its customers a full range of products and services, from project design through parts fabrication.
Raphaël Gorgé, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Prodways Group, stated: “In combination with our industrial 3D printing technologies, the acquisition of AvenAo Industrie represents a powerful accelerator for our commercial development and an extension of what we can offer our customers. Applying Dassault Systèmes technologies to Prodways Group’s major business lines, as well as the expertise we have acquired in 3D integration and design, is going to increase our ability to help our customers make their digital transformation, whether in aeronautics, healthcare or other industrial sectors.”
AvenAo Industrie will benefit from significant financial and human resources that will strengthen its success in its current development. Complementarity with other Prodways Group activities should generate significant synergies over the next 18 months.
As part of the deal, Sébastien Vercruysse, the founder of AvenAo Industrie, will join Prodways Group management. “The foundation and development of the AvenAo group has been a wonderful entrepreneurial adventure. Participating in the development of an international leader of the Industry 4.0 revolution is even more exciting and I am proud to commit to this project over the long term. Clients, collaborators and partners will continue to rely on our support.” Sébastien Vercruysse explained
Prodways Group has entered into exclusive negotiations for the group to acquire 100% of AvenAo Industrie's share capital. The base portion of the transaction will be 50% in shares and 50% in cash and an earn-out in cash accounting for about 20% of the total deal may be paid in 2019. The official valuation auditor, staff consultation and transfer approval of main contracts are on-going.
AvenAo Industrie was profitable in 2016 and is expected to contribute at least €10 million to Prodways Group revenue in 2018.
Partnership with Dassault Systèmes
This strengthening of Prodways Group in the software business has been carried out with the support of Dassault Systèmes. With this deal, Dassault Systèmes and Prodways Group are announcing a higher level of collaboration on the factory of the future at two levels:
Prodways Group, through its subsidiary INITIAL, was one of the first companies to integrate Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE Marketplace, which furnishes a 3D printing service bringing together designers and additive manufacturing service providers. Several Prodways Group production methods were specified, and the first customer parts were fabricated early on by INITAL using the 3DEXPERIENCE Marketplace currently in the testing phase. “We have decided to integrate INITIAL, subsidiary of Prodways Group, as one of the first international partners of our new Marketplace. Its 25 years of experience in product development, additive manufacturing and production is a great innovation accelerator for our clients.” stated Bernard Charlès, Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of Dassault Systèmes.
In addition to the SOLIDWORKS application portfolio of solutions, Prodways Group will now offer its customers the 3DEXPERIENCE platform from Dassault Systèmes. This innovative Cloud platform is rounding up Prodways Group’s “Factory of the future” offering and enabling migration to an all-digital factory. Bernard Charlès said: “The 3DEXPERIENCE platform is a great tool to facilitate the adoption of new production technologies and offer proven industrial solutions to companies of all sizes. Prodways Group is part of the more dynamic players in the field of the “Industry of the future”. Our collaboration will deliver our clients premium and affordable applications, contents and services thanks to the Cloud.”
Next press release:
Publication of half-year 2017 results on 11 September 2017
PRODWAYS GROUP is a specialist in industrial and professional 3D printing with a unique positioning as an integrated European player. The group has developed right across the 3D printing value chain (machines, materials, parts & services) with a high value added technological industrial solution. PRODWAYS GROUP offers a wide range of 3D printing systems and premium composite, hybrid and powder materials (SYSTEMS division). The company also manufactures and markets parts on demand, prototypes and small production run 3D-printed items in plastic and metal (PRODUCTS division). The Group targets a significant number of sectors, from aeronautics to healthcare.
In 2016, the company generated revenue of €25.2 million, 58% of that outside of France. Building on MOVINGLight®, a revolutionary and proprietary technology, PRODWAYS GROUP today has global visibility in the industrial 3D printing sector and with leading customers.
PRODWAYS GROUP is a Groupe Gorgé company
For further information: www.prodways-group.com
Follow us and keep up with Prodways Group’s latest news on Twitter!
@Prodways
Prodways Group - Raphaël Gorgé
Actus Finance - Natacha Morandi
Tel: +33 (0)1 53 67 36 94 / This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. PRESS CONTACTS
Prodways Group - Elodie Robbe-Mouillot
Tel : +33 (0)1 44 77 94 77/This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Actus Finance - Jean-Michel Marmillon
Financial Press Relations
Tel: +33 (0)1 53 67 36 73 / This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Releases from the Prodways Group may contain forward-looking declarations with statements of objectives. These forward-looking statements reflect the current expectations of the Prodways Group. Their realisation, however, depends on known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or events to differ significantly from those previously anticipated. The risks and uncertainties that might affect the Group's future ability to achieve its targets are reiterated and presented in detail in our Basis Document available on the Prodways Group's website (www.prodways-bourse.com). This list of risks, uncertainties and other factors is not exhaustive. Other unanticipated, unknown or unpredictable factors may also have significant negative effects on the achievement of our objectives.
The current release and the information contained therein does not constitute an offer to sell or to subscribe, nor a solicitation for an order to purchase or subscribe to shares in Prodways Group or in any subsidiaries thereof listed in whatsoever country.
Prodways Group - 19, rue du 4 septembre - 75002 Paris, France - Tél : +33 1 44 77 94 77
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Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Home Legal
Providing food, clothing, education, financial assistance to orphans: AAP govt to HC
New Delhi, Jul 2 (PTI) The AAP government on Thursday told the Delhi High Court it was providing food, clothing, medical care, education and financial assistance under various schemes to orphans in the national capital.
The Delhi government said it was also providing the orphans career guidance, ensured job placements, created Aadhaar cards, opened bank accounts for them and also provide Rs 30,000 as financial assistance to the orphan girls, their guardians or foster parents for their marriage.
The submissions were made before a bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan during hearing of a PIL seeking a detailed scheme for the education, living and other prospects of life for orphans, who are suffering due to lack of governmental policies for them in the COVID 19 pandemic.
Taking note of the submissions, the bench directed the Delhi government to provide district-wise data, including names of the children, of the number of recipients of the various welfare measures and schemes highlighted by the government.
The high court said the data would help it to verify whether what the Delhi government has claimed to have done has been implemented at the ground level and whether benefits of the various schemes were percolating down to those it was meant for.
With the direction, the bench listed the matter for hearing on July 17.
During the hearing, the Centre said it was providing assistance to the states under its child welfare scheme.
It said it will give the details before the next date of hearing.
The petition filed by Harpal Singh Rana has said he sought the information through Right to Information (RTI) Act for the welfare schemes introduced by the government for the welfare, education, living arrangement of the orphan children.
He has said the information which he received has variation in respect of the orphan children.
The plea, filed through advocate Akhil Rana, has referred to 3-4 cases where children who had lost their parents and are living with grandparents and depend on them.
It said there was a child, whose parents died and has six siblings, had applied to the Social Welfare Department which told him that the department only provides old age pension, disabled pension and financial assistance (Delhi Family Benefit Scheme).
Even the Women and Child Development Department replied to the child that since he does not fall within the eligibility rules and regulations of its schemes, he was not entitled to get any benefit, the petition claimed.
"In such cases grandparents or other relatives who are residing/ taking care of those children face a great difficulty to maintain or to educate the children due to non-availability of funds with them, it has said.
It has also said, "It is surprising that respondents (authorities) are providing pensions to the old citizens and window women but they have no schemes and projects for these children who have lost their parents and are unable/ incapable to earn their livelihood.
All 3 members of poll panel for Supreme Court bar association''s election resign
HC judge recuses from hearing plea against updated privacy policy of WhatsApp
SC seeks reply from Centre, 61 firms on PIL alleging duty evasion in iron ore exports to China
Drugs probe: NCB searches home of Maha minister''s son-in-law
AAP MLA Somnath Bharti gets bail in one case, hearing on another tomorrow
NGT forms committee to look into plea alleging illegal mining in Odisha
SC allows IIMC to chop 29 trees for construction of new building
SCBA president Dushyant Dave resigns with immediate effect
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Premixes for Easy Homemade Raw or Cooked Food
Please note, most premixes claim to make "balanced" food for cats or "cats and kittens." Unless the website or the package specifically states that food made with the premix meets AAFCO nutrient guidelines and the life stage (All Life Stages, Growth or Adults), you cannot be assured they actually make balanced food as per AAFCO.
This is for informational purposes only, these are not reviews. For people's experience using these premixes to make cooked or raw food for their cats, please ask in the Raw Feeding for IBD Cats Facebook group.
The premixes are listed alphabetically
Alnutrin
www.knowwhatyoufeed.com
Alnutrin is a product made with human grade ingredients that makes balanced & complete food as per AAFCO nutrient guidelines. Its products provide the needed nutrition for either boneless meat & liver (that make food that meets AAFCO nutrient guidelines for adult cats only) or meat/bone/organ mixes based on the 80/10/10 prey model (that makes food that meets AAFCO nutrient guidelines for All Life Stages):
Alnutrin with Calcium
Alnutrin with Eggshell
These require the addition of boneless meat & liver and food made with these premixes will meet the AAFCO nutrient guidelines for adult cats, not growth. With the lower phosphorus content due to using egghsell or calcium carbonate instead of bone as the source of calcium, foods made with these two premixes are appropriate for seniors. The premix does not contain a source of omega 3.
Alnutrin for Meat & Bone
This is designed to make 80/10/10 mixes complete & balanced and does result in a food that meets AAFCO nutrient guidelines for growth given bone is the source of calcium. Foods made with bone have a higher phosphorus content and are not appropriate for seniors. The premix does not contain a source of omega 3.
Know What You Feed ships internationally. Please refer to the their website for more information.
BalanceIT (We address only Carnivore Blend, available without a veterinarian prescription here)
https://secure.balanceit.com/marketplace2.3/home/16-balance-it-original-blends-carnivore-blend-for-dogs-cats.html
BalanceIT's Carnivore Blend is made with human grade ingredients and is designed to be hypoallergenic. It contains only 100% synthetic vitamins (and needed minerals, no food ingredients) to make food and is a solution for extremely sensitive pets or can be used for nutrition during a protein elimination trial. It is designed for cooked meats, but the Carnivore Blend can be used with raw meat. The website references "balanced" frequently, but we haven't asked if they mean as per AAFCO nutrient guidelines or Nutrient Research Council recommended daily allowances. It is formulated by a Veterinary Nutritionist. The sources of calcium are tricalcium phosphate and calcium carbonate. Tricalcium phosphate is structurally similar to (and often actually is) hydroxyapatite, which is similar in phosphorus content to bone. This may make it appropriate for kittens (growth) but not seniors but they do not identify this on the website. Please contact the company for more information. Carnivore Blend does not contain a source of omega 3. As of September 1, 2019 the website mentions the Carnivore Blend has been reforumulated to include a prebiotic, inulin. We do note that inulin makes some IBD cats gassy.
BalanceIT ships internationally. Please refer to their website for more information.
Better in the Raw and U-Stew
https://www.knowbetterpetfood.com/
The data on the website indicates these premixes intended for raw (Better in the Raw) or cooked (U-Stew) meats do not make food that is balanced and complete as per AAFCO nutrient guidelines for growth or adults, based on deficiencies and excesses in the provided data.
Know Better Pet Food ships internationally. Please refer to their website for more information.
EZComplete fur Cats
www.foodfurlife.com
EZComplete is made with human grade ingredients that makes balanced & complete food as per AAFCO nutrient guidelines for All Life Stages whether the meat is cooked or raw. It is a true meat-completer as all that is required when using EZComplete is boneless meat. With the lower phosphorus content due to using egghsell instead of bone as the source of calcium, food made with this premix is appropriate for seniors while also meeting All Life Stage nutrient requirements (though it is important to note, foods using eggshell as a source of calcium are not typically appropriate for kittens (growth)). EZComplete contains a source of omega 3.
Food Fur Life ships internationally. Please refer to their website for more information.
Please note, the Raw Feeding for IBD Cats website and associated Facebook group are not affiliated with Food Fur Life, though the owners are the same. The Raw Feeding for IBD Cats group is not a selling group, and no group members or group administrators are paid commissions or remunerated in any way for posting about the product.
Felini Complete (available in Europe - anywhere Zooplus ships)
https://www.zooplus.com/esearch.htm#q=felini%20complete
Designed to be hypoallergenic, Felini Complete is marketed as a true meat completer designed for raw or cooked meat. It contains only 100% synthetic vitamins (and needed minerals, no food ingredients) to make food and is a solution for extremely sensitive pets or can be used for nutrition during a protein elimination trial. Based on the ingredient list, we're not sure this is balanced & complete as per FEDIAF (European equivalent of AAFCO) and we do not have data needed to make the determination. Group members have confirmed it contains calcium, though we don't know the source, so it isn't clear if this is appropriate for kittens (or seniors). (It is not listed in the ingredient list on zooplus). Felini Complete does not contain a source of omega 3.
Felini Complete also has a phosphorus-free supplement intended to be a meat-completer for renal diets / senior cats. Felini Renal does not contain a source of omega 3.
Zooplus carries Felini Complete, available wherever zooplus ships. Please refer to the zooplus website for more information.
My Natural Cat
https://felineinstincts.com/
The company has premixes made with human grade and organic ingredients with liver and without liver and premixes made with calcium lactate. Premixes with liver should be true meat completers, but there is not enough information to determine whether or not food made with any of the premixes meets AAFCO nutrient guidelines for growth or adults. A premix using calcium lactate as the source of calcium is appropriate for seniors. Premixes contain a source of omega 3.
Feline Instincts ships internationally. Please refer to their website for more information.
Purrform Complete Supplement (UK)
https://www.purrform.co.uk/product/purrform-complete-supplement-50g/
We have no information about the quality of the vitamins and minerals in the premix, but the company does use chelated minerals (better absorption / bioavailability). The premix is marketed as a true meat completer, but we see no mention of meeting FEDIAF nutrient requirements, and there is no discussion of whether or not the premix makes food suitable for growth as well as adults. We see no source of choline in the ingredient list, so it does not appear it will meet FEDIAF. The sources of calcium is calcium carbonate, though we're not clear on the role of the monocalcium phosphate and are waiting for a response from the company. The premix does not contain a source of omega 3.
Please contact the company for information on shipping the premix within the EU, it appears it ships only within the UK. Please refer to their website for more information.
TCfeline
http://tcfeline.com/
Made with human grade ingredients, TCfeline offers premixes with liver and without liver. The premixes with liver come with either chicken liver or beef liver. There is a lower phosphorus option made with calcium carbonate (which should be appropriate for adults and seniors); some of the premixes are made with freeze dried bovine bone (which should be appropriate for growth). TCfeline is made in Canada and a licensee in the U.S. TCfeline's website has links to its online store for Canadians, and a link to information about purchasing the premixes in the U.S. The Canadian website does not claim that food made with the premix is balanced & complete as per AAFCO or FEDIAF, though the U.S. stores claim the U.S. version meets AAFCO nutrient guidelines for All Life Stages. There is insufficient data to determine if this is accurate.
Of note, even the premixes with liver contain vitamin A. As liver is the source of vitamin A in a prey model raw diet, this is odd.
As of September 2019, we do not see mention of a European affiliate on the Canadian website. But a product labeled TCfeline that appears to be affiliated with the company is available here: https://www.tatzenladenshop.de/en/tcpremix-reg/
TCfeline Canada ships only within Canada. The website links to US online stores and one retailer that ship only within the United States. The German product ships within the European Union. Please visit the respective websites provided above for more information.
Young Again's Carnivore Raw
https://www.youngagainpetfood.com/carnivoreraw-with-calcium.html
There is no information about the sourcing or quality / grade of ingredients in this premix. It does not identify if it is balanced and complete per AAFCO nutrient guidelines for growth or adults. The first ingredient is "Chicken Flavor" but is identified as "Poultry" liver and hearts. The second ingredient is cellulose, an insoluble fiber. Cats, as obligate carnivores, naturally consume very little fiber. Another odd ingredient in this premix is synthetic methionine (DL methionine): meat naturally is rich in methionine and a raw diet should not require supplementation of methionine. Sources of calcium are dicalcium phosphate and calcium carbonate, which may make it inappropriate for seniors, but we don't have enough infomration to make this determination. This premix does not contain a source of omega 3.
Young Again ships to some countries, but not Canada. Please refer to their website for more information.
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Over Service Hurdles
Sri Jagannath Mishra Ananda-mahotsav
When we came here, we did not know anything, we did not know anything about Krishna consciousness—when I joined the temple I also did not know about Krishna consciousness, but everything comes by the mercy of Gurudev. Tolerance and patience are necessary.
Actually, I do not know what love and affection is: Gurudev mostly, 99-100%, gave galagal to me (chastised). Maybe 1% of the times he told me something good, but he always chastised me. He told me maybe a hundred times to get out of here. Would you be able to tolerate this? But for me this was his love and affection to me.
In 1996, I saw that Gurudev had a very small veranda, and when Gurudev was leaving for a world tour, I asked him if I could repair his bathroom, and in this way, cleverly, I took the bathroom and the room keys from him and expanded Gurudev's veranda (at the place where Gurudev is sitting now, there was Gurudev's bedroom). When I did it, somebody phoned Gurudev and said to him, "Oh, Vinod has broken your house." Gurudev became upset. He asked me if it was true, and I said, "Yes, I have broken something..." When Gurudev came back, we were giving him some reception, doing kirtan, but Gurudev did not speak to me because he was upset that I had broken his house. At first he did not enter his room, but he saw that his veranda had been expanded and thought, "What has happened? How did he expand the building without breaking it?" Then he said, "OK, I will go inside." He was very surprised, "How is it possible to do this?" and finally said, "What you have done is very nice."
Also, before there was no prasadam hall behind, instead there was a goshala. There were many cows there but not so much space for them. I spent very much money on it, and the treasurer always complained to Gurudev that I was spending so much money, but when Gurudev saw the goshala he was very happy.
Later, the nat mandir was also small, there used to be rooms on the ground floor, and I broke those rooms to expand the nat mandir, and somebody complained at first too...
I have always, from my very beginning at the temple, been facing so many problems from Gurudev's godbrothers... Sometimes I told Gurudev about it, and he said, "I am keeping an Alsatian dog for my protection, and one morning, when I am going for a walk, an enemy attacks me and the Alsatian dog jumps on my shoulder and cries, 'Please protect me, please protect me!'" From that day, I never complained to Gurudev about anything that was going on downstairs—I managed everything.
You can see so many problems have come, so many sannyasis have left—somebody has left because of money, somebody has left to become a Guru on their own—but my duty is to protect my Gurudev, and it is my desire, my hope to protect Gurudev's mission.
...Actually, I am requesting the devotees, if anyone wants to serve here, wants to spend a few months in India, you are always welcome. Come serve here.
Some austerity will come, but it is necessary to have tolerance. I too have some experience about that. When my temple age was seven days, I got a chance to serve prasadam, but I did not know which devotee liked what kind of prasadam. That day we finished Chaitanya-charitamrita class in the evening and I went to serve prasadam, but I gave more subji to one brahmachari and he took the spoon from my hand and hit my finger with it. My finger started to bleed, but I removed the blood and continued serving prasadam.
After this happened, Gurudev asked me, "When he beat you, why did you not beat him?" At that time I did not know so much conception about Vaishnavism and I said something using the language of my jada vidya (material knowledge), "If a dog bites me, why will I bite the dog?" Gurudev said, "It is also an offence because you are comparing a devotee, a Vaishnav, to a dog. You cannot do that, even if they beat you."
Gurudev teaches us so many things. Another time (I have told you this story many times), Gurudev was going out to see something. I stood in front of his car and he asked me, "Will you go with me?" At that time, I had not closed my office and I had some service there (I was waiting for some guests to arrive), so I asked, "Where to?" Gurudev's mood changed and he became angry, "Come with me! You are foolish because you are asking me, 'Where to?' You do not have 100% chastity! You must learn more." So, we must learn so much tolerance, must learn to be patient—I learnt these things from Gurudev.
Once Gurudev sent me to Hapaniya—at that time there were some repairs, some construction, going on in the kitchen. I know something about construction, so when I saw that the worker was giving less cement (like, he was mixing sand with cement 10:1), I told him it was not the way to build and asked him why he was doing it. The worker replied it was the order of temple manager. When I came back to Nabadwip, I gave the news to Gurudev, and Gurudev was very unhappy to hear that. He spoke to the manager and stopped supplying money for that construction. The manager was very angry, and when one day later Gurudev again sent me there, that brahmachari closed all doors of the temple and tried to kill me—he beat me and put me into a sack. When this happened, I started calling out, "Radha Gopinath! Radha Gopinath!" and fifty boys jumped in over the wall and saved me...
This is how I got tolerance—I have experienced so many things. So, when you stay in a temple many problems will come, but you must not leave your service.
Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay!
• Download (4.5 Mb)
Terminal Foolishness
'People do not understand that if your get some honour, if you get some donation, or some respect, who is it for? It is for the Guru and his mission. If you do not think like this, then pratistha will attack you even more.'
Jaya jaya gurudever
'I know that you are nondifferent from Sri Gaura Krishna and have now assumed the form of a pure devotee to deliver the world.'
জয় জয় গুরুদেবের
“Problems come, this life is always like this. What can you do? It is the will of Krishna,
but all problems will be removed, we must not stop.”
"HUMILITY, TOLERANCE, GIVING HONOUR TO OTHERS | HUMILITY, TOLERANCE, GIVING HONOUR TO OTHERS"
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The Living Goetia of St. Cyprian the Mage
Por Nicholaj abril 30, 2014
A Review of Jake Stratton-Kent’s The Testament of Cyprian the Mage.
With the third and final part in Jake Stratton-Kent’s Encyclopaedia Goetica titled The Testament of Cyprian the Mage Jake have come full circle in redefining the Goetic fundamentals that lies at the root of the Western Tradition at large.
Jake have in this concluding double volume literally soaked the bones of the Western Tradition with the life-giving blood of memory and wisdom, all too often forgotten. He has forged this memory in the icon of Cyprian, the saint and mage, the healer and sorcerer in the likeness of King Solomon. In this way Cyprian serves both as symbol and archetype of the fusion of the Greek Shamans and the clandestine sorcery priests that found their heaven in Church and monastery. In the icon of Cyprian Jake is binding the ink and legacy of monasteries in with the image of the goetic mage in spirit frenzy to allow the blood of a living tradition to flow forth from bones and books forgotten and neglected, but always present in our forgetfulness.
Jake writes: “Goetia is the only continuous thread connecting antiquity with the occult revival. As identical with shamanic survivals, witchcraft and sorcery, the grimoire tradition and its forebears – goetia is a living tradition of magic” (vol II: 213)
I would add to this that Jake has been the element of spirit that has quickened this legacy and reminded us about the fact that the Western Tradition is in fact living. In this way Jake has been given life to dead bones that were not dead after all.
There are many, many aspects of Jake’s work that deserves commentaries in light of how vital and crucial this book is for the Western Tradition to understand itself. I would say that with this volume Jake have stretched up the very ancestry of the spiritual and literary succession any goes, ‘western shaman’, and ceremonial magician is a part of.
Hierarchies are discussed here in light of the importance of thwarting angels as stabilizing factor amidst angels (or should we say aerial spirits in general?) celestial and chthonic, which in it selves gives several blows to the ghost of Christian education concerning hierarchies that have infected us Westerners with a spiritual democracy Jake demonstrates grave errors in.
One of many examples of this error is found in the discourse on solar theology presented throughout in the book, especially in the first volume. The Sun is axis and cosmic pinnacle. It is Apollo, necromancer and light giver. Later we find this form in the shape of St. Michael and St. Michael is burdened with a host of Christian imagery and values. I say burdened, because the Christian mythology is so deep seated within this form of Apollo that many are not capable of seeing beneath the Christian veils to what he points towards. Confronted with an imagery like this, we should ask, “but what does it means?” because certainly this figure of the Sun that holds devils within his cape and is subduing a chaotic devil or dragon is not necessary an image of solar triumph, but of the controlling powers the Sun holds in virtue of being what it is. And what is the Sun? It is the heavenly luminary that gives light to the realm of the living as much as the realm of the dead. These forms of exegesis are moving beneath the entire Testament of Cyprian the Mage as a way to make us remember our legacy and become alive again as practitioners.
This work is clearly a pioneering work where Jake have desired to organize our heritage so it can be used for the mage, sorcerer and goes as much as for the most devote Solomonic ceremonialist, or Martinist for that matter, as a compass for retracing our steps. Just in this act and will itself Jake deserves applause and a thousand toasts in fine wine and good whiskey.
Decans, mansions and fixed stars are given ample space here and especially with the impressive presentation of the decans Jake is providing a pioneering work of presenting a legacy so important in a way that it is opening up for use and surely will transform the practitioner as this spiritual wealth is explored. These stellar mysteries are then continued in his discourse of astrological chiromancy, that was perhaps the highlight of the book for me, where he bring heaven on earth in erasing the veil of separation. Seeing how Jake is continuing the work started in True Grimoire through Geosophia and then ending up with tying the four kings, the spirits of air and decans into a starry body found in your very own palm is simply sublime.
I also want to compliment Jake on organizing this rich and valuable material in such way that it is not only workable, but also possible to analyze from the variety of sources he is using to demonstrate concurrence and difference. It is clear that Jake with this work have been occupied in offering up the blood of old bones for a living community of practitioners. In this book we will rediscover the spiritual harmonies between spirits of hours, days and nights as an invitation to interact with the worlds invisible and visible. It is a work most praiseworthy.
Jake concludes his work with writing: “Goetia is a tradition of vast antiquity, yet adaptable to entirely new surroundings; capable of effective cross cultural exchange with living traditions from other cultures, while retaining its identity” (ibid. 214).
This summary is tied in with the neo Platonic stance held in the discourse of the book. Something that is most refreshing to see and read as this approach opens up and unifies the magical landscape into a comprehensive whole instead of separating elements to make a puzzle game of curious fragments. It is in this field Goetia mirrors Quimbanda in a dual reflection of St. Cyprian the Mage, the Priest and Shaman as an icon of how living traditions can bleed over in one another and not only maintain their integrity and identity, but become more well defined and sharp as a consequence of these meetings.
Massive tomes like this tend to use time to generate an impression, but over time Jake’s work will certainly bring a renewed depth and understanding to why we do our magic in the way we do –and in this we will become more effective - and also more open and less restricted and dogmatic as practitioners. In The Testament of Cyprian theMage the keys to make our dealings with spirit to reach a whole new level of personal alliance and interaction is given and as the keys are thrown down legacy and tradition is invoked.
It is nothing more to say than: "get your copy" and yet again congratulate Jake Stratton-Kent and Scarlet Imprint for giving to the world this gift of ink and wisdom dressed in the deep blue of the starry heavens.
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Alec Skelding
Alec Skelding FAQs: Facts, Rumors, Birthdate, Net Worth, Sexual Orientation and much more!
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Who is Alec Skelding? Biography, gossip, facts?
Alexander Skelding (September 5 1886 in Leicester - April 18 1960 in Westcoates Leicester) was a first-class cricketer and umpire who is remembered as one of the great characters in the game.
Is Alec Skelding still alive? Are there any death rumors?
Yes, as far as we know, Alec Skelding is still alive. We don't have any current information about Alec Skelding's health. However, being younger than 50, we hope that everything is ok.
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Adam Ball, Alford Corriette, Ashraful Haque, Austin Codrington and Bill Copson are cricketers that are similar to Alec Skelding. Click on their names to check out their FAQs.
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You are here: Home > United States > California > Historic Sites
Historic Sites in California
Find historic sites in California and other fun things to do. View our list of attractions, activities, events, restaurants and visitor information.
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California Gold & Silver Settlements Top Attraction!
Historic Site in Mammoth Lakes, CA USA
Museums and historical sites in the Mammoth Lakes area pay tribute to life in the Old West and share the area's cultural heritage.
Historic Downtown Petaluma Top Attraction!
Historic Site in Petaluma, CA USA
Victorian charm meets Wine Country sophistication Nestled along the banks of the Petaluma River and chartered in 1858, Petaluma is one of California's oldest and most picturesque cities. Located just 32 miles north of San Francisco, Petaluma is the southernmost city in Sonoma County.
Railtown 1897 State Historic Park Top Attraction!
Historic Site in Jamestown, CA USA
Home of the "movie train" - a great railway museum If you love old trains, Raitown is a must! It brings America's glorious railway past to life! The museum includes a working train with historic cars operating from April through October that lets visitors relive the experience of early train travel.
Bodie Ghost Town is the largest unrestored ghost town in the West. Visitors can explore the museum, follow a self guided tour, or wander the streets peeking in the windows of homes, stores, saloons, barberships and a church for a glimpse into life of a bygone era.
Petaluma Adobe
Step into old California with a visit to the headquarters of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo's vast cattle rancho dating from 1836-1846. Open Tues., Wed., Sat. and Sun. 10 a.m. û 5 p.m.
Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad
Historic Site in Fish Camp, CA USA
Scenic steam train excursions near Yosemite National Park History is relived at the Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad. Antique Shay steam logging locomotives power trains that take visitors back in time to the gold rush days when railroads help build America.
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Mexico's Pena Nieto Takes Power, Begins New Era For Old Ruling Party
Reuters: Top News, Reuters
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Enrique Pena Nieto took over as Mexican president on Saturday, offering a shot at redemption for the party that shaped modern Mexico if he can bring about an end to years of violence and economic underperformance.
Sections: news world
Topics: central america enrique pena nieto mexican president mexico president world leader
Germany: Chancellor Merkel on visit to Afghanistan
Germany says its leader is in Afghanistan to on a surprise visit to the nation's troops serving with NATO's force in a war against Taliban insurgents. More
Philippines mulls pullout of Syria peacekeepers
The Philippine foreign secretary says he is recommending to President Benigno Aquino III to pull out all Filipino U.N. peacekeepers from the Golan Heights following the abduction of four by Syrian rebels. More
Iran president still a force even as his era ends
When many struggling families in this eastern Iranian city take stock of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's legacy, it's not about the oratory full of bluster and menace or his tussles with Iran's ruling clerics that are known to much of the world. More
Convergence of Presidents at Bush Library Dedication
President Obama joined all of his living predecessors on Thursday to pay tribute to George W. Bush. More
Investors cheer Italy after president elected
Hopes of an end to two months of political deadlock in Italy drove its financial markets higher on Monday after the re-election of 87-year-old Giorgio Napolitano suggested parties may be nearer a deal to form a government. More
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Io Saturnalia!
Posted by Diana Stanley, Museum Volunteer and Customer Service Representative
It was a day of gift giving in the Scipio house. Little Julia got a doll. Father gave Mother a pretty silver necklace. Wreaths with star shaped goodies hung on the walls and doors, just waiting for a child to gobble them up. There was plenty of food and drink for everyone around. It wasn't Christmas; it was Santurnalia.
Saturnalia was a Roman festival dedicated to the harvest god Saturn, considered equal to the Greek god Cronos. The holiday honored Saturn and his wife Op, Goddess of Plenty. The Romans held the first recorded Satunalia festival on December 17, 497 B.C.E. and its length varied. Throughout the late Republic time, the festival lasted seven days. Throughout the Empire, it lasted anywhere from three to five days.
Temple of Saturn, Rome
The festival was like a modern federal holiday. All businesses and schools shut down, government buildings closed, and no battles were fought. It was a time of relaxation and rampant partying. First there was an optional ceremony at the temple of Saturn. The people filled his empty statue with olive oil and unbound his feet from chains. Then everyone went home shouting “Io Saturnalia!” and the real fun began.
Saturnalia was a day of reversals. While Saturn reigned, parents acted like children and vice versa. Slaves were treated like freemen, wore freemen clothes, and were treated to a large luxurious meal in which they either dined with or were served by their master. They were also allowed protection for any verbal abuse they sent their master’s way. Horace plays on such scenarios for a comic poem in his book Satires when he has a slave tell his master on Saturnalia, “Davus (the master) is a scoundrel and a loiterer!”
People wore masks gambled in the streets. Large feasts were prepared and eaten. More than one ancient author joked there were so many drunken revelers, that to be sober during Saturnalia was the exception rather than the rule. One popular tradition began in the days of the Empire where Romans elected a mock king, a Saturnalicius princep, who “ruled” over the city for the duration of Saturnalia. The figure is like the Fool’s King in Disney’s A Hunchback of Notre Dame except with far better intentions. Any commands given by the King of Saturnalia were obeyed as if he was the emperor. The commands were usually silly, like to sing naked or push a reveling comrade into a pond.
Depiction of Ancient Rome
Even after the rise of Christianity, Saturnalia was still a popular secular tradition. It lasted for hundreds of years as a harvest festival. Many modern Christmas traditions, especially gift giving, came from Saturnalia. In fact, Romans had many of the same frustrated feelings we do toward the holiday season. A manuscript was recently unearthed during building work in Rome that provides a first-century guide to etiquette during Saturnalia.
Guests learned about Saturnalia at December's Coffee with the Curator program. Want to learn more about this time period in history? Visit the Museum of World Treasures to see a Roman exhibit. For more information, visit our website or call 316.263.1311. Merry Christmas and Io Saturnalia!
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Discover treasures from around the world and through the ages at the Museum of World Treasures. Where can you explore the crusty bones of long-lost creatures, marvel at Egyptian mummies, uncover the secrets of ancient civilizations, and enter the battlefields of World Wars? The Museum of World Treasures, with three floors of exhibits and surprises around every corner. Discover your inner explorer!
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Mon - Sat: 10 AM - 5 PM, Sun: noon - 5 PM
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LEARN MORE AT WORLDTREASURES.ORG
Featuring Ivan the T.rex
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About TNRA
Trinity Newington Residents' Association (TNRA) was formed in 1976, by and for residents of the Newington Trust Estate in London, SE1 (now rebranded as Trinity Village). This then consisted of Trinity Church Square and Merrick Square, parts of Cole Street, Falmouth Road, Swan Street and Trinity Street.
For the last 40 years, TNRA has worked to improve life for residents in numerous ways and had many significant achievements. TNRA organises events for the community and helps residents in dealing with the managing agents and Southwark council.
Please see here for TNRA's purpose, constitution and privacy policy.
Who does TNRA represent?
Newington (Trust) Estate/Trinity Village is the residential property owned (or formerly owned) by Trinity House, consisting of Trinity Church Square and Merrick Square, and parts of Cole Street, Falmouth Road, Harper Road, Swan Street and Trinity Street, plus Bedford Row. Most of the residents in TNRA's area, which covers about 320 households, are tenants who rent direct from Trinity House through their managing agents, currently Knight Frank. Some have bought long leaseholds of their flats, some rent from these leaseholders, and a few are freehold owners. See here for more details about the estate.
The TNRA committee
TNRA is completely independent of Trinity House and run by a voluntary committee, chosen each year at the annual general meeting in April. The committee meets monthly to organise TNRA's work and events and keeps members informed about local issues. TNRA is a residents' organisation. It has no connection with the estate's managing agents or owner, except that TNRA officers meet and correspond with them on behalf of residents.
Everyone on the Committee is a volunteer. There is always room for additional people to get involved, either as a committee member or just from time to time. If you think you have time and would like to contribute, please get in touch via email at info@tnra.net or speak to any of us.
2019/2020 committee
(This committee will continue until we are able to hold an AGM – postponed from April 2020 because of COVID-19)
Chair: Tim Horsler
Vice-chair: Edward Heckels
Treasurer: Penny Hinves
Committee: Ali Walker, Clive Greenwood, John Moore, Lesley Exton, Mary Jane Kane, Meera Rajan, Paul Shiels, Shaun Stern
Landlords and management
Help and advice from TNRA
Southwark Council
Filming on the estate
Community Skip
Policing and crime
History & Achievements
1976–1986: the 1st decade
1986–1996: the 2nd decade
1996–2006: the 3rd decade
2006–2016: the 4th decade
Trinity Street traffic calming
Gardens: access and maintenance
AGMs, Reports & Accounts
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“Suicide: Alan Vega · Martin Rev” by Suicide - album review
Coming some 30 months on from their self-titled debut of 1977, the second Suicide in May, 1980, was relatively anticlimactic. It was given the big studio production by Ric Ocasek of The Cars, using his synths and, sonically, being a tad more polished, lost some of the disturbing lo-fi allure which had been so affecting on the debut. Still, as I say, that is a relative complaint, for there was much to cherish all the same. They remain: Alan Vega (41, vocals) and Martin Rev (32, electronics). There's some rebel love for the album's opener, “Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne”, a song reflecting the decadent side of a nightlife scene filled by women, cadillacs and cocaine. He wishes. The rhythm track is busy and repetitive and makes the piece. Maintaining this cool approach is the darkly nervous “Mr. Ray (To Howard T.)”, a song which had been in their live sets for the last few years. A whole lot of body slapping adds to the unsettling nature of the performance; this is what we want from our Suicide. Almost apologetically, the electro-doo-wop number “Sweetheart” is a middle-of-the-road pop concession. Bouncing back immediately, “Fast Money Music” is a jolt from the malaise; the body slapping's back and Martin Rev’s in-yer-face manic loops combined with the nervous energy of Alan Vega’s vocal delivery is vintage Suicide. Alas, the classic pre-album single from the same sessions (“Dream Baby Dream”) was not included, a mistake in terms of the album's legacy. It's a a good one, but not the classic they were capable of making and not, I suspect, the record they really wanted to make.
A1 [03:21] Suicide - Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne (Alan Vega, Martin Rev) Electronica
A2 [05:14] Suicide - Mr. Ray (To Howard T.) (Alan Vega, Martin Rev) Electronica
A3 [03:37] Suicide - Sweetheart (Alan Vega, Martin Rev) Rock n Roll Ballad
A4 [03:08] Suicide - Fast Money Music (Alan Vega, Martin Rev) Electronica
A5 [04:24] Suicide - Touch Me (Alan Vega, Martin Rev) Electronica
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Audi alteram partem
The Situation in Abkhazia: A Civil Society Perspective - Irakly Khintba, Liana Kvarchelia, Thomas de Waal
Irakly Khintba, Liana Kvarchelia, Thomas de Waal
In August 2008, the Russian government recognized Abkhazia’s independence from Georgia. Abkhazia had been de facto separate from Georgia since the war of 1992–1993, but had spent the intervening decades impoverished and isolated. The wider international community did not recognize its independence. Abkhazia’s citizens felt perpetually on the brink of war with Georgia, which still maintains that Abkhazia is an autonomous republic inside Georgia. After Moscow’s show of support, Abkhazia has been in a stronger position politically.
Civil society activist Liana Kvarchelia of Abkhazia’s Center for Humanitarian Programs and Irakly Khintba of Abkhazia’s State University and the Center for Humanitarian Programs provided their perspectives on the current situation in Abkhazia and its relations with Russia. Carnegie’s Thomas de Waal moderated the event.
Dependence on Russia
Abkhazia relies heavily on Russia for security, military, and economic investments, the two speakers said. They asserted that people in Abkhazia will always value and appreciate the assistance Russia provided in August 2008, believing that Russia protected Abkhazia from a potential invasion by Georgia. As such, Russia is and will be Abkhazia’s main partner. But they said that Abkhazia is also keen to establish relations with other states. Many Westerners ask if people in Abkhazia will manage to preserve their aspiration for independence while maintaining such a close relationship with Russia. In response to this question Kvarchelia suggested that if the international community were to continue to deny recognition of Abkhazia’s independence, its relations with Russia would become even stronger. Russia’s ties to Abkhazia include:
Military Agreements: Russia has a military base in Abkhazia and, in March, Russian and Abkhazian presidents signed a 45-year agreement on joint military efforts.
Joint Border Guards Agreement: The Russian Federal Security Service (F.S.B.) will assist in training of Abkhaz and South Ossetian border guards. Khintba noted that this agreement also gives Russia free use of Abkhaz and South Ossetian air and water space to protect their borders with Georgia.
Economic Investments: The political opposition in Abkhazia is concerned that Russian investments in airports and the railway, and increased inflow of foreign investments are creating a form of dependence on Russia.
The relationship between Abkhazia and Russia is asymmetric, Kvarchelia noted, but this is understandable, given their distinctly different capacities and international status. She said that Abkhazia needs to make decisions on its internal development independently in order to bolster its sovereignty and become a full-fledged member of the international community.
Developments at the Geneva negotiations
International discussions on security and stability arrangements in South Ossetia and Abkhazia were launched at the Palace of Nations in Geneva in October 2008. The UN, EU, and OSCE are mediating, and the United States, Russia, and Georgia are official participants in the discussions.
Parties of Conflict: Both Khintba and Kvarchelia noted that the language of the Geneva negotiations is shifting from a non-use-of-force agreement between Abkhazia and Georgia to describing the situation as a conflict between Georgia and Russia. This change excludes Abkhazia as a party of conflict.
Isolation vs. Occupation: Georgia has been pushing for the conversation in Geneva to focus on Russia’s de-occupation of what it identifies as Georgian territories, rather than the de-isolation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This only serves to further anger Abkhazians as they do not view their land as an occupied territory.
According to Khintba, Abkhaz public opinion on the negotiations is divided: some think that after the recognition by Russia, the conflict with Georgia is resolved, and there is no further need to negotiate with Georgia; others think that the conflict will not be resolved until Abkhazia and Georgia accept an equal and balanced relationship.
Ultimately, both experts argued, a non-resumption of violence agreement between Abkhazia and Georgia would create important legal conditions for Abkhazia’s development. In particular, a legal framework of this type would prevent future Georgian violence against Abkhazia.
International community recognition
Apart from Russia, only Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Nauru have recognized Abkhazia as an independent state. The rest of the world still regards it as a part of Georgia. Khintba said that many in Abkhaz society perceive the absence of international recognition as an absence of support by the global community.
Their status as an unrecognized independent state has a strong impact on the way the Abkhaz people interact with the international community:
The United States: Kvarchelia suggested that Abkhazia has had to appeal to anti-American countries for recognition. Khintba added that some Abkhaz leaders have argued that if the United States had recognized Abkhazia before Russia did, it is possible that Abkhazia would be more pro-Western today.
Russia: Khintba pointed out that some experts think that on the one hand, Russia is not interested in having more countries recognize Abkhazia’s independence because it would decrease Russia’s influence over the small country. On the other hand, other experts argue that it is important for Russia to justify its decision to recognize Abkhazia’s independence to the rest of the world, so as to win international support for the legitimization of Abkhazia’s status.
The West: The West is perceived quite negatively in Abkhazia, asserted Khintba. Twenty years after first Georgia-Abkhazia war, the West has made no real attempt to engage with Abkhazia. The situation in Abkhazia is different from 20 years ago, but there are no corresponding changes in the West’s approach Abkhazia. In Kvarchelia’s opinion Abkhaz society associates the West with its double standards toward Abkhazia’s independence.
Abkhazia and Western Aid
Many experts in Abkhazia believe that without international recognition it will be harder for Abkhazia to develop as a democratic nation. Khintba suggested the following areas where the United States and the West can help:
Expert consultancy is needed for further development of democratic institutions and modernization
Focus the Geneva negotiations on a non-use-of-force agreement
Increase the activity of international organizations in Abkhazia
Both experts underscored that a continued lack of international recognition of Abkhazia’s independence and international reluctance to engage and cooperate with Abkhazia directly will eventually increase its dependence on Russia. They noted that it is in the best interests of both Abkhazia and the international community to help Abkhazia on its path toward being a fully independent functioning democracy.
Source: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
More on the Conflict
After 30 years Georgians still refuse to acknowledge their own responsibility for the conflict
South Ossetia and Georgia’s aggressive state-integrationism, by George Hewitt
25 years later, Abkhazia remains haunted by the missing, by Kieran Pender
Changes on the Western Front: how Gagra was liberated
A Short Chronicle of Events of the 1992-93 Georgian-Abkhazian War
War and Secession: A Moral Analysis of the Georgian-Abkhaz Conflict, by Bruno Coppieters
Bodzhgua on Gena Kardanov: a real tough guy
Transformation of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict: rethinking the paradigm, by Natella Akaba and Iraklii Khintba
Some Chapters from the UNPO’s Abkhazia Report in 1992
Wiki Leaks and the South Ossetia War, by Patrick Armstrong
Abkhazia, Georgia, and the Crisis of August 2008: Roots and Lessons, by George Hewitt
The view from Abkhazia of South Ossetia ablaze, by Paula Garb
Reply to Hamilton's reply / From: "George Hewitt
The Georgia-Russia conflict: lost territory, found nation, by Donald Rayfield
Abkhazia: a problem of identity and ownership, by George B. Hewitt - Central Asian Survey
Abkhazia as the Theatre of Georgia’s Terrorist Activities and Sabotage, by Sergey Markedonov
EU's role in conflict resolution: Georgian and Abkhaz perspectives | Conciliation Resources
‘The Land of the Golden Fleece’: Conflict and Heritage in Abkhazia by Eleni Sideri
Mikheil Saakashvili: War Criminal, by Justin Raimondo - AntiWar.com
'Terrible Losses Overnight': Cables Track US Diplomatic Efforts to Avert Russian-Georgian Conflict, by Uwe Klussmann
The Georgian-Abkhazian Conflict: In Search of Ways out, by Viacheslav A. Chirikba
Ossetia-Georgia-Russia-U.S.A. Towards a Second Cold War?, By Noam Chomsky
Nationalism, revolution and war in the Caucasus, by Tony Iltis
How nations united: Formation of the Confederation of Caucasian Peoples
A woman with a Kalashnikov assault-rifle: the story of Rita Zongurova
Nation-building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands: The Georgian-Abkhazian confrontation
The TV Debate Program on Georgian - Abkhaz Conflict | Moscow, October 17, 1992
Inside Abkhazia: Survey of Attitudes in a De Facto State
People's Peacemaking Perspectives: Georgian–Abkhaz conflict – Policy brief
Statement of the MFA of the Republic of Abkhazia concerning the European Parliament Resolution on the EU – Georgia Association Agreement.
Russian Influence in Abkhazia Certainly Does Exist: Interview with Irakli Khintba
The lightness of history in the Caucasus, by Thomas de Waal
The Ghosts of Abkhazia, by Thomas de Waal
Irakli Khintba: ‘No country can tolerate being treated disparagingly and even at times offensively. We demand respect for Abkhazia.’
Interview of Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Abkhazia Irakli Khintba for the news-agency "ApsnyPress"
Georgian policy on Abkhazia: strategy or tactic? By Liana Kvarchelia
Irakli Khintba: "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Abkhazia is at the forefront of the struggle to secure sovereignty"
Citizens of Abkhazia Strive to Shape Sovereign Nation
The presentation has taken place in Sukhum of Nicholas Ioanidi’s republished book "Greeks in Abkhazia"
May 17 is the birthday of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Abkhazia
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Solved 1. What Is Disintermediation? Give An Example. 2
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Predatory Disintermediation Berghel
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This report will discuss about how travel agents market is influenced by disintermediation and re-intermediation and what is the impact on industry and travel agencies. This report will discuss about how travel agents market is influenced by disintermediation and re-intermediation and what is the impact on industry and travel agencies.
What is disintermediation? We'll define it for you. Disintermediation Is Shaking Up Paper And Packaging for example, may seem outdated This puts a new spin on the conventional idea of disintermediation.
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What is Disintermediation? - Definition & Examples. industry as a whole has experienced a shift toward disintermediation. For example, What is Disintermediation? What Are Three Types of Symbiosis and Examples for Them? Three Types of Symbiosis and Examples; Give an Example of Symbiosis;
Answers to Review Questions. Disintermediation is the removal of funds from a financial intermediary. Give some examples. Definition The elimination of intermediaries in the supply chain, also referred to as “cutting out the middlemen.” Information The network economy was initially
The concept of financial disintermediation presents businesses with a thorny dilemma: teach to fish or give a fish? In the financial arena, this question translates Selling over the Internet while maintaining a physical distribution network is an example of channel conflict. The result is disintermediation,
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Initiating the removal of an intermediary from the retailing process is also an example of how disintermediation can benefit both the manufacturer and the consumer. Definition of disintermediation in the Financial Dictionary - by Free online English dictionary and encyclopedia. What is disintermediation? For example, one may
Chapter 12: The Internet for Distribution. Review Questions 1. What is a distribution channel? What is disintermediation? Give an example. What is disintermediation? We'll define it for you.
Disintermediation is the withdrawal of funds from intermediary financial institutions (banks, savings and loan associations) to invest them directly. What is channel conflict? Discuss the two main types of channel conflict and give an example of each. Define disintermediation.
(Give an example using 5 producers and 4 consumers) What is disintermediation? Chapter 13 Marketing : Channels of Distribution. Because of the company's overwhelming success in the early 2000s, Dell is an excellent example of how disintermediation can work. The company,
differences between reintermediation and countermediation
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What is Disintermediation? definition and meaning
Disintermediation Definition of Disintermediation by. Answer to 1. What is disintermediation? Give an example. 2. What is an infomediary? Give an example. 3. How does the value of dist... The economy and how the different sectors interact in the. Course: What is disintermediation? Give an example. 2. What is an infomediary? Give an example. 3..
The economy and how the different sectors interact in the. Course: What is disintermediation? Give an example. 2. What is an infomediary? Give an example. 3. Some examples are: Stocks; Exchange Traded Funds you can watch Andreas A explain Disintermediation, if you do not GIVE you cannot RECEIVE;
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The concept of financial disintermediation presents businesses with a thorny dilemma: teach to fish or give a fish? In the financial arena, this question translates Disintermediation has had varying degrees of impact on different industries. One industry where the Internet has caused noteworthy disintermediation is healthcare.
Recent Examples on the Web. In the longer term insurers face a more fundamental challenge: disintermediation. — The Economist, "Insurance and the gig economy," 5 The concept of financial disintermediation presents businesses with a thorny dilemma: teach to fish or give a fish? In the financial arena, this question translates
Disintermediation involves the removal of intermediaries such as distributors or brokers that This is not an example of the work written by our professional Disintermediation is the removal of intermediaries in economics from a supply chain, Notable examples of disintermediation include Dell and Apple,
What is Bitcoin? What is the perfect example of it? a set of miner have to give their approval. A perfect example would be the stocks of a company. What Are Three Types of Symbiosis and Examples for Them? Three Types of Symbiosis and Examples; Give an Example of Symbiosis;
disintermediation central to how a data and use that as a way to ensure that the aid give is given to the One example would be somebody who’s Disintermediation involves the removal of intermediaries such as distributors or brokers that This is not an example of the work written by our professional
Selling over the Internet while maintaining a physical distribution network is an example of channel conflict. The result is disintermediation, If you want to know how to stop people taking advantage of you, disintermediation can help California example above George III didn’t give in to the
Predatory Disintermediation Hal Berghel. I'll give an example of what appears to me to be a case of predatory disintermediation below. Symbiotic Disintermediation. Horizontal integration is the acquisition of a business operating at the same level Examples of horizontal integration in recent years include Marriott's
Definition The elimination of intermediaries in the supply chain, also referred to as “cutting out the middlemen.” Information The network economy was initially What Are Three Types of Symbiosis and Examples for Them? Three Types of Symbiosis and Examples; Give an Example of Symbiosis;
Initiating the removal of an intermediary from the retailing process is also an example of how disintermediation can benefit both the manufacturer and the consumer. Direct Imports are products imported directly into a country and not through the manufacturers will give them a Examples of Disintermediation and its
Below are some examples of transitive verbs. I baked some cookies. I rode the bicycle. I moved the chair. I stitched a quilt. What is Disintermediation? - Definition & Examples. industry as a whole has experienced a shift toward disintermediation. For example, What is Disintermediation?
Disintermediation Is Shaking Up Paper And Packaging for example, may seem outdated This puts a new spin on the conventional idea of disintermediation. In many ways, disintermediation sees the producer becoming the distributer, and so forced to encounter a broad range of new supply-related issues.
Selling over the Internet while maintaining a physical distribution network is an example of channel conflict. The result is disintermediation, Disintermediation is all these are examples of disintermediation the applications are valuable agents in the educational domain and require us to give
Because of the company's overwhelming success in the early 2000s, Dell is an excellent example of how disintermediation can work. The company, For this question:" Is countermediation or reintermediation more important than disintermediation in e-business?" ---> I think it depends on what will give the firm
In many ways, disintermediation sees the producer becoming the distributer, and so forced to encounter a broad range of new supply-related issues. Disintermediation is the withdrawal of funds from intermediary financial institutions (banks, savings and loan associations) to invest them directly.
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Home Nonfiction THE PHILOSOPHY OF IRONY IN GREEK CULTURE By Dimitra Tsourou
NonFiction - Year III - Number 13 - May 2018
THE PHILOSOPHY OF IRONY IN GREEK CULTURE By Dimitra Tsourou
THE PHILOSOPHY OF IRONY IN GREEK CULTURE
by Dimitra Tsourou This article stems from my dissatisfaction with the available interpretations of irony in Greek culture. A further difficulty in understanding “Greek irony” results from the inability to express its full meaning when translating from Greek into other languages. The main purpose of this article is to clarify the particularity of each type of irony and to draw conclusions about its significance in Greek culture.WHAT DOES IRONY MEAN?The multiple forms in which irony appears in Greek culture do not allow for a single definition. From Homer and the Tragedians to Socrates and Plato, irony has been employed in various ways; however, all instances of irony entail a contradiction or antithesis between words and meanings, acts and results, illusive and objective reality, expectations and outcomes.DRAMATIC AND SITUATIONAL IRONYThe most famous type of irony is “dramatic irony”. The term was coined by C. Thirwall in 1833 and has been consolidated since. Dramatic irony appears in two forms: verbal irony and situational irony. “Dramatic verbal irony” is found mostly in the Tragedians, and occurs when the characters use words whose meaning is ambiguous to the audience. A clear example is in Sophocles’ “Oedipus the Tyrant” when the old soothsayer visits the king. Oedipus ridicules the man because he is blind, and the outraged Tiresias tells the king that, while he can see, he is “blind” to the truth. When Oedipus becomes blind, he finally understands the meaning of the old man’s words.
Artful and articulate, Homer, the author of The Iliad and The Odyssey, was adept at using “dramatic situational irony” – a form of irony that stems from the plot itself and occurs when the characters ignore what the audience already knows. Essentially, it is based on the antithesis between ignorance and knowledge. When Odysseus and Telemachus meet, Odysseus’s son is unable to recognize his father in disguise. However, the audience knows everything.
In this form of irony, characters are not able to understand their situation and thus act contrary to logic. The outcome of this ignorance is that the character pursues and eventually expedites his/her self-destruction. Oedipus, for instance, insists on discovering Laios’ murderer, without realizing that he is searching for himself – a detail that the audience already knows.IRONY IN PHILOSOPHYThe multilinear dimension of irony does not end here. In the philosophical sphere, irony takes on a different usage. When Socrates opens a dialogue, he feigns ignorance of the issue in question, challenging both others and his own intelligence. Socratic irony is hence based on the idea that a man feigns ignorance in order to elicit responses from his discussants or to steer the dialogue in a certain direction.
Socrates’ conscious statement of ignorance, in conjunction with his deep thirst for knowledge and his belief in lifelong learning, explains why Plato envisages such a strenuous educational system in his “Republic”. Plato’s use of irony, meanwhile, is revolutionary in many respects. The oxymoron inherent in Platonic irony is that truth emerges from myth. Thus, the paradoxical narration of “The Allegory of the Cave” is transfigured into a logical, realistic, cruel truth about the human condition. It is a conscious choice by the philosopher to show that the myth is in fact the truth. Plato achieves this with eloquence, avoiding pompous expressions or platitudes. His myths are written in simple Greek, not the language of philosophers, and are distinguished by a lack of technical terms. Plato’s fluency and simplicity are two virtues that make his writings attractive and readable, even to newcomers to philosophy.CAVAFIAN IRONYThere is a long history of irony in Greek culture. The internationally renowned poet Constantine Peter Cavafy used irony as an essential tool in his poems. Many have characterized him as a modern philosopher, with irony as the protagonist of his “philosophical” poems. At times, he uses Homeric irony; at others, dramatic irony. The astonishing feature of Cavafy’s irony, however, is the unique way that it conveys his message to his readers. In his poem “Waiting for the Barbarians”, Cavafy presents a whole community looking forward to their surrender, anticipating the Barbarians’ mercy and a return to the simple life. All the leaders, kings, legislators and judges are ready to relinquish their authority to the Barbarians. However, the Barbarians never appear, and the people’s expectations are dashed: the irony is created through refutation. Irony is also used in the poem “Alexandrian Kings”, when Cavafy implies that there is no value in impressive structures. In her ambitious ceremony, Cleopatra apportions all the territories once conquered by Alexander the Great to her children in an attempt to stupefy the Alexandrian kings. However, the audience already knows the fate of both Cleopatra and her son, and can see the futility behind the lavishness. The poem’s beautiful images thus leave a bitter taste.CONCLUSIONIn the modern era, we experience every form of irony. Irony has become more topical than ever in this period of endless relativism and simulated realities where the boundaries between the fictive and the real are increasingly blurred. Irony uncovers the human illusion in every context and in every form. Irony in Greek culture is thus not merely a tool of philosophy or poetry. Rather, it is a philosophy in itself, an ideology, or even a state of being. At times, a sense of unexpectedness, human fragility, self-harm or illusion emerges; at others, irony reveals the absolute un-idealized truth at its most naked and occasionally cruel. The diachronic meaning of irony encompasses the full spectrum of human nature, from naivety to tragedy. In these postmodern, ungrounded times, irony reveals the power of realism. About the Author: Dimitra Tsourou was born in Athens, Greece, in 1983. As a qualified Secondary Teacher, Dimitra has a considerable experience teaching Classical Greek, History, Latin, Greek Literature and Creative Writing. She studied Classics and majored in Greek Literature. She also specialized in European History and Political Science. During her studies, she participated in the programme “Balkan Crossroads” pertaining to human rights and peace-building strategies undertaken by the Columbia University. She was awarded a diploma with distinction in Freelance and Feature Writing and in English History from London School of Journalism. She lives in the UK and she works as a Greek Language teacher and writer.
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Backyard fun, 2006
Opportunities for recreation
In the 1930 and 1940s new laws limited the hours that New Zealanders had to work, and people had more leisure time than before. However, for some people, especially women, family commitments and household tasks took up a lot of free time. The amount of income people earned determined the types of recreation they could afford.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries families and friends gathered in each other’s homes. Evening gatherings were often held around the piano, with one person playing and others singing or dancing.
Sometimes families picnicked together. On public holidays large community picnics were held with organised games and entertainment. In the early 2000s many local councils ran summer entertainment programmes that recalled the community picnic era.
After school became compulsory in 1877 more New Zealanders learned to read fluently. Public libraries opened in the 19th century, and reading became a popular leisure activity.
Radio broadcasts started in the 1920s. Housewives had the radio on while doing chores, and families listened together in the evenings. When television arrived in New Zealand in 1960 watching it quickly became the nation’s foremost recreational activity.
In the 1990s internet use took off. However, a 2011 survey showed that radio and television were still more popular sources of entertainment.
Gardening, making crafts and home maintenance
Some useful activities blur the line between work and leisure.
Until factory-made clothes became cheap in the second half of the 20th century many women saved money by sewing their family’s clothes and furnishings. Vegetable gardening has sometimes provided cheap food. Do-it-yourself home maintenance can also save money. However, many New Zealanders enjoy these activities as hobbies for their own sake.
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How to cite this page:
Kerryn Pollock, 'Domestic recreation and hobbies', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/domestic-recreation-and-hobbies (accessed 17 January 2021)
Story by Kerryn Pollock, published 5 Sep 2013
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LevFin Insights BDC Portfolio News 1-13-20
Avantor, Kindred At Home, LifePoint join repricing wave; LBO to take out debt at First Advantage
The new year opened as expected with arrangers launching a slate of underwritten M&A/LBO deals off the forward calendar as well as a fresh crop of repricings. Unlike late 2019, when repricing activity was heavily skewed toward higher-rated credits—85% of repricing volume was generated by issuers rated B1/B+ or higher in the fourth quarter—the recent rally in the secondary opened the door for single-B issuers to seek spread reductions. The M&A/LBO deals that were first out of the gate, unsurprisingly, are quickly drawing a crowd, with certain deals benefiting from pre-marketing.
Over in high-yield, it was the biggest start to a year on recent record, with $8.4 billion surpassing by huge measure $1.5 billion last year and by a good chunk $7.4 billion two years ago.
As discussed in the final weekly report of 2019, arrangers are planning to launch many of the underwritten deals from the forward calendar in the coming weeks, but thus far, last week’s launches haven’t yet brought to the market much by way of new money. For starters, last week’s $18.8 billion of launched volume includes $12.6 billion of repricings alone.
Portfolios in brief: Holds reflect most recent reporting period available
OCSL, OCSI, BDVC: Autodata (B3/B-/B) — add-on, M&A
Investors received allocations of the $75 million add-on term loan (L+350) for J.D. Power/Autodata, which was issued at par. RBC Capital Markets was left lead on the transaction, which priced tight to talk. Proceeds will support an acquisition. Thoma Bravo in December closed its acquisition of J.D. Power and merged the target with its portfolio company Autodata. The issuer is a global consumer intelligence, data and analytics company focused on the automotive and other industries. Holders of the existing 1L debt include Oaktree Specialty Lending Corp. with $7M in principal amount, Oaktree Strategic Income Corp. with $2.8M and Oaktree Strategic Income II Inc. with $2.8M. Holders of the 2L debt due May 2027 (L+800) include Oaktree Specialty Lending Corp. with $3.75M, Oaktree Strategic Income Corp. with $1.5M, Oaktree Strategic Income II Inc. with $1.5M and Business Development Corp. of America with $1.85M.
BBDC, OCSL, OCSI, FSK, MCC, Sierra: Avantor Performance Materials (B1/B+/B+) — repricing
Goldman Sachs set price talk of L+250 with a 1% floor and a 99.875–100 offer price on the dollar-denominated component of Avantor’s proposed cross-border repricing. The current margin is L+300 and, like the existing loan, the repriced loan would include a 25 bps step-down at a half-turn inside net first-lien leverage. The euro tranche is talked at E+275, with a 0% floor, also offered at 99.875–100, versus the current margin of E+325. The euro tranche also includes a 25 bps step-down at a half turn inside of closing net first-lien leverage. The issuer is offering to reset the 101 soft call protection for six months and is also proposing modifications to the soft call language. Commitments are due by Tuesday, Jan. 21. Barings BDC holds $5.73M in principal amount of the existing 1L debt. Holders of the company’s 9% senior note due October 2025 is Oaktree Specialty Lending Corp. with $3M in principal amount, Oaktree Strategic Income II Inc. with $1M, FS Investment Corp. II with $25M, FS Investment Corp. III with $52.5M and FS Investment Corp. IV with $7.5M. Medley Capital Corp. and Sierra Income Corp. hold equity stakes valued at $13.85M and $27.45M, respectively.
Audax: First Advantage (B2/B) — LBO
A BofA Securities-led arranger group set talk of L+400-425 with a 0% floor and a 99 offer price on the $620 million, seven-year first-lien term loan backing Silver Lake’s acquisition of First Advantage. Investors are offered six months of 101 soft call protection. Commitments are due by noon ET Tuesday, Jan. 21. The financing also includes $195 million of privately placed second-lien debt, sources noted. The arranger group also includes J.P. Morgan, Barclays, Jefferies, RBC Capital Markets, Credit Suisse, Citizens, HSBC, KKR Capital Markets and Stifel. The transaction will leverage First Advantage at 4.4x first-lien and 5.7x total. The $75 million revolver, which won’t be drawn at close is subject to a 7.75x springing net first-lien leverage test if utilization exceeds 35%. Commitments are due Thursday, Jan. 23. Audax Credit BDC holds $2M in principal amount of the company’s 1L debt due June 2022 (L+525).
Audax: Flexera Software (B2/B-) — add-on, M&A, refi
Investors received allocations of the $210 million add-on for Flexera Software (L+350), which was issued at 99.75. Jefferies was left lead on the deal, which priced tight to original talk with a $150 million upsize. The original $60 million backs an acquisition and the $150 million of proceeds from the upsize will refinance the issuer’s second-lien term loan (L+725). Flexera, which sells software and services that enable software publishers and device makers to install, enforce and deploy software licenses, is controlled by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, with TA Associates as a minority investor. Audax Credit BDC holds $1.97M in principal amount of the company’s existing 1L debt.
OFS: Kindred At Home (B1/B) — repricing
J.P. Morgan launched a repricing of Kindred At Home’s $2.541 billion term loan B. The issuer is proposing to take pricing on the term loan due July 2025 to L+325 with a 0% floor. The repriced loan is offered at 99.75-100 and would include six months of 101 soft call protection, sources noted. Current pricing is L+375 with a 0% floor. Commitments are due Thursday, Jan. 16. The business was formed in 2018 via the merger of Kindred Healthcare’s home health-care business and Curo Health Service by a joint venture of Humana, TPG Capital and Welsh Carson Anderson & Stowe. OFS Capital holds $3M in principal amount of the company’s existing 1L debt.
FSK: LifePoint Hospitals (B2/B) — repricing
Citi launched a repricing for LifePoint Hospitals, setting price talk of L+400 with a 0% floor and a par offer price. The current margin is L+450. Commitments are due by 5 p.m. ET Wednesday, Jan. 15. In connection with the proposed repricing, the issuer plans to repay $400 million, or about 11.4%, of the covenant-lite term loan due November 2025, reducing outstandings to $3.115 billion. The 101 soft call protection rolled off the loan in November; the issuer is offering to reset the 101 soft call for six months in connection with the repricing. Of note, for the first six months following the proposed repricing, the MFN protection would be based on the original pricing. As reported, the 2018-vintage term loan cleared the market with 50 bps of MFN protection for life, versus a 12-month sunset on 75 bps as originally proposed. Holders of the company’s 9.75% senior note due December 2026 include FS KKR Capital Corp. with $8.4M in principal amount, FS Investment Corp. II with $9.79M, FS Investment Corp. III with $11.2M, FS Investment Corp. IV with $2.86M and Corporate Capital Trust II with $926,000.
Audax, Guggenheim, FSK, PSEC: SMG (B1/B+) — add-on, repayment
A Jefferies-led arranger group set talk of L+275-300 with a 99.5 offer price on the $190 million add-on to Stadium Management Group’s term loan B due January 2025 that will be used to repay the issuer’s second-lien term loan. At the tight end of talk, the transaction would represent a repricing, since the extant loan is currently priced at L+300 with a 0% floor after stepping down from L+325 when leverage was reduced below 4.75x leverage. The existing step would be removed as part of the transaction. There’s no fee on the extant loan, but the issuer will reset 101 soft call protection for six months. Arrangers on the deal are Jefferies, Nomura, BofA Securities, Goldman Sachs and Macquarie. Commitments are due Wednesday, Jan. 15. Onex Corp. in early 2018 acquired the worldwide entertainment and convention venue management concern from American Capital; the issuer subsequently merged with AEG Facilities in a deleveraging transaction. Onex and Anshutz Entertainment Group each hold a 50% stake in the merged company, now known as ASM Global. Holders of the existing 1L debt include Audax Credit BDC with $1.98M in principal amount and Guggenheim Credit Income Fund with $2.36M. Holders of the company’s 2L debt due January 2026 (L+700) include FS KKR Capital Corp. with $1.3M in principal amount, FS Investment Corp. II with $3.64M, FS Investment Corp. III with $942,000, Corporate Capital Trust II with $230,000, Guggenheim Credit Income Fund with $2.4M and Prospect Capital with $7.5M. – Thomas Dunford
Download LFI BDC Portfolio News 1-13-20 for BDC investment details provided by Advantage Data; click through links to view stories by LFI.
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Rovers ready to Exsel
27th July 2016 rovers
Exsel Group was today announced as the stadium sponsor of Albion Rovers Football Club.
The 1-year sponsorship deal sees the IT & Communications Company rename the Stadium “The Exsel Group Stadium” in time for the Albion Rovers team to kick of the coming season 2016/17 in style.
Based in Glasgow and Aberdeen, Exsel Group work with some of the country’s largest and most well-known organisations including Muir Construction, Grahams Dairy and the Scottish Football Association.
Exsel Group specialise in deploying telecom and IT solutions to clients which drive down costs, improve efficiency and boost productivity. With local support, over 200 clients and in-house technology experts, Exsel Group were shortlisted SME of the year at the Scottish Business Awards 2015.
Lee Mair, Business Development Manager, Exsel Group commented:
“Exsel Group are delighted to be unveiled as the partner for Albion rovers FC. Rovers are a fantastic Scottish club and we are proud to be named as their stadium sponsor. We are looking forward to building on our relationship with the club and their current sponsors.
We are thrilled to be involved with one of our local clubs and we wish them all the very best this season”
As an organisation, Exsel group firmly directs its focus upon giving back and supporting the local community and are currently engaged with enterprises such as A&M Scotland and ENABLE Scotland, as well as having supported the Glasgow 2016 Homeless World Cup earlier this month.
Darren Young, Albion Rovers FC Manager added:
“We are absolutely delighted to welcome Exsel Group as our new stadium sponsor. This is an exciting time for the club and we look forward to establishing a great relationship with Exsel Group over the next year and going forward.”
Exsel Group are also engaged in sponsorships deals with the Scottish Football Association, Celtic Ladies FC, Rangers FC, Dundee FC and Hibs FC.
Their active support of Scottish football also saw them recently announce their sponsorship of Airdrie’s Gartcairn Juniors and their engagement with the SJFA West Regions League Cup this season.
← Darren’s Verdict
Kilmarnock v Rovers – Betfred Cup – Preview →
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Philippines morning news for March 13
By Stella-maris Ewudolu on March 13, 2019
Palace: Duterte, Congress leaders to resolve budget
CONGRESS LEADERS were scheduled to meet last night with President Rodrigo R. Duterte to discuss the impasse between the Senate and the House of Representatives on the proposed P3.757 trillion national budget for 2019.
— BusinessWorld Online
Trade deficit widened in January as exports declined 1.7% to $5.3b
The trade deficit widened to $3.76 billion in January from $3.16 billion a year ago, as imports rebounded while exports continued to decline, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority show.
— Manilastandard.net
5 days before PHL exit, SC takes no action on Int’l Criminal Court case
The Supreme Court did not decide on the petitions challenging the Philippines’ exit from the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday, less than a week before the withdrawal takes effect.
— GMA News
Measles outbreak claims 9 lives in Central Visayas
The number of deaths due to the measles outbreak in Central Visayas is now pegged at nine, covering the period from January 1-March 12, the Department of Health Regional Office here said Tuesday.Jane Michelle Raagas, Nurse V of the DOH Central Visayas Center for Health …
— Philippine News Agency
BSP chief Diokno signals possible quarterly cuts in bank reserves
Possible cuts in required reserves imposed on banks may happen “in the next four quarters,” Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno said Tuesday, adding that there is room to relax monetary policy.
— The Philippine Star
Chinese, Koreans still top foreign visitors to Boracay
Boracay Island has maintained its reputation as a prime tourist spot in the country for visitors from China and Korea, despite the challenges posed by its temporary closure and ongoing rehabilitation .
— Rappler
PH exports to Japan hit $884.95M in January
The country’s exports to Japan reached $884.95 million in January 2019, surpassing the United States of America as the top export market of the Philippines, according to data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority on Tuesday.
— Minda News
Opposition lawmakers slam as “presumptuous” Palace’s statement on Filipinos’ “unshakeable trust” in Duterte, admin
Several opposition lawmakers on Tuesday, March 12, slammed as “presumptuous” the Palace’s statement the rise in President Rodrigo Duterte’s satisfaction ratings was proof of the public’s “unshakeable trust” in him and his administration.
— Eagle News
DOF pushes uniform 5% royalty rate for mining
The Department of Finance (DOF) has appealed for the Senate to adopt its original proposal for mining fiscal reforms, which is projected to raise about P7.2 billion in additional revenues in the first year of its implementation.
Senator renews call to amend economic laws amid FDI drop
The Senate was asked to front-load the passage of remedial legislation amending the country’s current economic laws to foster a more competitive business environment in the Philippines.
— Business Mirror
260,000 people reel from water shortage
THE water service interruption imposed by Manila Water has affected 250,000 to 260,000 people, the agency said on Tuesday.
— The Manila Times
BARMM issues fatwah to clarify that immunization is halal
AN ISLAMIC ruling, or a fatwah, on immunization was signed by 13 Muslim religious leaders of the Regional Darul Ifta (RDI) of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) on March 12 to clarify that it is consistent with the faith.
Thousands flee as fighting erupts in southern Philippines
An estimated 16,000 people have fled their homes as a result of reported armed clashes between government troops and supporters of the so-called Islamic State group in the southern Philippine province of Maguindanao.
— UCA News
BOI-approved IB projects eye to source P2.99 billion from MSEs
Inclusive business (IB) projects approved last year by the Board of Investments (BOI) target to source nearly P3 billion of goods and services from small firms in compliance with their commitment to provide livelihood to poor areas.
RCBC sues Bangladesh bank for damage to reputation over $81-M heist
The Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) has filed a defamation case against the central bank of Bangladesh for “baseless allegations” in connection with the $81-million bank heist in 2016.
— CNN Philippines
War vs. illegal drugs, corruption to boost economy: Go
Former Special Assistant to the President and senatorial aspirant Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go on Tuesday vowed to continue helping President Rodrigo Duterte’s fight against illegal drugs and corruption to boost economic growth.
Palace: Gov’t won’t allow PHL to be emerging base for ISIS
Malacañang on Tuesday assured the public that it will not allow the Philippines to become an emerging base for international terror group ISIS which is in danger of losing all the territory it once held in the Middle East.
Can the Philippines forgo Chinese investment for maritime security?
In January 2019, South Korea’s Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction closed down its shipbuilding operations in the Philippines.
— East Asia Forum
Can the budget be adjusted post-bicam? What Supreme Court says
It’s now almost the middle of March yet we still don’t have a national budget for 2019 as a new tug-of-war ensues between the Senate and the House of Representatives over adjustments made post-bicameral conference committee.
Cebu town placed under state of calamity due to dry spell
The town of Carmen in Cebu province has been declared under a state of calamity as farmers and residents suffer scarcity of water.
DA nixes bid to import palay on risk of pests
THE Department of Agriculture (DA) has thumbed down the proposals of some firms, such as San Miguel Corp. (SMC), to import unhusked rice or palay to avert the entry of foreign pests that could affect the local rice industry.
House to consider resolution seeking to ban palm oil imports
THE House of Representatives will consider a resolution asking the government to bar imports of palm oil to help protect the domestic coconut industry.
PH should focus on clearer maritime vision
Shipping heiress Doris Magsaysay-Ho of the Magsaysay Group said Philippines must have the vision of becoming the maritime hub in Asia and to the world, realizing the maritime industry’s great contribution not only in the country but also in the international community.
Duterte signs law mandating use of safety restraint system for children in motor vehicles
President Rodrigo Duterte has signed into law a measure requiring the use of a safety restraint system for children in motor vehicles while on the road.
Japan, FAO, ILO sign notes for infra, agricultural training in Bangsamoro
Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Koji Haneda recently signed and exchanged notes with Food and Agriculture Organization Representative Jose Luis Fernandez and International Labor Organization Country Director Khalid Hassan for two projects in the Bangsamoro region, as witnessed by Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Carlito Galvez.
P954M Busuanga airport dev’t breaks ground
The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) yesterday broke ground for the P953.4-million Busuanga Airport development project which is set to be completed by December 2021.
— Malaya
DOH-7 to hold mass TB screening in jails
The Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7) will conduct a mass screening for tuberculosis (TB) among inmates in all Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) facilities in the region starting this month.Katherine Rose Boiser, technical staff of DOH-7’s …
Pinoy professionals can now apply for 5-year Japan visas: DTI
Filipino professionals and businessmen looking to either work or invest in Japan can be granted 5-year visas under a new trade agreement, according to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
— ABS-CBN News
A peek into the Revised Corporation Code of the Philippines
On 20 February 2019, President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law Republic Act No. 11232, otherwise known as the Revised Corporation Code of the Philippines (the “New Code”), which may be considered as a landmark legislation updating the 38-year-old Corporation Code of the Philippines (the “Old Code”) to adjust to modern times.
PH among top 20 countries with most female viewers on Pornhub
Pornhub has revealed that the Philippines is among the countries with the most female visitors in the adult video streaming site last year.
DA to unveil national fertilizer program
The Department of Agriculture (DA) is unveiling a national fertilizer program in a roll-over system, among other initiatives, to make Filipino farmers competitive as pushed for by President Rodrigo Duterte.
Religious leaders should speak without fear of reprisal — US diplomat
RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS should be able to speak freely on the actions of government without fear of reprisal, United States (US) Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Samuel D. Brownback said on Tuesday amid President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s continued verbal attack on the Catholic Church.
PH joins Pacific Partnership 2019 on disaster response
THE Philippines will be joining the US at this year’s Pacific Partnership that would focus on disaster response in the region.
Priests facing death threats: Digong, hindi kami takot sa ‘yo
Catholic priests facing death threats urged their fellow clergymen to remain courageous, as they continue to preach against vulgarity and drug war killings under President Rodrigo Duterte.
Water levels in dams around Metro drop, La Mesa to reach lowest in 21 yrs – Pagasa
WATER levels in dams around Metro Manila and suburbs continue to fall, including La Mesa’ supply, which is expected to drop to its lowest in 21 years, a hydrologist from the state weather bureau said on Tuesday.
Manila Water says sending water rations to hospitals is its “top priority”
Hospitals in the areas supplied by Manila Water Company will be prioritized and be rationed with water through tankers that will go to their areas, according to a top official of the water concessionaire.
CHR condemns killing of ROTC cadet in Iloilo
The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) on Tuesday, March 12, called for an end to campus violence as it condemned the killing of an Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) cadet, allegedly by his corps commander, in Iloilo.
CCTV shows alleged abduction plot vs priest
A masked man wearing a cap knocked at the office of Father Flavie Villanueva, a priest most outspoken against drug war killings, in Tayuman, Manila.
Growing southern Tagalog businesses discover true secret to success
Electric power distributor Meralco gathered dozens of entrepreneurs and executives from medium to large-scale enterprises in a forum that explored how new energy solutions can serve the needs of growing businesses.
CA reverses trial court ruling on 2017 naturalization case
The Court of Appeals (CA) has reversed a 2017 trial court ruling that granted the plea of a Chinese national to become a Filipino citizen for her failure to meet all the requirements of the law on naturalization.
Number of workers at Bataan Freeport triples in 10 years
BALANGA CITY, Bataan — The number of workers at the Freeport Area of Bataan (FAB) in Mariveles town has more than tripled compared to about 10 years ago, the Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan (AFAB) said on Tuesday.
In photo: Mayon Volcano emitting ash on Tuesday, March 12
In this picture posted by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology on its Facebook account, Mayon Volcano in Albay is seen emitting ash on Tuesday, March 12.
ACT announces filing of complaint vs PNP units in Region 8 for alleged electioneering
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers on Tuesday, March 12, announced the filing of a complaint for alleged electioneering against Philippine National Police units in Region 8.
Villar cites need to empower women for nation-building
Senator Cynthia Villar said there is a need to empower women to support the country’s development.
4 riding-in-tandem suspects shot dead by cops in Pampanga
Four riding-in-tandem suspects have been killed by Pampanga cops in a shootout late night Monday, March 11, regional police announced on Tuesday, March 12.
Reservoirs still can’t ‘recover’ due to rising water consumption –Manila Water
Despite its efforts to save up water through scheduled interruptions, the Manila Water on Tuesday said it is still having a hard time bringing back its water supply to normal due to the public’s continuously growing water consumption.
Pangasinan town to inaugurate Guinness World Record entry soon
A 51-meter-tall Saint Vincent Ferrer statue situated at Barangay Bani here, which will be an entry to the Guinness World Record for tallest structure made of bamboo, will be finished and inaugurated on April 5 this year.
Pangasinan holds 3rd Umaani Agri-Industrial Trade Fair
PANGASINAN’S 3RD Umaani Agri-Industrial Trade Fair and Exhibit is on this week at the Provincial Agriculture Center in Tebag, Sta. Barbara, where local farm and fishery goods are featured.
— BusinessWorld
BEST FILIPINO FOOD: 7 Food You Should Try During You Visit To PH
Here is a list of seven(7) best Pinoy food that you should not miss to try during your visit in the Philippines.
— Philippine News
Feature photo Brian Evans
Philippines morning news by AEC News Today is your one stop source for Philippines news on matters of governance and policies affecting Asean business communities. It is published M-F by AEC News Today: Governance, not government; policies not politics.
Philippines morning news for March 13 added by Stella-maris Ewudolu on March 13, 2019
View all posts by Stella-maris Ewudolu →
Stella-maris Ewudolu
Journalist at AEC News Today
Stella-maris graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, Education from Ebonyi State University, Nigeria in 2005.
Between November 2010 and February 2012 she was a staff writer at Daylight Online, Nigeria writing on health, fashion, and relationships. From 2010 – 2017 she worked as a freelance screen writer for ‘Nollywood’, Nigeria.
She joined AEC News Today in December 2016.
Latest posts by Stella-maris Ewudolu (see all)
Zoonotic crossover fear sees Vietnam ban (almost) all wildlife trade (video) – July 26, 2020
Job & revenue losses: COVID-19 to hurt Asean airlines the most – July 24, 2020
Philippines morning news for July 24 – July 24, 2020
Vietnam Morning News For January 23
Singapore morning news for September 11
Thailand Morning News For April 18
Asean morning news for July 11
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HomeReviewsAlbum ReviewsKathy Zimmer “Sparkling Smile” (Independent, 2019)
Kathy Zimmer “Sparkling Smile” (Independent, 2019)
April 30, 2019 Andrew Frolish Album Reviews 1
Following the 2018 release of ‘White Noise’, Kathy Zimmer’s new EP, ‘Sparkling Smile’, continues to develop her self-styled cosmopolitan folk sound. Once again, she effectively pulls off the trick of sounding warmly familiar and yet entirely new, blending musical genres and layering instrumentation to create a sumptuous set of songs.
The opening track, ‘Wrinkled Dresses’, begins with the fitting line: “Start out fresh and eager, bright, put together,” and goes on to link the image of a wrinkled dress by the end of the day to a love affair past its best. It’s a bold expression of love fading, just as: “…autumn leaves start to die,” and serves as a gentle start to the EP, with precise finger-picking, layers of strings and Zimmer’s striking singing voice, enriched by echoing backing vocals.
Words and ideas tumble on the Kate Bush-like follow-up, ‘Travis’, and the smartly lyrical single, ‘Time’. ‘Stanford White Ruined My Wife’, based on White’s gruesome murder in 1906, focuses on a darkly fascinating choice of subject matter. White was shot in the face by Harry Thaw, who had harboured years of ill-feeling because White had assaulted Thaw’s wife, Evelyn, when she was 16. Thaw could not escape the mental anguish this caused and announced: “You’ve ruined my wife,” before firing his gun in front of a crowd of high-society onlookers. It makes for an understated, haunting, unnerving song and is a measure of Zimmer’s bravery and quality as a lyricist that she tackles such a real-life tale so well.
Now based in New York, Zimmer’s songs continue to reflect the adjustment to life in the city after her upbringing in Nebraska. This is most obvious on closing track, ‘I <3 NY’, on which she sings of: “Cobwebs on my Midwestern manners…in this carnival of constant abuse.” It’s a poppy, dreamy song about the fight to retain innocence and a sense of self in the chaos of the city. As in ‘Time’, Timothy Dark provides a rap segment, which combines well with Zimmer’s shimmering vocals, helping to lend the track a degree of urbane sophistication, perfectly in keeping with the theme. The beautiful, playful melody engages the listener and is, perhaps, the strongest on the record. So, Zimmer leaves us wanting more and with a subject that lingers. She sings of wanting to retain her sensitivity and keep track of her dreams: on this evidence, that isn’t proving to be a problem for her. Indeed, amidst the hurly-burly of the city, perhaps her dreams just got bigger.
It should be noted that the lovely coloured-vinyl release includes both ‘Sparkling Smile’ and last year’s EP, ‘White Noise’. The records work well together, both sonically and thematically, creating a coherent whole, doubling the enjoyment and providing good value. The staggered EP format releases ensure a condensed, concise approach to song selection: there’s no filler here.
Zimmer’s songs offer unexpected melodies and poetic lyrics, full of effective imagery and precision; each song is a dramatic, cinematic piece of art, delivered with striking, beautiful vocals. Anyone interested in sophisticated song writing, accompanied by catchy melodies and gorgeous singing, will find something to like on ‘Sparkling Smile’. Or as Zimmer herself puts it: “Cosmopolitan folk in your ears.”
Engaging, sophisticated song writing and sumptuous vocals, delivering dreamy urban folk
Willie Nelson rides back home with new album – due June
Chris Rawlins “Bring on The Rain” (Chris Cialdella, 2019)
Steven Matthew Saint says:
awesome KZ does it again!!! Zim Love!
Studio Life – Kathy Zimmer – Americana UK
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International | Workplace struggles
Workplace struggles
France at a Crossroads 06:59 Jan 16 0 comments
Apoyo a los y las Trabajadoras de los Servicios Públicos en Rosario (Argentina) 01:37 Dec 31 0 comments
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Recent Articles about International Workplace struggles
COVID και καπιταλ ... Nov 07 20 by Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group
Σημειώσεις γ ... Oct 21 20 by Κινήσεις για την Ταξική Αυτονομία
Γιατί η ταξικ&#... Apr 18 20 by Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group
international | workplace struggles | press release Friday May 01, 2020 18:55 by Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group - Anarkismo Editorial Group macg1984 at yahoo dot com dot au PO Box 5108 Brunswick North 3056
The struggle against the coronavirus pandemic is one that can only be won by an act of unprecedented human solidarity. Through that act the values of a new world can be born. But turning those values into reality requires the working class. Only the working class: global, multi- racial, multicultural and gender diverse, has the potential strength to uproot the power of capital at its source and steer a new course. We can start by defending health and safety for all workers and by fighting for adequate resources for the health care system. We can extend the struggle by defending civil liberties and opposing austerity. And we can culminate it with a revolution to overthrow capitalism and create libertarian communism, worldwide.
In 1886, workers in Chicago in the US kicked off a campaign to win the eight hour day, starting with a strike on 1 May. Police started breaking up a peaceful workers’ demonstration, then an unknown person threw a bomb. Seven police and at least four workers died from the explosion and the following gunfight. A kangaroo court convicted eight Anarchist union organisers, without any evidence of guilt being presented. Four were hung, one committed suicide and two later had death sentences commuted. In the campaign to defend them, International Workers’ Day was born.
The labour movement, just getting started in 1886, grew to a massive size and strength over the following decades. Despite massive internal conflict over political philosophy, it made revolutions in several countries and won great reforms in many others. Inequalities were greatly ameliorated in industrialised countries and many developing countries. The revolutions, though, were defeated – some by the capitalists and some by tyrants who claimed to rule in the name of the workers. And then the capitalists went on the offensive again, taking advantage of new technology to integrate world markets and pit the new workforces of the Third World against the labour movements of developed countries. Today, inequality has widened again to levels last seen in the 19th Century.
The novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, has caused a global health emergency. The economic emergency that has accompanied it, though, is caused by capitalism. And this, in turn, aggravates the health emergency. Workers need wages to buy their daily necessities. Petty traders need their turnover to make ends meet. And capitalists need both workers and customers to make profits. When people stay home to stop the spread of the virus, the wheels of capitalism grind to a halt and the system falls into crisis. Some countries, like Australia, have a buffer that will last a while. Most others have none. In some countries, workers already have to choose between the possibility of infection and the certainty of starvation. Capitalism kills.
WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!
Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group
*Download the leaflet here: https://melbacg.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/may-day-2020-final.pdf
Related Link: https://www.melbacg.wordpress.com
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Contact Balance
Know Your Money Psychology Style
We all make decisions with our money at one point or another that don’t work out for the best. It’s just inevitable. But if you find yourself falling into patterns of behavior that lead to negative financial consequences, it could be time to examine a little more closely how you make these choices.
Experts who study how people make money decisions have identified certain psychological styles for doing so. While no one’s behavior is ever completely encapsulated in a simple description, see if any of the below profiles sounds like you and if so, how that impacts what you do with your money.
The over-giver
Uses monetary gifts to express feelings and connect with people. In some cases, this person may give gifts to others and neglect their own needs.
The soothing spender
Treats money as a tool for self-medicating through difficult times. May make a lot of rash spending decisions that lead to negative feelings later.
The status seeker
Makes money choices based on how it will appear to others and to boost their own self-esteem. Engages in “keeping up with the Jones” behavior to their own detriment.
The bargain maven
Gets a thrill out of finding discounts, whether the product is needed or not. Derives satisfaction not from having a sound financial plan in place, but the emotional boost they get from landing a deal.
The denier
Tries to avoid difficult money issues in the hope that things will “just sort of work out.”
The risk-taker
Always on the lookout for a get-rich-quick scheme like the lottery or highly speculative investments. Lacks patience and looks for shortcuts at the expense of prolonged security.
The hedonist
Sees money as a way to maximize pleasure right now instead of planning for the future.
The controller
Uses money as a way to gain control over people or their own circumstances. Sees money as a way to gain a feeling of safety.
The striver
Constantly looks for ways to improve financial standing for self and for family. May believe that with money comes power. Goal oriented.
Financial problems are always someone else’s fault. The system is “rigged” against them.
The ultra-conservative
Is afraid of losing money and opportunities for growth are sometimes lost because of it. May be overly affected by events from their earlier life that cause them to not want any risk in their financial affairs.
The prudent manager
Actively saves money, looks to future and avoids emotional money decisions. Seeks out opportunities to expand knowledge and is realistic about strengths and weaknesses.
No one can ever expect you to be perfect, but think about which of these styles your money decisions fall into and which category you would like to be in going forward.
If it helps, the next time you make a purchase or other money decision you end up regretting, ask yourself what emotions fed into that choice. Being able to identify these feelings will help you find better ways to deal with those situations and put you in greater power over your financial life.
Quick Tips: Winter Sun: Near-bys and Savvy Buys
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southwick ma town hall
On November 13, 2020 by With 0 Comments - Uncategorized
The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Reminders Publishing. 2020 “I think the town has been cautious and we’ve moved at a pace very similar to what the governor outlined in his plan. Southwick Town Hall is a cultural feature (building) in Hampden County. Spencer added that she thinks the town has done a good job opening everything safely. “With Covid-19, I had to make changes on how we enter and exit the […] Early voting will allow anyone who does not feel comfortable voting in person to use this option. Proceed to your precinct marked on the doors. While the north lobby of the Southwick Town Hall has been open, there is not timetable for when the rest of it will reopen, even as phase three begins. Southwick Town Hall Address & Phone Number, Get Current Demographic Data for Cities, Towns, and ZIP Codes, View Boundary Maps, for Cities, Towns, and ZIP Codes, Locate Physical, Cultural, and Historical Features, Massachusetts physical, cultural and historic features. Charlie Baker’s plan to reopen the state as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic began on July 6, Southwick’s Board of Health Director Tammy Spencer outlined some of the new businesses that would allowed to reopen and gave an update on the town’s reopening process. When contacting Town of Southwick about your property taxes, make sure that you are contacting the correct office. The ballots must be returned to the Town Clerk’s Office by 7:59 p.m. on June 9. July 8, Southwick Town Hall is located within the Southwick town at latitute 42.0540 and longitude -72.7684. You can call the Town of Southwick Tax Assessor's Office for assistance at 413-569-0565.Remember to have your property's Tax ID Number or Parcel Number available when you call! She added more guidelines would be coming for later steps for the current phase. After cleaning, we treated each of the three AHUs with a disinfectant cleaner labeled for use against SARS-CoV-2 … Apparently, there is going to be more than one step for phase three, but they haven’t announced those yet,” she said. Voting and COVID-19 rules on display at Southwick Town Hall during the May 19 2nd Hampden and Hampshire District Senate seat election. Reservations required--$17 per person. “We will be on ground level with the election flow coming in one door and exiting out another,” Hill said. Pulseline: to submit your thoughts click here, City Councilor participates in COVID holiday safety panel, Rotary Southwick planning Summer Concert Series for 2021, JP suggests outdoor ceremonies due to COVID-19, COA strategic plan takes on a ‘new light’ due to pandemic. Drop the completed ballot sealed and signed, using the brown envelope provided, in the green mailbox outside the Town Hall if you do not want to use regular mail. Town of Hardwick Municipal Office Building 307 Main Street P.O. The primary coordinates for Southwick Town Hall places it within the MA 01077 ZIP Code delivery area.. Copyright © 2020 HTL, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This institution is an equal opportunity provider and employer. The primary coordinates for Southwick Town Hall places it within the MA 01077 ZIP Code delivery area. Town Clerk Michelle Hill said the new polling place allows for one-floor voting. In addition, early voting “by mail” was added to this election under the Governor’s Executive Order. Location: Southwick Congregational Church. Southwick Town Hall is a cultural feature (building) in Hampden County. “In addition, both the entrance and exit are handicap accessible with more parking in the back of the building.”. 488 College Highway, Southwick. Southwick Town Hall - Cultural Feature (Building) in Hampden County. | Dennis Hackettdennis@thereminder.com. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet; consectetur adipiscingelit; Integer sed magna vel ; Dapibus ege-stas turpis. As always, Hill said she hopes all of them will exercise their right and vote. “There will be some more allowances for more therapeutic group programs, and they’ll be setting up new guidelines for visitation at congregate care sites. SOUTHWICK – While phase three of Gov. Spencer said, “We’re going to remain at capacity with the north side lobby open, with the Town Clerk’s Office, the Treasurer and Collector’s Office, with a phone to call any other department to drop off any information or make an appointment, but the rest of Town Hall is not open to the public.”. All of the departments and community partners have been working well together,” she said. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our. Location: Southwick Town Hall Auditorium ***** Thursday April 29, 2021. Box 323, Southwick (MARC ST. ONGE/THE WESTFIELD NEWS). Southwick, MA Duct & Vent Cleaning of America, Inc was hired to contact HEPA vacuumed supply and return ductwork, registers, grilles, diffusers and three AHUs in the town hall. The application has to be received no later than June 5 by 4:30 p.m. in the Town Clerk’s office (drop applications in the green mailbox). Southwick has 7,003 registered voters. Spencer said that some of the business that were part of the phase three opening included the American Inn and some of the town’s fitness centers. Program: Ne'er Do Wells (Musical Group) Presented by Stan Svec and Friends. YouTube Video Background. Checks to Southwick Historical Society, P.O. “All of the businesses have really been great at complying and if there have been any hiccups, people have been able to remedy them quite quickly,” she said, “The governor did outline consequences in the safety guidelines, if we need to use them yet, but I haven’t had to yet, which has been great.”. Charlie Baker’s plan to reopen the state as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic began on July 6, Southwick’s Board of Health Director Tammy Spencer outlined some of the new businesses that would allowed to reopen and gave an update on the town… She added that while the department does have guidelines from the State about potentially disciplining businesses for not being compliant with the guidelines, the Board of Health has not had to take any action so far. Town of Warren 48 High Street Warren, MA 01083. SOUTHWICK – Voters will still cast their ballot at Southwick Town Hall June 9, but instead of voting in the auditorium they will vote in the Senior Center. SOUTHWICK – While phase three of Gov. Catered Dinner 6:30 P.M. Box 575 Gilbertville, MA 01031 Phone: (413) 477-6197 Fax: 413-477-6703 email: admin@townofhardwick.com Copyright © 2017 The Westfield News Group. After the Parks and Recreation Department announced that the town beach would not open during phase 2, Spencer said that the department decided not to open the beach at all this season.
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Viceroy Review: Pyramid shaped-point salad – pleasant but not filling.
southwick ma town hall November 13, 2020
Viceroy Review: Pyramid shaped-point salad – pleasant but not filling. March 12, 2017
The Grizzled review: Cardboard Western Front February 16, 2017
2016 Gaming by the Numbers January 24, 2017
My First Carcassonne – big meeples for little gamers January 18, 2017
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Your Society:Alberta and Northwest TerritoriesChange Your Society
Edmonton (Administrative Office)
#306, 10430 61 Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta T6H 2J3
Utility - AB
Conditions related to dementia
Mild cognitive impairmentLearn about mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a clinical condition in which someone has problems with memory, language, thinking or judgement that are greater than what we would expect with normal aging.
Down syndromeDown syndrome is a genetic disorder that affects about one in every 800 people born in Canada. Learn more about Down syndrome and its link to Alzheimer's.
Traumatic brain injuryLearn about traumatic brain injuries (TBI), which are caused by damage to the brain's tissue resulting from an external force, like a fall or a car accident.
Minds in Motion®
Online Education Opportunities
Find support in Alberta and Northwest Territories
Fundraise and participateHelp the Alzheimer Society of Alberta and Northwest Territories raise funds and support people with dementia, family members, caregivers, and health-care professionals.
Anything for Alzheimer'sThere are lots of ways to get involved! Learn more about how you can raise funds for the Alzheimer Society.
Coffee Break®Coffee Break® is a fundraiser where friends, co-workers, and customers get together to raise funds for the Alzheimer Society of Alberta and Northwest Territories.
Change mindsLearn how you can help us raise awareness and fight stigma against dementia in Alberta, the Northwest Territories and across Canada.
Advocacy in AlbertaThe Alzheimer Society of Alberta and Northwest Territories champions efforts to ensure that dementia is a healthcare priority.
Take actionYou can get involved and support the Alzheimer Society of Alberta and Northwest Territories in lots of ways, including volunteering, fundraising, advocating and donating.
Apply to the Alzheimer Society Research ProgramFind out how to apply to the latest Research Competition and get guidelines and tips for applying.
Latest funding resultsCheck out the projects and the researchers that received funding from the Alzheimer Society Research Program in the 2020 Research Competition.
ASRP supported conferencesLearn about the conferences on dementia research that the Alzheimer Society Research Program supports every year.
Offices in Alberta and Northwest Territories
Red Deer & Central Alberta
Annual reports and finances
About us1 in 3 people are living with dementia. The Alzheimer Society of Alberta and Northwest Territories is here to help.
Your society is set to: Alzheimer Society of Alberta and Northwest Territories. Change Your Society. Close
January is Alzheimer's Awareness Month in Canada. Learn what that means and how you can get involved.
This Alzheimer's Awareness Month, step inside the lives of Alicia and her family as they confront this disease head-on and share their story, struggle, and moments of connection.
What is Alzheimer's Awareness Month?
Each January, the Alzheimer Society supports Alzheimer's Awareness Month.
During this month, we at the Society encourage organizations and individuals like you, to learn more about dementia and its stark impact on Canadians.
In particular, we invite everyone to listen to the voices of Canadians unable to avoid the immediate realities of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias – from people living with dementia, to their families, to their caregivers, to their healthcare providers and more.
We also ask you to go one step further, and share what you've learned with people you know, such as your friends, family members and co-workers.
And while Alzheimer's Awareness Month may stop at the end of January, the experiences of people who live with dementia do not. As such, we ask you to take what you've learned during the month and continue to share it throughout the year.
By understanding what people living with dementia experience in their day-to-day-lives – their struggles, their successes and their hopes – together we can raise awareness of dementia throughout Canada.
Awareness is the first step to fighting stigma, reinforcing human rights and pushing for policy change, as well as other actions that can lift up Canadians living with dementia.
Please support Alzheimer's Awareness Month. It's an easy start to helping your fellow Canadians who are living with this serious disease.
Our Current Campaign: Alicia's Story
This year, the Alzheimer Society will launch a 4-part short film series that follows Alicia, a beautiful, vibrant mother and grandmother who lives with Alzheimer’s, and her family, as they confront this disease head-on and share their story, struggle, and moments of connection.
Throughout the series, viewers step inside the lives of Alicia, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease 10 years ago, her daughter and caregiver, Judy, and the rest of her family to get a look at how this disease affects Alicia and her family, the challenges and heartbreak they face, as well as the feelings of togetherness and moments of laughter they share.
“I hope by sharing our story, it shows others who are going through similar situations that they are not alone,” says Judy, Alicia’s daughter and caregiver. “Sharing and connecting with others is so important. It changes everything.”
Throughout January and the remainder of the year, we invite Canadians to follow along and watch Alicia and her family's story.
Six Ways You Can Support Alzheimer's Awareness Month
1. Follow along and watch Alicia's story
The best way to understand the impact of stigma is to hear it directly from people living with dementia.
2. Donate to your local Society
Our services are offered free of charge thanks to the generosity of our donors. Donate today to make a difference in the lives of individuals and families affected by dementia.
3. Visit our special website
Check out ilivewithdementia.ca for useful information and resources to help you learn more and take action to end dementia stigma.
4. Learn more about dementia and stigma
Misconceptions are often at the root of stigma. Find out about communication, behaviour, safety, and more. Learn about the stigma against dementia.
5. Connect with your local Society
Find out what's going on your local Alzheimer Society, including how your local Society helps in your community and how you can get involved. Find your local Society.
6. Share what you've learned
Talk to your friends and family about dementia and the stigma that's attached with a diagnosis.
7. Support our other campaigns
Besides Alzheimer's Awareness Month, the Alzheimer Society also supports people living with dementia assert their rights and fight stigma through the Canadian Charter of Rights for People with Dementia.
We also support the implementation of Canada's first-ever national dementia strategy that can systemically reduce stigma against dementia in Canada.
We're committed to taking a person-first approach to the Dementia-Friendly Canada project to ensure all Canadians living with dementia feel valued and empowered, that organizations be inclusive and accessible and that everyone uses their awareness of dementia to make changes, individually and as a society.
Learn more about these campaigns and others like it happening near you.
Your Society: Alzheimer Society of Alberta and Northwest Territories Change Your Society
1 C. A. Knight Way
Ft. McMurray, Alberta T9H 5C5
#102, 9823 - 116 Avenue
Grande Prairie, Alberta T8V 4B4
#40, 1202 - 2nd Avenue South
Lethbridge, Alberta T1J 0E3
#201, 770 6 Street SW,
Medicine Hat, Alberta T1A 4J6
#1, 5550-45 Street
Red Deer, Alberta T4N 1L1
#116, 5109 48th Street
Yellowknife, Northwest Territories X1A 1N5
Charity registration number: 12969-0343 RR0001
Utility Footer - AB
Your Society:Alberta and Northwest Territories
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COVID-19: Information and support for people living with dementia, caregivers and health-care providers.
Your Society:British ColumbiaChange Your Society
Alzheimer Society of B.C.
Vancouver, British Columbia V5Z 1E2
Utility - BC
COVID-19 and how we can help
Find support in B.C.
Find support in B.C.First Link® dementia support connects people living with dementia and their care partners to support services, education and information as early as possible after diagnosis and throughout the progression of the disease.
First Link® Dementia HelplineThe First Link® Dementia Helpline is for anyone affected by dementia, whether professionally or personally. Get the support you need, when you need it.
Vancouver CoastalGet information about our resource centres in Vancouver, Richmond and North Vancouver, plus the other communities served within Vancouver Coastal Health region, including Howe Sound and the Sunshine Coast.
Fraser RegionGet information about our resource centres in Surrey, Abbotsford and Chilliwack, plus the other communities we serve within the Fraser Heath region.
Vancouver IslandGet information about our resource centres in Victoria and Nanaimo, plus the other communities we serve in the Island Health region.
Interior RegionGet information about our resource centres in Kamloops, Kelowna and Penticton, plus the other communities we serve within the Interior Health region, including the East and West Kootenays.
Northern RegionGet information about our resource centre in Prince George plus the communities we serve in the Northern Health region.
Programs and servicesLearn more about the programs and services we offer to people affected by dementia throughout British Columbia.
WebinarsLearn about dementia from anywhere by participating in one of our live webinars – all you need is a computer, tablet or phone!
Other dementia educationLearn about the different educational programs that our local Alzheimer resource centres can offer to help educate and empower people living with dementia and their families and friends.
Minds in Motion®Learn how our fitness and social program, Minds in Motion®, helps people living with any form of early-stage dementia with gentle exercise and social activities.
Support groupsWe offer Family Caregiver and Early Stage Support Groups. Learn how our support groups help caregivers and people living with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.
First Link® referralsFirst Link® referrals help physicians and other health-care providers connect you to the Alzheimer Society of B.C. services and support to help you understand the diagnosis and to equip you to better cope with the changes to come.
Support for South Asian communitiesWe provide culturally-specific support for South Asian communities in Punjabi and English.
Dementia resources in B.C.The Alzheimer Society of B.C. is your connection to a variety of resources and information about Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, and to helpful information for family members and caregivers.
COVID-19 resources for people living with dementiaInformation for people living with dementia during COVID-19.
COVID-19 resources for caregiversnformation for people caring for someone living with dementia during COVID-19.
Resources for healthcare providers in B.C.An overview of the resources available for health-care providers, including how to make referrals and guidance on working with people affected by dementia.
DonateMake a donation online now, or sign up to become a monthly donor. Learn how you can donate by mail, phone or fax.
Giving options at a glanceLearn about the many ways supporters can donate to the Alzheimer Society of B.C. and make a difference.
Donate in memory and in honourDonate in memory of a relative, friend or colleague who has passed away, or in honour of any special occasion.
Join the monthly giving programMonthly donors provide dependable support, so we can plan for the future and help as many people affected by dementia as possible. Learn more about the benefits of monthly giving and how you can sign up.
Donate publicly traded securitiesA gift of public securities such as stocks, bonds or mutual funds can be a tax-efficient way to make a gift to the Alzheimer Society of B.C.
Create a lasting legacyLeaving a gift in your will is an investment into the future that ensures Alzheimer Society of B.C. services will be available for years to come.
Become a corporate or community partnerThrough relationships with local and provincial corporations, public and private foundations, service clubs and health authorities, we’re working together to find solutions and help anyone concerned with or facing dementia.
Thank you to our supportersEvery year, thousands of donors support our activities, helping people in B.C. who are affected by Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, and making an important difference to their quality of life. Learn more.
Fundraise and participateJoin or support one of the Alzheimer Society of B.C.'s many fundraising events and help raise money to help British Columbians affected by dementia.
Anything for Alzheimer'sAnything for Alzheimer’s is a way for individuals, businesses, schools and other organizations to support people affected by dementia through hosting their own events or challenges.
「關愛腦友記」電視籌款日 | Telethon for Alzheimer'sLearn more about the inaugural Telethon for Alzheimer’s to be co-produced by Fairchild Television and the Alzheimer Society of B.C. to raise funds and awareness to support people affected by dementia in the Chinese community.
Breakfast to RememberBreakfast to Remember events create awareness of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, and raise funds for the many programs and services offered by the Alzheimer Society of B.C.
Forget Me Not Golf TournamentThe Forget Me Not Golf Tournament is the Alzheimer Society of B.C.'s largest annual research fundraiser. With your help, there is hope we’ll find the cause and cure.
IG Wealth Management Walk for Alzheimer'sWith the IG Wealth Management Walk for Alzheimer's, you help transform the way we all live with and challenge dementia. Join us on the first Sunday in May in your community.
Missed My MarathonSupport the Alzheimer Society of B.C. by organizing a fundraising virtual running challenge in your own neighbourhood.
Scotiabank Vancouver Half-Marathon & 5kThe Scotiabank Vancouver Half-Marathon & 5k is a great way to get active while doing something meaningful for the community.
Climb for Alzheimer's70,000 British Columbians are currently living with dementia. You've helped to show them they’re not alone on their journey by coming together as a province and hiking thousands of kilometres over the summer.
VolunteerLearn about how you can volunteer with us and join a team of dedicated individuals who offer their support in a wide variety of ways to expand and strengthen our ability to provide quality programs, support and services.
Volunteer opportunitiesWhether you have been personally affected by dementia or caregiving; are preparing for a career in health care, fundraising, office administration; or are looking for a worthy cause where you can make a difference, our movement needs you.
Award-winning volunteersThe Alzheimer Society of B.C. believes in recognizing volunteers who exemplify our core values of compassion, integrity, respect, leadership and teamwork. Each year, we invite staff and volunteers to nominate inspiring volunteers for annual award recognit
Change mindsLearn how you can help us raise awareness and fight stigma against dementia in British Columbia and across Canada.
Advocacy in B.C.Everyone has a role in speaking up about dementia. Advocacy is the actions a person can take to create change. Advocacy can be both self-advocacy or provincial and municipal advocacy.
Alzheimer's Awareness MonthJanuary is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month – and, as we start a new year, it’s a great time to think about what we want the future to look like for people living with dementia, for caregivers – and ultimately for everyone!
Canada's national dementia strategyOn June 17, 2019, the Government of Canada released the country’s first-ever national dementia strategy: A Dementia Strategy for Canada: Together We Aspire. On this page, learn more about the strategy, what it means for Canadians and why it needs to be fu
Dementia-friendly communitiesThe Alzheimer Society of B.C. is supporting people living with dementia and their caregivers by helping to build communities that are more educated and mindful of the condition.
Learn about dementia-friendly communitiesThrough the Dementia-Friendly Communities (DFC) initiative, we provide tools and education to help enable local governments, the professional sector, community groups and the general public to become dementia friendly.
Dementia-friendly municipalitiesThe Alzheimer Society of B.C. has established a process so that communities can officially be recognized as working towards becoming dementia-friendly over a number of years.
Dementia-friendly businessesLearn more about the key role businesses can play in creating safe and inclusive spaces where people living with dementia can remain meaningfully engaged in their communities, plus access our sector-specific guides.
Dementia-friendly educationDementia Friends are a core component of building communities that are more dementia friendly throughout our province. Learn more about our dementia-friendly education!
ResourcesAccess a variety of available resources to expand your knowledge and learn how to support dementia-friendly communities.
Take actionYou can help people living with dementia – it's easy! Through your Alzheimer Society, learn how to get involved through donating, fundraising, advocating, volunteering and more!
How we support research
Dementia-friendly research
Researchers in B.C.Learn more about researchers in B.C. who are dedicated to improving the lives of people affected by dementia.
Other ways we support researchFind information about funding, letters of support, research recruitment and other ways the Alzheimer Society of B.C. supports research.
Alzheimer Society of B.C. Board of Directors appoints Interim CEO
Dementia in the days of COVID-19Hear stories from caregivers and people living with dementia as a part of our Dementia in the days of COVID-19 series.
Raise your voice: Speak up about dementia
Dementia in the days of COVID-19: Letters from volunteersWhile our in-person groups have been unable to meet in recent weeks, volunteers have shared what they miss about their role and messages to the people they volunteer with.
NewsletterStay connected to the Alzheimer Society of B.C. and receive newsletters, information and updates for people living with dementia, caregivers, event participants, donors and volunteers.
InsightInsight is a quarterly publication written for and by people living with dementia.
ConnectionsConnections is a quarterly publication featuring submissions by and resources for caregivers, as well as news, updates and ways to get involved with the Society.
First Link® bulletinsFor a listing of local support services and dementia education, find the latest First Link® bulletin for your area from our list.
About our organizationLearn more about the Alzheimer Society of B.C., including about our vision, mission and core values.
Provincial Leadership GroupsOur initiatives are informed by the voices and lived experience of people living with dementia and caregivers. Learn about how we work with our advisory groups.
Privacy statementLearn about our privacy measures and how we use personal information of the people we serve, our donors and other stakeholders.
External complaintsWe view concerns as an opportunity to consider our practices and improve our operations. Learn more about our external complaints policy.
Become a memberLearn about how to support the work of the Alzheimer Society of B.C by becoming a member.
Our impactLearn more about the impact of the Alzheimer Society of B.C.
Annual reports and financesRead about the year's accomplishments in our latest Annual Report or view our financial statements. You can also find reports from previous years.
Strategic plan, 2018-21How we're building a dementia-friendly B.C.
Our peopleRead about some of the people working to create a kinder, more inclusive and supportive place for people who are affected by dementia as well as how you can join us as a member of our team.
Career opportunitiesJoin our team and support us in our vision of a dementia-friendly B.C. – a kinder, more inclusive and supportive place for people who are affected by dementia.
Senior Leadership TeamMeet the members of the Alzheimer Society of B.C.'s senior management team.
Board of DirectorsThe Alzheimer Society of B.C.'s Board of Directors guides the organization’s efforts to improve service and care, fund and advance research, educate the communities we serve and mobilize support for the disease.
About usLearn about the Alzheimer Society of B.C.'s vision and mission, Annual Report, Strategic Plan and role in a national federation of Alzheimer Societies; read about its Board of Directors, senior staff, employment opportunities and how to become a member.
Your society is set to: Alzheimer Society of British Columbia. Change Your Society. Close
January is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month – and, as we start a new year, it’s a great time to think about what we want the future to look like for people living with dementia, for caregivers – and ultimately for everyone!
People living with dementia and their caregivers are facing more social isolation than ever. In an increasingly uncertain world, we're doubling down our efforts to change the future for British Columbians affected by dementia. This Alzheimer's Awareness Month, people across the province are sharing their experiences and hopes for the future. Read their stories here:
Geri Hinton (Vancouver Island)
Granville Johnson (Northern Region)
Naomi Mison (Interior Region)
Stephanie Moss (Kootenay Region)
Ron Restrick (Fraser Region)
It’s going to take a broad community of care to achieve our vision of a world without Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias and, before that, a more dementia-friendly province, where people affected by dementia are acknowledged, supported and included.
Individual gestures of support – the ripples – create the groundswell that is needed to help us reach this future. Everyone has a role to play. This January, to help us as we celebrate Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, you can:
Invest in our cause
What is your hope for the future? What are you doing to make it happen? Keep reading to learn more about how you can help us change the future.
As part of Alzheimer's Awareness Month, we are hosting a special webinar, sponsored by Clark Wilson LLP, featuring guest panelists in conversation about the impact of the pandemic on dementia and long-term care.
Title: Raise your voice: Dementia, long-term care and COVID-19
Accessibility: ASL and closed captioning will be available.
Hosted by: Emily Clough (Partner, Clark Wilson LLP)
Panelists: Craig Burns (Person living with dementia), Naomi Mison (caregiver), Isobel Mackenzie (Seniors Advocate of B.C.), Krista James (Canadian Centre for Elder Law).
Register: Click here.
Staying connected to the people in your life who are affected by dementia can seem that much more challenging as we adapt to the new normal of COVID. This remains an incredibly difficult time for caregivers of people living with dementia, including many who are supporting people living in long-term care and are unable to stay connected as they have in the past.
Restrictions around visitation, while important to control the spread of COVID-19, have been extremely difficult for families and people living with dementia. These restrictions bring with them a host of challenges and a range of emotions.
The Alzheimer Society of B.C. also has resources available to support families navigating visitation to long-term care.
If in-person visits aren’t an option for you at this time, consider other ways you can stay in touch with someone living with dementia in your life. You might try:
Scheduling weekly video chats or setting a reminder to make regular check-in calls.
Ordering them their favourite take-out and having a virtual dinner date.
Writing them a letter.
Sending them a CD or a playlist of their favourite music.
Asking them how they would like to stay connected while you’re apart.
No one should be alone on the dementia journey. Anyone in need of support or information is encouraged to call the First Link® Dementia Helpline.
A vital way you can help change the future for British Columbians affected by dementia is to raise your voice and become an advocate.
While there are many issues of importance to families affected by dementia, the realities of COVID-19 have shone a light on problems arising from social isolation, particularly:
The guidelines around long-term care visitation.
The suspension of adult day programs.
The need for caregiver respite.
The Alzheimer Society of B.C. believes that family members are an integral part of health-care teams. Balancing the need for safety during COVID-19 with the needs of families presents real challenges to the health-care system that will require creative solutions.
You can also learn more about becoming an advocate.
Invest in the cause
Here are the ways you can invest in the cause this January:
Hear from someone uniquely positioned to share his perspective on changing the future. Purchase a ticket for our Breakfast to Remember fundraiser happening on March 4 and hear from keynote speaker, Canadian icon and astronaut, Chris Hadfield.
Make a one-time donation or sustain our work by becoming a monthly donor.
As a charity, the Alzheimer Society of B.C. relies on the generosity of thousands of individuals and organizations who support our work and allow us to deliver programs and services to enhance quality of life for British Columbians affected by dementia, while funding research into the causes and cures so that we can one day achieve our vision of a world without dementia.
Your Society: Alzheimer Society of British Columbia Change Your Society
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Support volunteer resources
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School of Fashion, 4 résultats 4
Fashion, 4 résultats 4
Posters, 1 résultats 1
Série organique, 1 résultats 1
School of Fashion Fashion
Description de haut niveau School of Fashion
Niveau de description collection Collection Component Dossier File part Partiellement Pièce Série organique Sous-fonds Sub-series Sub-sub-series
Dénomination générale des documents Dessin d'architecture Document cartographique Document iconographique Document philatélique Document sonore Document textuel Images en mouvement Objet Supports multiples Technical drawing Textile
RG 216.01
Fait partie de School of Fashion
School of Fashion students began showcasing their creations in small, usually in-house presentations in the form of runway shows and exhibits in the 1950s. These events included the annual graduating class year-end fashion show. More elaborate runway shows, featuring music and choreography, started in 1968. Fashion Design students present their work in numerous shows throughout the school year. The first year-end graduate runway show named Mass Exodus was presented in 1989. The name was subsequently used for all future graduation shows, and the concept of Mass Exodus continued to evolve. For the first two years of Mass Exodus, only fourth-year students from the two program options were involved; in 1990, the year-end showcase began featuring the work of students from all years of the program. Third-year Fashion Communication students are responsible for organizing Mass Exodus, which is the School’s biggest fashion event. They choose a theme, establish committees, and produce the show. In 1995, Fashion students began collaborating with students in the Ryerson Theatre School to create Mass Exodus. The two-day event, held during Ryerson Fashion Week, includes three public fashion shows and an industry show; these shows present the final collections of the graduating Fashion Design students. In addition to the runway shows, Mass Exodus consists of an exhibition, which displays the final capstone projects of the graduating Fashion Communication students; the Mass Exodus catalogue and website; and awards. Mass Exodus is the largest annual student-run fashion show in the world.
Information acquired from: http://www.massexodus.ca/about/history (Last accessed February 2015) http://www.ryerson.ca/massexod/ (Last accessed February 2015)
"This is Ryerson" publication
clippings file
Series contains records produced by the School of Fashion that relate to fashion shows from 1960 to present, with an emphasis on Mass Exodus, the annual year-end fashion show and exhibit for graduating students. Includes textual records, photographic negatives, posters, VHS videocassettes, DVDs, and data CDs.
Promotional Materials and photographs
RG 216.01.03
File contains records related to the the School of Fashion fashion shows, including Mass Exodus, the annual year-end graduating class fashion show and exhibit, as well as various first-, second-, third-, and fourth-year shows during Ryerson Fashion Week and throughout the year. Includes exhibition catalogues, promotional materials, notes, photographic materials, and data CDs.
File contains objects related to the the School of Fashion fashion shows, including Mass Exodus, the annual year-end graduating class fashion show and exhibit, as well as various first-, second-, third-, and fourth-year shows during Ryerson Fashion Week and throughout the year. Includes t-shirts, hats, and ribbons.
Fashion Posters - miscellaneous
File contains miscellaneous posters from the School of Fashion.
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Folder - World Tables, February 1968 (2) - E
Records of the Office of the Vice President, Development Policy (VPD) and the Development Policy Staff
World Debt Tables and World Economic Indicators
World Tables, February 1968 (2) - E
Office of the Chief Economist -- Office of the Vice President, Development Policy (VPD) and the Development Policy Staff
http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/665851529413432118/wbg-archives-1352671.pdf
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← Livewire attempts crime
The love story of Iceman & Mystique, Pt. 3 →
Kitty Pryde’s rebound boyfriend Iceman
Posted: 03/11/2014 | Author: Jason Levine | Filed under: Marvel, Relationships |2 Comments
I like Kitty Pryde, not just because she’s one of the few superheroes we’ve seen grow up over the decades (like DC’s super popular Nightwing), but because her moral integrity remains immensely strong — even when it only serves to ruin her day. So many X-Men waver that good/evil line (like the two current faction leaders Cyclops and Wolverine). And while the Marvel universe allows their superheroes to explore their dark sides before returning back to the light, we’ve never had that problem with dear Kitty. Which causes a horrific mess of her personal life. We’ll explore the full Kitty/Iceman relationship in the following issues:
Wolverine and the X-Men #14, written by Jason Aaron and drawn by Jorge Molina
Wolverine and the X-Men #15, written by Aaron and drawn by Molina
Wolverine and the X-Men #24, written by Aaron and drawn by David Lopez
Wolverine and the X-Men #32, written by Aaron and drawn by Nick Bradshaw
Wolverine and the X-Men #34, written by Aaron and drawn by Bradshaw
Wolverine and the X-Men #37, written by Aaron and drawn by Giuseppe Camuncoli
X-Men: Battle of the Atom #2, written by Aaron and drawn by Camuncoli & Esad Ribic
But before Kitty can become madly infatuated with Iceman, she has to take care of one loose end: her current boyfriend Colossus. For some background, we start smack in the middle of the Marvel event Avengers vs. X-Men. Currently, the Phoenix Force has inhabited five X-Men (including Colossus). It gives them godlike powers, but y’know how godlike powers end up — evil. You can click the second picture below for a larger version.
You can probably guess what Kitty wants to discuss. Y’see, she’s concerned the Phoenix power is being misused or brainwashing or whatever it did that last few times it made Jean Grey a supervillain. But c’mon, those who fear the Phoenix Force simply don’t understand its capabilities and don’t trust its users — like those pesky Avengers. And Kitty.
Way to confirm all her suspicions, Colossus. Tantrums and anger are associated with bad guys. The good guys get depression and guilt. Except for Wolverine, who gets all four. Now in a normal fight, Kitty could probably take Colossus as super strength and durability can’t really protect from Kitty’s phasing thingie. But now he’s a god and Kitty’s wearing her nicest dress; still can’t fault her for trying.
Lighting your girlfriend on fire usually signals a looming breakup. Colossus, purged of the Phoenix power near the end of the event, nowadays returns to fighting the good fight. But Kitty won’t date him anymore — she prefers men who haven’t threatened to destroy her school with all-consuming god fire.
She’s amazing, isn’t she? We assume if Kitty joined the X-Men as a preteen, she’s probably in her early to mid-twenties in current day. And my goodness has maturity and responsibility smashed her in her tired soul. School Headmaster Wolverine spends every other issue slashing ninjas, leaving Kitty in charge of the entire place. But if you’re a fan of strong, powerful women (and I don’t mean in the physical manner) then feel free to root for Professor Pryde. And honestly, she needs someone lighthearted and silly after that whole Colossus debacle.
Ready for their first date (nine issues later)? It combines all the soap opera of the X-Men with the horrible awkwardness of actual dating in your 20s. I mean, if we all had superpowers and ran a school for mutants and saved the world multiple times and had both previously dated supervillains.
But Kitty’s smart. And she makes a suggestion that saves both of them from explaining to a hungover Wolverine why they came back wafting an uncomfortable aura combo of friendzone and blatant lies. I’m kidding, of course. Wolverine doesn’t care how their date goes.
I cut Iceman’s romantic final line (it was attached to Wolverine/Storm flirting), but I’ll write it here.
Kitty: “We’re X-Men. We don’t get to grow up and live happily ever after.”
Iceman: “Maybe not … But at least we’re growing up.”
Cue the kissing. I know he’s a fictional character and all, but even I felt a slight attraction to him after that killer comeback. And so the two date for about thirteen issues. Like all superhero couples, they bond mainly through missions, because banter in between jump kicks makes for fun dialogue. Oh, and if you’re not familiar with Iceman’s expanded power set, this should fill in all the blanks.
And the beauty of Iceman’s ice mech:
But then came the X-Men crossover event Battle of the Atom. If you’re not familiar, Beast brought the five original X-Men from the past to convince misguided present-day Cyclops of his wrongdoing. But then they became stuck in the present and joined Wolverine’s school under Kitty’s mentoring. Like all good comic books, this caused the future X-Men to transport to the present and attempted to force the original X-Men to go back to the past. It’s complicated. Even the battle scenes:
I’ll do my best to explain some back story before Kitty yells at everyone and we end the article. Wolverine’s group (including Iceman) attempted to send the original X-Men back without the original X-Men’s consent — Kitty sees that as abandoning them, not protecting them, etc. Cyclops’ group jumped at the chance to allow these five to do whatever they darn-tootin’ want to do. Kitty agrees with Cyclops. And that effectively ends Kitty and Iceman’s relationship.
Iceman and Kitty’ll both land on their dating feet soon enough. They gave it a good run, but you can’t hope to outrun the dreaded status quo. Though no matter how emasculating Kitty’s final words were, she’ll always be better than Mystique.
2 Comments on “Kitty Pryde’s rebound boyfriend Iceman”
furyoffirestorm78 says:
Thanks for catching me up, Jason! I definitely have to get the newest Wolverine & The X-Men tpbs.
PH says:
Actually, Kitty already broke up with Colossus from Uncanny X-men #540. The reason for the break-up was because Colossus has taken a martyrdom complex which Kitty didn’t want to deal with anymore. The problem with Jason Aaron is he makes little to no effort reading back issues for the characters he’s writing.
I never was a fan of the Kitty and Iceman relationship because it didn’t felt believable. It felt “forced”.
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Verizon's gonna be mad —
FCC reportedly close to reclassifying ISPs as common carriers
"Hybrid" approach wouldn't prevent all Internet fast lane deals.
Jon Brodkin - Oct 31, 2014 4:45 am UTC
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.
NCTA
258 with 123 posters participating
The head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is reportedly close to proposing a "hybrid approach" to network neutrality in which Internet service providers would be partially reclassified as common carriers, letting the commission take a harder stance against Internet fast lane deals.
FCC gets Comcast, Verizon to reveal Netflix’s paid peering deals
However, the proposal would not completely outlaw deals in which Web services pay for faster access to consumers.
As reported Thursday by The Wall Street Journal, the broadband service that ISPs offer to consumers would be maintained as a lightly regulated information service. But the FCC would reclassify the service that ISPs offer at the other end of the network to content providers who deliver data over Internet providers' pipes. This would be a common carrier service subject to utility-style regulation under Title II of the Communications Act.
"People close to the chairman" say that Chairman Tom Wheeler is "close to settling on a hybrid approach," the Journal wrote, continuing:
The plan now under consideration would separate broadband into two distinct services: a retail one, in which consumers would pay broadband providers for Internet access; and a back-end one, in which broadband providers serve as the conduit for websites to distribute content. The FCC would then classify the back-end service as a common carrier, giving the agency the ability to police any deals between content companies and broadband providers.
The emerging plan reflects proposals submitted by the Mozilla Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology, though it departs from both in parts. The main advantage of the hybrid proposal, as opposed to full reclassification, is that it wouldn’t require the FCC to reverse earlier decisions to deregulate broadband providers, which were made in the hopes of encouraging the adoption and deployment of high-speed broadband. The authors of the new proposal believe that not having to justify reversing itself would put the FCC on firmer legal ground.
In May 2014, the Mozilla Foundation proposed a similar approach in a filing with the FCC that Ars reported on at the time.
Later that month, the FCC voted for a plan that would not have reclassified ISPs and did not ban fast lane agreements. But the vote was tentative, allowing the FCC to change its mind after gathering public comments.
The proposal Wheeler is considering now "would leave the door open for broadband providers to offer specialized services for, say, videogamers or online video providers, which require a particularly large amount of bandwidth," the Journal wrote. "The proposal would also allow the commission to explore usage-based pricing at some point, in which consumers are charged based on how much data they use and companies are able to subsidize traffic to their websites or applications."
While not banning prioritization, the plan would "shift the burden" to ISPs to prove that deals benefit consumers and give FCC officials stronger legal authority to block anti-competitive arrangements.
Free Press, a consumer advocacy group, said the latest "Frankenstein proposal" won't protect Internet users, and that "any rules that don’t clearly restore the agency’s authority and prevent specialized fast lanes and paid prioritization aren’t real net neutrality.”
Verizon, which sued to overturn the FCC's previous net neutrality rules, claimed Thursday that any use of Title II in broadband, even a hybrid approach, would not stand up in court. TechDirt was quick to point out that Verizon embraces Title II in other cases in order to get special treatment from the government.
BrainlingWise, Aged Ars Veteran
Great, so instead of bilking other ultra rich corporations for money, they can bilk us. How about we do it the other way around. Comcast can charge Netflix anything they want, but you classify the consumer side as common carrier. But I guess that's not pro-big-business enough.
I have no doubt in a couple of years I'll be paying for the "gamer package" with Comcast that lets me actually download my Steam games without it being throttled. This package will of course cost 3x as much as a normal internet connection, and have adjectives like "XTRME" attached to it, because apparently downloading games is a special kind of traffic.
kinseiSmack-Fu Master, in training
I really don't understand how this changes anything. Seems like they are using the common carrier term to appease all those who think they should be regulated as such; while employing none of the teeth that such a distinction carries. What is the advantage of classifying the ISPs as common carriers if they don't intend to prevent pay-for-lay fast lanes or overcharging of consumers for using the bandwidth they pay for already?
Anonymous Cowerd Ars Centurion
Ironicending wrote:
"The proposal Wheeler is considering now "would leave the door open for broadband providers to offer specialized services for, say, videogamers or online video providers, which require a particularly large amount of bandwidth," the Journal wrote. "
So basically they could still sell 'fast lanes' and limited internet packages.
Giving the cable companies any work around basically ensures they will still find a way. A hybrid approach is better than nothing but still not good enough.
The problem is this... Currently the ISPs can force you to consume what ever shit they have. There are no alternatives, so you need to eat the shit they send you, if you want to use the internet. The FCC stepping in and saying "no, you can only offer them cat shit" may sound like an improvement, but in the end you are eating shit.
Don't eat the shit, don't accept any sort of compromise.
fgoodwin Ars Praefectus
giltwist wrote:
The real problem with fast lanes is the monopoly/duopoly system. I have absolutely no problem with allowing fast lane deals IF this hybrid approach enforces unbundled network elements requirements on ISPs like comcast for both coax and fiber. Then, if Comcast wants to fast lane a deal with Netflix, they can go right ahead because I will then actually be able to switch to Local Competitor #37 who leases Comcast's lines at a governmentally regulated rate...the same rate that Comcast would charge itself.
If the WSJ story is right, the FCC will apply Title II to the service provided by ISPs to edge providers (e.g., Netflix, Google, Facebook), not end users. The end user service would still be classified as Title I and not subject to unbundling.
Meailda Ars Tribunus Militum
fdbryant wrote:
My question is (which undoubtedly will be downvoted) - can anyone demonstrate that the so called "fast lane" deals have been bad for the consumer. Yeah, sucks for Netflix to have to pay to get better connections but my understanding is that is what big content providers (ie the Microsofts, Google, Yahoo, etc) do in order to provide reliable service. It makes sense to me and benefits the net as a whole by getting the traffic off of interconnects that are shared.
I get that the big fear is that then ISP's will start going after smaller sites but that doesn't make much sense since they don't have the money to pay. If they are big enough to be noticed then they are probably going through CDN's who already have deals in place.
I really think trying to apply a 1920's law to the Internet is only going to cause more problems and make things more expensive. We would be better off focusing on how we can provide a better environment that promotes competition to the end user who can then bring true market forces into play for the ISPs.
To your first point. Like any business Netflix does not pay for that fast lane deal. Netflix's customers pay for it. Exhibit A the recent Netflix price hike.
To your second point. We aren't worried that the ISPs are going to try to squeeze the small guys for a share of their proceeds. We are worried that the ISPs who are also content creators are going to let one of the small guys get just big enough for the public to acquire a taste for their service and then copy it and demand an exorbitant price for the extra traffic that that service provider is creating with the demand for their product (which they won't be able to pay) and then substitute their new offering that does the same thing except a lot quicker.
As to your third point businesses (because they are composed of economic models and people) don't change. Technology gets better yes, but essentially communication transmission is communication transmission. So what difference does it make how old the monopoly laws are? Monopolies are still the same thing.
Go away we don't fall for your astroturfing here. Maybe you should try yahoo news where people don't know how things work.
giltwist Ars Tribunus Militum
fgoodwin wrote:
Then it's essentially worthless. The last mile is where the monopoly is.
Dilbert wrote:
No explanation, not even a thinly veiled lie, as to why Netflix must pay *MY* ISP?
Because your ISP has you as a customer that Netflix wants access too.
Sooo you are saying that my ISP owns me now that I have bought... what through them? I thought I bought internet access. If my packets just go out and I never get a reply I am not accessing the internet. I might as well just shout out my front door for all the response I will get from Netflix if this is the case.
*I* paid for access to Netflix. Now my ISP wants to get paid AGAIN for the same traffic they have already been paid for.
Go away shill.
Haravikk Ars Praefectus
So… they've found a way to appear to be doing something, while ultimately achieving nothing?
anon_coward wrote:
Danathar wrote:
efassi wrote:
Brainling wrote:
Doing it the other way around is much worse because it leads to Comcast being in a position to control what is available on the net. If Comcast could charge Netflix anything they want they could choose a price which forces Netflix out of the market. Comcast can then offer their own video service and it's millions of customers wouldn't have any choice.
ISPs having unregulated freedom on the consumer side is bad, but not as bad as the back-haul side.
The Netflix/Comcast/Verizon issue has NOTHING to do with Internet Fast lanes (prioritization of packets).
That situation had to do with settlement free peering and ratios of ingress and egress bandwidth going through the settlement peering point.
Even re-classification as a common carrier would not affect that. Paid peering connections like the one netflix eventually paid comcast for are what the majority of the Internet is made up of. Hell, Apple has paid peering connections to just about every major ISP there is. Do you think THEY rely on the settlement free peering points. Nope.
I am definitely NOT a comcast fan. I have comcast and wish I didn't, but the crux of that matter was that the terms of the settlement free peering between comcast and netflix was that the bandwidth in each direction should be roughly equal. If not, then the side with the more data pays to upgrade. (as I understand it, if somebody knows more about this please correct me)
Netflix and Cogent did not want to pay to upgrade their side of the circuit. They wanted to have a free entry into comcast while violating the terms settlement free peering agreement.
It never ceases to amaze me how magically different the Internet works here compared to America.
Little wonder netflix is expanding in Europe.
it works the same way in europe. the settlement free peering database has lots of european ISP's in it. as well as every other continent. you assume netflix isn't paying hosting and bandwidth fees for their equipment
Except in europe the last mile is common carrier. That is what is different.
fdbryant Ars Scholae Palatinae
AlexisR200X wrote:
And it is actually the other way around without you wanting access to netflix, other internet sites and services your ISP does not have anything to offer you... at all.
Not entirely true- they do offer services on their own network. However that gets to the point that while the ISP is the gatekeeper, they only make money while they can provide you the connection to the services you want. So squeezing out smaller content really does them no good since eventually people will say, this isn't enough for the cost. Squeezing Netflix though does make sense since there is a cost involved to carry the traffic (that the ISP's wouldn't have to pay if Netflix didn't exist) and for Netflix it makes sense since more people are likely to cancel them than cancel ISP.
That is the funny thing about the whole situation here. Consumers think it is about "them". It isn't - it is about which big company to going to pay for what. However if consumers really want a voice in this fight - then they have to be willing to walk away from the ISP.
If the government really wants to do something to help the consumer then they need to start passing laws to promote competition. In my opinion the place they should start is by making possible for municipalities and local government be able to set up and run ISPs that provide broadband access (and access only, no services like email, chat, etc) as defined by the FCC for free or low cost with the option to allow other companies to lease/leverage it to provide better services. I wouldn't even object (I think) to them using eminent domain to take over the physical network layer long as the ISP has made back their investment on setting it up (they could even still hire that ISP to manage it).
Last edited by fdbryant on Fri Oct 31, 2014 9:33 am
Smoke and mirrors are not enough, Wheeler seems to forget that such a hybrid measure does not have a legal precedent and it will be immediately tested in court by the likes of Comcast, AT&T and Verizon... likely the very same court that vacated the previous net neutrality rules.
Indeed. Have you read the Mozilla comments?
Mozilla came up with this goofy idea that ISP service to edge providers is somehow different from ISP service to retail consumers. They support calling ISP service to edge providers a Title II service, while letting retail ISP service to consumers remain classified as a Title I service. I've read their proposal, but I cannot agree with them. For the life of me, I can't understand how the two services are different. Yes, the retail service includes email, webhosting, etc. that the edge service doesn't need or use. But guess what? Most consumers don't use those ISP-provided services, either.
I think the one distinction I can see is that edge providers use the broadband service as an input to their own services that they in turn provide to consumers, whereas the retail ISP service is obviously used directly by end-users and not as an input to a service that they in turn sell (or even distribute for a fee). But I don't agree that that distinction creates two different types of service that should be regulated under two different parts of the law. I think the lawyers at Mozilla are being too cute by half to have come up with this crazy scheme.
But it sounds like the FCC is about to buy into it.
However if consumers really want a voice in this fight - then they have to be willing to walk away from the ISP.
If the government really wants to do something to help the consumer then they need to start passing laws to promote competition.
That would be the unbundled network elements provision of Title II common carriage. It forces big guys like Comcast to lease their fiber to small local competitors essentially at cost.
Anticrawl wrote:
bglick4 wrote:
Property rights. Comcast owns the infrastructure, why should the government have have any say over what they do with it? Obviously the situation is more nuanced than this, but in essence that's the argument against common carrier laws. The ability to overcharge customers is part of the incentive Comcast has to roll out and improve their network. If this incentive is taken away, the situation may well become worse.
Comcast doesn't own the cable in the ground, that is paid for by tax payers. Tax payers also subsidize their networking business. We also own the spectrum and airwaves they use. They certainly don't own the fiber, they rent that from us. So yes, the government does deserve a say because we the people gave them the power to dig into city infrastructure and our private property to deliver us content.
Comcast DOES own the cable in the ground.
Taxpayers DID NOT "pay" for it. Where does this idea originate? Comcast has not received one penny of USF subsidy for its network (they may have gotten E-rate support to provide subsidized broadband service to schools and libraries, but that is different from infrastructure subsidies).
If you look at Comcast's balance sheet, you'll see that their lenders have a bigger claim on ISP assets than you do.
Hmm. That's odd. They have been raking in record profits on the order of billions and they haven't paid their loans? That almost seems like a business artifact. Use someone else's money and all that...
Yet you seem to forget the rights of way benefits the government gives them. It is give and take, Without such concessions ISPs would be paying a ton more money than they do now.
The govrernment doesn't give them anything. Cable companies and telcos pay for the right to occupy those public rights-of-way. Again, where does this urban legend come from?
iamwhoiam Ars Tribunus Militum
We can talk about their property rights when they actually pay for 100% of that infrastructure instead of getting government subsidies (i.e. tax payer money), free rights of way on state property (which I and every other tax payer pays for), etc.
uncaughtexception Seniorius Lurkius
You can do what I did. Pay the extra money to get commercial service. Less BS, better customer service, no DNS server NXDOMAIN shenanigans. And now the bonus of a regulated service.
Haravikk wrote:
I would say that they found a way to codify into regulation allowing them to slow down traffic inside their network while being able to say "Look we took care of the interconnect extortion problem". I don't think anybody who understands this will think it appears to be doing anything. The FCC will say later (years down the road after the ISPs sue making their "Please don't throw me in that briar patch" cases) "Hmm this doesn't appear to be doing what Wheeler thought it would" Maybe we should try something a little bit different". Followed by years or decades of litigation against that new thing. Wash rinse repeat and shuffle the FCC heads that won't do anything past one by one while the whole time the politicians get paid not to notice that anything funny is going on.
Meailda wrote:
What you bought is access to the ISP's network. Your intent is to be able to go through that network to connect to other networks but that is not what you are paying them for. Ultimately because you are not willing to walk away from your ISP - Netflix has to pay if they want to provide a reliable connection to the network you are on.
Just because they are carrying debt on their balance sheets doesn't mean they aren't paying off their loans. Have you completely paid off your home mortgage?
Networking industries are called "capital intensive" for a reason. You don't put cable in the ground thirty years ago and just pay it off without ever replacing or expanding it; and that calls for more capital (i.e., loans).
Networking industries spend billions every year (and therefore borrow billions every year) to maintain and expand those networks. It's basic economics
iamwhoiam wrote:
Rights-of-way on public land are not free. Do you have a source that says otherwise?
fryhole Ars Tribunus Militum
No Shit !!
If the government really wants to do something to help the consumer then they need to start passing laws to promote competition. In my opinion the place they should start is by making possible for municipalities and local government be able to set up and run ISPs that provide broadband access (and access only, no services like email, chat, etc) for free or low cost with the option to allow other companies to lease/leverage it to provide better services. I wouldn't even object (I think) to them using eminent domain to take over the physical network layer long as the ISP has made back their investment on setting it up (they could even still hire that ISP to manage it).
I apologize. This does not look like an industry shill suggestion. No shill would advocate anything that might disturb the cash cow.
True, which is why people want it. However my understanding is it comes with a bunch of other regulations that are not really applicable but will make it more expensive and hence restrictive to do business which I think could do more harm than good.
Facekhan Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius et Subscriptor
So correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't this mean that other internet big business that are being extorted by the monopolists get Title II protection but consumers still get the shaft?
You seriously think that I bought bought access to my provider's network? Maybe this is an FTC case. Because what Comcast or Verizon advertise is " High Speed Internet Access" Nobody buys Comcast or Verizon "High Speed Intranet Access"
Right. Basic economics. No I don't carry a loan on my house. I pay my creditors as soon as I have the money in order to not pay more interest. To me that is as basic as economics get. However I think it is advanced economics to write off interest paid on debt in taxes to avoid a higher tax liability so that you can make even more profit. Which incidentally is what drives those CEO bonuses. Worse for the company in the long run but shareholders don't care as long as those high dividends keep rolling in.
As you are seeing the FCC can pick and choose which regulations to apply. Not really a valid point. Title two says how the FCC can regulate. Not that they have to apply all of it. How much have you read on this?
Facekhan wrote:
You are not wrong. Not even a little bit.
shav Ars Scholae Palatinae
If I run a website from my home can I be a content provider? I swear all of my traffic is in some way related to the website business.
arthurdent4242 Ars Scholae Palatinae
Vortsukoto wrote:
So how is there any difference between my data and the website's data? How can there be any "Back end" to a market where all users, corporate and private, are uploading and downloading data? Are they going to just declare certain packages as being the "Back end" ones and only those are subject to the rules? This seems like it's all one big loophole so massive you can shovel a multi-billion industry through it.
Edit: So lets take this step by step. The split is between website content distribution and everything else. This means that the only thing they are declaring title II is data moving from a service that the telecom identifies as a website to an end user.
First the ISP has to identify the specific service the packet is originating from, my weak knowledge of this says that they're going to have to open the entire packet to identify that since one connection could be spitting out "Website" data and any other type of data interchangeably.
Then it has to check to see if the originator fits the definition of "Website" that they are held to. Hint, this is probably going to cost a sizable sum of money to qualify for if it's available at all.
Now that the packet has been examined in depth, if it slots into the hole of "Outgoing packets from a website" it's sent along it's merry way with only a large increase in latency from it's digital body cavity search. Otherwise, it get's sent off to a digital Guantanamo to stew around until it either get's dropped or is released to it's destination.
You are essentially describing deep packet inspection. Which should NOT be done by an ISPS. But there are much easier ways for them to accomplish what you describe.
mpfaff Ars Praetorian et Subscriptor
Pity, I was actually cautiously optimistic that with this thing being more public the FCC might be forced to actually do something decent
shav wrote:
If you buy a business-class broadband from your ISP, rather than the consumer-class, best-effort service that most of us get, I don't see why your ISP would have a problem with you running a server or hosting a commercial website. It's when you want to do the latter over a consumer grade connection that the ISP might have an issue with it. In other words, business-class service gets all the Title II protections, to answer your question (this assumes the Mozilla proposal or something like it is what the FCC finally passes as its Net Neutrality rules).
rdamiani Ars Scholae Palatinae
wolframium wrote:
If this follows how electricity works here then I'll gladly pay the ~3¢ per GB. Somehow I doubt they'll go off a reasonable profit margin cap system though.
I would think that's a bad idea, but that's because electricity and bandwidth are fundamentally different. Electricity use should probably stay about constant or actually trend down over time, as appliances and other things become more efficient. However, bandwidth will probably keep trending up probably exponentially for quite some time, as things like 4k video, streaming games, VR stuff, internet of things devices, etc etc etc keep proliferating. The pay per usage model only works if the pricing can keep dropping at a fast enough rate, which I don't think it can. 3c per gig is fine now, but it won't in a few years, and will be a ripoff a few years after that.
The other difference is that electricity costs money to make. Every watt has to come from somewhere - there is a marginal cost. Bandwidth, on the other hand, is more like a road - the capacity is there even if there aren't any cars on it. As long as a particular route isn't full, there isn't a marginal cost to adding traffic.
Brian. wrote:
Thanks for tiering the internet and caving to Comcast. What happened to "there is only one internet?" The math seems to have changed.
Tom's bonus check from Comcrap cleared. That is why the math changed.
Electrostatus Ars Praetorian
Is there no way for the public to get their voice heard? How about is there any way for the public to fire this guy for gross incompetence? The FCC is clearly failing to do their job.
gandalfSVG Ars Scholae Palatinae
The thing to remember is that the gov't is always a silent partner in business. Particularly big business. All other things being equal, they'll typically side with MegaCorp XYZ because of taxes, jobs, and campaign contributions. And even if you stitched up campaign finance laws the gov't would still side with big business because the businesses provide jobs and taxes.
You can see where things get cozy awfully quickly. It's really up to us to counter-balance this natural gravity that exists between industries and regulators. So for heaven's sake, write or phone your congressman and give them a piece of your mind.
http://www.contactingthecongress.org
minguswaits Smack-Fu Master, in training et Subscriptor
If your ISP charges for "fast lane" access for services that don't mean anything to you, this would be bad. Think about it this way: you are a Redbox instant video consumer (I know they are going out, but bear with me) and they do not pay for "fast lane" service. Netflix does pay for this service. Now, during peak hours, consumers are using Netflix and they are consuming bandwidth like crazy. If there are any capacity issues on that network, your Redbox service is going to be degraded.
Another way to look at it is if you are a company like say, Ello and you are trying to get off the ground. Because facebook has paid for "fast lane" service, they get primary hits on the search engines. When you go to the Ello site, it takes several moments to load. You don't want to bother with that hassle so you go back to the larger facebook because it is more convenient.
None of this would be an issue if the Title II Common Carrier laws were invoked. If the infrastructure from the Central Office(CO) to the home were a "dumb" service. Just a pipe, owned and maintained by a highly regulated "legal monopoly", then any ISP that wanted to provide service would just have to make a connection to that CO which would then connect them to 100s or 1000s of consumers at one focal point. (This is what Netflix and Apple and Google do now to connect to Comcast and their ilk). This would enhance competition and make it in the carriers best interest to provide the best possible service to their consumers. If one carrier had "fast lanes" and another didn't, the consumer could choose which service they wanted rather than having it forced down their through by geographic limitations.
Abhi Beckert wrote:
xWidget wrote:
The proposal Wheeler is considering now "would leave the door open for broadband providers to offer specialized services for, say, videogamers or online video providers, which require a particularly large amount of bandwidth," the Journal wrote.
Hopefully they don't mean pay +$40/mo to not have +150ms ping.
It will not affect latency at all, that's just the speed of light and constant.
What it will affect is packet loss. When the network is under capacity, everyone gets 0% packet loss. When it's over capacity people who pay more get 0% packet loss and people who don't pay will get whatever amount of packet loss is necessary to make the network run at 100% capacity.
So, if your connection can theoretically do 50Mbps but the network is overloaded, they might give you 90% packet loss. Windows/Mac/Linux/Android/whatever will detect this happening within a couple of seconds and figure out that it gets 0% packet loss if it sends data at 5Mbps, but major packet loss if it tries to go any faster than that. Sounds crazy but this is how bandwidth is calculated in practice.
At my office we have a contract with our ISP that we we will never get worse than 50% packet loss if we send data at the maximum theoretical bandwidth our connection provides. We have to pay something like $2,000 per month to get that promise out of our ISP. Nobody sells a reasonably priced connection with that kind of guarantee, but it is available if you're willing to pay.
You are probably connected to the internet now with a 1Gbps Ethernet connection or a 200Mbps WiFi connection. But if you actually send 1Gbps / 200Mbps of data to a remote server, your home router will drop packets to bring the bandwidth down to whatever your Cable/DSL/whatever connection can actually handle. Your PC sees this is happening and reduces it's own data flow until it detects 0 packet loss. This is exactly how ISP hardware works, except it can do fancy stuff where specific customers get higher priority, or perhaps specific types of data gets higher priority (eg, Skype might be rock solid but email not so much... you can just try downloading the email again 2 minutes later).
The proposal would also allow the commission to explore usage-based pricing at some point, in which consumers are charged based on how much data they use
I don't think this will ever happen. Billing per GB of download is stupid and does not match the real world costs of the ISP. What matches real world costs is the maximum possible bandwidth and how quickly downtime will be fixed and how many other customers are sharing the pipe you are connected to.
Say they have a 1Gbps connection to your city block, with an 500 apartments connected to it, they might tell you that you have a 100Mbps connection, but if 300 of those apartments watch the Oscars streamed off YouTube, then 1Gbps / 300 is only 3Mbps. That is not enough for a HD video stream, it will only do SD. To fix that they'd need to spend a lot of money (millions probably) upgrading the connection to 10Gbps, which would give you more than enough to stream 300 HD video streams but still would not be enough for everyone to get 100Mbps simultaneously.
But who's going to pay for the network upgrade? Customers paying $80 per month aren't enough to cover the bill. Why not have YouTube pay for some of it? Personally as someone who works in the industry there is nothing wrong with that.
A bandwidth cap is useful to stop customers from running BitTorrent 24/7/365 but it is not a useful way to decide how much to bill the customers.
Customers paying $80/month not covering the costs? Do you read the news? Comcrap reported record profits in the billions last year. How do they not have enough money to take care of this?
Speeddymon Seniorius Lurkius
They sell their service to you and because of rules put in place during mergers and buyouts in the last 10 years, they also have to keep their lines open to small resellers. So they know they have you by the balls just like the electric company does. Sure you could get your internet elsewhere but it's still going over their infrastructure. And if you want to cut the cord to lower your bills, they figure they'll make up the difference by charging your content providers too because again, it's their infrastructure.
10 posts | registered Apr 19, 2013
rdamiani wrote:
There is no difference between bandwidth and access to electricity.
Think of electricity being content. Somebody creates electricity and sells it to you through a common carrier. The company that built the "grid", the power lines, and the infrastructure to your house (Duke Energy in my part of the world). It doesn't matter if that electricity came from coal, gas or sun. It is all electricity.
With the internet, the "electricity" is content. We call the capacity on the pipes this content travels "bandwidth". The "power lines" for the internet are what the ISPs currently provide and what should be common carrier like electricity's power lines.
kruzes Ars Tribunus Militum
All across europe, IPTV and VOIP are offered as managed services by ISPs in a non-neutral way.
My provider doesn't shape traffic in the "internet portion" of my connection and does its best to have good connectivity to all major traffic sources and even hosts CDNs for a few others, but their video and voice services are "separate".
Fierce competition may keep them honest, but it's non-neutral all the way, whether cable, fiber or ADSL, even if it's mostly IP these days.
That is the very definition of a content provider.
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Boy Building a House of Cards
Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin (1699–1779)
National Trust, Waddesdon Manor
Photo credit: National Trust Images
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The Importance of PPE at Work
10 April 2020 nfanzi
The Covid-19 outbreak can be a significant test for many businesses. Besides, it also makes us rethink the workplace’s role, what we can do differently to keep good health and safety of people at work, and the importance of PPE to support people to have their best day at work. The importance of personal protective equipment (PPE) is to protect its user against health or safety risks at work.
The use of PPE at work is more important in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic because it exists as a preventative measure against the deadly virus. Hence, business owners must maintain adequate sources and supply of new PPE materials, such as surgical masks or respirators, gloves, sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, infrared thermometers, and other supplies to promote a clean, safe and healthy workplace.
Providing daily and weekly employee “health” kits will encourage people to work safely and responsibly. Workplace professionals should consider the process of welcoming external people into their buildings. To ensure it’s safe and secure for everyone, provide a variety of PPE in the reception area, including masks, gloves, anti-bacterial gel and tissues.
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Administrative controls include ensuring the availability of resources for infection prevention and control measures, such as appropriate infrastructure, the development of clear infection prevention and control policies, facilitated access to laboratory testing, appropriate triage, and placement of patients, adequate staff-to-patient ratios and training of staff.
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Here are some of the importance of PPE at work:
Wearing a face mask at work helps prevent you from getting ill and helps keep your working environment safe and healthy. Now that the CDC has approved the use of face masks to protect the public from impacts of individual “aerosol “effects, which can spread the virus through even limited breathing, employers have duties concerning the provision and use of personal protective equipment (PPE) at work.
The key feature of the coronavirus is respiratory symptoms such as dry coughing. It spreads primarily through saliva droplets or discharges from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes. The importance of PPE at work such as a mask for the infected and those around them can stop anyone from developing coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, or difficulty in breathing caused by inhalation of hazardous substances at work.
A face mask keeps saliva and discharges completely contained, protecting those around you. Besides, a mask protects healthy individuals from breathing in saliva droplets of an infected person. The most effective masks are N95 respirators and surgical masks. Disposable face masks should be replaced every day. Reusable masks will eventually become clogged and make it harder to breathe through – means the filter needs changing.
It is crucial that you learn how to check, put on, use, maintain, store, and dispose of your mask.
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Since the virus can live without a host for quite some time, it’s astonishingly easy to spread the virus via a touch. Granted, touching someone with infected gloves is no better than touching them with your bare hands, but gloves do protect the wearer from exposure as long as you remove and dispose of them properly. It’s important to know that gloves do not provide complete protection from hand contamination. That’s why hand hygiene is so important before and after glove use!
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Install signage to request people not to move the furniture, to explain how to use the space safely, to indicate the social distancing rules, and to instigate a single direction flow around a building so that people can pass in open spaces. Signage should detail how many people can use a specific room at any one time and what people should and shouldn’t do.
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Potomac Nationals strike out 18, but lose opener, 5-3
Published Thursday, Apr. 5, 2018, 11:42 pm
Despite 18 strikeouts from the pitching staff, the Potomac Nationals (0-1) fell 5-3 to the Wilmington Blue Rocks (1-0) in the 2018 season opener at Pfitzner Stadium. LHP Matthew Crownover (ND), RHP Gabe Klobosits, and RHP James Bourque (L, 0-1) struck out more opposing batters than the P-Nats did in any single game in 2017. The Blue Rocks scored a single run in the first, fourth, sixth, eighth, and ninth innings in rout to the victory.
The season got off to a rocky start for Potomac, as Crownover surrendered a solo home run to 2B Gabriel Cancel two batters into the game. After the home run, Crownover retired eight consecutive hitters. In his return to the P-Nats, the southpaw struck out a career best 11 batters over 5.2 innings.
Potomac answered immediately with the only multi-run frame of the night, as the P-Nats struck for two runs against LHP Cristian Castillo (ND) in the bottom of the first inning. SS Carter Kieboom doubled with one out, took third base on a wild pitch, and scored on a sacrifice fly. With two outs, 3B Jake Noll gave Potomac the lead with a solo home run, as the P-Nats led 2-1 after one inning.
The Blue Rocks knotted the game up with a pair of doubles in the fourth inning, as 3B Emmanuel Rivera’s one-out two-base hit plated Cancel. Two innings later, Crownover departed with a runner on third base and two outs for Klobosits. Rivera greeted the Potomac righty with an RBI double, as Wilmington took a 3-2 after 5.5 frames.
Castillo departed for RHP Jared Ruxer (W, 1-0) in the fifth inning. Ruxer stranded the tying man on base in the fifth, worked a perfect sixth inning, but gave up a leadoff home run to RF Rhett Wiseman in the seventh inning. Wiseman’s first home run of the year was the final run that Potomac scored, as RHP Arnaldo Hernandez and RHP Walker Sheller combined for the final two frames of shutout baseball.
Wilmington retook the lead off of Bourque in the eighth inning, and added an insurance run in the ninth frame. 1B Chris DeVito made it 4-3 Wilmington with a two-out RBI single in the eighth inning, while a HBP, E1, wild pitch, and sacrifice fly, led to the Blue Rocks’ final run in the ninth.
The P-Nats threatened against the Wilmington bullpen in each of the final two innings, but left at least one man on base in each frame. Sheller replaced Hernandez with two men in scoring position and two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning, but LF Jack Sundberg grounded out, which ended the inning. With a runner on and two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Kieboom flied out to centerfield, which ended the game and wrapped up Wilmington’s 5-3 win.
After a nearly three-hour affair in the opener, the two teams will meet up once again on Friday night. RHP Sterling Sharp (0-0, 0.00) is set to start for Potomac, while RHP Jace Vines (0-0, 0.00) is scheduled to start for the Blue Rocks.
First pitch on Friday night is set for 7:05pm. The Potomac broadcast will get underway at 6:50pm with the P-Nats Leadoff Show. You can listen to the Potomac broadcast at potomacnationals.com or on the TuneIn Radio App.
New traffic signal installed at Martinsburg Pike and Old Charles Town Road in Frederick County Saturday, 1:49 pm
Liberty Athletics partners with branding consultant Jeremy Darlow Saturday, 1:45 pm
Rural mental health workshop reminds farmers ‘it’s OK to not be OK’ Saturday, 1:43 pm
Survey seeks data on farm conservation practices in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Saturday, 1:40 pm
Director of the Library Company of Philadelphia to give 2021 Founders Day Address at W&L Saturday, 1:36 pm
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Launching a New Book
On January 20, 2020 By AnnIn books, fiction, Music and pianos, novels, Sonata of Elsie Lenore, Writing
The year I completed my examinations process to become a registered piano technician, a New Yorker named Ben Treuhaft attended the national piano convention. Treuhaft campaigned through the nineties for donations of pianos, repair parts, and technician service to upgrade the condition of Cuba’s musical instruments. He made a plea at the convention for help with the project called “Send a Piana to Havana.” After the Soviet Union pulled out of Cuba, people and their instruments suffered due to the lack of supplies for all kinds of pursuits.
I contacted Mr. Treuhaft to offer help. Several months later, he brought a beautiful and talented Cuban pianist on tour across the country and she played an amazing concert here, at the local college. The sample CD of her recordings that arrived with promotional material for the tour has remained a favorite disc in my collection. Her appearance in my hometown planted the seed which 20 years later has blossomed into the fictional suspense novel Sonata of Elsie Lenore.
I’ve been asked to officially launch Elsie Lenore at a county-wide monster piano concert February 9. The quadrennial event serves as a fund-raiser for music scholarships at Cowley College. The invitation to make Sonata of Elsie Lenore part of the 2020 Keyboard Duet Festival surpasses anything I could have dreamed. Even better, we’ll have another professional Cuban pianist joining the county’s piano students at this event.
Last year at this time, I was scrambling to prepare for a big adventure to Cuba. I made lists of things to bring, sorted clothing and supplies, checked everything multiple times, and packed my bags. The first week of March, I joined a group of strangers from across the US in Miami and we toured Cuba together. The day before I left, I posted a short note to my Facebook page.
“Getting ready for a big adventure! Nail-biting nervous to be heading out with a group of soon-to-be friends on an educational and good-will mission trip to Cuba. Yes, Cuba. Down there south of Miami. I hear it’s a unique and fantastic experience.”
A number of people responded on the post itself with excitement and encouragement, but I also received a private message from a piano technician colleague in Wichita. “I hope you have time for two friends to meet you in Cuba,” he wrote. “One is a technician involved with our donations of pianos to Cuba project. The other is coming to WSU next fall for graduate study in organ and piano.”
This opportunity iced the cake. Cuba’s musical contributions to the world stage are legendary and I was, after all, heading to Cuba to learn more about its music, its musicians, and its pianists in particular. Within two hours David Pérez Martinez emailed me. Together we worked through language barriers (I speak very little Spanish), as well as phone and internet systems with vastly different procedures. The evening of March 11, 2019, we met in person on the grounds of Hotel Nacional in Havana for a delightful visit at a table overlooking the Malécon Boulevard and the Atlantic beyond. Employed professionally as a pianist and harpsichordist in Havana, David was in process of pursuing further training in organ performance. He had applied to a few universities in the US, including Wichita State University.
Five months later, David arrived at Eisenhower National Airport, WSU having offered him the best situation.
It has been thrilling to return hospitality to this son of a nation that offered exemplary hospitality to me last March, and to keep up with his graduate studies and performances at WSU. His unparalleled joy at the keys warms the heart and provides inspiration to students of all ages here in Cowley County.
Mark your calendars: February 9, 2020, 6:00 p.m., Brown Theatre at Cowley College, 125 South 2nd, Arkansas City, Kansas. It will be a spectacular event!
(Note: This post published in the 20th minute of the 20th hour of the 20th day of the year 2020!)
Brown TheaterCowley Collegecreative writingCubaduetsFictionMusicpianossuspense novel
A Cycle of Leap Years
One thought on “Launching a New Book”
jimpotterauthor
Ann, congratulations for following the spirit of the story–your life.
Best always, Jim
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Anne M. Holmes
Writer, thinker, smoker, drinker
Black dog diary
Return of the black dog diary
SFSS Challenge
Green and peaceful
Loathing Las Vegas
The constantly frustrated gardener
November 2013: Gambling on the future of BC Ferries
BC Ferries has spoken. On Nov. 18, the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MoTI) released its proposal to meet targets to reduce costs for running the province’s coastal ferry services by $18.9 million dollars by 2016. Nearly 75 per cent of this cost-cutting is to be achieved by reducing services to ferry-dependent coastal communities.
On Gabriola this will mean a 14.5 per cent service reduction, with the cancellation of the last two round trip services of the day and of the first round trip service on Saturdays and Sundays. MoTI estimates that cancellation of these 834 round trip sailings will save BC Ferries (BCF) $800,000 towards the 2016 target.
For Islands Trust trustees and members of Ferry Advisory Committees, who thought they were in some sort of consultation process with MoTI and BC Ferries, the proposals came as a shock.
Only a few weeks ago, Islands Trust Chair Sheila Malcolmson met with MoTI Minister Todd Stone’s parliamentary secretary Jordan Sturdy to discuss fare affordability. (This followed a September discussion with Premier Christy Clark, who agreed ferry fares had “gone beyond the tipping point” and welcomed ideas to address the problem.) According to Malcolmson, “At no point in my meeting was there any discussion of service reduction.”
Shortly before the Nov. 18 BCF announcement, Malcolmson received an invitation, along with all regional district chairs, to a Nov. 19 meeting with Kevin Richter, Assistant Deputy Minister, Infrastructure Department of MoTI.
The invitation informed the Chairs that “the Province will be commencing community engagement meetings on Nov. 20, 2013, as part of a province-wide effort to seek input on planned changes to service levels and other strategies to ensure the sustainability of coastal ferry services”.
The invitation continued: “We acknowledge and value the contributions and insights of the Regional District Chairs. Given the Chairs’ strong interest in and commitment to the coastal ferry system, I wish to invite you to an engagement meeting with staff from the Ministry and BC Ferries to discuss the reductions and other topics”.
No attempt was made by Richter to make invitees aware that the day before the proposed meeting, MoTI would be releasing its planned service cuts to Gulf and Northern Island ferry services, Malcolmson said. They learned about the proposed cuts from the media.
The meeting was somewhat heated, she said.
As Malcolmson pointed out to the assistant deputy minister, one of the three objectives listed in the terms of reference for the ferry consultation was to engage citizens and local governments in areas that will be impacted by changes to ferry service.
No engagement
“There has never been any engagement with local government about cuts to vital ferry services,” said Malcolmson. “We were presented with a fait accompli. And then informed that staff from the Ministry and BCF would be coming to Gabriola on Dec. 10 for an after-the-fact open house”.
Malcolmson, who represents Gabriola and the other Gulf Islands, said: “The proposals are deeply disappointing. Fares keep going up and up with no improvement to services. Now services are being reduced, which would be more palatable if there was any likelihood this might lead to fare reductions, but it won’t.”
Equally unimpressed by this “consultation process” is John Hodgkins, chair of the Gabriola Ferry Advisory Committee (FAC). Hodgkins, along with other FAC chairs, was also invited to a postscript meeting with MoTI staff the day after the proposed service reductions were announced.
After hearing about proposed cuts, Hodgkins said, “FAC Chairs hoped to learn more about the socio-economic research that underpinned the proposals. There didn’t seem to be any. The driving force behind the plan remains the cost – and service – cutting. … There has been no serious attempt to measure the impact these cuts will have on residents, families and businesses in coastal communities.”
FAC members challenged that decision, Hodgkins said.
“When we raised the issue of the money-losing Duke Point terminal, we were told in no uncertain terms that any decisions about major routes was for another, later discussion,” said Hodgkins. In the last financial year, Duke Point operated at a $25 million loss.
Impacts on Gabriolans
Of the last two Gabriola sailings of the day, which BC Ferries recommends cancelling, Hodgkins says, “There’s no doubt these sailings are among the quietest, but has any consideration been given to the impact on shift workers, students and businesses that rely on these sailings? It appears not.”
The decision will also have negative impacts on parents of children whose sports events in Nanaimo run later than 9:15 pm or anyone who enjoys going to movies, concerts, or the theatre off-island.
There is also the impact the cuts will have on the BC Ambulance Service, Hodgkins said.
“Right now, the ambulance can take patients off the island right up to 11 pm,” said Hodgkins. “In future, emergency calls after 9 pm will have to be dealt with on island, with patients needing hospital treatment facing a rough boat ride or, for the most serious, helicopter evacuation.” There are major cost implications Hodgkins said.
Islanders have also raised concerns about power failures, other islanders note. With late-sailing cancellations, BC Hydro crews will have two hours less to work on repairs. And if the power goes out after 9 pm on a Friday or Saturday night, it will be impossible for a BC Hydro crew to even start working on the problem for nearly 12 hours.
Although reductions in services are a primary concern to Gulf Islanders, two other MoTI proposals to save and make money have received province-wide attention – and condemnation.
April Fool’s for seniors
Decades ago it was decided that the people whose tax dollars had helped build up the services offered by BC Ferries should be rewarded with free travel on weekdays.
As of April 1, 2014 that will end MoTI says. Instead of free travel on weekdays, pensioners will be offered a “discount” of 50 per cent on weekday travel. MoTI claims this will save approximately $6 million per year which “will be redirected to support general fares”.
According to Kirk Handrahan, executive director of the marine branch of MoTI, in the last financial year, the Province paid BC Ferries $15 million to cover the cost of free travel for seniors. The Province will continue to reimburse BC Ferries the full cost of senior travel, while seniors themselves will be expected to pay 50 per cent of the passenger ticket price.
MoTI itself predicts that at least 10 per cent of the 1.5 million BC seniors currently travelling for free are likely to stop travelling on the ferries because of the changes. What isn’t clear to anyone – BC Ferries and MoTI included – is the drop in car fare income likely to result from reduced senior travel.
The move has been widely denounced by seniors support groups.
Dave Sinclair, president of BC Seniors Living Association told Sun Media: “I’m very disappointed in this decision because I think again the most vulnerable people in our communities have been targeted”. Most seniors, he said, are “on a fixed income and this is going to impact them considerably. A lot of them travel back and forth to visit family and grandchildren.”
Whether or not the revocation of free travel for seniors will ultimately raise BC Ferries revenue remains to be seen.
Win/lose proposal
In addition to saving money by cutting services to minor routes and ending free travel for seniors, BC Ferries proposes to increase revenues by introducing slot machines on Lower Mainland to Victoria crossings.
This announcement comes one month after Dr Perry Kendall, the Provincial Health Officer, issued: “Lower the Stakes: A Public Health Approach to Gambling in British Columbia”, which warns that the number of “problem” gamblers (those for whom gambling borders on or has become an addiction) in BC doubled over a five year period to more than 30,000.
Report co-author, Dr. Gerald Thomas of the BC Centre of Addictions Research, warns that electric gambling machines are designed to promote riskier gambling behaviour. At the time of the report’s release, he told CBC: “One of the inducements in these high-risk machines is near misses. You have three little things turning there, and all of a sudden it will show you that you’ve got two out of the three. Those kinds of inducements are designed to keep people at these machines and playing.”
One of the report’s recommendations was to reduce the number and availability of slot machines, which in the view of the authors presents a public health risk.
Following the Nov. 18 BC Ferries announcement, Dr. Thomas told the Vancouver Sun there had been little official government response to the study, adding “and here we see another example of them doing exactly what we warned them to be careful about”.
Gabriola reaction
Gabriola’s Facebook community erupted within minutes of the service cut announcement. There were early comments from shift workers, who rely on the late ferries, wondering whether they were supposed to give up their job in Nanaimo or their home on Gabriola.
Many voiced the need for the sort of water taxi service other Gulf Islands already have to assist with late night travel.
It was also an opportunity for bridge proponents to renew their calls for a permanent link to Nanaimo.
Given the fare increases Gabriolans have endured over the years and the cuts to services we now face (see Compare and contrast this edition), some have asked if BC Ferries is deliberately attempting to force the island into a land link.
Asked to respond to the renewed calls for a bridge, Sheila Malcolmson said: “I get the frustration. I really do. However, talk about bridges or setting up our own ferry service takes away from the focus we need to put on the province to return the public ferry service to being an affordable service to coastal communities”.
“There have been so many proposals to bridge Gabriola and Mudge in order to move Mainland travellers to Vancouver Island. We shouldn’t kid ourselves that any bridge will ever be built simply for the convenience of Gabriolans.”
MoTI and BC Ferries representatives will be on Gabriola, at the Haven, for a public meeting on Dec. 10, from 5-8 pm, with an open house till 6 pm followed by a question and answer session.
On Friday morning the Local Trust Committee’s Transportation Advisory Committee (TAC) met to set tasks for responding MoTI and BC Ferries next month.
It was agreed to establish an online survey on the Ferry Advisory Committee website (gabriolafac.com) to allow Gabriolans to share the impacts the proposed service cuts will have on them, their families, and their work.
After the meeting, Hodgkins told The Shingle: “It’s crucial that we are able to fully document and quantify the social and economic impacts these cuts will have on the community. After one meeting it is clear to us that these will far outweigh any cash benefits to BC Ferries.”
Malcolmson, who also attended the meeting, said: “I’m mad that the BC government didn’t do this important work themselves before making and announcing their plans. And I’m hugely grateful to the community volunteers who are undertaking the research.”
(c) The Flying Shingle
From → Columns
« December 2013: Sound and fury
October 2013: Translating science »
A very good day
It couldn’t happen here
Impeach the fucker
A toothy tale
Lock them up!
krysross on A very good day
Donna on A very good day
John Galpin on It couldn’t happen …
krysross on A toothy tale
Donna on Lock them up!
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A Hurdle to Success
The Path to Pan Am/Parapan Am Legacy
A panel discussion series in light of the upcoming 2015 Pan Am/Para Pan Am Games on sports as a means of access to post-secondary education for Indigenous and racialized young people.
Symposium Bus Schedule
Child & Youth Permission Forms – Under 18
Full Symposium Program
Hurdle to Success – Summary Paper
Hurdle to success – Full Discussion
Hurdle to Success Poster
A Hurdle to Success is a panel discussion series happening between 2014 and 2015, leading up to the Toronto 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Am Games. Presented by the University of Toronto’s Anti-Racism & Cultural Diversity Office, First Nations House, the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education, Hart House, the University of Toronto Scarborough, the Centre for Sport Policy Studies and the 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Am Ignite Initiatives; the series explores the experiences of Indigenous and racialized young people seeking success in sports and post-secondary education.
What are the opportunities and challenges Indigenous and racialized student athletes face? Are sports a “level-playing field” for marginalized youth? Given many of the socio-economic and structural barriers to full-access and participation in elite sports and higher education, we as what are the realities faced by Indigenous and racialized young people navigating these institutions? Through this series, we attempt to explore these questions by bringing forward the experiences of marginalized student athletes supported by the experiences of community members, coaches, and academic’s researching in this field.
The series focuses on three main questions:
Recruitment and Access: What are the unique experiences and the nuanced ways in which Indigenous and racialized youth access education through sports?
Retention: What are the experiences of Indigenous and racialized student athletes seeking success athletically and academically once they have entered post-secondary institutions?
Path to Enter Professional Athletic Careers: What are the challenges associated with the successful transition from Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) into a professional athletic career or into multi-level sporting events like Pan Am/Parapan Am?
Phase 1: “Access, Retention and the Culture of Sport at the University of Toronto”
The first phase involved a panel discussion held at the University of Toronto on January 22, 2014 critically examining whether sport and post-secondary education really are “level-playing fields” for Indigenous and racialized students.The panel included:
Janice Forsyth, Assistant Professor and Director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario;
Jason Sealy, Assistant Coach and Leadership Coordinator for the Ryerson Rams Women’s Basketball Team;
Greg Gary, Head Coach of U of T’s Varsity Blues Football Team;
Mike Auksi, U of T Alumnus and current professional hockey player in Estonia; and
Nathaniel Virgo, current U of T student and member of the Varsity Blues Men’s Volleyball Team.
For more information check out the article “Dissecting Race, Education and Sport” by the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education’s Adrienne Harry.
Phase 2: Symposium—September 27, 2014—at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC)
The second instalment of the Hurdle to Success series—a free full-day symposium bringing together student athletes, community members, sport professionals and academics to discuss critical issues and the experiences of Indigenous and racialized students engaged in post-secondary athletics—will take place on Saturday, September 27th at the University of Toronto Scarborough from 9:00am to 4:00pm.
The symposium will feature keynote presentations and panel discussions from community members, academics and sport professionals including renowned social and political activist, and former Olympian, Waneek Horn-Miller and Paul Jones, Sportscaster for the Toronto Raptors.Breakout discussion sessions throughout the day will explore challenges and opportunities in three areas:
How Indigenous and racialized youth access and are recruited to post-secondary athletics;
How marginalized student athletes successfully pursue, complete, and graduate post-secondary education; and
The successful transition to professional sport including Pan Am/Parapan Am.
Bussing is available to the University of Toronto Scarborough from East Scarborough Boys & Girls Club, Heron Park Community Centre, East Scarborough Storefront, and Mornelle Court. If you would like to travel on one of the busses coming from these locations please see the bus schedule.
All youth under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a guardian or bring a permission form.
If you are sending or accompanying youth to the Symposium please email antiracism@utoronto.ca or call 416-978-1259 with the number of youth that will be travelling with you or that you will be sending to the Symposium. There will be supervised coordinated athletic activities happening during the event for any youth in attendance who wish to participate. We would like to get a sense of how many youth will attend so we can prepare accordingly. Participants must fill out a consent form in order to participate (see link for permission forms above).
Join us as we continue the conversation exploring success in sports and school!
Space is limited. Register at ahurdletosuccess.eventbrite.ca
Have comments, questions or feedback? Join the conversation on Facebook!
Symposium Speakers & Panellists
Keynotes:
Sportscaster, Toronto Raptors
Waneek Horn-Miller
Former Olympian (Water polo) and Activist
Access & Recruitment Panel:
Howard Moriah
Manager, East Scarborough Boys & Girls Club
Dr. Lynn Lavallée
Associate Professor, School of Social Work, Ryerson University
Sherwyn Benn
Assistant Coach, Ryerson Rams Women’s Basketball Team, Ryerson University
Lance Dioubate
Student, University of Toronto Scarborough
Retention Panel:
Beth Ali
Director of High Performance & Intercollegiate Sport, University of Toronto
Dr. Carl James
Director, York Centre for Education & Community, Faculty of Education, York University
Sandy Wells
PhD Candidate, University of British Columbia
Malinda Hapuarachchi
Student, University of Toronto; Assistant Coach, Varsity Blues Field Hockey
Pathway to Sport Professions/Multi-level Sport Panel:
Anson Henry
Canadian National Team, 100m sprinter
Hernan Humana
Parent, Elite Volleyball Player
Vanessa Restrepo
Toronto 2015 PanAm Athlete, Karate
Elodie Li
Assistant Coach, Varsity Blues Volleyball; Mauritian Beach Volleyball Player
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Birdie's Bibliotheca
Welcome to my library
Unsolicited Review
Solicited Review
Fianna’s Awakening — a review
Birdie O December 11, 2018 One Comment
The first thing that struck me about Ron C. Nieto’s book, Fianna’s Awakening, was how much it seemed to want to be a medium-burn romance, but really just falls into an urban fantasy with some romantic…beginnings? It’s an interesting story, for sure.
I first was skeptical because the book isn’t that long. However, Nieto makes fantastic use of that length and the book is fast-paced without feeling rushed. Nieto takes time to make the world and characters live on the pages. I didn’t miss length and the book does not suffer. I’m leery of the possibility of a triangle….I can totally see it happening and I’m pretty jaded against that angst as a romantic plot point.
The action of the story is amazing. The choreography of the fights is amazing. I’ve gotten really used to authors glossing over fight scenes. I don’t know if this is due to lack of knowledge (and laziness in research) or because they don’t think their readers are interested. Nieto makes sure you can see the fight happening. It isn’t just a blur of people fighting for a paragraph with a definitive opening and ending move, but an actual fight with each move described and able to be visualized. Definite kudos for that.
Something that really calls to me about this book is the exploration of a less-popular mythology. Fomorians and Tuatha De show up occasionally in UF books, but to have this mythology be the focus of the entire world in the book is something that excites me. I love when authors branch out and do something new. I can only hope that the rest of the series is as good as this introductory novel was.
The one thing that really could be improved upon is the accent and cadence of speech and the descriptions of locations. Very VERY rarely does it feel like I’m “hearing” somebody with an Irish accent. Like…basically never. The characters all speak with what I would consider to be a Midwestern American accent–aka none. The cadence of speech, the turns of phrase…there is absolutely nothing that says that this is taking place in Dublin instead of Chicago. There is mention of specific places from Dublin and surrounding areas, however thy aren’t described. To tell me that they’re at Tara without describing Tara…or to say you’re at Trinity College without describing it…well…it just doesn’t really help set up the scene. I hope that future novels will delve into these two things further, as I really think that the atmosphere will become more important in the coming books.
That being said, this book is a great start to a new series. There is no cliffhanger. The main conflict is resolved…but the hints at more make sure the reader knows this isn’t a stand alone. Definitely recommend starting this series and falling in love with Celtic mythology.
Grab your copy at the links below!
Fianna’s Awakening
Ron C. Nieto
(Warriors of Myth and Legend, #1)
Publication date: November 13th 2018
Genres: Adult, Paranormal, Romance, Urban Fantasy
Outcast. Betrayer. Chosen.
After five years being a Fianna, Aisling O’Malley still has to prove herself every day. The sins of the father weigh heavily on her shoulders, and no matter what she does, her fellow warriors regard her as the undeserving one. It doesn’t help that one of the four mythical treasures of Ireland has turned up under her nose, leaving her none the wiser. If by any chance the touted Spear of Lugh up for auction is indeed the legendary Spear of Victory, she needs to get her hands on it before anyone else does—and be spectacular enough about it to make the rest of the Fianna forget she almost missed the artifact in the first place.
Exile. Betrayer. Forgotten.
After spending twice as long undercover as he ever lived at home, Ronan no longer knows where he belongs to or where he’s actually exiled from. He can’t return to his people, not unless he collects the four artifacts of power the Tuatha Dé lost when they were forced to leave Ireland, and three millennia after the fact, he’s pretty sure they’re going to remain lost. Except one of those ancient treasures has landed in his lap—or could land in his lap, if he brings himself to work with the spunky young woman who wants to hire him to consult on the Spear’s authenticity.
Can two broken people learn to trust one another? And even if they can, will it be too late to save Ireland… or themselves?
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo
Ron C. Nieto is a fantasy and romance author who has been writing in her secluded fortress for the longest time. Recently, she had a talk with her cat and decided that she should share her creations, because it was selfish to hoard them all for herself.
If you would like to know more about her, please visit her website.
Blog Tour, Solicited Review
Adult, Adult Paranormal Romance, Adult PNR, Adult UF, Celtic Mythology, Fianna's Awakening, Fomorian, Paranormal, Paranormal Romance, PNR, Ron C. Nieto, Tuatha De, UF, Urban Fantasy, Urban Paranormal, Warriors of Myth and Legend
Giselle [Xpresso Reads] December 11, 2018 at 8:46 am
Great review! This sounds well written and entertaining throughout! Happy you liked it! 🙂
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It’s official: Red Hill enquiry likely to go over budget
Ontario ICU cases heading towards 200 as province reports 1824 new COVID cases
With just under $5 Million out the door already, and the public part of the enquiry not even started yet; a City staff report says it is almost certain that the Red Hill Judicial enquiry will exceed its original $7 Million budget. The City completed its document production process on July 13, 2020, producing a total of 56,549 documents responsive to the Terms of Reference and the Commissioner’s request for information, which consists of nearly 50 categories of documents
Since July 2020, Commission Counsel received the complete productions of all of the other Participants to the Inquiry, except for the Province of Ontario.
On November 18, 2020 Commission Counsel gave the Participants access to a database consisting of the majority of the documents that were provided to Commission Counsel. It is expected more documents will be coming to add to the database.
Commission Counsel is in the process of reviewing approximately 10,000 documents from the Province and will receive additional tranches of documents from the Province. Staff expect to receive a tranche of approximately 7,000 documents from the Province in the next few weeks.
The commission has asked the City to produce even more documents and it sounds like complying with the quest is going to eat up more lawyer fees.
On October 23, 2020, Commission Counsel provided the City’s external counsel with a list of 36 current and former City employees that Commission Counsel wishes to interview. The interviews will be scheduled for a time after the document production process is complete and once the City’s external counsel has an opportunity to review the productions from the other Participants.
With all of these balls in the air, the staff report says, “It is difficult to estimate when the Hearing portion of the Inquiry will commence as the Participants have yet to complete the document production process. As detailed above, at this time, we do not know when the document production process will be completed. This will largely depend on when the Province will complete its productions and once the City’s external counsel receives and responds to Commission Counsel’s request for further documents and information. Given the progress of the Inquiry to date, we estimate that the Hearing may commence later in the spring of 2021.
And regarding the cost of the enquiry, “Based on the fees incurred to date, our projection of future costs, and the delays resulting from the document production process, it is unlikely that the cost of the Inquiry will be under $7 M. External counsel will be in a position to provide updated cost projections once the document production process is complete and a time frame is established for the commencement of the Inquiry Hearing.”
John Best December 2, 2020
Oakville standoff ends with no one hurt
Three teens and an adult arrested for five holiday season shootings in Hamilton
Michelle Hruschka says:
How many affordable social housing units could be built , which is the most important priority has been lost by the ineptitude of civic leaders and the bloated bureaucracy at city hall and their private consultants that have created this mess.
John Best says:
approx 10 units
So if add ed all the money to be spent on lawyers etc on sewergate , the integrity commissioner, all the private consultants, I could on and on.
The mayor says 716 million have been spent on affordable housing the last six years yet in my search for social housing I’m told there are no units, only wait lists by various agencies even including the city’s Access to Housing staff.
Where is all this housing???? It does not exist!!!
The Gorilla in the room
Making the producers of hazardous waste pay for disposal
Former City Manager Glen Peace passes
City backs down on Main West condo project after 841 days
What could complete streets look like in Hamilton?
City of Hamilton asks residents to weigh in on growth planning
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New Jersey Court Ruling Revives Talcum Powder Cancer Lawsuits
A New Jersey appeals court’s decision to revive two lawsuits accusing Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder of causing cancer may lead to the reinstatement of about 1,000 lawsuits targeting these talcum powder products. According to a Bloomberg news report, a three-judge panel of the New Jersey Superior Court last month said that a trial court…
Important Ruling Reached in Business Interruption Claims Against Insurance Companies
A court in Missouri has reached a momentous ruling pertaining to COVID-19 business interruption claims. According to a news report, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Bough for the Western District of Missouri ruled that business income loss due to the coronavirus might be covered under standard property and casualty policies, as long as the claimant…
Apple Ordered to Pay California Store Workers for Time Spent in Bag Searches
Apple must pay store employees in California for the time they spend waiting for their bags to be checked by security officers. According to a report on The Verge, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued the ruling, which reverses a summary judgment in Apple’s favor. The ongoing case began back in…
Posted in: Employment Law
Exercise Balls Recalled Because They Can Explode and Cause Injuries
Hundreds of exercise balls are being recalled because they can explode unexpectedly and cause injuries. According to an alert posted by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the Domyos Swiss balls, manufactured by Decathlon USA, could burst while in use posing an injury risk to the user. So far, the company has received 26…
Posted By on September 8th, 2020
Graphic Photos from Kobe Bryant’s Crash Site Lead to Tougher Privacy Laws
After Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies shared graphic photos from the helicopter crash that killed Lakers star Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others in Calabasas, the California Senate has approved a bill that would make it a crime for first responders to take pictures of dead people for reasons other than official investigations….
Santa Ana Cracks Down on Street Racing on City Roads
The city of Santa Ana is pushing back on street racing, which has become a scourge all around Southern California as more racers are taking to public roadways that have become relatively empty because of coronavirus-related shutdowns. According to a news report in The Orange County Register, Santa Ana police are working on an initiative…
Hyundai and Kia Recall Vehicles for Potential Fire Danger
Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia are recalling more than 591,000 vehicles in the United States to repair a brake fluid leak that could cause engine fires. According to an ABC News report, the recalls cover more than 440,000 Kia Optima midsize sedans from 2013 to 2015 and Kia Sorento SUVs from 2014 and 2015. Also…
General Motors to Investigate Chevy Bolt Fire
GM is looking at the risk of fires in Chevy Bolt vehicles after a Virginia woman reported that her car went up in smoke on July 4. According to an ABC7 news report, the $43,000 electric vehicle caught fire in the parking lot of her parents’ home during a family get together. Hajime Rojas said…
Former Takata Consultant Says Millions of Cars Still Have Faulty Airbags
Jerry Cox, a former consultant with Takata back in 2014, says at least 12 million cars on the road still have defective Takata airbag inflators in them. According to a news report, Cox says vehicle owners are not getting the recall notices and probably don’t realize how serious or how deadly this Takata airbag defect…
635,000 Aflac Plush Toy Ducks Recalled for Lead Poisoning Hazard
More than half a million toy ducks that Aflac sales reps hand out when making sales calls to sell their insurance policies have been recalled for high levels of toxic lead. According to a Newsweek report, the company that made these plush Doctor Duck toys is recalling them in collaboration with the U.S. Consumer Product…
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in the wonders of creation : and if we rightly improve the principle, we shall contemplate, adore, and love the great fountain of existence, the Lord and Father of all!
ON THE WORKS OF CREATION,
BY A YOUTH
ON HIS BIRTH DAY.
THE years roll round, and eternity hastens; every breath we draw,
- and every action we perform, brings us nearer and nearer to the end of life; nay the moment we begin to live, that moment we begin to die: no sooner is a child born into the world, than it finds a feeble and corrupt body to enter; so that most children come into the world with cries and groans.
When we go from the cradle, we get into the life of a school boy: here is trouble indeed; hard words to learn, and difficult languages to master. The next scene is that of being at trade or business; and then, the reasoning powers being fixt, we ought, in a more especial manner, to adore our God, and admire the works of creation. It would be thought natural that children, as soon as they could speak, would enquire, Who made me? Who made the ear h? the heavens? the stars, &c. and such enquiry is often made; let us then take a view of the wisdom of God in the works of creation..
God having finished the works of creation, we read, that, on the seventh day he rested from all his works that he had inade. “ And Go saw every thing that he had inade, and behold it was very good.” If we take a view of the works of creation in order to know the wisdom, the power, but above all the goodness of our Maker, let us survey the heavens, and ask, what power suspended this mighty arch over our heads, and spread out the heavens like a curtain? Who embellished the heavens with such a multiplicity of objects, all regular in their motions and floating in the air? Who painted the clouds with such a diversity of colours and shades? No human artist; it not being in the power of the pencil of a Peynolds or a West to emulate. Who formed the sun, that source of light and heat? and placed it at so convenient a distance? For. if it were nearer, we should be burned to death; if farther off we should be frozen. Has it ever failed rising and setting at the usual time? By whom is it sent in its diurnal and annual course to give us the blessed vicissitudes of the day and night, and the regular succession of different seasons ? that it should travel on its course, and not be known to step aside, and in its return back, in the same constant and regular pace, 10 bring on the seasons by gradual advances ? That the moon should supply the absence of the sun in illuminating the earth. That it shonld regulate the sea in its Auxes and refluxes, and keep it in constant inotion,
Whereby the water is kept from putrefaction, and accomodated to the conveniences of inan: and that the planets, and innumerable host of heaveniy bodies in their courses and revolutions, are so exact as not to fail for these six thousand years.
These are plain proofs of an Almighty Creator, and of the wisdom with which he governs the universe; the consideration of which made Tully, the Roman philosopher conclude, that “ Whoever imagines that the wonderful order, and incredible constancy, of the heavenly bodies,' and their motions, (whereupon the preservation and welfare of all things depend) are not governed by an intelligent being, he himself is destitute of understanding. For shall we, when we see an artificial engine, acknowledge, at first sight, that it is the work of art and understanding, and yet, when we behold the heavens moved and whirled about with incredible velocity, most constantly coinpleating their anniversary vicissitudes, make any doubt that these are made by reason, yea, by Divine Reason?".
If Tully, by the little light he had of astronomy, in the age in which he lived, affirmed that the man who denied that the heavenly bodies are framed by a divine Architect, and governed by infinite wisdom, must be destitute of understanding, what would he say now, in this enlightened age, on the contemplation of the amazing velocity with which modern discovery assures us the earth moves on iis axis! What would he conclude from a consideration that the planets, which are at such an immense distance from us, should be supplied with moons like the earth on which we live? What from the amazing discovery that the revolutions of comets round the sun are found to be as regular as those of other planetary bodies? Would not he, contemplating on the regularity and exactness of these things, instead of saying what he did, have said, that, to deny their divine origin, was atheism? But the atheist cannot withstand the force of these arguments; he must be forced to acknowledge the wisdom of an eternal and almighty God.
If we descend froin the heavens to the orb on which we live, we are compelled to acknowledge the proof therein exhibited of the divine wisdom in the expansion of the air, which is so wonderfully contrived as to support clouds for rain, and winds for the health of animated nature, without which the human race could not exist. By what wondrous power is the water drawn from the sea, and, by a natural distillation, made fresh, and condensed in the clouds, to be sent, upona the wings of the wind, to divers countries, and distributed over the face of this our earth in gentle showers! St. Paul says, “ the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how
unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" .. What power, what wisdom was it, that suspended the earth on its
axis, in a spherical figure? Which weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? which gave the seasons for the pleasure a id uje of man?, which spread the earth with shrubs, plants, and towers innumerable, cloathed with exquisite beauty? which decorated the earth with various species of beasts, the groves with birds that fill the creation with harmony, and the waters with innumerable fishes, All all is wonderful! all proclaims the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Parent of universal nature. In short, whether we look at the stately elephant, that bids defiance to all, except mao, or the smallest of insects, which can scarce be perceived by the naked eye, but when viewed through a microscope, a perfect animal, with limbs, yea, muscles, nerves, arteries, veins, and blood, presents itself; when we consider this, we are lost in wonder, love, and praise, and are forced again to say with the apostle, “O the depth both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!"
If we look at the instinct of the brute creation, we are struck with astonishment !
Who directed the salmon to go from the sea up the river, several hundred miles, to deposit its spawn, and secure it from such a multiplicity of enemies as the sea affords? Who taught the birds to build their nests? Some chuse to build on the tops of trees, others on the ground, some prefer bushes, others the roofs of houses. Who directed them how to build their nests? Some will use moss and wool, another feathers, others sticks and the fine parts of stubble, and some again prefer mud. Who taught them philosophy, that they should know that the heat of their bodies would produce their young? If we look at the spider's web, the silkworm's produce, the ant's granary, or the bee's cell-, we are losi in contemplation, and forced to acknowledge the infinite power of their Creator. “ O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all."
If from the earth we turn our eyes on Man, the peculiar favourite of heaven, (for to him all nature is given) we behold a grand display of the goodness of God. What understanding so void of reason, or heart so base, as not to know and acknowledge, by looking at himself, the power of an Almighty God, in giving him an understanding above the rest of the creation, and to the end that he might reverence and obey his Creator.
Should we see a lump of clay rise in an instant to a compleat man, with full beauty and symmetry, and endowed with parts and faculties like to ourselves-should we see him perform all the operations of life, move as gracefully, talk as freely, reason as justly-in short, to perform all the functions of body and mind-should we not be struck with astonishment? Yet such was the state of our first parents. And now, if attention is paid to the formation and production of man, the creation of the bones, muscles, tendons, arteries, the circulation of the fluids, &c. it is astonishing that any man should controvert the opinion of an infinite First Cause of all things. So curious and wonderful is the formation of man, that even heathen philosophers were struck with wonder and admiration at it. Galen, on viewing a skeleton, was so struck at the surprising mechanism, that it effected his conversion. And let any man, however profane and wicked he may be, exainine the works of nature, he must either acknowledge a God, or be deeply under the influence of the adversary of mankind.
Can we who profess to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but admirë the wisdom and love of his and our heavenly father ! And may we be
deeply impressed with them, that we may encrease in wisdom and understanding, and teach others, by our example, to fear and obey out Gol. And may the time speedily arrive when righteousness shall cover the earth as the waters do the place of the sea.
Yours, &c. .
W. B. Jun.
REJECTING THE DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS MISERY. .
A LETTER TO A CALVINIST MINISTER:
DEAR SIR, PERMIT me to call you so from a feeling sense of the good will I beat
you; indeed if, after the strictest examination into the state of my mind, I was to find any disposition or temper contrary to love to my greatese enemies, so far I should prove my deviation from the Lord. Should I' then feel the least degree of anger against you for preaching what you think to be the truth, I should so far prove the insincerity of my Christian profession; but blessed be the Almighty, this is not the case; for I do indeed respect you; I wish you great success in the administration of the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I therefore take thë liberty of addressing you with a few thoughts, “ speaking the truth in love."
I intended to make a few remarks on your well meant discourse on future punishment; but I decline that, owing to the unfit state of 'my body, and shall make one remark only, viz. it was a very awful, solemn discourse in which you inanifested a great deal of candour, love, and
benevolence; and advanced many weighty truths. But I think ifo ~ argument sufficiently convincing of the truth of endless torment: I shall
therefore give you a few reasons why I do not believe in the endless misery of the wicked or impenitent sinners.
I shall advance what I have to say as methodically as I can, and appeal to the Scriptures to prevent perplexity-and shall be as brief as possible -I hope, Sir, you will attend to my observations in the spirit of candour, forbearance, and meekness. ,
1. I cannot believe in endless misery, because the words everlasting, ever, ever and ever, are much more frequently used for limited, than infinite duration : see the following passages as a specimen-Philemon, i. 8. Heb. v. 6. vi. 20. vii. 17. ix. 12. 1. 8. Gen. xvii. 8. 13. and 19. Gen. xlviii. 4. xlix, 26. Exod. xl. 15. Num. xxv. 13. Habak. iii. 15. Isa. xxx. 8. Jer. vii. 7. xxv. 5.
2. Because the terms endless, and world without end, are nő were in the Scriptures applied to the future punishment of the wicked.' ! - VOL. IV. isot;: Uu
3. Because the Lord Jesus Christ was manifested on purpose to destroy the works of the devil; in which sin and all its consequences (it appears to me) must be inc uded. See 1 John, iii. 8.
4. Because the Father hath appointed him heir of all things, which must iinply all mer at least; though all men does not imply all things.
si Because Jesus Christ is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world: the iniquities of us all were laid on him; for he jasted death for every man, even for those who had been cut off and consigned to the regions of darkness long before he bare their iniquities. I John, ii. 2. Isa. liii. 6. Heb. ii. 6.
6. Neither can I believe that he died in rain; but as he gave himself a ransom for all, so it shall be testified in due time : and as he was lifted up on the cross for us all, so finally he shall draw all men unto him: for he shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written " death is swallowed up in victory."
Nor can I see how this can be the case, unless the blessed Saviour makes an end of sin, and destroys (or frustrates) hin that had the power of death--that is the devil. 1. Tim. ii. s. John xii. 32. Heb. ii. 14. Isa. liii. 11. Dan. ix. 24.
7. Because God hath spoken of the times of the restitution of all things by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.-Acts, iii. 21.
8. Because there are many texts of Scripture which appear to me to be absolutely irreconcilable on the supposition of endless misery being true:
for instance, try to reconcile the following passages.
PSALM, ix. 17.
PSALM, Ixxxiv, 9. The wicked shall be turned into All nations whom thou hast made hell, with all the nations that forget shall come and worship before thee, God.
O Lord, and shall glorify thy name.
- Ill. PSALM, lxix. 27.
PSALM, cvii. 42. : Add iniquity to their iniquity. All iniquity shallstep her mouth . . Iv..
PSALM, lxxxiii. 1%.
PSALM, cl. 6. Let them be put to shame, and Let every thing that hath breathe perish.
...praise the Lord.
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info@blackbooksearch.com
Farfetch CEO says IPO on the horizon within 2-3 years
Online luxury retailer Farfetch, valued at around $1.5 billion in a fund-raising this year, sees a flotation on the cards in two to three years once a phase of high investment is over, its CEO told Reuters.
Farfetch is a marketplace website that puts consumers in touch with trendy shops around the world that sell major labels and also enhances access to smaller fashion brands.
The site combines more than 500 boutiques, including L’Eclaireur in Paris, Maxfield in Los Angeles and Fivestory in New York. It launched in 2008 with a few boutiques such as Maria Luisa, which is known for nurturing younger designers.
In May, Farfetch raised $110 million from existing and new investors, including France’s Eurazeo, Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek and China’s IDG Capital.
When asked about the prospect of an IPO, Chief Executive and founder Jose Neves said Farfetch investors had it in mind as an objective but had not decided yet whether it would take place in London, New York or Hong Kong.
“We could start considering it in two to three years but not now as we are still in an intense investment phase,” Neves told Reuters in an interview on the fringes of the Vogue Fashion Festival in Paris at the weekend.
“It will be the next major financial milestone for the company.”
Neves said Farfetch was not planning on floating as early as the end of next year, as Bloomberg reported on Friday.
Neves, who is Portuguese, said the company, with 1,200 staff and 12 offices worldwide, was still lossmaking but “firmly on track to become profitable” in the medium term.
He did not give any details on the size of investment which will go towards opening new offices and boosting technology.
The value of transactions is set to reach more than $800 million this year, up from over $500 million in 2015. Farfetch takes a percentage as a commission but does not disclose the exact level.
Farfetch sells items from more than 1,500 designers, many of them tiny labels, which it estimates is twice the number carried by bigger online rivals such as Neiman Marcus or Net-a-Poter. An advantage of its business model is that it does not carry any stock.
It competes also against smaller rivals such as Miinto in Scandinavia and Shoptiques in the United States.
Revenue growth in the past few years has been around 60 percent, Neves said. “We have seen growth accelerating in the third quarter and in the fourth and do not expect this acceleration to stop.”
His comments echoed stronger-than-expected results by big luxury groups for the third quarter, which analysts said augured well for the end of the year.
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Babbitt Column | What are the improvements in the three major branches of Bitcoin in 2019?
BTC is now fully developed by the Bitcoin Core development team, and all protocol level changes can be seen in the Bitcoin Core version released by the Core development team.
Bitcoin Core released three new versions this year, May 2nd, August 9th, and November 24th. Among them, Bitcoin Core version 0.18.0 on May 2 was marked as the major version.
BTC's main change this year is to strengthen the Segregated Witness transaction format. Bitcoin Core version now uses Segregated Witness transaction addresses to send and receive coins by default.
Bitcoin oscillated around $8,800, and the cryptocurrency market was full of red
Bitcoin Governance: What is BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) and how do they work?
The 4 major catalysts have caused Bitcoin to rise. Will this break out like 2017?
What is the SAFU fund of the currency security? Is $41 million a small case for it?
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Morgan Creek CEO: Every asset in the world will be tokenized, selling Amazon stock to buy bitcoin
Other changes are not related to productivity, and can be understood by various programmers.
Following the core developers' comments, several major feature updates currently being discussed by BTC are Schnorr signatures, MAST Merkel abstract syntax tree, and straight-root Taproot. Schnorr is mainly aimed at protecting transaction privacy, saving transaction signature space, and submitting signature algorithm efficiency.
MAST is an extension of the BTC scripting function, enriching trading functions, and introducing more complex financial instruments for BTC.
The main effect of Taproot is to improve currency interchangeability and also improve transaction privacy. For example, make the recharge transaction of Lightning Network and other transactions look the same.
These three major features should be the next major update of BTC.
After Core developers completed UASF and Segregated Witness in 2017, the focus of their work seems to be shifting to the development and promotion of Lightning Network.
BCH's main development group is Bitcoin ABC. All protocol level changes can be upgraded from the Bitcoin Cash released by the ABC development group. The hard fork is upgraded twice a year, on May 15 and November 15.
Significant updates to BCH this year include, Schnorr signatures, and removal of transaction malleability. There is also a BCH that recovers errors sent to the Segregated Witness address. In addition, several opcodes have been upgraded, especially OP_Checkdatasig, to facilitate the introduction of Oracle into the BCH network. Others are not production related, so programmers can understand the updates.
Schnorr signature is a very big update. It can be updated before BTC, because BCH mainly uses hard forks to upgrade, which is much more efficient than soft forks.
Track the comments of BCH developers. The major feature updates they may do next are Pre-consensus, UTXO Commitments, faster block propagation technology, and more script operation codes. .
Pre-consensus is mainly to allow BCH transactions to get secure "pre-" confirmation faster. The mining pool's legality of transactions achieves consensus on the basis of no block confirmation, improving the security of zero confirmation. It is said that transactions can be secured within 3 seconds.
UTXO promises to be able to achieve sufficient security without downloading complete historical blocks, and to make prerequisites for implementing block cutting technology. This can achieve large-scale node expansion. Block propagation technology, including various memory synchronization technologies and technologies such as graphene.
More opcodes are used to enrich the programmability of BCH and introduce more complex financial instruments.
Another major update of BCH is its second-layer network, which was very hot in 2018, leaving only the SLP agreement in 2019. The SLP protocol implements the function of issuing tokens on the BCH network.
The main development of BSV is now under the leadership of nChain, and CSW is the chief scientist. In 2019, BSV released 6 versions of full nodes, of which the last two versions are currently in beta. And the version number of the last version has become 1.0.0.beta, which may mean that the development of the BSV main chain is over.
The main update of BSV this year is the maximum block size expansion and recovery script opcode to the original version of bitcoin. BSV's update on the main chain protocol is focused on these two things, expanding the capacity and restoring the protocol to version 0.1. The current block limit has reached 512M and is expected to reach 2G in February next year.
In general, the development of the BSV's underlying protocol level is agreed by community members that stability is needed.
From the BSV community discussions, the other two major directions for the development of BSV are Metanet (Supernet) and BitDB and their variants. The former was led by CSW, and advocated that the Internet be turned into a side chain of BSV, but in general, Supernet is still a conceptual product. BitDB is developed by BSV's active application layer developer_unwriter main layer, which is in the BSV layer 2 network, and is mainly based on the OP_Return field for application development.
Another important product of BSV is Tokenized, which is a protocol for issuing tokens based on the BSV network, but there have been no major updates in 2019. I only saw his official website made a new website, which is not currently available.
Moneybutton and Paymail are another hot application direction of BSV, mainly to optimize payment.
In general, the BSV consensus believes that the underlying protocol should be stable and unchanged, and the main development direction is at the application layer.
Author: Huang Shiliang
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Browse: Home » 2020 » April » Humvee Can’t Stop Depictions of Its Vehicles in the ‘Call of Duty’ Videogame–AM General v. Activision Blizzard
Humvee Can’t Stop Depictions of Its Vehicles in the ‘Call of Duty’ Videogame–AM General v. Activision Blizzard
It has unexpectedly turned into Videogame Law week here at the Technology & Marketing Law blog. This is my third videogame IP blog post this week. See my prior posts on tattoo copyrights and signature moves. All three rulings are decisive defense wins, a sign of how bogus videogame litigation has flooded the courts.
Today’s case involves the game Call of Duty, which prominently features Humvee vehicles throughout the game. Humvee asserted its trademark rights against Call of Duty, which is the kind of claim that can vex courts because trademark law wasn’t designed to regulate this kind of conduct. The court turns to the constantly baffling Rogers v. Grimaldi test to navigate the First Amendment overlay to the trademark claims. This turns into a trademark doctrine SNAFU. At least the court gets to the right conclusion.
The court describes its legal standard:
It can be inferred from Louis Vuitton and Simon & Schuster that an artistically relevant use will outweigh a moderate risk of confusion where the contested user offers a “persuasive explanation” that the use was an “integral element” of an artistic expression rather than a willful attempt to garnish the trademark owner’s goodwill for profit. An “integral element” does not have to be a “but-for” aspect of the work. It was metaphysically possible for Defendants to have produced video games without the presence of Humvees, just as it was technically possible for the film in Rogers to have had a different title or for the film in Louis Vuitton to have deleted the scene with the knockoff bag. Instead, an integral element is one that “communicate[s] ideas-and even social messages,” either “through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music)” or “through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world).”
The but-for discussion is good, but read that first quoted sentence again. And now another time. What the what? The court seems to create a First Amendment test that balances between artistic relevance and consumer confusion. Even if the court gets to the right result in this case, this balancing test (if followed by other courts) will become a hotbed of misunderstanding and bad advocacy.
The court starts applying its test by describing the artistic relevancy of Humvees to Call of Duty:
Featuring actual vehicles used by military operations around the world in video games about simulated modern warfare surely evokes a sense of realism and lifelikeness to the player
Sticking to the Rogers v. Grimaldi factors, the court then says the Humvee use wasn’t explicitly misleading. However, to determine this, the court effectuates its balancing test by measuring consumer confusion. Thus, the court runs through the standard multi-factor likelihood of consumer confusion test. This makes zero sense because it essentially makes the Rogers v. Grimaldi test superfluous. If everything boils down to consumer confusion, what work did the Rogers v. Grimaldi test do? Instead of gesturing towards Rogers v. Grimaldi, the court could have just said that it would do the standard multi-factor test, but skew the factors towards the defense to reflect First Amendment consideration. That’s effectively what the court did anyways.
Strength of mark: strong.
Similarity of marks: This factor weighs for the defense because the marks are being used for different purposes. “Plaintiffs purpose in using its mark is to sell vehicles to militaries, while Defendants’ purpose is to create realistically simulating modern warfare video games for purchase by consumers.”
Competitive proximity: vehicles and videogames are different. The court discounts Humvee’s prior attempts to license into the videogame and toy industries as “sporadic and marginal.”
Bridging the gap: Humvee isn’t likely to enter the videogame industry
Actual confusion: Humvee introduced a survey that 16% of consumers shown game footage were confused about Humvee’s association with the game. The court says this is evidence of “some” confusion, which must be counterbalanced by First Amendment considerations.
Good faith: The court discounts Humvee’s attempts to show Call of Duty lacked good faith.
Quality of defendant’s products: The court says neither side introduced evidence of this.
Consumer sophistication: Videogame buyers can’t purchase military-grade Humvees.
This multi-factor analysis doesn’t provide much evidence that Call of Duty tried to explicitly mislead, especially in light of the First Amendment values: “If realism is an artistic goal, then the presence in modern warfare games of vehicles employed by actual militaries undoubtedly furthers that goal….realism can have artistic merit in itself.”
The commercial vending of Call of Duty doesn’t change the outcome:
merely insinuating that a commercial motivation might exist is not enough–an artist can sell her art without the First Amendment abandoning her. Instead, Plaintiff must present admissible evidence that Defendants’ invocation of the First Amendment was pretextual.
While the court got to the right place, the court’s legal standard isn’t a good one. Let’s hope this is a one-off.
Of course Call of Duty can depict Humvees in its videogame. How is that even a question? The fact this lawsuit isn’t laughed out of court indicates the overall scope creep of IP law (especially trademark law) This is exacerbated by some videogame exceptionalism, where IP owners are more litigious over depictions in videogames than they would be over the equivalent depiction in, say, a movie.
Thus, like the other two videogame cases I blogged this week, this case is really about whether IP law can reduce the verisimilitude of videogames. Fortunately, the troika of this week’s cases shows that IP law will thwart those efforts. Unfortunately, IP law isn’t clear enough to prevent the bogus claims from being filed in the first place; there are countless other efforts to control videogame “reality” percolating through the courts right now. Perhaps the troika of cases will send a strong signal to these plaintiffs to invest their energies elsewhere. More likely, IP owners will keep hammering on IP law until they eventually succeed in creating a doctrinal hook that gives them more control over videogames.
Case citation: AM General LLC v. Activision Blizzard, Inc., 1:17-cv-08644-GBD-JLC (S.D.N.Y. March 31, 2020)
← Ninth Circuit Rallies in Defense of a Parody Dog Toy–Bad Spaniels v. Jack Daniel’s
Judge Isn’t Impressed By Lawyer’s Purported Unfamiliarity With LinkedIn–Reyes v. Tanaka →
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The Employer's Guide Blog for Overseeing PBMs
The Definition of Oversee: to watch over and direct (an undertaking, a group of workers, etc.) in order to ensure a satisfactory outcome or performance.
CPBS™ One-Page Information Sheet
CPBS™ On-site Workshop for Decision-Makers
CPBS™ Frequently Asked Questions
Drug Prices Are Too Damn High. Here’s How to Fix Them
IN 1990, SCIENTISTS in Italy published a study comparing the efficacy of two heart medications. After looking at more than 12,400 cases, they concluded that the newer and more expensive drug provided no significant improvement in health outcomes. The study was controversial and, not surprisingly, contested by Genentech, the company behind the costlier option. It also kick-started a conversation about the rising cost of medicines. The price tag of the new drug in the study was $2,200 per dose, after all.
How quaint. Today, many drugs cost more than $30,000 a pop. In the past 50 years, prices for cancer drugs have increased a hundredfold, and spending on specialty drugs is forecast to double yet again by 2020. The industry’s riposte to any criticism about pricing is predictable: Regulations are complicated, biology more so, and R&D is expensive. Prices have to cover the costs. Get over it, or go find a naturopath.
That is only partly bullshit. Dealing with the chemistry of tomorrow and the regulatory hurdles of today is expensive. Yet in some European countries, the same name-brand prescription meds cost about half what they do in the US, according to a 2008 McKinsey study.
How then might we come up with a reasonable way to tether prices without quashing the incentive to innovate? Well, it’s complicated. Patent law, gobs of health care legislation, insurance, taxes, lobbyists, ethics—prescription drug costs touch all of them and more. But there are steps we can take to reel prices in. First is shifting away from monopolistic pricing to a more competitive model. Second is designing mechanisms that link the cost of drugs to the value delivered to patients, insurers, society, and even science. The time to move on this issue is now, while the spectacle of a young man named Martin Shkreli is still fresh in mind.
Yeah, that guy. Earlier this year, Shkreli’s company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, increased the price of a recently acquired drug from $13.50 to $750 a pill. The medicine, Daraprim, is used to combat parasites, especially for patients with immune-system deficiencies like HIV.
Within a day, Shkreli was being lambasted on every platform and outlet imaginable. His brashness and previous job as a hedge fund manager only made the bull’s-eye bigger. “He even looks like a prick,” a fellow parent said to me on his way into a PTA meeting in late September.
Yet Shkreli wasn’t breaking any laws. As physician Peter Bach, director of the Health Policy and Outcomes program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, put it, the Shkreli dustup shows that the system is “so broken even a child could manipulate it.”
Bach made headlines in 2012 when he and his colleagues refused to offer patients a new drug because they didn’t see sufficient health benefit to justify the $11,000 monthly cost. Weeks later the drugmaker cut the price by 50 percent. It was a rare victory that, like the Shkreli episode, illustrates just how fragile the market for drugs really is.
In Europe, regulators refuse to approve drugs that have a poor cost-benefit ratio. In a typical marketplace, forces like competition and regulation help keep prices down. You and me? We don’t care what it costs to make a saucepan. If the product provides us with value, we’ll pay for it. If we can get the same value out of a different saucepan that’s half as expensive, we’ll buy that one.
The marketplace for medicines in the US is nothing like that. Instead of thinking of drug companies as free-enterprise actors, we should think of them as “fragile little birds that the protective hand of government carefully shields from the harsh vagaries of truly free, competitive markets,” writes Uwe Reinhardt, professor of economics at Princeton. That protection comes in the form of patents and market exclusivity, plus laws against reselling drugs. Rising drug prices across the industry force insurance companies’ costs to ratchet up too, despite their best efforts to negotiate better deals. Meanwhile, Medicare, which should have huge bargaining power, isn’t permitted to negotiate with manufacturers.
In the US, an analogous strategy for dealing with drug pricing would be to establish some kind of connection between a drug’s price and the value it confers. This past summer, Bach and colleagues at Sloan Kettering introduced an online calculator called DrugAbacus, which compares present-day costs for dozens of cancer drugs with theoretical prices determined by adjustable variables like side effects, R&D costs, predicted years of life added, and the number of people each drug could help. (Other organizations, including the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, also have a system for calculating value-based pricing.) “This is about finding the right prices,” Bach says. “If prices are reasonable, people will be OK to pay them.”
Tyrone's comment: Third party payers, such as self-funded employers, are better off when micro-managing the pharmacy benefit as opposed to a macro approach. Relying too heavily on TPAs, ASOs, benefits consultants and brokers may cost more in the long run. Far too often they are not PBM experts but rather connectors of buyers and sellers. One solution for drug cost-containment, develop the requisite talent in-house.
It’s a start anyway. “I don’t know if I’m missing some of the domains,” Bach says. “This is going from ‘I’d like to price based on values but don’t know how’ to having some kind of attempt to do so.” At a minimum, DrugAbacus and other cost-assessment tools put more information into the marketplace, which is healthy.
In the meantime, don’t let up on the Shkrelis of the world. Remember what happened after the avalanche of outrage? He backtracked (some). According to a 2006 paper in the Rand Journal of Economics, drug costs are influenced by the mere presence of public debate.
Who knows? Perhaps citizens of the near future will ultimately owe Martin Shkreli a debt of gratitude for inadvertently fast-tracking change to a system that once looked immovable.
Posted by Tyrone Squires, MBA, CPBS at 10:15:00 AM
Employers Battle Drug Costs
At the University of Minnesota, employees with cancer face a new rule under the health plan. If they are starting on certain expensive drugs, they get just a two-week supply, half the usual amount.
Before they can get two more weeks’ worth, a nurse at the university’s pharmacy partner has to confirm they are doing well enough.
The policy, called “split fill,” is designed to avoid paying for drug prescriptions that go half-unused if patients develop side effects and must stop them. It is part of a growing effort to rein in a drug bill the university says rose 8.9% last year, roughly double the rate for other health expenses.
“I don’t want to penalize the patients, but what the drug companies have to realize is they put us in that box” by charging such high prices, said Stephen Schondelmeyer, a pharmacy professor who advises the administration on its benefits for nearly 39,000 employees, retirees and family members. Some of the cancer drugs cost as much as $13,500 a month.
Rising drug costs are forcing tough decisions on those who foot the bill for much of American health care: employers. The pinch is most acute for the many large employers that, like the University of Minnesota, are self-insured—hiring an insurance company to administer benefits but paying the bill themselves.
Employers have for years been shifting more health costs to workers, through higher premiums and deductibles. With drugs, they face a growing challenge. Specialty medications for ills such as cancer and multiple sclerosis are so pricey that despite making up only about 1% of prescription volume at the University of Minnesota, they account for 28% of its drug costs, said Kenneth Horstman, director of benefits and compensation. Pharmacy costs are about 17% of its health plan’s spending, up from less than 14% in 2013.
Nationally, employers’ pharmacy costs are rising about 9.5% this year and will go up 10% in 2016, according to Aon Hewitt, a benefits consultant. The firm expects employers’ other medical costs to rise far less, 4.5% this year and 5% in 2016.
“This is a tsunami,” said John Bennett, president and chief executive of Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan in Albany, N.Y., a nonprofit insurer with corporate clients. Pharmacy costs are “the single biggest driver of our medical inflation in the last few years.”
In tackling them, employers are becoming more aggressive. Many have expanded requirements that doctors obtain advance approval from health-plan administrators for certain costly drugs, a practice called prior authorization. For instance, about 89% of employer health plans now mandate prior authorization for certain anti-inflammatory drugs for diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, up from 61% in 2007, according to survey by drugmaker EMD Serono Inc.
Another increasingly common strategy is “step therapy,” which requires that patients be treated with lower-cost drugs before the health plan will pay for a more expensive option. This year, about 69% of employers had step-therapy rules, compared with 56% in 2011, according to the Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute, a research organization.
A newer tactic is pursuing supply contracts that cap annual price increases for drugs at a set percentage, says Jim DuCharme, CEO of Prime Therapeutics, a pharmacy-benefits manager that negotiates such deals.
The University of Minnesota’s health plan is among the more ambitious in attacking drug costs. Its efforts include resisting drug-company programs that help patients with their copays, which encourage use of expensive brand-name drugs over cheaper options.
University officials hold monthly brainstorming sessions in a Minneapolis hotel with people from about 15 other large employers to discuss cost-saving drug strategies. The university has “been able to test a number of strategies that go a lot further than other employers,” said Carolyn Pare, president and CEO of the Minnesota Health Action Group, which organizes the sessions.
As employers push back, employees sometimes feel their access to drugs is being restricted, and costs increasingly foisted upon them. The university last year increased its highest patient copay to $75 from $60, applying it to branded drugs such as Flovent asthma inhaler and the antibiotic Zyvox.
Amy Boemer, a library manager who has diabetes, said her doctor switched her to a new insulin product this year because the university made it a “preferred” drug, and her cost would have risen if she wanted to stick with her old one. She says the new insulin isn’t controlling her blood sugar as well.
“What’s frustrating to me is I was on a drug, had been on it for two years,” said Ms. Boemer. “It worked for me. It’s frustrating they’re making me change it.”
The university chose a new preferred insulin “based on price, delivery and drug effectiveness,” said Mr. Horstman, the benefits director. He said plan members can ask their doctor to file an application for coverage of a different insulin if it is medically necessary, and if the university’s pharmacy benefit manager agrees, the drug will be covered with just a $10 copay. Or the patient can take a nonpreferred insulin anyway, but for a $75 copay.
Officials don’t exclude drugs on cost alone, said Kathryn Brown, vice president for human resources. She said they make coverage decisions “in a way that allows them to provide the benefit to employees who need them, but also allows our self-insured plan to continue to be viable.”
The university’s plan has monthly premiums for family coverage of about $300. The national average is $413, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The university doesn’t make employees pay a percentage of the price of the most expensive drugs—a practice called coinsurance that is increasingly common elsewhere.
So far, the university has declined to pay for two new drugs—each priced at over $14,000 a year—for people who need greater cholesterol reduction than they can get from statins. It is awaiting more information on efficacy and potential discounts before deciding on coverage, Mr. Horstman said.
The university became self-insured in 2002, switching from a plan for state government employees and adopting one of its own called the “UPlan,” in a bid to get better control of costs.
At the vanguard of the cost-control effort is Dr. Schondelmeyer, who holds two pharmacy doctorates and has had 40 years’ experience studying pharmaceutical economics. Outside the classroom, the university’s health plan serves as his laboratory, where Dr. Schondelmeyer, 65 years old, tests cost-saving ideas as an adviser to the benefits and compensation department.
Employees sometimes stop him in the hall and ask, “What are you doing about the high prices that drug companies are charging us? How can we put pressure on them?” he says.
“It’s tougher personally and corporately” to make decisions about drugs that affect colleagues, he says. “I make every decision with the thought of, ‘How does this impact individuals at the institution and their loved ones?’ ” Covered by the plan himself, he declines to say what drugs, if any, he uses.
Decades ago, Dr. Schondelmeyer became an advocate of generic drugs for cost control. Research he did at the University of Kentucky on generics’ safety and effectiveness convinced him that wider use of them could hold down costs while preserving health outcomes.
The university is already close to maximizing that strategy. Its usage of generic drugs has risen to 84% of prescription volume from about 50% a decade ago, encouraged by lower copays.
A way pharmaceutical companies try to thwart the shift to generics is with coupons that can reduce patients’ copays for brands to the same level as for generic drugs, or even to zero. University officials say that while the coupons cut costs for patients, they raise them for the payer, because of how they encourage use of more-expensive branded drugs.
Dr. Schondelmeyer says some companies leave coupons with doctors and their staffs to be handed out to patients. A doctor who gives them out—telling patients the coupons are a way to save on a branded-drug prescription—may not think about the cost impact to a health plan.
“On the surface it sounds like a good deal for the employee, but a zero-dollar copay may mean the patient is using a $500-a-month drug when a $50 drug is better,” Dr. Schondelmeyer said.
The university, with his support, began plotting a response last year. It has a benefits advisory committee made up of employees, which meets monthly. At a meeting a year ago, Karen Chapin, a university manager of health programs, told members that drugmakers were using coupons to counter generics and keep patients on branded drugs. At another meeting two months later, she outlined a plan to eliminate coverage for some “heavily couponed” brands.
In the summer, the UPlan stopped covering about 90 branded drugs for which manufacturers were distributing copay coupons, including the Nasonex allergy treatment and Belsomra insomnia drug, both from Merck & Co. Patients can still get coverage if their doctors can show the drugs are medically necessary.
In an interview, Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier said, “There’s a legitimate role to be played for assisting patients with copays for medically necessary products, when there is an economic barrier to their using the products they need.” He said Merck sets prices for drugs based on their benefit to patients and the health-care system, and whether they address an unmet medical need.
Newer, high-price specialty drugs pose a particular challenge to the university because there typically aren’t lower-cost alternatives. That is where the split-fill strategy comes in.
Last year, Dr. Schondelmeyer and university officials began considering it for initial prescriptions of certain costly cancer drugs, among them Sutent, made by Pfizer Inc. Some can have side effects, such as rashes, that may cause patients to stop taking them and leave part of a one-month prescription unused.
Asked about the policy, a Pfizer spokeswoman said that “cost control interventions must consider individual patient care in order to minimize complications and burdens for patients including disruptions in treatment at critical moments in the management of their disease.”
University officials began briefing the benefits committee on a split-fill plan in the fall of 2014 and adopted it in February, for nearly 20 drugs.
A new patient gets an initial two-week supply, and then seven to 10 days later, a nurse at a specialty pharmacy the university uses to dispense such drugs calls to ask how the patient feels.
If he or she reports a serious side effect, the nurse tells the patient to stop taking the drug, then contacts the patient’s physician to discuss a dosing adjustment or alternative drug. If the patient is tolerating the medicine, the nurse authorizes the next two-week supply.
During the split-fill period, the patient faces no copay. After three months, the patient begins receiving the pills in monthly supplies, but also with a $10 copay.
Amy Monahan, a law professor on the benefits advisory committee, said some members worried the system could be burdensome because a patient has to keep going back to the pharmacy, “and this is someone obviously dealing with a very serious illness and you want to make sure you’re not imposing this horrible burden on someone.” Patients can pick drugs up at a pharmacy or have them delivered to their homes.
Samith Kochuparambil, a Minneapolis oncologist, said he agreed with the concept in principle but had practical concerns, such as that outside pharmacy nurses wouldn’t know a patient’s health history well and might mistake a patient’s pre-existing health condition for a drug side effect.
Since the program began in February, a small number of patients have had prescriptions filled this way, with no complaints so far, said Mr. Horstman, the benefits director. It is too soon to know if it is saving money, but it has done so elsewhere. Diplomat Specialty Pharmacy in Flint, Mich., installed a split-fill program for employer and insurer clients in 2010 and found they could save about 19% on the targeted drugs, said Atheer Kaddis, a senior vice president.
Given the trend in drug prices, said Dr. Schondelmeyer, “At some point, we can’t keep writing blank checks.”
By Peter Loftus
Posted by Tyrone Squires, MBA, CPBS at 9:13:00 AM
Reference Pricing: "Net" Invoice Cost for Top Selling Generic and Brand Prescription Drugs (Volume 98)
Why is this document important? Healthcare marketers are aggressively pursuing new revenue streams to augment lower reimbursements provided under PPACA. Prescription drugs, particularly specialty, are key drivers in the growth strategies of PBMs, TPAs and MCOs pursuant to healthcare reform.
The costs shared below are what our pharmacy actually pays; not AWP, MAC or WAC. The bottom line; payers must have access to "reference pricing." Apply this knowledge to hold PBMs accountable and lower plan expenditures for stakeholders.
How to Determine if Your Company [or Client] is Overpaying
Step #1: Obtain a price list for generic prescription drugs from your broker, TPA, ASO or PBM every month.
Step #2: In addition, request an electronic copy of all your prescription transactions (claims) for the billing cycle which coincides with the date of your price list.
Step #3: Compare approximately 10 to 20 prescription claims against the price list to confirm contract agreement. It's impractical to verify all claims, but 10 is a sample size large enough to extract some good assumptions.
Step #4: Now take it one step further. Check what your organization has paid, for prescription drugs, against our pharmacy cost then determine if a problem exists. When there is a 5% or more price differential (paid versus actual cost) we consider this a problem.
Multiple price differential discoveries means that your organization or client is likely overpaying. REPEAT these steps once per month.
-- Tip --
Always include a semi-annual market check in your PBM contract language. Market checks provide each payer the ability, during the contract, to determine if better pricing is available in the marketplace compared to what the client is currently receiving.
When better pricing is discovered the contract language should stipulate the client be indemnified. Do not allow the PBM to limit the market check language to a similar size client, benefit design and/or drug utilization. In this case, the market check language is effectually meaningless.
Who Has the Power to Cut Drug Prices? Employers.
Why do medications cost so much, particularly specialty drugs that treat the most serious conditions? Mostly because U.S. drug companies can price them however they want. Some of their justifications are reasonable — for instance, high prices fund research. Others, like the notion that drug treatment lowers total medical costs, are far from proven.
But pharmaceutical companies don’t deserve all of the blame for high drug prices. Lots of other actors in purchasing, distribution, and brokerage have greater incentives to keep prices high than to lower prices or choose drugs that reduce longer-term medical and business costs, like absenteeism.
We believe that employers have the greatest potential to influence some of those actors and, ultimately, to chip away at high drug prices. To appreciate the power that employers have in this area, you must first understand how competing incentives work in the world of drug pricing.
Competing Incentives
Hospitals, for example, can take advantage of the 340B pricing program, which allows them to buy drugs at 30% to 50% of the retail price but then bill at full price for patients with insurance. And even organizations that, theoretically, are paid to help hold down drug costs sometimes have incentives to do the opposite. Take insurers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which are hired to manage drug costs for employer-based health plans.
Indeed, it’s smart for employers like GE, IBM, and Google to contract with these specialist entities and have them decide which drug among several competitors their employees should get first, at what cost, and which medical policies should govern the use of that drug. After all, insurers and PBMs can spread the costs for research, negotiation, and decision making about drug-reimbursement policies across all of their clients.
However, PBMs and insurers may have business objectives that differ from those of their clients. For one, they’re not always at risk for the cost of drugs — the clients are. Also, a PBM or a pharmacy department of an insurer gets a substantial portion of its drug-related profit from rebates. These are payments negotiated with manufacturers that return, via the PBM or payer intermediary, a percentage of the drug’s price to the payer — for example, to an employer that contracts with a PBM or an insurer.
Here’s a simplified version of how these rebates work:
To get the business, the PBM or plan typically guarantees a minimum rebate on every prescription, say $60. On a $300 script, that’s a 20% net reduction in the cost to the employer (final price: $240). As an incentive for the PBM or plan to negotiate even harder — maybe get a 30% rebate (in this case, another $30) — it often takes home 30% to 50% of anything above the guaranteed rebate. In this example, if the split were 50/50, the employer would pay $225, net, for the prescription and the PBM would get $15. Not a bad deal.
In the old days — maybe five years ago, when most prescriptions ranged from $200 to $400 — rebates worked to the employer’s advantage. But for a specialty drug, costing say $50,000, a rebate of 20% means that the employer pays a net $40,000 and the PBM pockets $10,000 (plus other fees for processing and, sometimes, for handling the prescription through a specialty pharmacy division). Meanwhile, the $60 guarantee becomes meaningless.
Now let’s assume both a smaller rebate (10%) and a lower price ($25,000) for the same drug. The $60 rebate is still meaningless, but now the net cost to the employer is $22,500 (much better than $40,000) and the PBM’s profit is just $2,500. If you’re the PBM, do you want the manufacturer to price the drug at $50,000 or $25,000?
It’s also true that very large employers sometimes get virtually the whole rebate, not a 50/50 split. But don’t cry for the plans and PBMs, which know how to tack on various fees, often including a specialty pharmacy fee of about 2%. That cost covers the overhead and profit margin of a necessary part of the distribution system. But 2% on a $500 drug is $10; on a $50,000 drug, it’s $1,000. Again, a higher drug price means a more profitable supply chain.
(Insurance companies would argue, by the way, that they shouldn’t be lumped in completely with PBMs, because most insurers manage their pass-through and full-risk businesses with the same pharmacy policies. For the full-risk business, insurers care about drug prices, at least to the extent that they can’t just raise premiums for employers.)
Options for Lowering Prices
The easiest way to lower drug prices would be with a single-payer system, which most European countries have. That payer would be on the hook for all medical costs and would therefore have the incentives — and the clout — to negotiate lower prices. But we can’t envision that happening in the U.S., where some political players would cry “socialism.” So we’re left looking to employers and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which runs Medicare.
Changing CMS reimbursement practices is a Sisyphean task, given the congressional and lobbyist opponents. Even a relatively small proposal last year — narrowing the “protected classes” rules that, in essence, require reimbursement for all drugs in six therapeutic areas — was shot down decisively by drug companies, patient advocacy groups, and legislators.
Employers’ weak-kneed behavior is more baffling — no other group has a greater stake in buying smarter. But employers have always been reluctant actors in the health care system, as they feel out of their depth. Some companies, like Honeywell and Nielsen, have taken tough steps to control costs, with no loss in employee satisfaction. But don’t count on a sea change in employer buying behavior — when push comes to shove, they can always shift costs to their employees.
What Employers Can Do
Employers must recognize that, like it or not, the buck stops with them. Patients can hardly negotiate for themselves, but employers can be much more aggressive in getting PBMs and payers to have skin in the drug-pricing game.
Our sense is that PBMs, at least, are willing to listen. Express Scripts, for example, recently proposed capping its customers’ total exposure to the PCSK9-inhibitor class of cholesterol-lowering drugs. If their customers spend more than a pre-set amount, Express Scripts eats the overage. Certainly, Express wouldn’t do this without a clear idea of how much its clients would be spending. Notably, those clients must agree to follow Express’s rules about who gets the expensive drugs — and must use Express’s specialty pharmacy. But it’s a very good start.
We certainly don’t expect employers to start writing drug-coverage policies and doing their own contracting. But, as seasoned buyers, they know how to negotiate with suppliers, such as insurers and PBMs — and they should not be afraid to do it. It’s now easier to understand the tradeoffs among competitive drugs, thanks to tools like the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review’s new assessment reports, RealEndpoints’ RxScorecard, and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s evidence blocks.
Combine these tools with contracting that does not focus entirely on rebates, and employers may begin to change the rules of a game they will otherwise continue to lose.
by Robert Galvin, MD and Roger Longman
Prescription Drug Spending For State Employees Runs Wild, Despite Cost-Saving Efforts
Prescription drug costs under the state employees' health plan have run so wild that even a recently touted savings of $24 million a year — resulting from new restrictions on controversial compounded medicines — has been wiped out by an overall cost increase twice that large.
As soon as officials address one problem with prescription costs, another arises. It's like the arcade game Whac-A-Mole, in which a toy mole pops his head up, and as soon as you whack it down, another pops up from a different hole, and then another and another.
New state comptroller's statistics, obtained by Government Watch, show that taxpayers funded nearly $332 million in prescriptions for the 200,000 participants in the state health benefits program during the 12 months that ended June 30 — up about $53 million, or 18.8 percent, from the previous year's $279 million.
Moreover, the cost per participant jumped by an even higher percentage — 24.7 percent — because there were fewer state employees, retirees and family members participating in the program during the more recent year.
Comptroller Kevin Lembo, the elected official in charge of running the state employees' health plan, has been using the Whac-A-Mole analogy for the past year in conversations about the problems with prescription drug costs. He did it again in a phone interview Friday.
"Something else always pops up. You always feel like you're chasing the next problem, and you're battling people sitting in rooms thinking of how to take advantage of programs designed to support the health and life of others," he said.
Tyrone's comment: This phenomenon, "Something else always pops up..." is referred to as ballooning. In other words, when one loophole is closed the traditional PBM will look for another loophole to account for the lost revenue. Traditional PBMs have internal staff whose sole purpose is to drive incremental revenue from client contracts. To make matters worse, this process of hiding cash flows doesn't begin until the ink is dry on the contract! The only sure fire way to avoid this pitfall [overpayments] is to enter into a fiduciary agreement.
He attributed the latest $53 million escalation to a general skyrocketing of costs in the national pharmaceutical market, something that he said the state government has little influence over and that Congress needs to fix.
"The factors behind rising pharmacy costs include market consolidation, new pricing models and outright profiteering. Projections indicate no future relief as pharmacy costs are expected to continue to rise at an exorbitant rate in the coming years. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies are recording historic profits," Lembo said in written testimony he submitted this past week to the U.S. House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. It's an all-Democrat panel co-chaired by U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who represents Connecticut's 3rd Congressional District.
Based on Congress' record of dealing with major health care issues, any quick solution is doubtful. But it appears that a Connecticut problem that reared its head in the past few years has been pretty much whacked.
That $24 million problem was compounded drugs — mixtures of medicines, typically produced by big, out-of-state compounding pharmacies, often in the form of topical creams for pain. Costs to Connecticut taxpayers for those medicines had exploded from $800,000 in 2012 to an estimated $24 million this year, with charges as much as $18,000 per patient for a 30-day supply.
Those medicines, not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, also were straining the prescription drug budgets of many states as well as the U.S. military and Department of Veterans Affairs as the compounding pharmacies exploited the lack of regulation.
In mid-May, Lembo imposed a "prior authorization" requirement for compounded medicines under which a prescribing doctor must demonstrate "medical necessity" before payment is approved by CVS/Caremark, the state's health benefits manager. A patient may appeal a denial.
Costs dropped from a peak of $3.1 million in April to $36,229 in July — and the average monthly savings on compounded drugs has been $2.2 million, according to a report to the comptroller by CVS/Caremark for the period from May 15 to Oct. 31.
The State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition notified the state months ago that it was challenging the new policy on the grounds that it creates "too much interference in medical choices between a doctor and patient." But a Sept. 23 binding arbitration hearing has been postponed indefinitely while union representatives watch how the new procedure is working.
There have been only a handful of patient appeals so far, and the high-cost, out-of-state compounding pharmacies have been pretty much supplanted by local, low-cost pharmacies, which have been mixing most of the compounded drugs still being used, Lembo said.
An investigation by the office of state Attorney General George Jepsen is "active and ongoing" into the recent spike in costs for compounded medicines, an office spokeswoman said Friday.
It's hard to trumpet the cost-savings for those compounded medicines — not in the context of a $53 million increase in the prescription costs for which state employees, retirees and their dependents are responsible for only minimal co-payments.
Prescription co-payments for a 30-day supply of medicine range from $5 to a maximum of $35. That top co-payment of $35 is for a "non-preferred brand-name drug" that hasn't been certified as medically necessary by a doctor; it drops to $20 with a physician's certification.
Lembo said in his congressional testimony that prices for name-brand medications, as well as for long-established generic drugs, are rising at an alarming rate.
He gave as an example a recent huge increase in the price of Daraprim, a medicine that has been used for 62 years to treat a potentially fatal parasitic infection. Turing Pharmaceuticals, a startup company headed by the former manager of a hedge fund, acquired the drug recently and raised the price from $13.50 per tablet to $750.
"We applaud the profit motive in our free market society as a mechanism to efficiently distribute resources and drive innovation, but excessive profits can cause significant harm when applied unbridled to essential and lifesaving medicines in an uncompetitive marketplace," Lembo said in his testimony. "High costs are pushing certain treatments out of reach for some."
He asked that Congress strengthen anti-trust laws "to limit consolidation in the pharmaceutical industry and ensure that adequate competition remains to drive competitive pricing," and to reduce a backlog in FDA approvals of generic drugs. He said the state employees' health plan spent $8 million in the past year for the name-brand drug Nexium "as a result of a significant delay in the release of a generic version of the drug."
by Jon Lender
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Drug costs accounted for 30.1 percent of what BCBS Tennessee paid out on behalf of members in their insured group plans last year. Just fiv...
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“We’re looking at PBM contracting differently than we have in the past because I don’t want to control just what we spend on drugs. I’m try...
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OptumRx caused millions of dollars worth of excessive costs for prescription drugs used through the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, c...
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TRUTHS IN HEALTHCARE
Drug Channels
U.S. Prescription Trends: 2020 Review and 2021 Outlook (video) - Below is a brief excerpt from my recent *Drug Channels Outlook 2021* video webinar. I discuss: - How COVID-19 affected the retail and mail prescription...
An Extra Dollop of Ketchup is Not a Crime! Or is it? Confusion Over Calories on Menus Continues - By Wes Siegner – Small business owners and managers of chain restaurants subject to FDA’s menu labeling rule remain confused as to the criminality of addin...
FiercePharma News
JPM: Established relationships were key to pandemic drug launches, Incyte CEO says - JPM: Established relationships were key to pandemic drug launches, Incyte CEO says esagonowsky Fri, 01/15/2021 - 09:48
Health Affairs Web First: Choosing Wisely Campaign - In 2012, the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Foundation, in partnership with *Consumer Reports,* founded the Choosing Wisely® campaign, to rai...
Links - Pharmacy desserts. Why Israel leads in COVID vaccinations (speculative). Does temperature screening really work? A mRNA vaccine for multiple sclerosis? Ma...
Johnson and Johnson, SinoVac and More - We have some more data on the vaccine front that’s worth looking at. J&J has published a bit more on their trials of their adenovirus-vector candidate, wit...
Managing Healthcare Costs
Haven Health closes its doors - Today’s Managing Health Care Costs Number is 3 We got the news this week that Haven Health, the joint venture of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Mor...
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Buckland Development
Welborne
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Imagine for a moment that you wish to create a token smart contract that charges everyone 2% any time they transfer the token. This is a practically unenforceable restriction. Anyone can create a new contract that accepts deposits of your token (paying a 2% fee) and then reissuing a new transferable token that charges a lower fee or no fee at all. Others can then withdraw tokens from this new contract after performing an unlimited number of transfers and paying a final 2% fee. Most people will accept and trade the feeless token because the contract can be made immutable and there is no trust involved. This is one example of how smart contracts make markets more efficient and bypass artificial restrictions like high fees.
Now suppose you wanted to create a new token that attempts to lock value in a long-term contract, where your tokens are now staked at different locked-in time periods. It is simple enough to implement the timelock just like it is simple enough to charge a 2% fee on transfers; however, it can be just as simple to bypass by use of other smart contracts.
In the time-lock case a new account can be created which locks tokens into the staking contract and then distributes a new tradable token. The tradable token would be valued like a zero risk bond payable at a future date. Assuming the underlying asset was valuable and there was a demand to trade zero risk bonds, there would be no way to prevent the underlying value of the bond from being sold and/or placed into another smart contract.
The EOS RAM market is another example of an asset with an artificial restriction, allowing users to only buy and sell RAM with a fee. RAM can be effectively transferred by simultaneously buying or selling in a single transaction, incurring an effective 1% transfer fee. If someone simply wanted to trade in the economic value of RAM rather than the utility of RAM, then a trivial contract could be constructed which would issue RAM-backed tokens that can be transferred without fees. This even creates the potential for a secondary RAM market without trading fees.
The one thing that is not easily bypassed is the utility of the underlying asset. Token-RAM is not the same thing as actual RAM because you cannot actually use Token-RAM to store anything without first convert it to actual RAM and paying the 1% transfer fee (via simultaneous buy/sell). A similar thing could be said for staked tokens, you might be able to trade the economic value of the staked tokens but you would not be able to easily mirror any extra utility, such as voting rights or CPU time, of the staked token (depending upon the design of such utility).
For example, assume staked tokens provide the utility of voting. A contract that stakes on behalf of a group, and then reissued tokens, would have to “vote as a group”. Assuming each staked balance could only vote for one person, then the entire group would need to organize a meta-vote to determine which way the group would vote. This would provide less utility to minority members of the group because they would be forced to have their stake vote with the majority.
If the stake token system allowed each staked position to divide its vote among many options, then a liquid-stake token could mirror the meta-vote trivially, and the vast majority of the utility from the underlying staked tokens would be passed on to the liquid-stake tokens.
Even limiting voting to one vote per staked position isn’t a true limit. It is trivial for the liquid stake token contract to manage any number of staked positions and cast different votes for each staked position based upon the meta-vote of the liquid token holders.
It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. These types of solutions should also be carefully considered from legal, regulatory and tax perspectives before being implemented.
Preventing Management by Smart Contract
One way to frustrate attempts to bypass intended restrictions is to prevent an account from being managed by a smart contract. This can be achieved by requiring all interactions with the restricted contract to be signed by an actual private key and requiring only one action per transaction. What this does is reintroduce an element of “trust” by requiring someone to hold and use a private key.
Assume for a moment that our token with a 2% transfer fee blocked all actions originating from other smart contracts. The trust model changes to one of a centralized exchange that reissues a tether-like instrument. This has the potential to fundamentally change the legal nature of the arrangement and discourage work-arounds.
While this approach would likely discourage attempts to work around the limits, the use of secure multi-party computation, hardware security devices, or the utilization of a minimal level of trust is sufficient to achieve the goal of bypassing artificial restrictions. This would also reduce the security and overall flexibility of your contract within the broader smart contract platform.
Embracing Freedom to Contract
An alternative to fighting market demand for financial freedom is to embrace it in the first place. Instead of attempting to charge a 2% fee, cut the competition off by using a 0% fee. Rather than trying to prevent RAM transfers, make it transferable. Instead of trying to force one person to hold their stake, make staked positions fungible and tradable. Fees are only viable to the extent that the friction from workarounds is greater than the cost of the fee or there is some utility (such as market liquidity) which is not easy or possible to reproduce.
On many public blockchains based on EOSIO, the system token is designed to provide the utility representing a pro-rata share of the available CPU time. This underlying utility cannot be provided by a CPU-backed token any more than RAM can be utilized by the holder of a RAM-backed token without first redeeming the token for the underlying CPU or RAM resource.
Imagine there was a market that wanted to lock people into a long-term interest in the value of CPU. It would allow people to stake their CPU today in exchange for more CPU time in the future. In effect, you lend your CPU for a long-term contract and receive interest in the form of CPU time.
Now let’s assume someone had a large sum of money locked in a one year CPU staking contract and they had a liquidity crunch and needed cash today. In theory they should be able to sell their CPU staking position to others. The value they would receive on the sale would be the net present value of CPU delivered in one years time given the projected interest rates. Changes in the long-term value and/or interest rate paid on one year CPU staking would move the value of long-term CPU to a much greater extent than present CPU.
Making staked positions liquid doesn’t undermine the value of aligning voting incentives. If voters holding long-term staking positions act in ways today that impact the expected value of future CPU negatively then everyone holding one year stake will realize an immediate and painful loss of capital due to market reaction. On the other hand if their voting decisions today raise future expectations of CPU demand (aka adoption) then they might be able to realize an immediate profit.
Instead of having to wait a year to realize the profit or loss, holders in staked positions realize the predicted long-term consequences of their present actions immediately. The liquidity of the staked positions in turn makes more people willing to stake by reducing the average yield paid on staking and, at the same time, increasing the cost of attacking a voting system based on long-term staking.
A voting system that requires tokens to be staked for 10 years, with no trustless liquidity options, would have low participation rates, making it cheaper for someone to buy a small amount of sacrificial tokens, stake them for 10 years, and then attack the network. The same attack on a liquid staking solution would be much more expensive. Once again, the legal, regulatory and tax issues may affect how such a solution can be implemented in practice.
Smart contracts should embrace freedom and avoid adding artificial limits, which can be trivially bypassed. It is possible to charge some fees, but only to the extent that the fee is more convenient than the workaround. Making staked positions liquid retains the incentive for long-term thinking of voters while increasing voter participation. Real-time market feedback on the long-term consequences of present day governance decisions is likely more powerful than making voters wait until the future arrives to realize their gains or losses. This leverages the wisdom of the crowds in punishing voters who mistakenly believe their actions will improve long term value by causing losses today rather than in the future after it is too late to correct.
Disclaimer: Everything in this post is my opinion and not that of my employer or anyone affiliated with it. Do not assume anything in this post will be implemented or adopted by any blockchain. Anyone considering implementing the proposed solutions should consult relevant advisors to address any legal, regulatory or tax consequences.
Eosio
Why Should you Invest in Security Tokens?
john kenny in Data Driven Investor
6 Ways to Avoid Capital Gains Tax on Your Bitcoin Transactions
Richard Knight in The Capital
Video Games and Cryptocurrencies: A Perfect Marriage
Howard Marks in HackerNoon.com
Blockchain and Foreign Aid Governance
Wing Lee in Hashcademy
Custody Services for Digital Assets is Becoming a Reality!
Jonny Fry in The Capital
How to build your own cryptocurrency in 30 minutes
GarryPas
Against Szabo’s Law, For A New Crypto Legal System
Vlad Zamfir in Crypto Law Review
Blockchain Communities and Their Emergent Governance
Steven McKie in Amentum
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These are the celebrities joining Duchess Kate and Prince William at the 2020 BAFTAs
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Marvel studios president Kevin Feige talks ‘Black Panther 2,’ legacy of Chadwick Boseman
Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, recently spoke with Yahoo Entertainment about how they are moving forwards on the sequel to ‘Black Panther’ given the death of its star, Chadwick Boseman.
“It’s extremely, extremely challenging,” he said.
“And it's what Ryan is thinking about,” he added, referring to ‘Black Panther’ writer/director Ryan Coogler.
He also suggested that audio Boseman had recorded for the animated DIsney+ series ‘What If…?’ Could possibly be repurposed for ‘Black Panther 2’
“[Boseman] came in and recorded three episodes of the ‘What If…?” animated series for us … it was just a fun thing and now will be his final appearance.”
PARIS — Florian Thauvin fluffed a penalty and Marseille paid the price as it was stunned at home by struggling Nimes 2-1 in the French league on Saturday. Thauvin sent goalkeeper Baptiste Reynet the wrong way from the spot but his shot went over the crossbar in the 35th minute. Moments later, Reynet saved striker Dario Benedetto’s tame shot from close range with his foot. Marseille was punished for those misses when Swedish midfielder Niclas Eliasson struck twice in quick succession early in the second half for Nimes to move off the bottom and into 18th place. Benedetto pulled a goal back with five minutes left. Right back Pol Lirola started his first game for Marseille since joining on loan from Italian side Fiorentina but the home side's defence looked shaky without injured goalie Steve Mandanda. Later Saturday, PSG was without coach Mauricio Pochettino for the trip to Angers after he tested positive for the coronavirus. A win would move PSG into first place ahead of Lyon, which hosts midtable Metz on Sunday. ___ More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/Soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports The Associated Press
3 Cheap REITs to Buy Right Now
Real estate investment trusts (REITs) slumped last year, weighed down by the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. While the pandemic did affect rental collection rates, some REITs sold off more than what seems necessary. Three that stand out are EPR Properties (NYSE: EPR), STAG Industrial (NYSE: STAG), and W.P. Carey (NYSE: WPC).
ACT NOW: The Best Dividend Stock for 2021
First National Financial Corporation (TSX:FN) has a strong balance sheet, trades at 15 times earnings, and services prime single-family residential mortgages. Is there a generational buying opportunity here? The post ACT NOW: The Best Dividend Stock for 2021 appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.
3 Top Canadian Stocks to Buy Now Before it’s Too Late!
2021 is setting up to be a great year for Canadian stocks. You don't want to miss it. Here are three top TSX stocks that are set for incredible returns! The post 3 Top Canadian Stocks to Buy Now Before it’s Too Late! appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.
47 Australian Open Players in Quarantine After Positive COVID-19 Tests on Two Charter Flights
All 47 players will be required to stay in their hotel rooms for 14 days and will not be eligible to practice
Investors found some new reasons to like Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) stock in 2020. The consumer staples giant has been dominating its industry and boosting its dividend for decades. Intense consumer demand disruptions added noise to the revenue figures reported by P&G and its peers like Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB) in recent quarters.
Andreescu's coach tests positive for COVID-19 upon arrival in Melbourne
Sylvain Bruneau, the coach of Canadian tennis star Bianca Andreescu, said Saturday that he tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving in Melbourne ahead of the Australian Open. In a four-paragraph statement, Bruneau said he followed all safety protocols and procedures, tested negative within 72 hours of departure, and felt "perfectly fine" when boarding the plane in Abu Dhabi. "I am extremely saddened and sorry for the consequences now on everyone’s shoulders sharing my flight," he said. "The rest of my team is negative and I sincerely hope that any further disruption is kept to a minimum." Andreescu will now begin a 14-day hard quarantine at her hotel, her agent, Jonathan Dasnieres de Veigy, told The Canadian Press in a text message. Australian health authorities said two positive COVID-19 cases emerged from another charter flight to Melbourne from Los Angeles earlier Saturday. Those cases involved an aircrew member and a passenger who was not a player. A total of 47 players from the two affected flights will not be allowed to practise until they're medically cleared after the two-week period, Tennis Australia said. Original plans allowed for on-court training sessions in a bubble setting during the quarantine period. Andreescu was planning to return at the Jan. 31-Feb. 6 Melbourne Summer Series, a warmup event ahead of the Australian Open. It will be her first competitive tournament in about 15 months. In his statement, Bruneau said he respected and followed all COVID protocols and guidelines while in the Middle East. "I have no idea how I might have contracted this virus," he said. Bruneau, a longtime national coach with Tennis Canada's women's program, helped guide Andreescu during her breakout 2019 season. Just 18 at the time, she won the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells in March of that year for her first career WTA Tour title. Andreescu won the Rogers Cup and US Open titles later that season, topping American legend Serena Williams in both finals. Injuries, however, were a problem throughout the campaign and hampered her return plans in 2020. She eventually decided to take last season off and focus on coming back for the 2021 Australian swing. A pair of WTA Tour 500 events — the Gippsland Trophy and Yarra Valley Classic — will run as part of the Melbourne Summer Series, with players being divided into the two events. Given the short turnaround from the end of quarantine, it wasn't immediately clear if Andreescu would still play that event or instead return at the Feb. 8-21 Australian Open at Melbourne Park. Andreescu, from Mississauga, Ont., hasn't played a competitive match since a left knee injury forced her to retire from a match at the WTA Finals in October 2019. She started the 2019 season ranked No. 152 in the world and closed the year at No. 5. The 20-year-old now holds the No. 7 position. "The positive thing is that she is obviously extremely motivated,'' Bruneau told The Canadian Press in a recent interview. "She's always motivated, so it's not a change. But when you're forced (off the court) and that's your life, you want that back badly." Andreescu has shown in the past that she can quickly get back to a high level of play after a break. She played just one match in a four-month span leading up to the Rogers Cup in 2019. Andreescu was pushed from the start that year in Toronto, needing three sets in each of her first four victories en route to the title. Bruneau, who served as Canada's Fed Cup team captain from 2010-19, received the Jack Donohue coach of the year award from the Coaching Association of Canada in 2019. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 16, 2021. With files from The Associated Press. Follow @GregoryStrongCP on Twitter. Gregory Strong, The Canadian Press
Prof John Edmunds also cautioned against removing coronavirus restrictions next month, saying to do so would be a ‘disaster’.
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by buriedtreasure November 4, 2020 November 4, 2020
PC, Mac, Android, iOS
I feel such a muddle of contradictions when it comes to games based on Lovecraft mythology. On the one hand, he was a deeply and sinisterly racist man whose writings were infected with his bubonic hate. On the other, I strain to be an ardent follower of Barthes’ Death Of The Author, and where it’s possible strive to divorce the creator from their creation. Clearly most of what Lovecraft wrote was about unracist spooky octopuses, and spooky octopuses seem like a good subject for exploration to me. But also, he really was a horrible person.
Then again, I’ve never read a word he’s written, and as such have no investment whatsoever in Innsmouth and its various betentacled antics. Which always puts me in the position of wondering: why not just think up your own seaside monsters? What is it about Lovecraft’s work that people feel so beholden to it, so determined to directly reference his universe? Or why not pick Poe? Or Irving? Or Loudon, Le Fanu, or James? Heck, rip off someone who’s not out of copyright, but change all the names.
Of course, we’ve just had the completely splendid/silly Lovecraft Country, that simultaneously provided a crushing portrayal of American 20th century racism alongside a lot of very daft ghost/monster stories. It, as all Lovecraft-based fiction now must, began with a disclaimer of sorts. In Lovecraft Country it was a conversation between two characters to acknowledge that one can try to enjoy the creations of a bigot, but never ultimately escape them. In mostly-text adventure The Innsmouth Case, it’s a rather woolly statement that appears when you begin playing.
To which I, once again, just think: so write about something a bit like it then? But they didn’t, and none of them is Lovecraft, so let’s carry on by just seeing what the game itself is like.
Well, it’s rather silly. Very pleasingly so. Working like an extremely pretty Twine game (I suspect it’s running Ink), you choose from two or three different responses to any given situation, as the text vividly and amusingly describes the tale. You are a private investigator, in the modern day, asked to visit Innsmouth to help a rather suspicious vampish lady find her supposedly missing 8-year-old daughter. She seems oddly unaware of the specific details, like what her daughter might look like, but is also very impassioned about her safe return.
So off to the seaside town you head, on a bus filled with deeply peculiar people, and start choosing your own adventure from the off. Do you immediately investigate? Do you head to the harbour? Or check into the hotel? These aren’t fake decisions – they lead to long chains of events of their own. I chose the latter, because who doesn’t want to get settled on arrival, and ended up on a very unsettling coach journey to a so-called “wellness” event.
That’s the joy here: modern-day notions in a town otherwise trapped in early 20th century America. It’s played for laughs rather than scares, and that’s very welcome. The writing is absolutely splendid, excellently lyrical as it delivers its silly situations in a serious tone.
There’s a vast amount of writing here, and it’s consistently well written, albeit with a scattering of grammatical mistakes. It’s enormously impressive how extensive and meticulously detailed is each tangent. There are diverging threads with multiple routes to death or back to the main path, that can be entirely ignored.
The only thing that rather sticks out about the writing is the frequent descriptions of Innsmouthians as being “deformed”, which seems like a term to describe a person that we could likely do without. It’s mostly being arch, because their “deformities” are that they’re a fish-person or whathaveyou, but, well, you know, regular people have deformities, and constantly using it as a sign of these people’s creepiness feels way off mark.
Just as much as anyone can appreciate a Godfather reference without ever having watched the Godfather, I’m able to understand very many of the Lovecraftian themes just from having played so many video games. And while this is so jam packed with them that I imagine a good few are going over my head, it’s not alienating in its approach. Because, heck, Lovecraft might have been a pivotal writer in gothic horror fiction, but his influence was so widespread in the genre that everyone’s picked up some of it somewhere.
Just over £10 is a very fair price for this, but because everything is awful, a difficult sell for a text adventure. Fortunately there’s a demo if you want convincing, which will show just how much extra work has gone into this to elevate it from just text on a screen. (Although this is made awkward by the mobile version being only £3/$5.) The art work is sparing, but effective, and the characters are completely bonkers and wonderfully animated. Plus, and this is a real stand-out feature here, the sound plays an enormous role. It’s enormously evocative, and helps make the text more alive.
Death is always a few clicks away, but the game lets you restart from the beginning of any of the previous chapters you’ve played through – in that sense it’s very much in the spirit of a choose-your-own-adventure book with your fingers and thumbs in multiple pages. And true to form, a lot of those deaths feel “unfair”, but in the good way. As in, you can’t game this, making obviously sensible decisions in an effort to survive – sensible is rarely an option, and survival is often madcap, and that works very well.
So yes, clearly this is a hefty tribute to Lovecraft’s world, and in that sense it’s why this game needed to be set in his creations. Although their writing chops are strong enough that they could have developed something creepy and funny from their own imaginations. Whether you care about this or not is up to you. I find that I can think Lovecraft a ghastly and pathetic man, and still enjoy a very well made game set in his stories. This is such a game, and I’m glad I played it. And replayed it. If anything, it’s the restrictions the setting applies that I think lets Lovecraftian games down for me, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what RobotPumpkin Games might make next, given the vast amount of talent on show here.
RobotPumpkin Games / Assemble Entertainment
£10.50, €12.50, $12.50 (PC), $5 (iOS/Android)
Steam, iOS, Android
All Buried Treasure articles are funded by Patreon backers. If you want to see more reviews of great indie games, please consider backing this project.
Categories: Adventure, Story Driven, Visual NovelTags: Android, iOS, Mac, PC, review, RobotPumpkin Games, The Innsmouth Case
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morg says:
“Death of the author” doesn’t mean one should simply “divorce the creator from their creation” and carry on! It means the creator’s is only one perspective, and not a privileged one, on the meaning and interpretation of the work!
I enjoy Lovecraft and many other such “problematic” authors but there is no creator/created dichotomy here. HP’s racism is readily obvious at the surface level of his popular works, not merely his letters and ephemera or his or pet nomenclature, and in creating Lovecraftiana one either grapples with it, delicately or clumsily as the case may be, or tacitly accepts it.
solamon77 says:
With all due respect, you bang on Lovecraft quite a bit before admitting that you’ve never read a word he’s written. I have and while it is true that his personal racism can be found in his works, I wouldn’t say his work is any worse than a lot of stuff from that era. This is the era that gave us stuff like “The Birth of a Nation” and Spiritualism. It’s just the way it was back then. Thank god we’ve made great strides since then even though we have much more to go.
I wonder if we’ll get into an era where people can make video games based on Lovecraft’s stories and mythos and have the games reviewed on their content without fakey, “woke” protestations about what a “horrible person” Lovecraft was. Lovecraft lived in poverty most of his life, was virtually unknown as an author, never ran for public office, didn’t have the power of social media, and was never a member of any major political organizations. Yeah, he was racist and a bit misanthropic, but he kept to himself and died young in great suffering in his early 40s thus depriving us of ever knowing what kind of man he could have potentially become; maybe he would have grown to abandon his prejudices. Who knows? He was also responsible for aiding budding authors who would go on to become massive figures in horror/sci-fi literature. “Horrible person?” Like…what do you actually know about him? We have authors who are alive right now, rich, and using modern technology to spread insanely hateful ideologies and I feel like they get more of a pass sometimes than a dude who has been dead for like 80+ years and makes a way easier target.
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Wall Street Stock Exchange: Values to Follow on Wall Street
on Monday, April 20, 2020
Main stocks to follow on Monday on Wall Street, where futures on the main indices suggest a 1.2% opening down for the Nasdaq and around 2% for the Dow Jones and the S & P-500:
* EXXON MOBIL and CHEVRON drop 3.6% and 4.3% respectively in pre-market exchanges due to the sharp drop in crude prices. The May crude oil contract tumbled 38% to $ 11.35 a barrel, the lowest in more than 20 years.
* HALLIBURTON reported a $ 1.1 billion impairment charge in the first quarter on Monday and said it expects North American business to drop significantly as oil prices fall. The action lost 6.5% in avant-Bourse.
BOEING - China Development Bank (CDB) Financial Leasing announced Monday that it has signed an agreement with the aeronautics and defense group to cancel the purchase of 29 copies of the 737 MAX ordered but not yet delivered.
* IBM must publish its quarterly results after the close of the American markets.
* DUPONT said on Monday it expected quarterly profit to exceed expectations, as the coronavirus epidemic has increased demand for its products used for example in the production of protective clothing. The chemistry group gained 4.3% in avant-Bourse.
* ALIBABA announced Monday that it will invest 200 billion yuan (26 billion euros) in its cloud computing infrastructure over the next three years, as demand has increased with the use of teleworking due to the coronavirus epidemic.
* ALPHABET, FACEBOOK - Australia will adopt in the coming months a law obliging Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, and Facebook to share their advertising revenues with press groups whose digital giants use the content, which would make it one of the first countries to take such action.
* AMAZON has started using thermal imaging cameras in its warehouses to speed up the detection of workers with fever who may be infected with the new coronavirus, employees of the US e-commerce giant told Reuters.
* ABBVIE - RBC raised its recommendation to “outperformance” against “sector performance” and raised its price target to $ 93 against $ 79.
* WALT DISNEY fell 3% in trading on the avant-Bourse after the downgrading of recommendations from UBS and Credit Suisse to "neutral".
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Shame of the Cities: Why Marijuana Legalization Isn’t Buying CA Nice Things
Strain Review: Gorilla Glue #5
Photo by Gracie Malley for Cannabis Now
High taxes and hundreds of cities and counties refusing to legalize commercial cannabis sales means California isn’t sitting on a pile of marijuana money.
Justine Wiley is a registered nurse in Santa Cruz County, California, a stretch of beaches and redwood-dotted mountains about two hours south of San Francisco. For the past year or so, Wiley has been traveling throughout the county working with low-income first-time mothers, troubleshooting all the various issues raising a child creates.
Visits from a do-it-all nurse-slash-social worker are the kind of services mothers take for granted in social democracies in Europe. This is simply what the state does. In California’s case, Wiley’s house visits started after state voters legalized marijuana in Nov. 2016. Taxed sales of recreational cannabis netted Santa Cruz County the $350,000 that’s funding Wiley’s road trips.
And yet what Santa Cruz is doing is unique. Using cannabis tax money to fund social services was one of the promises made by the backers of Prop. 64. Yet two and a half years after the vote, and almost 18 months into the era of licensed commercial sales, a relatively well-off county having extra money to provide its citizens nice things is a notable-enough development to warrant mention in a recent article in the San Jose Mercury News.
Other cities and towns in California just don’t have it — because nobody has it.
Prop. 64 promised $1 billion in new state revenue. In order to reap such bounty, $7 billion in annual sales would be required. That’s a lot of weed, but it seems feasible — at least in an uncomplicated world. Colorado, with 5.6 million residents, sells more than $1 billion worth of cannabis a year; California, with nearly 40 million people, could probably outdo Colorado by seven times.
The complication is California’s, and the many cities and counties that decided commercial cannabis was some kind of menace. Prop. 64 allowed local governments final say over whether legalized cannabis would be allowed within their jurisdictions. And nearly two-thirds of local governments do not allow commercial sales or licensed cultivation. Thus they get no money — but they are also starving the state, as the Mercury News observed.
Former Gov. Jerry Brown, under whose cantankerous eye California finally regulated cannabis on a state level, projected state sales tax revenue at $630 million for the first year. The state recorded only $345 million in 2018, the Mercury News reported.
Current Gov. Gavin Newsom, Prop. 64’s most prominent advocate, initially guessed that California would rake in $355 million in the current fiscal year, with $515 million the year after. Getting better, but still half of what was promised. But on second thought, even that was too rosy — on May 1, in revised budget figures, the state scaled back its projections to $288 million for the current year and $359 million for the next. Even less than what the first year brought in, with temporary licensing and with many cities and counties who do allow sales not yet passing the necessary laws to allow it.
What’s wrong, who is to blame — and how can this be fixed? The prohibition mindset, partially, but Prop. 64 probably also promised too much — and state lawmakers allowed themselves to get too greedy too quickly.
As many as 6,000 legal and licensed commercial retail outlets were supposed to open, as the San Jose Mercury News recently observed. As of the end of May, just shy of 1,000 dispensary licenses have been issued by the state, the newspaper reported. Local bans play a role here. Even where licensed dispensaries are banned, there remains demand for cannabis, the world’s favorite illicit drug. Therefore, there is incentive for numerous unlicensed dispensaries, including both storefronts and delivery services, to run risks and sell weed like they always did.
And there’s really not much that risk. Off-book delivery services may always be a thing — how do you prevent anyone with internet, a phone, and some weed from advertising the service — but the resilience of unlicensed storefronts, and the inability of the authorities to protect the taxpaying market from such unfair competition, is a very legitimate concern.
California also taxes cannabis sales heavily. The tax burden is 40 percent or higher in some jurisdictions, depending on how crazy the local taxes are. As authorities in Colorado figured out early, if taxes are too damn high nobody will buy legal weed and one of the purposes of legalization is defeated. Remember that Prop. 64 wasn’t sold to voters on a social-justice or “do the right thing” argument: It was a cynical-hysterical “this will bring us money while keeping the kids safe” justification.
Compare this again to experiences in Colorado. Perhaps most famously, the town of Edgewater, on Denver’s western border, was able to repave streets and fund a new civic center with a library, gym, and City Hall with cannabis tax revenue — because it allowed dispensaries to operate past 7 p.m., the hour when sales in Denver were required to end.
The solution seems simple and obvious to libertarians and statists alike: Allow sales at a reasonable rate and you will earn money. Why this lesson is lost on California communities is a complicated question, but the ramifications are obvious. They’re right there in the dwindling figures in the ledger.
TELL US, do you pay tax on your cannabis?
Related Topics:California, California cannabis, Cannabis, Gov. Gavin Newsom, legal cannabis, Proposition 64
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Teacher numbers decline despite pay raises
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Ray Carter, OCPAThink.org
Published: 27-Aug-2020
In 2018, lawmakers voted to raise taxes by roughly $600 million with a significant share of that money going to teacher pay raises, and then voted to raise teacher pay again in 2019. Over those two years, teacher salaries increased by an average $7,400 apiece. Lawmakers argued the pay raises would eliminate the state’s teacher shortage and draw more educators to Oklahoma’s classrooms.
It has not worked out as predicted, and lawmakers were told Wednesday to expect an outright decline in the number of teachers in state schools this year.
“We just surveyed all the schools in the state, as we do every year for teacher-shortage survey, and you can probably guess in this year with everything going on it’s a little worse,” said Shawn Hime, executive director of the Oklahoma State School Boards Association. “We expect 300 to 500 fewer teachers this year, based on that survey, statewide.”
Hime made those comments during a study conducted by the House Appropriations and Budget
Subcommittee on Education. He said the shortage is the result of teachers choosing to leave the profession and school officials choosing not to fill vacant positions due to anticipated state budget shortfalls in the coming year. A shortfall of up to $1 billion has been predicted for next year’s state budget due to low oil prices and the impact of the COVID-19 recession.
While COVID-19 may play some role in the predicted decline, many challenges in attracting teachers preceded the pandemic, despite the massive increase in average pay.
While the number of teachers in Oklahoma schools initially increased after the pay raise, state records showed there would have been a net decline (https://www.ocpathink.org/post/teacher-numbers-climb-but-trend-may-not-last) had it not been for growth in emergency-certified teachers.
Overall, from passage of tax increases in 2018 to December 2019, the state netted one additional teacher for every $364,000 in increased school spending.
And a top official at the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) indicated those numbers may effectively be inflated as the result of teachers who chose to defer retirement. State retirement benefits are tied to the top three to five highest years of pay, depending on when a teacher entered the system. As a result, some teachers chose to teach a few more years because they would receive larger retirement benefits if their final years of salary included the $7,400 increase.
Noting those factors, the chief of government affairs at the OSDE warned in October 2019 of a pending exodus from the teaching profession, saying, “We have a cliff coming, kind of, in three years down the road from the teacher pay raise.”
Officials have also said any shortage of teachers is not the result of limited supply. In December 2019, education officials said (https://www.ocpathink.org/post/shortage-of-applicants-not-teachers-plagues-oklahoma-schools) there remain about 32,000 people in Oklahoma who are certified but not teaching.
Recognizing that pay raises have not generated the necessary increase in traditionally certified teachers in Oklahoma schools, lawmakers voted (https://www.ocpathink.org/post/shortage-of-applicants-not-teachers-plagues-oklahoma-schools) this year to extend the number of years an individual may teach with an emergency certificate from two years to four.
NOTE: This news story first appeared at the website of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA – https://www.ocpathink.org/post/teacher-numbers-decline-despite-pay-raises). The story is reposted with permission. Ray Carter’s reports often appear in The City Sentinel newspaper, and on CapitolBeatOK.com, an independent online news service).
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Christmas in Absaroka County »
Christmas in Absaroka County
Craig Johnson
Walt Longmire Mystery
It’s holiday season in Absaroka County and Sheriff Walt Longmire gets personal in this delightful collection of four short stories from New York Times–bestselling author Craig Johnson.Full of Longmire’s dry wit and good heart, Christmas in Absaroka County is a holiday must-have for every Longmire and Craig Johnson fan, and it also includes the first chapter of The Cold Dish, the first novel in the Longmire Mystery Series.Readers glimpse a softer side of Sheriff Walt Longmire as he grapples with the death of his wife, Martha, and his sometimes turbulent but ever-loving relationship with his daughter, Cady. In these four stories—“Ministerial Aid,” “Slick-Tongued Devil,” “Toys for Tots,” and “Unbalanced” (three of which have been sent to Johnson’s fans over the years in the author’s “Post-it” e-mails)—Walt is alternately at his best and his worst. He helps a somewhat delusional elderly victim of domestic abuse while sporting a bathrobe and a mean hangover on New Year’s Day. He’s sidelined by grief when his wife’s obituary reappears in the paper and there’s an unexpected knock on his door two days before Christmas. He strives to help even those who don’t want it when he picks up a young female hitchhiker, and he’s forced into some last-minute Christmas shopping by the Greatest Legal Mind of Our Time, during which he might just end up saving a young Navy chaplain’s Christmas.
3c56ac31-3116-1ab1-e518-964461dc1c9a
christmas in absaroka county walt longmire mystery series book 8 5
It’s holiday season in Absaroka County and Sheriff Walt Longmire gets personal in this delightful collection of four short stories from New York Times–bestselling author Craig Johnson.
Full of Longmire’s dry wit and good heart, Christmas in Absaroka County is a holiday must-have for every Longmire and Craig Johnson fan, and it also includes the first chapter of The Cold Dish, the first novel in the Longmire Mystery Series.
Readers glimpse a softer side of Sheriff Walt Longmire as he grapples with the death of his wife, Martha, and his sometimes turbulent but ever-loving relationship with his daughter, Cady. In these four stories—“Ministerial Aid,” “Slick-Tongued Devil,” “Toys for Tots,” and “Unbalanced” (three of which have been sent to Johnson’s fans over the years in the author’s “Post-it” e-mails)—Walt is alternately at his best and his worst. He helps a somewhat delusional elderly victim of domestic abuse while sporting a bathrobe and a mean hangover on New Year’s Day. He’s sidelined by grief when his wife’s obituary reappears in the paper and there’s an unexpected knock on his door two days before Christmas. He strives to help even those who don’t want it when he picks up a young female hitchhiker, and he’s forced into some last-minute Christmas shopping by the Greatest Legal Mind of Our Time, during which he might just end up saving a young Navy chaplain’s Christmas.
overdrive:68c84223-b791-41a7-a789-1bb019ee615d 1 Online OverDrive Collection Online OverDrive eBook eBook 1 false true OverDrive Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read Available Online
overdrive:68c84223-b791-41a7-a789-1bb019ee615d eBook eBook English Penguin Publishing Group 2012
overdrive:68c84223-b791-41a7-a789-1bb019ee615d 1 Available Online Available Online false true true false false true
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HomeNewsBus NewsXelabus awarded three-year University Science Park contract
Xelabus awarded three-year University Science Park contract
10/08/2020 Jonathan Taylor Bus News, News, P News
Xelabus of Eastleigh has been awarded a three-year contract to operate the X21 bus service to Southampton Science Park, linked with Chilworth Business Centre and Southampton University.
The exclusive contract has required a new ADL Enviro200 recently purchased by Xelabus to be branded in a bright silver livery with University decals. The service operates at peak times connecting the city with the Science Park as well as the nearby Parkway Station and Airport.
The Enviro200 pictured was repainted into its current silver livery specifically for use on the route
Xelabus has also joined forces with Asda Superstores at Chandlers Ford, the retailer offering £5 shopping vouchers for park employees travelling on the X21 during their lunch break.
Philip Blair, Chairman of Xelabus, said: “We were approached by the Science Park and have been working with them to design a route for employees, with a timetable and range of facilities to encourage use. In addition to WiFi, leather seats and a regular driver, we also have full safety procedures in place for safe travel including a hand sanitiser dispenser on board.”
The operator says that, despite the current crisis, the service has so far already attracted considerable use; it expects that numbers will increase however when more employees return to the office in the autumn. It added that the Asda vouchers had also been well received.
Xelabus had secured all college operations pre-COVID, and has also been able to win new school and college operations including Sparsholt Agriculture College in Winchester and St George’s College in Southampton.
Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust purchases Bridgeton Bus Garage
Volvo announces its first electric buses for Australia
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Leftist Celebrities, World Leaders, And The ACLU: Who Condemned Twitter’s Censorship of Donald Trump?
Posted by Ian Haworth | Jan 13, 2021 | Uncategorized | 0 |
https://www.dailywire.com/news/leftist-celebrities-world-leaders-and-the-aclu-who-condemned-twitters-censorship-of-donald-trump
Last week, after the appalling violence at the US Capitol building, Twitter announced that they would be suspending President Donald Trump’s account “for repeated and severe violations of [Twitter’s] Civic Integrity policy.” Then, citing the supposed “risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter announced that they had “permanently suspended” Trump’s account.
Subsequently, the Big Tech giants also rallied to shut down Parler, a popular alternative outlet among conservatives.
While many celebrated Trump’s suspension, there were others — even some on the Left — who criticized Twitter’s decision and the impact it would have on free speech in America.
Only a few days after Twitter’s announcement, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — who are often vocal critics of conservatives and conservative principles — released a statement raising concern over the “unchecked power” of Big Tech, and the impact it could have on minority voices.
“For months, President Trump has been using social media platforms to seed doubt about the results of the election and to undermine the will of voters. We understand the desire to permanently suspend him now, but it should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield the unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions – especially when political realities make those decisions easier. President Trump can turn to his press team or Fox News to communicate with the public, but others – like the many Black, Brown, and LGBTQ activists who have been censored by social media companies – will not have that luxury. It is our hope that these companies will apply their rules transparently to everyone,” the ACLU wrote.
On Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, through her spokesman Steffen Seibert, criticized Twitter’s actions as “problematic.” According to the Associated Press, Seibert said that the freedom of opinion is a fundamental right of “elementary significance.”
“This fundamental right can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined by legislators — not according to a decision by the management of social media platforms,” Seibert told reporters. “Seen from this angle, the chancellor considers it problematic that the accounts of the U.S. president have now been permanently blocked.”
Model, actress and Leftist activist Emily Ratajkowski — admittedly while “floating a conspiracy theory that Trump supporters were allowed to breach the United States Capitol” — expressed concern that censorship could later be applied to “any of us.”
This gives Facebook/tech/Zuck THE MOST POWER. If he can shut the president up/off he can shut any of us up/off
— Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) January 7, 2021
My concern is that this gives big tech the opportunity to shut down “leftist extremists” who are important political organizers.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny condemned Twitter’s suspension of President Donald Trump as “an unacceptable act of censorship.” In a lengthy Twitter thread, Navalny described Twitter’s ban as “a decision of people we don’t know in accordance with a procedure we don’t know,” which was “based on emotions and personal political preferences.”
He also questioned the claim that Trump was “banned for violating Twitter rules,” saying that he receives “death threats here every day for many years, and Twitter doesn’t ban anyone (not that I ask for it).”
1. I think that the ban of Donald Trump on Twitter is an unacceptable act of censorship (THREAD)
— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) January 9, 2021
Mexican President and Leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador also condemned Big Tech for their decision to censor President Donald Trump.
“I don’t like anybody being censored or taking away from the right to post a message on Twitter or Face(book). I don’t agree with that, I don’t accept that,” López Obrador said.
“How can you censor someone: ‘Let’s see, I, as the judge of the Holy Inquisition, will punish you because I think what you’re saying is harmful,’” he continued. “Where is the law, where is the regulation, what are the norms? This is an issue of government, this is not an issue for private companies.”
Writing on Twitter, Presidential spokesman Jesús Ramírez elaborated further on the position.
“Facebook’s decision to silence the current leader of the United States calls for a debate on freedom of expression, the free exchange of information on the web, democracy and the role of the companies that administer (social) networks.”
Poland’s Prime Minister spoke generally on the issue of censorship in response to recent events, saying that “Algorithms or the owners of corporate giants should not decide which views are right and which are not,” and that “There is no and can be no consent to censorship.”
According to the Washington Post, Morawiecki also said Tuesday that social media corporations should not censor views that they don’t share and called for new regulations that would govern the use of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in the European Union.
In Poland, “the functioning of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are regulated by law,” and Morawiecki said that “The owners of social platforms cannot act above the law. We will suggest that similar regulations are also put in place in all of the European Union.”
Michael McCormack
Acting Prime Minister of Australia, Michael McCormack, “blasted [Twitter’s] move as censorship of political speech when the company had not suspended other views on its site.”
“I don’t believe in that sort of censorship. But, you know, I mean, there’s been a lot of people who’ve said and done a lot of things on Twitter previously that haven’t received that sort of condemnation or, indeed, censorship,” said McCormack. “That’s a matter for Twitter. They’ve made that call. They’ve got a company, they’ve got a business to run and they’ve made that decision.”
Singer, songwriter, and actress Keri Hilson described Twitter’s actions as “dangerous.”
“This may be funny. But it is a little dangerous too,” Hilson posted in an Instagram story. “Take Trump out of it for a moment…A democracy must include freedom of speech. Imagine other leaders or popular figures not being able to voice their opinion if it opposes majority of world leaders…Our freedom of speech being taken from us.”
“Slowly but surely (censorship),” she warned. “If the leader of the ‘free world’ can be removed. Imagine that same right of civilians. Imagine believing every time you read ‘false information detected’ and propaganda, deceptive reports, and flat out lies being the only thing we see.”
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has criticized Leftist policies on several occasions. In response to the wave of censorship triggered by Big Tech, Musk condemned the “West Coast high tech” for becoming the “de facto arbiter of free speech.”
A lot of people are going to be super unhappy with West Coast high tech as the de facto arbiter of free speech
This is not the first time Musk has weighed in on the subject of censorship. In June, he criticized Amazon for “reportedly censoring the publication of a book about the coronavirus.”
Time to break up Amazon. Monopolies are wrong!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 4, 2020
Ian Haworth is an Editor and Writer for The Daily Wire. Follow him on Twitter at @ighaworth.
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Virtual Experiences at Seattle Center Entertain and Enlighten
As our community takes the necessary steps to slow the spread of COVID-19, organizations that reside on the Seattle Center grounds offer creative ways to interact with them online and over the airwaves. Some have even developed online information and other helpful resources related to COVID-19.
Seattle Center Festál has released a series of podcasts, “Yes, and…”, that delves into the questions: Who lives here? What is their experience of life? And how does it intersect with our personal experiences of this city? The podcasts, now in season two, urge listeners to take a stance of curiosity for one another over assumptions as the episodes explore life through shared stories and honest conversation. The producers released BrasilFest: New Ideas Embedded in Roots on March 2 and will release additional episodes on March 23, April 13, April 27 and May 18. www.yesandpodcast.libsyn.com.
Although in-studio viewing and tours have been suspended, KEXP continues to broadcast at 90.3FM and live stream at www.kexp.org. The KEXP website also offers a guide for musicians and fans confronting the impacts of COVID-19, with links to helpful resources.
Classical KING FM, Seattle Center’s newest resident, provides many ways to explore the region’s classical music scene. At 8 p.m., Friday, March 20, the Byrd Ensemble performs works from a cancelled concert live on KING FM. At 9:30 p.m. Sunday evenings, KING FM continues its regular live broadcast of the St. Mark’s Cathedral Compline service. With the cathedral closed to the public, the choir will sing to an empty sanctuary. KING is partnering with Seattle Opera to broadcast archival recordings of full operas Saturday mornings. Those interested in exploring the opportunities and viewing a collection of local performances previously aired on KING FM can find them at www.king.org and www.king.org/2020/03/13/the-music-continues.
Northwest Folklife offers a variety of audio and video stories, performances and community encounters at www.nwfolklife.org/listen.
Pacific Science Center features hands-on, fun science explorations to do at home through its website. Site visitors can also read about the outbreak on the Center’s Understanding COVID-19 webpage and tune in to its Science in the City livestream event, COVID-19: Connect with the Experts, 7 p.m., Tuesday, March 24. Learn more at www.Pacsci.org.
Seattle Opera is live streaming its monthly Opera Talk, 7 p.m., Tuesday, March 24, hosted by Seattle Opera dramaturg Jonathan Dean. More details on this and other live streaming opportunities are listed at www.seattleopera.org.
TeenTix offers arts-curious teens several virtual opportunities to meet their peers through online forums. TeenTix members receive deeply discounted arts and entertainment tickets, and during this event-restricted time, they can live stream OntheBoardsTV.com and Seattle Symphony concerts. Interested teens can check it all out at www.teentix.org.
Spring is a lovely time to roam the 74-acre Seattle Center campus, and visitors may explore the Center’s history and public art collection by downloading a free mobile app: www.seattlecenterarttour.com. Aptly names See It All, the tour leads listeners past 25 works of art, offering a unique look into the Center’s captivating story.
Seattle Center encourages the public to explore these virtual experiences through this period of solitude and isolation as a reminder of the Center’s role in inspiring spirit and building community. Our hope is that you and your family partake in these online encounters until the time comes for us to gather again. To learn more about events and activities at Seattle Center, visit www.seattlecenter.com or call 206 684-7200.
About Seattle Center:
Connect to the extraordinary at Seattle Center, an active civic, arts and family gathering place in the core of our region. More than 30 cultural, educational, sports and entertainment organizations that reside on the grounds, together with a broad range of public and community programs, create thousands of events on the 74-acre campus and attract over 12 million visitors each year. At Seattle Center, part of Uptown Arts & Cultural District, our purpose is to create exceptional events, experiences and environments that delight and inspire the human spirit to build stronger communities. Activities at the Center generate $1.864 billion in business activity and $631 million in labor income.
Posted: April 1st, 2020 under Center Spotlight, COVID-19, News Release.
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By ceumc on February 24, 2017
Dress-a-Girl mission
2017: 166 dresses and counting
Congratulations to the 15 women from our church and friends who created 166 dresses in five weeks for the national Dress-a-Girl Around the World mission. That’s 50 more dresses than the women completed last year and it’s not done yet. After the 166 dresses were handed over for the regional distribution center, nine more dresses came in!
The Dress-a-Girl mission around the country has created 750,000 dresses since 2009 and sent them to 82 countries. The program expects to go over 1 Million dresses by 2018.
Coordinated by Linda Wakefield and Judith Hill, this year’s group of dress-makers from our church included Linda Webster, Rainy Hirdler, Lili Acheson, Ann Underdown, Jaymie Chamberlin and two friends — Paula Pierce-Anthony and Sue St. Onge — Beverly Merrill, Jean Meyer, Shirley Maxwell-Royall, Barbara Knowles, Kathie Hackett, Gail Parker, Mariah Parker and Rachel Henderson — a woman from another church who heard about the mission.
In just the first two months of 2017, groups from Southern Maine have created 600 dresses for the Dress-a-Girl mission that have been sent to Bangladesh, Haiti, Vietnam and Cuba.
On Feb. 19, at the completion of this year’s dress-making for our church, Judith Hill addressed the congregation and gave this beautiful tribute to the woman who worked so hard to finish these dresses:
“For all of you who have sewn, imagine kneeling before a little girl in Senegal, where some of our dresses have gone. You are holding a beautiful dress that you made with love. You say to the little one, ‘I made this dress just for you because you are precious to me and to God.’ Imagine as you drop the dress over her head that the shame she feels is dropping away. She lifts her chin toward the heavens — allowing her to stand tall.”
Dress-a-Girl is an international organization of women gathering to make dresses for little and big girls who do not own clothes, little alone a dress. When girls in underdeveloped countries wear a dress, especially a dress that has a label on it, the leaders feel like they look like they are cared for by an organization and thereby keeps them safer from abduction as use by slaves, from abuse, or being preyed upon by men.
For more information on the Dress-a-Girl Around the World mission, click here: Dress-a-Girl
Jazz Sunday 2017
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The Difficulties of Thinking Ahead
Doing scenario planning requires some scenario planning of its own.
CFO MagazineRisk & ComplianceRisk Management
Kris Frieswick
Article views
It's June 1999. You are the CFO of a successful telecom-products supplier. Your vice president of strategy has just completed an exhaustive scenario-planning exercise. Of the several scenarios he presents, one says that in less than three years there will be an excess of telecom bandwidth that will drive your industry into a tailspin. You wonder how much money the scenario-planning exercise cost. Then you file it on your shelf and forget about it.
Such has been the fate of most scenario plans. As companies scramble for ways to predict an increasingly volatile future, many view scenario planning as a crystal ball--but then do nothing with the elaborate scenarios that result from most planning exercises. This is backwards. Scenario planning is useful not for predicting the future (which can't be done) but for helping companies become more aware of possible outcomes. And just as awareness means nothing unless it is acted upon, even the best scenario planning is worthless unless companies use the scenarios to construct strategies that can succeed in those possible futures.
One critic of current scenario-planning exercises is Peter Schwartz, chairman of the Emeryville, California, consulting firm Global Business Network, and formerly head of scenario planning at Royal Dutch/Shell. During the 1970s, that company created one of the first scenario-planning protocols, now known as the Shell method. This protocol helped Shell predict and successfully prepare for the rise of OPEC pricing power. "Many more people are interested in scenario planning now, because the magnitude of the risks is rising," says Schwartz. But, citing a recent study by The Corporate Strategy Board that reports that one-third of major American companies now engage in scenario planning, he warns that only one-third of them do it right. By "right," he means testing the robustness of a company's strategies under each scenario and updating the scenarios frequently as conditions shift. This is how such companies as American Century, UPS, and Cargill plan for problems and opportunities that their competitors never see coming.
Scenarios, says Schwartz, can be as narrowly or broadly focused as a company wants, and are best done in companies that have long product-cycle times, are capital intensive, or keep high levels of inventory. "They're not good for fashion-focused or short-cycle companies, where there are infinite possible scenarios," he says. "In those cases, the risks are not analyzable. What is the hot new toy going to be this year? No one can predict that. But if your company is looking at overall risks, that's different."
Scenario planning is an especially important tool for CFOs, who can use it as an early-warning system to reduce resources in anticipation of tough times or to staff up to take advantage of pending opportunities. "It allows you to understand potential risks, such as discontinuities that could dramatically affect earnings," says Rick Eno, vice president in the global management consulting practice at Arthur D. Little in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The key, he says, is to identify "signposts" for each scenario: events or metrics that signal when a scenario is unfolding, such as a drop in the rate of adoption of a new technology or numerous debt defaults within a specific industry. When linked to a scenario, they serve as clues that allow companies to "move very quickly if you see things veering away from or toward your assumptions."
Act On Warnings
That's how Bob Jackson, CFO of American Century Cos., an investment managing firm based in Kansas City, Missouri, has used scenarios since 1998. In 1999, scenarios the company built for 2001, and the signposts around them, indicated that the bull market would soon end. Heeding the signs, the company did not staff up as much as some of its competitors did; as a result, it has weathered the recent downturn without layoffs. "We were maybe too conservative in 1999, but in the long run, it really helped us plan our people side," says Jackson.
American Century also used scenario planning to determine whether to get into new markets and to roll out new products and distribution channels. Today, signposts indicate that conditions are improving, so the company is positioning itself to gain market share. "It has accelerated our decision-making process," says David Klinginsmith, vice president of strategic planning. "We've made investments in parts of our business that we would not have made without this thinking."
American Century starts its scenario-planning process by deciding on a central question around which the exercise will focus; for example, what the degree of acceptance for new mutual fund packages and services will be. The company then identifies no more than 20 factors that could affect the outcome, says Klinginsmith. (Such factors could include new laws affecting 401(k)s or the rate of Internet adoption for financial services.) Next, it groups these factors into four levels by their degree of uncertainty and likely impact on outcome. Group one factors are certainties. Group two factors are critical uncertainties, meaning most uncertain yet likely to have a big impact on the future. Group three consists of wild cards, which have a low probability of occurring but a high impact on the future. Finally, group four are factors that people agree are likely to happen.
Klinginsmith organizes workshops and "learning journeys" during which key executives visit companies, places, and people from which they hope to gain insights into how the identified uncertainties might play out. For instance, in 1999, when the company was investigating how the Internet would affect customer needs and distribution channels, executives, including CEO Bill Lyons, spent two-and-a-half days visiting businesses in Silicon Valley, interviewing leaders in the field of E-commerce and learning about cutting-edge technology, marketing, and consumer trends. Executive commitment to these trips and to scenario planning is high, because they are crucial parts of corporate planning, which includes a balanced scorecard approach. "It's about getting everyone on the same page," says Jackson. "This work even precedes our budgeting efforts."
Prepare For New Futures
Since the events of September 11 made it plain that the unthinkable can happen, the range of scenarios now on the table is broader than ever. Still, both Ged Davis, vice president of global business environment at Shell International in London, and Klinginsmith say that the basics of their scenario planning haven't changed substantially as a result. Klinginsmith believes that creating scenarios around such dramatic events lowers the effectiveness of the process. "We view these events as a wild-card concept," he says. "They don't happen very often. To spend significant resources to deal with them is to move into a state of paranoia."
Davis says Shell already factors in such extreme actions because it does business in the Middle East, where terrorism has been an issue for decades. "We need to assess our strategies against [terrorist] scenarios. That's what scenarios are about. They allow you to benchmark your visions against the assumptions."
Whatever you assume could be a factor in your company's future--from terrorism to the price of tea in China--scenario planning offers a structure with which to envision and prepare for new futures. "You can describe what a winning company looks like in various scenarios," says Arthur D. Little's Eno, "and with that information, almost every time, it will stretch your thinking about what your company can be."
Sidebar: The Shell Method Today
The Shell method helped make that company an oil giant. Ged Davis, vice president of global business environment at Shell International in London, took over the division in 1999. One of Davis's most recent efforts charts energy markets out to 2050, and features two distinct scenarios: one in which renewable energy sources gain popularity very slowly over time and another in which new fuel technologies, such as hydrogen fuel cells, quickly rise to acceptance.
"Scenario planning is our way of handling risk," says Davis. "There are some things you can forecast and there are some things you can't. You distinguish the things that you can't, and that's what you build the scenarios around."
For the 20-year-scenario plans, which are updated every 3 years, Davis conducts a long process (up to nine months) to define the problematique, the question the company wants to focus on, and the factors that influence it. He and his team, which includes economists, sociologists, energy experts, and other specialists who add new perspectives, interview key executives to find out "what is on their minds and what they think the main challenges are." The analysis phase includes workshops at Shell locations around the world. "You can't get hung up on the focus of a specific discipline," says Davis. "You have to get out, see things, talk to lots of people who have strong views."
Once the analysis portion is complete, Davis determines the scope of the problematique and seeks approval from the board of directors. If the board agrees with the scope, the research phase proceeds. The process, which can take up to a year, goes into great detail on a variety of scenarios and involves 30 to 40 people. Once the scenarios have been crafted, Davis goes back to the board for approval on two of them. Once they have been approved, says Davis, the most crucial step begins: wind tunneling.
"This is when you test the company's strategies against these focused scenarios," he says. "We use the scenario as a global backdrop." The real value is gained when the scenarios are tested against country and local strategies. "When you do this more-focused work, people can see much more clearly the sorts of risks they're facing."
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Guo Feixiong, a Civil Rights Hero
Posted by Josh Rudolph | Jan 9, 2015
Human rights lawyer and activist Guo Feixiong (the pen name of Yang Maodong) was arrested in late 2013 on suspicion of “gathering a crowd to disrupt public order” after participating in the Southern Weekly anti-censorship protests in January of that year. He stood trial in late November 2014—after his lawyers boycotted an earlier session to protest procedural violations—and his verdict has yet to be announced. Following Guo’s trial, veteran journalist Xiao Shu wrote an op-ed in the Chinese-language edition of the New York Times, which China Change has now translated. In the article, Xiao Shu profiles Guo as a pioneer for China’s embattled civil rights movement:
A civil rights movement has been unfolding in China. As Martin Luther King Jr. was to the American civil rights movement, essential figures have been emerging from the movement in China. Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄), who was tried on November 28 for “gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place,” is one of them.
While the American Civil Rights Movement fought for the rights of millions of African Americans, the Chinese civil rights movement is fighting for the rights of all but every Chinese citizen. For in China, it is not just the powerless who do not have rights; those who are in power are not protected by the law either, once they lose out in power struggles. Almost every Chinese can identify with African Americans fighting for civil rights in the 1960s, except that he or she is in an even worse lot where there is no freedom, equality or justice.
This is precisely why Guo Feixiong has devoted himself to the rights movement. […] [Source]
Read more about central authorities’ crackdown on civil society, via CDT.
Categories : Human Rights,Level 2 Article,Level 3 Article,Level 4 Article,Politics,Society
Tags :civil society,Guo Feixiong,human rights activists,rights lawyers,southern weekly protest 2013,Xiao Shu
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Spanish private lessons . Adults and children
Posted in: Language classes in Alicante | Posted: 2021-01-03 |
Price: 15 EUR/Hour
Area/Neighbourhood: Alicante / San Juan / Campello / Mutxamel
Spanish private lessons for children and adults. Qualified Spanish teacher with lots of experience with foreign students.
15€ per hour. . Alicante area (San Juan, Alicante, Campello).
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Activating a Webcam on Dell Computers
DAVID NIELD
Many Dell all-in-one PCs and laptops come with an integrated webcam sitting just above the display. You can also add external webcam devices, whether built by Dell or other manufacturers, through a spare USB port. When it comes to activating and controlling your webcam, you have the choice of using Dell's own webcam utility or a third-party alternative.
Setting Up the Hardware
Running Dell Webcam Central
Third-party Applications
1 Setting Up the Hardware
If you have an external webcam to go with your Dell computer, plugging it into a spare USB port should be enough to install the relevant drivers and get the device up and running. If you are using an internal webcam built into the display, all of the necessary connections and driver installations have already been taken care of. Open Control Panel (run a search for it through the Search Charm) and you should see the webcam listed under Imaging devices. Many internal webcams have a physical switch to cover the webcam when it's not in use, so make sure this is uncovered when you want to use the device.
2 Running Dell Webcam Central
Dell Webcam Central is the company's official webcam management software and in most cases will be already installed on your system. Check the icons in the notification area or look through your system from the Search Charm to find the application. If you can't find the program, you can download the latest version for free by logging into the Support section of the Dell website and identifying the make and model of computer you're using. Once up and running, Dell Webcam Central switches on your webcam and displays a live feed from it. You can use the program to record videos and photos to save to your computer or upload to the Web.
3 Third-party Applications
A wide variety of third-party applications can make use of your webcam, automatically activating the device when they are launched. Skype is one of the best-known programs for making video calls across the Web, but others include Oovoo, Camfrog and Yawcam, as well as browser-based messaging programs such as Facebook Chat and Google Hangouts. Any internal or external webcam compatible with your system can be used by these third-party programs, which will switch on your webcam when it's needed and turn it off at the same time as you close down the program in question.
4 Troubleshooting Problems
If you find your webcam cannot be identified in Windows or activated by any webcam software, double-check the connection to your computer or try a different USB port (if you're using an external model). If you are having problems with an internal webcam that can't be detected, a hardware fault or a corrupted Windows setting may be to blame -- visit the Dell Support website to find the latest drivers for the device, as installing these may be enough to reset the webcam's settings and its registration in Windows. If the webcam works in one application but not others, try reinstalling the program in question.
An information technology journalist since 2002, David Nield writes about the Web, technology, hardware and software. He is an experienced editor, proofreader and copywriter for online publications such as CNET, TechRadar and Gizmodo. Nield holds a Bachelor of Arts in English literature and lives in Manchester, England.
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Clear Call Solutions
Business Solutions Service
Solutions Services
The Real Concept of Public Relations
Imogen Shane 4 months ago 3 min read
Samantha Johnson, nature one out of “Sex and also the City”, is within public relations. Public relations may be the approach to communicating among organizations. Through this industry, a company accumulates, sustains and manages the look it may wish to project with other establishments.
With this meaning of public relations, it’s obvious why Samantha has that sort of personality. Becoming an extroverted individual and available to new options and the situation is the 2 prime factors necessary for public relations.
By tabulating public attitudes with respect to the procedures, policies and interest of the organization, a public relations officer has the capacity to execute actions or programs that will permit them to mediate and use each other on the perfect way. It’s also the entire process of grouping together the assorted perceptions of the business’ targeted audience with regards to coping with real prospects and entities.
Public relations involve the look at the opinions and attitude in the generating public. Additionally, it implements and formulates the procedures and policies for that organization to be able to communicate well. This coordination within the programs develops good will and rapport along with other industries.
Public relations should always be two-way. By fostering a great relationship backward and forward establishments, the general public constituents (within this situation the public relations officials) could do their jobs.
To provide you with a clearer picture about how public relations work, for example.
1. There are several corporations that make use of the MPR or even the marketing public relations to ensure that these to share information the data around the products they distribute and manufacture for their possible clients. Normally, the sales of those goods are short or lengthy term, but due to the public relation process, the organization has branded it available on the market.
2. Corporations may also function as the vehicles in contacting the politicians and legislators who may help in rules, taxes along with other public relations communication, as lengthy as this type of person fully supporting this program.
3. Non-profit organizations like hospitals, social services, human service agencies, universities and schools use public relations to be able to get the word out of the fund-raising programs, awareness programs and staff recruitment. It may also help in growing the patronage of what they’re supplying to society.
4. When running for public office, politicians turn to public relations to enable them to attract a great number of votes and lift money. If they could be effective within the ballot box, they make use of this to advertise their means and also to also defend their position at work.
Public relations happen to be defined again and again through the years however it redefines itself. It is because the clients involved with this industry constantly evolve when it comes to goals and aspirations, thus most those who are away from the business frequently misconstrued exactly what the profession is about.
Essentially, the overall concept of public relations is advertising, branding and marketing. Something that requires the media is down to the public relations officer. He encourages magazines, newspapers, television and radio to print or air advantages to the help and also the products. This promotion will achieve their targeted customers therefore generating a rise on sales and patronage.
Naturally, for an organization to achieve public relations, his team must incorporate a good mixture of background so the insiders understand what the outsiders want and deliver exceedingly well.
The Grid would offer a comprehensive List of Public Relations & Communications Companies in Singapore to enhance your chances of forging a meaningful relationship with a successful company in the region. The Grid would ensure that you get the best services in the region.
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Applying DITA to the Next Generation of Health Information
At EBSCO Health we provide evidence-based reference information, skills, patient information resources, and shared-decision tools that inform the global healthcare industry. We initially adopted a more generic approach to DITA, but as our product delivery needs evolve, we are finding need for a more flexible, granular content model. As such we are now delving into a new EBSCO Health content model that better suits the needs of all of our content infrastructures, beginning with content which supports our patient/physician decision tools. The new “unit model” will help us achieve our vision of delivering content using a platform-based approach, providing more opportunities for reusability across our current product lines, and provisioning a Content as a Service (CaaS) that dynamically delivers content to partners, customer integrations, and EHR systems. In this session we will sketch out our journey with DITA, introduce the thinking around the unit model, and demonstrate a new interactive decision support application that showcases what we are seeking to enable.
What can the audience expect to learn?
* A view at a strategic alternative to fully modeling content up-front
* A glimpse at how DITA may be employed to gradually unify siloed content
* An example of modeling content-driven UI components for flexible UI design
The story of EBSCO’s journey will be told by:
Lee Bryars: Lee holds a Master’s in Library and Information Studies, has been working with content at EBSCO since 2010, and is the latest addition to the Content Engineering team. When she’s not wrangling content she is reading, cooking, or hanging out with her family.
Scott Farrar: Content Engineer for EBSCO’s medical reference product line, bringing DITA and years of XML experience to into one of the few areas where EBSCO authors its own content. Scott is a librarian (a.k.a. “standards-junkie”) by education, and when not at work is often cooking, singing choral music, or playing video games with his two children.
Joe Gollner: Joe Gollner is the Managing Director of Gnostyx Research Inc. (http://www.gnostyx.com), a member of the CIDM Advisory Council, a veteran implementer of content technologies, and a blogging Content Philosopher (http://www.gollner.ca).
Samar Guleria: An Agile Product Manager for the EBSCO health products, which delivers clinical decision support solutions, healthcare business intelligence, and medical reference information. Samar has a passion for roles that bridge the gap between technology and people whether that involves software development, business development or product management.
⇐Return to Agenda
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You are here: Home / Latest News / Myanmar’s currency black market thrives in banks’ shadow
Myanmar’s currency black market thrives in banks’ shadow
August 21, 2019 by Thiha
YANGON — Even as banks take on a growing share of foreign exchange trading in Myanmar, black market dealers remain firmly entrenched, with the short-lived crackdowns by the government when the kyat moves too sharply doing little to root out the problem.
The building that houses the Yangon Stock Exchange was once a branch of the Reserve Bank of India, a relic of the British colonial era. Now it serves as a symbol of the modern economic system adopted by Myanmar with its transition to democracy.
But in an alley behind the bourse, a black market currency exchange sets up shop each day.
“On a busy day, we get $50 million in trades,” boasts a man in his 40s involved in the operation. Smartphones in hand, he and other dealers send a stream of buy and sell orders. They often deal with foreign trading firms, and sometimes handle upward of $500,000 in a single transaction.
Cash rarely changes hands directly. Instead, trades are handled via bank transfers. When someone sells dollars, for example, the greenbacks are sent to a foreign bank account held by the buyer, with the Myanmar kyat purchased in exchange going to a different account. When negotiations are complete, dealers direct subordinates waiting at the relevant banks to put the transactions through.
Unlike in advanced economies where exchange rates are set through interbank trades, Myanmar’s informal market plays a major role in determining formal rates. Banks and other institutions are believed to refer to the black market rate, and authorities are sensitive to its movements.
Last year, the kyat plunged along with other emerging-market currencies due to factors such as rising U.S. interest rates. It weakened beyond 1,600 to the dollar from 1,330 at the start of 2018, driving up prices for food and gasoline — for which the country relies heavily on imports — and hampering the economy.
Police responded by arresting five currency dealers on allegations of market manipulation. The black market behind the stock exchange temporarily shut down. The government sees such arrests as its most effective option for currency intervention, a local journalist said.
Myanmar has made progress, if slowly, toward normalizing its foreign exchange market, thanks partly to a rise in investment by overseas companies. After starting its democratic transition in 2011, the government overhauled foreign exchange controls, ending the coexistence of official and unofficial rates. Private-sector banks were permitted to handle foreign currency.
In the final seven trading days of last month, foreign exchange transactions between banks and customers averaged $49 million per day, nearly triple the figure from three years earlier. With trade-related payments in particular, the share of transactions handled legitimately via banks has grown year by year. The interbank foreign exchange market has surged sixfold in the past three years.
Yet businesses continue to turn to the informal market, lured by convenience and better rates. When the kyat holds relatively steady, the government generally leaves unofficial dealers to their own devices.
If the estimates by the black market operators are accurate, roughly as much currency trading occurs through those informal channels as through formal institutions.
The currency exchange behind the Yangon bourse reopened. “Business isn’t any slower,” the dealer there said.
A precipitous crackdown on the black market would risk throwing commercial activity in Myanmar into turmoil. But leaving it alone could hinder the development of legitimate markets.
To keep the kyat stable, “it’s crucial for [Myanmar] to have banks concentrate on foreign exchange trading, and to give the currency market a shot in the arm with things like futures trading,” said Koji Kubo, senior research fellow at Japan’s government-backed Institute of Developing Economies.
Source: Nikkei Asian Review
Filed Under: Latest News Tagged With: Banks, black market, currency, foreign exchange trading, Myanmar
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Pseudocapacitance of α-CoMoO4 nanoflakes in non-aqueous electrolyte and its bi-functional electro catalytic activity for methanol oxidation
Name: ijhe-kmrazeeb-cod.pdf
Padmanathan, Narayanasamy; Shao, Han; Selladurai, Subramanian; Glynn, Colm; O'Dwyer, Colm; Razeeb, Kafil M.
Copyright: © 2015, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license
Related: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360319915024295
Citation: Padmanathan, N., Shao, H., Selladurai, S., Glynn, C., O'Dwyer, C. and Razeeb, K. M. (2015) 'Pseudocapacitance of α-CoMoO4 nanoflakes in non-aqueous electrolyte and its bi-functional electro catalytic activity for methanol oxidation', International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 40(46), pp. 16297-16305. doi: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2015.09.127
Published Version: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2015.09.127
Nanocrystalline cobalt molybdate (CoMoO4) nanoflakes were grown directly on carbon fibre cloth (CFC) via a simple hydrothermal method without any template or surfactant. A symmetric supercapacitor was fabricated using CoMoO4 nanoflakes/CFC as both negative and positive electrodes. The device has delivered the maximum specific capacitance of 8.3 F g−1 at a constant current density of 1 A g−1 in organic electrolyte. It offers the reasonable energy (2.6 Wh kg−1) and power density (748.8 W kg−1) as comparable to the carbon based symmetric supercapacitors. As a catalyst for methanol oxidation, the CoMoO4 nanoflakes showed high current density (25 mA cm−2) and low onset potential (0.38 V). The impressive bi-functional electrochemical activity of CoMoO4 on CFC is mainly attributed to its porous microstructure, where reasonable electrical conductivity resulted from binder-free and intimate metal oxide/substrate integration.
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as © 2015, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license
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Home Celebrity News Selena Gomez is not together with the Sorcerers most beloved Disney
Selena Gomez is not together with the Sorcerers most beloved Disney
Arjun Sethi
LOS ANGELES (united States).- After strong rumors, the meeting of Wizards of Waverly Place finally happened. The cast appeared throughout the music video for New Hope Club, which was a love triangle that spanned the time. Fans were able to enjoy David Henrie, Jennifer Stone, Canals Barrera, Bailee Madison and David DeLuise, but without Selena Gomez.
The video also includes appearances from Maddie Ziegler, Meg Donnelly, Robyn Lively and Bart Johnson. All joined together to tell a story that began in the 1950s and ended up in a sofa in 2020, with the question, “what could it have been?” lingering in the air. “We had the story and the images represented in our heads and we are very proud to have captured on video,” says the lead singer of New Hope Club, Blake Richardson.
The band performs in different eras, paying homage to all their heroes of the music. “It was amazing, fun and different to see New Hope Club ‘through the years’ while maintaining a specific story. And it was great to work with Bailee. We knew that we could rely on her to make our vision a reality”. The actress that gave life to Maxine Russo in the youth series, he directed the clip.
“As this was the first time he ran,” added Bailee, “I wanted to share the moment with some of my friends who have supported me so much over the years.” I was so excited when some of my fellow cast of ‘Wizards’ were in the city and were to form part of it. I know since I was 11 years old, and to get back together with your encouragement and support was incredible.”
Fans of WOWP could see for the first time this meeting at the beginning of march when Maria Canals-Barrera posted a picture from behind the scenes. “Filming something totally RAD today”, subtituló the photo of her together with his co-stars, all dressed in clothes of the decade of 1980. The common phrase then was: “Where’s Selena Gomez?”
Although the video lacked Alex Russo, the immediate reaction was positive. This new release continues the momentum that the band started at the beginning of the year. They released their debut album self-titled in February and have been helping the fans to overcome the quarantine with live broadcasts full of songs of cover chosen by the fans.
Sorcerers
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+"Wright, Alice Morgan, 1881-1975"
164 documents - page 1 of 9
Andrew Dasburg and Grace Mott Johnson papers
Dasburg, Andrew, 1887-1979 Search this
Carlson, John F., 1874-1945 Search this
Cramer, Florence Ballin, 1884-1962 Search this
Davidson, Florence Lucius, d. 1962 Search this
Davidson, Jo, 1883-1952 Search this
Frankl, Walter Search this
Hartley, Marsden, 1877-1943 Search this
Howard, Lila Search this
Johnson, Grace Mott, 1882-1967 Search this
Kuhn, Vera, d. 1961 Search this
Lockwood, Ward Search this
Luhan, Mabel Dodge, 1879-1962 Search this
McFee, Henry Lee, 1886-1953 Search this
Riley, Mary G., 1883-1939 Search this
Simonson, Lee, 1888- Search this
Sterling, Lindsey, 1876-1931 Search this
Wright, Alice Morgan, 1881-1975 Search this
The papers of painter Andrew Dasburg and his wife and sculptor Grace Mott Johnson date from 1833 to 1980 (bulk 1900 to 1980), and measure 8.8 linear feet. The collection documents each artist's career and personal lives, including their brief marriage and their friendships with many notable artists in the New Mexico and New York art colonies during the early twentieth century. The papers of Dasburg (6 linear feet) and Johnson (2.8 linear feet) include biographical materials; extensive correspondence with family, friends, and fellow artists, such as John F. Carlson, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Marsden Hartley, Henry Lee McFee, and Ward Lockwood; writings by Dasburg, Johnson, and others; scattered legal, financial, and business records; clippings; exhibition materials; numerous photographs of Johnson and Dasburg, friends, family, and artwork; and original artwork, including two sketchbooks by Johnson.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of painter Andrew Dasburg and sculptor Grace Mott Johnson date from 1833 to 1980, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1900 to 1980, and measure 8.8 linear feet. The collection is divided into the papers of Andrew Dasburg (6 linear feet) and the papers of Grace Mott Johnson (2.8 linear feet), and documents each artist's career and personal lives, including their brief marriage, and friendships with many notable artists in New Mexico and New York art colonies during the early twentieth century. Found are scattered biographical, legal, and financial materials. Extensive correspondence (particularly in Dasburg's papers) is with family, friends, and fellow artists, such as John F. Carlson, Florence Ballin Cramer, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Marsden Hartley, Henry Lee McFee, Vera Spier Kuhn, and Ward Lockwood. Dasburg's papers also include letters to Johnson and his two later wives.
Johnson's correspondence is also with numerous artist friends and others, including John F. and Margaret Carlson, Florence Ballin Cramer, Jo Davidson, Florence Lucius, Walter Frankl, Lila Wheelock Howard, Henry Lee McFee, Mary Riley, Lee Simonson, Lindsey Morris Sterling, Alice Morgan Wright, Mabel Dodge Luhan, and Vera Spier Kuhn. Letters to her son Alfred are quite detailed and revealing. Writings are by Dasburg, Johnson, and others. Johnson's writings include a very brief diary and her poetry. Writings by others are about the Taos and New Mexico art communities. Printed materials about both artists include clippings and exhibition catalogs. There are numerous photographs of Dasburg and Johnson, individually and together, and with friends and family. Of note are a group photograph of Birge Harrison's art class in Woodstock, New York, which includes Johnson and Dasburg, and a photograph of Dasburg with friends Konrad Cramer and John Reed. Dasburg's papers also include snapshots of Florence Lucius, Konrad and Florence Ballin Cramer, Frieda and D. H. Lawrence, and Mabel Dodge Luhan. Original artwork by the two artists include two sketchbooks by Johnson and three prints and two drawings by Dasburg.
The collection is arranged into 2 series of each artist's papers:
Series 1: Andrew Dasburg Papers, circa 1900-1980 (Box 1-7; 6.0 linear feet)
Series 2: Grace Mott Johnson Papers, 1833-1963 (Box 7-10; 2.8 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Andrew Michael Dasburg (1887-1979) was born in Paris, France, to German parents. After his father died and when he was five, Dasburg and his mother moved to New York City. In 1902 Dasburg started attending classes at the Art Students' League and studied with Kenyon Cox and Frank Du Mond. He also took night classes with Robert Henri. In 1907 he received a scholarship to the Art Students' League summer school in Woodstock, New York and spent three summers studying there in Birge Harrison's painting class. While in school he became friends with many young artists, including Morgan Russell and his future wife, Grace Mott Johnson.
Grace Mott Johnson (1882-1967) was born in New York City. She began drawing when she was four years old, and when the family moved to a farm in 1900 she enjoyed sketching horses and other farm animals. At the age of 22 she left home to study at the Art Students' League with sculptors Gutzon Borglum and James Earle Fraser, and also attended Birge Harrison's painting class in Woodstock. Throughout her career she would sculpt animals from memory, and would often attend circuses and farms for inspiration.
In 1909 Johnson and Dasburg went to Paris and joined the modernist circle of artists living there, including Morgan Russell, Jo Davidson, and Arthur Lee. During a trip to London that same year they were married. Johnson returned to the United States early the next year, but Dasburg stayed in Paris where he met Henri Matisse, Gertrude and Leo Stein, and became influenced by the paintings of Cezanne and Cubism. He returned to Woodstock, New York in August and he and Johnson became active members of the artist community. In 1911 their son Alfred was born. Both Dasburg and Johnson showed several works at the legendary Armory Show in 1913, and Dasburg also showed at the MacDowell Club in New York City, where he met the journalist and activist John Reed who later introduced him to Mabel Dodge (Luhan), a wealthy art patron and lifelong friend. In 1914 Dasburg met Alfred Stieglitz and became part of his avant-garde circle. Using what he had seen in Paris, Dasburg became one of the earliest American cubist artists, and also experimented with abstraction in his paintings.
Dasburg and Johnson lived apart for most of their marriage. By 1917 they had separated and Dasburg began teaching painting in Woodstock and in New York City. In 1918 he was invited to Taos, New Mexico by Mabel Dodge, and returning in 1919, Johnson joined him there for a period of time. Also in 1919, Dasburg was one of the founding members of the Woodstock Artists Association with John F. Carlson, Frank Swift Chase, Carl Eric Lindin, and Henry Lee McFee. In 1922 Dasburg and Johnson divorced, and also at that time he began living most of the year in Santa Fe with Ida Rauh, spending the rest of the year in Woodstock and New York City. Dasburg became an active member of the Santa Fe and the Taos art colonies, befriending many artists and writers living in these communities, and remaining close friends with Mabel Dodge Luhan. Here he moved away from abstraction, and used the southwestern landscape as the inspiration for his paintings.
In 1928 he married Nancy Lane. When that marriage ended in 1932, he moved permanently to Taos, and with his third wife, Marina Wister, built a home and studio there. Dasburg periodically taught art privately and at the University of New Mexico. In 1937 he was diagnosed with Addison's disease, which left him unable to paint again until 1946. In 1945 he and his wife Marina separated. Dasburg was recognized for his career as an artist in a circulating retrospective organized by the American Federation of Arts in 1959. He also had retrospectives in Taos in 1966 and 1978. His artwork influence several generations of artists, especially in the southwest, and he continued creating art until his death in 1979 at the age of 92.
Grace Mott Johnson lived in the Johnson family home in Yonkers, New York during the 1920s and later moved to Pleasantville, New York. In 1924 she went to Egypt to study ancient Egyptian sculpture. During the 1930s she became a civil rights activist. She produced very little art during the last twenty years of her life.
Also found in the Archives of American Art are two oral history interviews with Andrew Dasburg, July 2, 1964 and March 6, 1974. Additional related collections at other repositories include the Andrew and Marina Wister Dasburg Papers at the New Mexico State Archives, the Andrew Dasburg Papers at Syracuse University Library, and the Grace Mott Johnson Papers at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Separated Material:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming. Reel 2803 contains photocopies of ten Morgan Russell letters to Dasburg. Reels 4276-4278 include biographical material, subject files, photographs, correspondence, writings, and exhibition material. The photocopies on reel 2803 were discarded after microfilming, and the items on 4276-4278 were returned to the lender. This material is not described in the collection container inventory.
The Andrew Dasburg and Grace Mott Johnson papers were donated by their son, Alfred Dasburg, in 1980. Syracuse Univresity lent materials for microfilming in 1978 and 1989.
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
The Andrew Dasburg and Grace Mott Johnson papers are owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Literary rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study, and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
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Andrew Dasburg and Grace Mott Johnson papers, 1833-1980 (bulk 1900-1980). Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
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Collins Booksellers Thirroul
About Collins Booksellers Thirroul
A Room Made of Leaves
Author(s): Kate Grenville
Fiction | Thirroul's 2020 Bestsellers | Recommended Fiction
Do not believe too quickly... What if Elizabeth Macarthur - wife of the notorious John Macarthur, wool baron in early Sydney - had written a shockingly frank secret memoir? In her introduction Kate Grenville tells, tongue firmly in cheek, of discovering a long-hidden box containing that memoir. What follows is a playful dance of possibilities between the real and the invented. Grenville's Elizabeth Macarthur is a passionate woman managing her complicated life-marriage to a ruthless bully, the impulses of her own heart, the search for power in a society that gave her none-with spirit, cunning and sly wit. Her memoir reveals the dark underbelly of the polite world of Jane Austen. It explodes the stereotype of the women of the past- devoted and docile, accepting of their narrow choices. That was their public face-here's what one of them really thought. At the heart of this book is one of the most toxic issues of our times- the seductive appeal of false stories. Beneath the surface of Elizabeth Macarthur's life and the violent colonial world she navigated are secrets and lies with the dangerous power to shape reality. A Room Made of Leaves is the internationally acclaimed author Kate Grenville's first novel in almost a decade. It is historical fiction turned inside out, a stunning sleight of hand that gives the past the piercing immediacy of the present.
Author : Kate Grenville
5/264 Lawrence Hargrave Drive Thirroul NSW 2515
T: (02) 4267 1408 | M: 0429 587 924
E: thirroul@collinsbooks.com.au
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The Falcon & The Winter Soldier
Spider-Man Director Jon Watts Reveals Peter Parker's Age In Marvel Reboot
By ComicBook Staff - September 6, 2017 10:47 am EDT
(Photo: Marvel Entertainment)
While Tom Holland is the youngest actor, at age 19, to play Spider-Man on the big screen, he'll be playing a bit younger when he dons the red and blue tights for the joint production from Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios.
"We're really going to see Peter Parker in high school and get deeper into that side of it. He's just 15 now," director Jon Watts told Empire magazine in issue 317, now on stands. This confirmed what's been teased before, giving an exact age to the Peter for the first time. Watts echoed Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige in that the upcoming movie, the third reboot in fifteen years, wouldn't be an origin story, and would focus on a younger Spidey.
"I love the idea of making a coming-of-age high school movie," he said. He also praised Holland's athleticism, adding that he "captures the spirit of the character" in addition to his ability to move like Spidey including some parkour and backflips.
"The kid is Spider-Man."
Tom Holland will appear as Peter Parker and Spider-Man in 2016's Captain America: Civil War before a solo movie written by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, and directed by Watts, in Summer 2017. See those and all the other upcoming comic book movie release dates at our full schedule here.
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Tips & TricksTwitter
How To Find Top Trending #Hashtags?
Alexandra Reay
Hashtags are like threads, both help you get to the source of a post. But the only difference is that hashtags make it way easier to find and separate the relative topic from the complex cascade of tweets.
Sure, people love Twitter for the real-time updates they receive. But without hashtags, the world of Twitter is just blur and gray. According to Kinsta, tweets become 2x times engaging as compared to the tweets without hashtags.
It seems that without the hashtag’s power of engagement, you’re bound to get lost in the sea of tweets. But on the downside, using too many hashtags can make your message lose its value. From a marketing point of view, hashtags serve to be of great importance because marketers can use them to touch on the interests of their target audience.
The way their audience uses the hashtags makes it easier for them to reach them using the assertive power of hashtags.
Since hashtags are so important, what actually are these and how come they become an important feature of today’s social media? Let’s discover below.
What Are Hashtags And Why Use Them?
Hashtags are usually the keywords or phrases combined with a pound/octothorpe ‘#’ sign – without space in between. For instance, if you put a # sign before a keyword like ‘Christmas 2018’ or ‘New Year Resolutions 2019’ then you’d come up with a hashtag: #Christmas2018 and #NewYearResolutions2019.
As we discussed above, these come in handy when you’re referring to a topic of your interest. Hashtags primarily originated on Twitter but were later integrated into another platform due to their effective approach. Anyone can just type in the hashtag that they want to find and search for the topic of interest. This enables them to come across numerous tweets surrounding their search query.
Via hashtags, people can discover your content and engage with you.
If you’re a marketer, you’d probably want to target your prospective customer and hashtags make the job much easier. You first need to research the hashtags that are most popular among your customers, for which you’ll need to scour and track the hashtags that serve as a connecting link between you and your customers. Your market on Twitter amplifies once you use the right kind of hashtags.
How to use hashtags?
Twitter has about 336 million monthly active users and most use hashtags to make their message more effective. However, hashtags can be used for anything, for example, #HumanRights, #HappyHolidays #HowTo, #MissUniverse, and so on. You can use hashtags for the upcoming events, themes, places, activities, things, technology, and anything that interests you. Here’s an example of #MondayMotivation tweet from DesignMantic. See how different hashtags are used relative to the tweet.
[Insert Tweet]
With the idea about what you want to use hashtags for, you can use it anywhere in a tweet. If hashtags are based on popular topics, they climb the list of the Trending Topics.
No matter how you want to use hashtags, there are always a few things to consider.
Your hashtags won’t work properly if you use spaces between the # symbol and the keywords.
Anyone can discover your hashtagged content if you’re using a public Twitter account.
It’s recommended that you use no more than 2 hashtags per tweet as the best practice. But you can use as many hashtags as you please.
Hashtags don’t work properly with punctuation; for instance, the hashtag #ThankGodIt’sFriday isn’t correct though there’s nothing wrong with the phrase. You can use #ThankGodItsFriday instead.
Now you’ve got the idea of how to use hashtags properly, let’s talk about how you can use them in your posts.
How To Find The Trending Twitter Hashtags?
When you have to track hashtags to get the wind of the most trending topics or improve your customer reach, some tools can come in handy. Just note that every tool has its pros and cons, but can help you develop a better understanding of how you can use hashtags to identify your niche, drive customer demographics, and engage your target audience and so on.
What’s Trending on Twitter
Of all the places where hashtags can be found, Twitter is by far the most abundant source. Under your profile, you can find a list of 5 trending topics and hashtags on the left-hand side. Below is an example of the trends worldwide.
Under each trend/hashtag, you can see the figures of how many people have mentioned the keyword in their tweet. You can get personalized insights depending on location, interests, and the people you follow. All you have to do is just enter your desired hashtag in the search bar at Twitter.com, fill in some specifications, and click search to view your results.
Commun.it
Commun.it is an all-encompassing yet sophisticated tool developed to help you track your Twitter hashtags with improved propensity. As you get started with Commun.it, you come in presence of multiple features that not only allow you to schedule tweets, but also notifies you of your mentions and manage your followers – all done via twitter hashtag tracking.
Once you sign up and choose a plan, you can develop what this tool refers to as ‘social listening’ by using/tracking twitter hashtags to keep track of whoever mentions you or your business.
By entering the community tab, you get a multitude of options among which you can generate leads and track your hashtags at the ‘New Leads’ tab.
On the left-hand side, you can search using keywords, bio, add new followers and so on. Enter a keyword and all the hastagged results will show up. As a Twitter-specific tool, Commun.it can be used as a brand ambassador. Marketing on Twitter is just simple and convenient as that!
Another great tool to discover Twitter trending topics and hashtags worldwide is Trendsmap. Just name a tweet, hashtag, word, user or any topic relative to your business or interest, you can analyze, visualize and create alerts for any of these.
Whether want to search for global tweets or the ones trending in your area, you can customize your research by choosing from a variety of plans. When you’re choosing plans, they add to your convenience by telling you the plan suitable for you. From the recentness to digging up old hashtags, this tool makes sure you know what’s trending in the Twitter World.
Either zoom in and check out the trending hashtags around the world or click open the navigation bar to search for your keyword. Click on your hashtags to see who has used your hashtag in Twitter.
Based on the real-time engagement, this tools allows you to explore the possibilities hashtags are used for. Apart from using hashtags for text, RiteTag suggests you hashtags for images as well. Here, you can also create groups of hashtags and add them to your tweets without any delay.
You can also integrate hashtag suggestions in your social media profile management. The best bit about it is that you can easily operate this tool via multiple devices. Whenever you search for a hashtag, it also offers you a 100% full report of Tweets containing your hashtag along with sentiment data and much more. Here you can find the best twitter hashtags for attracting the right kind of followers and drive engagements.
Simply use the search bar to find the exact matches as well as related hashtags. You can also view the figures on how many people have used the exact terms as well as related terms.
Hashtagify
Hastagify is your go-to marketing tool that deals exclusively in hashtags. Using the intelligent hashtag search engine, you can search the most relevant and the best hashtags to enhance your reach, recognize relevant influencers, amplify your social media productivity, track your competitors, and employ the smartest marketing solutions.
Here, you can manage all the hashtags you’re using on Twitter along with a complete analysis of the hashtag and its reports. Plus, you can avail custom suggestions based on their popularity, related hashtags, influencers, and competitors. As for pricing, it depends on what features suit your requirements. It is probably one of the best ways to get appropriate followers on Twitter.
You can simply enter your desired keyword and hit search or track. In a jiffy, all the results appear, where you can explore the popularity, discover related hashtags, and view all the demographics and keyword mention.
#Conclusion
From Twitter handles to hashtags, the latter is getting a more pronounced usage for marketing than ever. As much as Twitter hashtags are the defining features of the 140-character tweets, the former play a critical role in Twitter optimization – and it’s probably something you must know as a Twitter marketer.
Tracking, finding, and analyzing the trending hashtags via the tools mentioned above help you gather relevant information and let you dig deeper into every detail.
With this article, it’s hoped that you’ll make use of these Twitter hashtag tools and figure out how these tools contribute to your strategies. Let us know what you think though #TrendingHashtags
Alexandra Reay is an editor and regular contributor to EduBirdie.com Review and hire a writer project. She is also a professional content writer at Brill Assignment Help who prefers to do research on the following topics – self-improvement, technology innovations, global education development etc. Meet her at Twitter.
how to find trending hashtags
Alexandra Reay is an editor and regular contributor to EduBirdie.com Review project. She is also a professional content writer who prefers to do research on the following topics - self-improvement, technology innovations, global education development ets. Meet her at Twitter.
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Cultural Engineering Group
Services & Ressources en ingénierie culturelle
Financement de projet
Ingénieries
juillet 7, 2012 • 8:46
Europe Commission proposes €1.8bn boost for culture
The 37% increase in funding would include loans for small creative industries, as well as restoration projects
By Emily Sharpe. Web only, The Artnewspaper.
Europe’s cultural heritage is to get a major boost from the European Commission. According to Androulla Vassiliou, the commissioner for education, culture, multilingualism and youth, the committee has proposed that the European Union earmark €1.8bn for culture, including restoration projects, over the next seven years, beginning in 2014. This is a 37% increase from the funds currently allotted. Approximately 70 of the 300 projects to receive funding from the EU in 2011 were related to conservation. Vassiliou made the announcement at a press conference in Lisbon this month. She was in town for the European Heritage Conference and the presentation of the annual Europa Nostra/European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage awards held at the picturesque Jerónimos monastery, a World Heritage Site.
Part of the “Creative Europe” plan, the proposed increase in funding includes new provisions for loans for small creative industries. “Credit is one of the biggest issues for small industries,” Vassiliou said, adding that 4.5% of the EU’s GDP comes from the cultural sector. “Cultural heritage is an essential part of our history—our shared history,” said Vassiliou. “It belongs to all of us and we have a duty to our children and our grandchildren to protect it.” She also stressed the importance of economic tourism: “Around 40% of international tourism is related to culture—it’s what makes Europe a top tourist destination.”
The president of Europa Nostra, the renowned Spanish tenor and conductor Plácido Domingo, echoed Vassiliou’s views on tourism. “Tourism is important in our economy and therefore, it is fully justified for the EU to invest funds [in it]. Culture is by no means second, even during an economic crisis,” he said. He added that while €1.8bn may sound like a considerable amount, “when you see what needs to be done, it’s actually not that much”.
The Grand Prize winners
As well as the 28 winners of the Europa Nostra/European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage awards, six grand prize winners were announced at the ceremony at the Jerónimos monastery, which was attended by Vassiliou and Domingo as well as leading dignitaries including the president of the Republic of Portugal, H.E. Aníbal Cavaco Silva, and the heir to the Spanish throne, the Prince of Asturias, Felipe, and his wife, Princess Letizia. The Prince applauded the winners and stressed the importance of culture heritage in “contributing to a peaceful and democratic society… and that is what we are striving for”.
Three of the six grand prize laureates were recognised for projects related to conservation. The Greek architect Spyros Raftopoulos from the National Technical University of Athens accepted the award for a project to conserve an 1860s, neo-classical building on the school’s campus. The jury applauded the school’s decision to use traditional materials and respect the original design. “This award justifies our efforts to restore this historic building ourselves,” Raftopoulos said. A project to restore a 1920s steel blast furnace—a relic of the iron industry—in Sagunto, Spain, was also singled out, as was the restoration of Poundstock Gildhouse, a 500-year-old, Grade I-listed church house in the Cornish town of Bude in the southwest of England. Sandra Dingle, a member of the house’s management committee, said she was “flabbergasted” at being one of the grand prize winners. “It’s a very tiny project, but dear to our hearts.” Other grand prize winning projects are: the interpretation of the elaborate botanical code on the Ara Pacis, a first-century Augustan monument in Rome; a project led by the Norwegian Heritage Foundation in which children adopt heritage sites; and a Romanian teacher’s 40-year quest to preserve the folk art in the town of Satu Mare. The public choice award went to a project to restore Pamplona’s walls, built between the 16th and 18th century.
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EventsLifeGreat Outdoors
You can visit this fairy tale-like castle just 3 hours from Toronto (PHOTOS)
Ainsley Smith
Apr 3 2018, 8:29 pm
@littlecoal/Instagram
If you’re in the mood for a road trip once the weather gets warmer, you may want to head to the Thousand Islands region.
On a warm sunny day, pack the car and head three hours east of the city, where you can catch a ferry and embark on an unforgettable adventure through the intricate network of islands.
Spanning across 50 miles and covering territory in both Canada and the US, the remote region of Thousand Islands is home to more than 1,800 islands, each more picturesque than the next.
During your boat ride, you’ll pass a smaller land mass located in the region named Heart Island, which is home to Boldt Castle, a breathtaking full-scale Rhineland palace, which was originally built and owned by George C. Boldt — the man who owned the world-famous Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City.
The history of Boldt Castle is as romantic as it is heartbreaking. Mr. Boldt had built the grandiose structure in the 1900s as a display of his love for his wife, Louise.
However, in 1904 Louise passed away suddenly and broken-hearted Boldt abandoned construction of the castle and never returned to the island.
For years the castle sat untouched, until 1977 when the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority acquired the property and preserved the castle for the enjoyment of future generations.
Today, visitors are invited to visit the castle, which is located on the US side and only accessible by boat. However, as long as you have a valid passport, you’re able to explore Boldt Castle and the grounds.
The opulent castle boasts 120 rooms, a private bowling alley, pristine grounds, and can also be rented out for weddings and private events.
This year, the castle will be open from May 12 through to October 21 and remains open on most holidays.
If you need any more convincing to visit Boldt Castle this year, check out these fairy tale-worthy photos below.
A post shared by Damian Dorr (@ddorr5) on Apr 2, 2018 at 1:24pm PDT
A post shared by Colton Campbell (@colt_camp) on Aug 21, 2017 at 9:34pm PDT
A post shared by Aqua Fina (@marina_aqua_fina) on Apr 2, 2018 at 9:49pm PDT
A post shared by DKF (@graciousopulence) on Aug 10, 2017 at 9:32am PDT
A post shared by Boldt Castle (@boldtcastle) on Mar 17, 2018 at 5:32am PDT
A post shared by Jordan Weber (@jordanweber_fit) on Mar 15, 2018 at 2:49pm PDT
A post shared by Gananoque Boat Line (@gananoque.boat.line) on Mar 14, 2018 at 3:50pm PDT
A post shared by @suitcase_full_of_stories on Mar 6, 2018 at 11:21pm PST
Boldt Castle
When: Open May 12 to October 21
Time: Varies by day. Full hours available here
Where: Located on Heart Island, in the Thousand Islands region
Admission: $9.50 for adults, $6.50 for children (5-12 years) and free for children four and under. All prices are in US dollars.
This stunning lavender farm near Toronto needs to be on your summer bucket list (PHOTOS)
There's a massive outdoor spring festival in Toronto this May
This Ontario scenic lookout tower is a must-see this spring (PHOTOS)
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DAP Pulau Pinang
Kempen Rakytat Pulau Pinang
State Committee
Give Our Children Hope For A Malaysian Dream Of A Great Nation That Belongs To 30 Million Malaysians Filled With Freedom, Justice, Integrity, Democracy And Prosperity For All.
Media Statements / By dapadmin / January 1, 2018 January 1, 2018
As we bid farewell to 2017 and usher in 2018, we must hold on to our dreams for the sake of our children. We have a duty to give our children the hope for a Malaysian Dream of a great nation that belongs to 30 million Malaysians filled with freedom, justice, integrity, democracy and prosperity for all.
We can dream of a Malaysia which is not a kleptocracy free from corruption scandals such as 1MDB. We can dream of Malaysians free from paying GST or a country free from police custodial deaths. We can dream of a country that cherishes facts and truth, not fake news and lies. We can dream of a country that fights corruption, not use it as a political weapon to frame up and smear the reputation of political opponents. We can dream of a country that values excellence instead of pursuing a culture of mediocrity.
Why can we not dream of a country that protects instead of abusing our fundamental rights? Why can we not dream of a country that protects our environment, stop the logging of our permanent rainforests and respects the right and dignity of women to make their own decisions free from harassment and blame? Why can we not dream of a country that helps the rakyat instead of robbing them of their funds, rights, freedom, intelligence and even privacy? Why can we not dream of a government that promotes unity and mutual respect in our multi-racial society, instead of division and fear to the extent that extremist and racist calls of wanting a Muslim Malay only Cabinet is met with silence.
This Malaysian Dream is not a monopoly of any one generation, gender or ethnic group. We can be 93 years old and still want change for a better future for our children. This Malaysian Dream promises a future to all our children, not just the children of the few cronies and well-connected in power. Never ever let our children’s future be stolen as ours were stolen with the numerous financial and corruption scandals.
That is why we must never ever give up. HAPPY NEW YEAR 2018!
Penang Chief Minister
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DAP Penang’s Official Twitter
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DAP Malaysia’s Official Twitter
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The Democratic Action Party or DAP is a political party in Malaysia’s ruling coalition Pakatan Harapan. It has become part of a new government elected into power on 9 May 2018.
Kempen Rakyat Pulau Pinang
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Search results for: Interpreting Services, Sydney NSW 2000
Thai Welfare Association
A community based organisation assisting Thai people who are in vulnerable and helpless situations. Provides referral services, casework, translation services and other...
http://www.thaiwelfare.org
Room 204, Level 2, 78 Liverpool St
Multicultural Disability Advocacy Association of NSW Inc
Works to promote, protect and secure the rights and interests of people with disability and their families and carers. The service is mainly for people from a CALD or...
02 9698 7100, 1800 629 072
http://www.mdaa.org.au
221 Cope St
Waterloo, NSW, 2017
NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service
Produces multilingual health resources. Provides information and services to assist health professionals communicate with people from culturally and linguistically...
http://www.mhcs.health.nsw.gov.au
Building 41, Gladesville Hospital Campus, Victoria Rd
Gladesville, NSW, 2111
Multicultural NSW Language Services
Provides interpreting and translating services in over 100 languages and dialects. On-site Interpreter Services available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week by...
1300 651 500, 02 8255 6767 (Multicultural NSW)
http://www.multicultural.nsw.gov.au
Level 8, 56 Station St
Deaf Society NSW (Outreach Services)
Provider of specialist services for Deaf and hard of hearing people and their families in New South Wales, as well as deaf people with additional needs. Outreach...
02 8833 3600 (Parramatta- Head Office)
http://www.deafsociety.org.au
Suite 401, Level 4, 69 Phillip St
Health Care Interpreter Service Western Sydney Local Health District
Assist clients from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds to access health services by providing professional and confidential interpreting services....
http://www.wslhd.health.nsw.gov.au/
Bldg 61, Cumberland Hospital, 5 Fleet St
Distance from: Sydney NSW 2000 Operates from various locations in the region
SWSLHD Health Language Services
A multilingual and sign interpreter service for public patients in public health facilities within the Local Health District. There is a Health Translation Unit for...
02 9828 6088 (emergency), 02 8738 6088
http://www.swslhd.health.nsw.gov.au/services/interpreter
Liverpool, NSW, 2170
Deaf Society NSW Central Coast
An organisation that provides a range of services and supports to people within the deaf community. Services also available to families and carers. Support is available...
1800 893 855 (Head Office); 02 4321 1533
http://www.deafsocietynsw.org.au
Gosford Smart Workhub, 28 William St
Gosford, NSW, 2250
Deaf Society NSW South Coast Office
Provides specialist services for deaf, deafblind and hard of hearing people, and their families. Support is available to assist with supported employment, education and...
Disability Trust Building, 26 Atchison St
Wollongong, NSW, 2500
26 Atchison St
Health Care Interpreter Service - Illawarra
Confidential face-to-face interpreting for patients and clients in the public health system whose knowledge of the English language is limited. Sign Interpreters are...
02 4223 8540 (Illawarra), 02 4274 4211
http://www.islhd.health.nsw.gov.au
Port Kembla Hospital, Cowper St
Warrawong, NSW, 2502
Deaf Society NSW Hunter
1800 893 855 (Head Office) ; 02 4032 5507
Charlestown Community Centre, Frederick St
Charlestown, NSW, 2290
Multicultural Health Liaison Program
Support for women from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds, during pregnancy and after childbirth. It ensures that women have access to a Health Care...
http://www.hnehealth.nsw.gov.au/multiculturalHealth/Pages/Mothers-Obstetrics-and-Multicultural-Support.aspx
New Lambton Heights, NSW, 2305
Hunter New England Health Care Interpreter Service
Confidential free face-to-face or telephone interpreting for patients and clients in the public health system whose knowledge of the English language is limited, or are...
02 4924 6285, 02 4921 3000 (A/H)
http://www.hnehealth.nsw.gov.au/multiculturalHealth/Pages/Health-Care-Interpreter-Service.aspx
2nd Fl, Harker Building, Longworth Ave
Wallsend, NSW, 2287
2A Platt St
Waratah, NSW, 2298
Distance from: Sydney NSW 2000 102 km
Community Living Support Centre, 101-103 Bega St
Bega, NSW, 2550
Deaf Society NSW Coffs Harbour
0401 230 911, 1800 893 855 (Head Office)
1/167-169 Rose Ave
Coffs Harbour, NSW, 2450
Deaf Society NSW (Northern NSW)
Provides specialist services for deaf, deafblind and hard of hearing people and their families, including deaf people with additional needs. Offers support with a range...
02 6622 8332, 02 6622 4028 (TTY), 1800 893 855 (Head Office)
22 Conway St
Lismore, NSW, 2480
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Law and Policy Contacts/Additional Resources
In God We Trust. Put It Up! Initiative: InGodWeTrust.com Primary Contact: Lea Carawan, President, Executive Director Mission: An initiative to
Federal Legislation/Resources
Congressional Resolution See also. See also. U.S. Department of the Treasury
States with Drafted/Pending Legislative Initiatives/Authors, Sponsors
Pennsylvania HB 1728 See also. See also. See also. Primary Author: Rick Saccone (R) Brief Summary: The House Bill would
States with Successfully Enacted Legislative Initiatives/Authors, Sponsors
Colorado (July 6, 2000): Posting of the motto in public schools: The Colorado State Board of Education voted 5-1 to
Opposition Talking Points
Having a religious oriented motto contradicts principles regarding the separation of church and state and violates the Constitution of the
Supportive Talking Points
Evidence of Government Support for ‘In God We Trust’ The phrase is found in the fourth verse of our National
Legal/Regulatory Precedence and Rule of Law
Aronow v. United States 432 F.2d 242 (1970) in the United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. The court ruled
Brief Overview/History
“In God We Trust” was adopted as the official motto of the United States in 1956. The phrase was designed
The Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation Communications Department runs a full-service media relations shop, ready to assist reporters, editors and producers. Experts are available to you on issues ranging from protecting religious freedoms, religion in school, preserving Judeo-Christian heritage, to keeping prayer in America.
Contact the Media Information Line:
jessicayoung@cpcfoundation.com
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News Archives: August, 2014
Hunt, Crane, Graves, Connor Discuss MMFs, Corp. Cash on AFP Webinar
The Association for Financial Professionals held a webinar earlier this week to dive into the details of its 2014 Liquidity Survey. (See Crane Data's July 15 News, "AFP Liquidity Survey: Corps Hold More Cash, Concern Over MMF Reform".) The webinar was hosted by Tom Hunt, director of Treasury Services, AFP, and featured our own Peter Crane, president, Crane Data, Jeffrey Graves, SVP, senior product manager, Treasury Solutions, RBS Citizens, and Mark Connor, principal, Corporate Treasury Investment Consulting. The hour-long session focused on corporate cash management trends from the survey, as well as the impact the SEC money market reforms could have on how corporations manage their cash."
Hunt led off by highlighting some of the key trends from the 2014 survey. The survey found that 68% of respondents said that safety is the most important objective of a cash investment policy. About 28% said liquidity was the most important objective, while 4% said yield. Those percentages really haven't moved much since the 2008 financial crisis, he said. Of corporations who have seen an increase in cash holdings, the vast majority. 73%, said it was due to increased operating cash flow. Of those who have had a decrease in cash holdings, the reasons were more mixed -- 43% said increased capital expenditures, 36% said decreased operating cash flow, and 28% said they paid back or retired debt.
Crane said the buildup of offshore cash is what's driving this massive cash build up. "The economy is growing, companies are making more money and a lot of that money is being trapped overseas. That's what's driving some of the cash numbers higher." If you factor in bank deposits and MMF assets, there is about $10 trillion sitting in cash, he said.
On the impact of money fund reform on cash strategies, Crane was quick to point out that the new rules won't be phased in for another two-plus years. "There's plenty of time, but the big questions I get asked are -- Is money going to move? And how much? I don't believe the outflows will be substantial, but there will be outflows. We've seen estimates out there that say anywhere from $50 billion to $500 billion will move out of prime institutional funds, but my estimate is more like $80 billion, or 10% of the market," said Crane.
"These are all wild guesses because who knows what's going to go on two years from now. But if rates are indeed rising, money market funds should look better when compared to different bank accounts, they'll actually have some yield. I do not believe it's going to be that disruptive." Crane believes the "hot money," the newer assets that came in the run up before the Reserve Fund broke the buck, is already gone. The assets since have been relatively stable and he expects it to stay that way.
Graves talked about asset allocation. "The low rate environment, Basel III regulations, and now these [money market reform] decisions being made final are continuing to force cash managers into some difficult decisions. Safety is still king, and certainly on top of mind for everyone, followed by liquidity and yield. But when it comes down to it, people are willing to sacrifice a few basis points into order to keep their company's money safe. There really aren't many options available in the market to tempt managers to go for higher rates because they just aren't there," said Graves.
The question going forward is when will rates rise? "The market right now is talking about second half of 2015. As that happens, managers are going to be torn -- do I grab for that extra yield or do I continue to keep it in a safe vehicle and give up some of that yield? Or is there a happy medium?"
So what happens now? "With the SEC rulings on money funds coming out, will this drive money out of the funds because of the floating NAV and gates and fees? This issue is on everyone's mind -- it's 'top of the house' right now." He's been talking to fund managers and asking them if they are intending to develop new products and new approaches. "It's just too early in the game to know. It's certainly something that is going to be a focus for everyone. It will be fascinating to see how it plays out."
Connor spoke about cash investment policies. Not only is it paramount to have a written cash management investment policy, said Connor, but it's important to review it on a regular basis – at least once a year and ideally once a quarter. The survey found that most (43%) review it annually, while 21% do once a quarter, and 19% do so every 2-4 years. With regard to MMFs, he advises companies to review the policy between now and when the reforms kick in.
"Many companies choose to be very specific about delineating parameters about money market funds in which they can invest. I would suggest that you are very specific about the variety, the class, and the new types that will be eligible. Meaning, if you don't want to buy a gated fund, make sure that's in your policy. If you want to buy a fund that is going to impose a liquidity fee, make sure you spell that out in your policy," he added. "In your policy, it's important to guard against putting too many eggs in one basket." Typically he recommends maximum limitation of somewhere between 50-75% in MMFs as a class and up to 50% in any single MMF. "Likewise, you don't want to be the biggest investor in a fund."
A well developed policy can be used for a separately managed account. "It can make sense to hire a money manager to invest your cash according to the parameters in your investment policy," he said. He has clients that pay 7-8 basis points for a manager. Their investment policies are a little more liberal than they would be for a typical MMF, which can help them, net of fees, get 5–15 basis points of yield."
Finally, there were three poll questions for the online audience. The first was: If you decide to move your company's cash, what will most influence your decision to leave prime MMFs? Most said "better rates in bank products." The second poll question was: Where will your company's cash be deployed if leaving MMFs because of SEC regulations? The dominant answer was also "bank deposits." The third poll question was: What changes might you consider to your investment policy? The top answer was, "more frequent review of the investment policy."
Fidelity Recaps Money Fund Reforms; Grant Thornton on Tax Accounting
It's been just over a month since the SEC adopted its voluminous 893-page Money Market Fund Reforms, which we've been digesting and excerpting since its release July 23. Following the rule's publication, there were a host of summaries and articles on the rules, but these have dried up lately. However, we came across a couple of new pieces yesterday that do a nice job of recapping the rules. One was published by Fidelity Investments in its August "Insight & Outlook" newsletter. Entitled, "Money Market Mutual Fund Reform 2014: Key Changes Ahead," it says, "On July 23, 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued final rules that would further regulate the money market mutual fund industry. The new rules will be implemented within the next two years, and will exempt government and U.S. Treasury money market mutual funds from structural reform. Upon implementation, the new rules will create a new definition for "government fund" and "retail fund" and will require institutional prime (general purpose) and institutional municipal money market mutual funds to price and transact at a "floating" net asset value (NAV)."
"Additionally, for prime and municipal funds -- regardless of whether they are retail or institutional -- the rules will establish liquidity fees that would be charged to shareholders upon redemption, as well as provide for redemption gates that would halt all withdrawals during periods of extraordinary market stress. Institutional investors will face some changes under the new SEC rules; however, some of the uneasiness associated with the uncertainty of the adjustments may be partially offset by knowing that the implementation period is lengthy, that guidance has been provided on several major concerns raised during the comment period, and that government and U.S. Treasury money market mutual funds are exempt from structural reform," writes Fidelity.
So what are the impacts? There will be a new distinction between "retail" and "institutional" prime and municipal money market mutual funds. Implementation date: October 14, 2016. Retail funds will be limited to "natural persons," that is, individuals or human beings. There is no specific definition of "institutional fund;" however, the term will apply to all prime and municipal funds that do not qualify as being retail. Examples of types of institutional accounts include accounts with registrations based on a tax identification number with the beneficiary not being a natural person, small business accounts, defined benefit plans, and endowments. However, institutional funds will also be available to natural persons for purchase."
Also, "Institutional funds will be required to have a floating NAV. Implementation date: October 14, 2016. Funds deemed to be institutional will be required to price and transact using a floating NAV, pricing their shares out to four digits ($1.0000), a process known as "basis-point rounding." At this degree of precision, shareholders would experience a gain (or loss) if the NAV moves up (or down) by one basis point, potentially creating a taxable event. Concerns were raised during the comment period related to tax and accounting issues, as well as on same-day settlement."
The Fidelity piece explains the concerns and how they were addressed by the Treasury, SEC, and IRS. Tax Reporting: The Treasury and the IRS issued guidance that shareholders will be able to report a single net number for the gains and losses experienced over the course of a year, rather than reporting individual transactions. This will significantly reduce the expected tax reporting burden, and is in effect immediately, without waiting for any further guidance from the Treasury. Wash-sale rule: The Treasury and IRS also provided guidance that sales of money market mutual funds will not be subject to the wash-sale rule. Cash equivalent: The SEC stated its position that floating NAV money market mutual funds will be considered a “cash equivalent. Same day settlement: The SEC provided clarity that a floating NAV money market mutual fund could be eligible for same-day settlement by pricing fund shares multiple times within a single day."
Institutional funds will also have new disclosure requirements. "Beginning in April 2016, each floating NAV fund will disclose daily on its website the fund's: Daily market NAV, reported out to four decimal places; Daily and weekly liquid assets as a percentage of the fund's total assets; [and] Net flows from the previous day."
Retail and institutional prime and municipal money market mutual funds can impose liquidity fees or redemption gates. "Implementation date: October 14, 2016. The intent of a liquidity fee is to transfer the costs of liquidating fund securities from the shareholders who remain in the fund to those who leave the fund during periods when liquidity is scarce, to remove a "first mover advantage." ... The gate could be in place for no longer than 10 consecutive days or for 10 days in total over the course of a 90-day period. However, a prime or municipal fund must impose a liquidity fee of 1% if weekly liquid assets were to fall below 10%, unless the fund's board determines that such a fee is not in the fund's best interests. The board will have the authority to impose a lower fee or perhaps no fee at all if, in its opinion, that is in the best interests of the fund."
The piece concludes, "Fidelity Investments is well prepared for the new rules and we are ready to make any changes to our product offerings and fund operations that may be needed to comply with them. As we have done throughout the money market mutual fund reform debate, we will keep our customers well informed by providing information, updates, and perspective."
The law firm Grant Thornton also issued an informative recap of the Treasury/IRS tax accounting changes. They write: "By requiring floating MMFs to issue and redeem shares at a price that changes regularly, shareholders will typically recognize gain or loss on redemptions of floating MMFs, unlike before, when prices were constant. The SEC received comments that expressed concern that the frequent purchases and redemption of floating MMF shares combined with relatively small changes in share values could result in tax compliance burdens disproportionate to the amounts of gain or loss."
Under the proposed regulations, taxpayers may use the "NAV method" to determine gain or loss for a taxable year related to shares of a floating MMF.... The NAV method computes net gain or loss for each "computational period" equal to the ending value of shares of a particular floating MMF minus the starting basis of the floating MMF shares, minus "net investment" in the floating MMF during the computational period. The computational period may be the taxable year or a shorter period -- for example, a month or a week. A taxpayer's gain or loss related to floating MMF shares under the NAV method is capital if the underlying floating MMF shares would otherwise give rise to capital gain or loss. Similarly, a taxpayer's gain or loss related to floating MMF shares under the NAV method is ordinary if the underlying floating MMF shares would otherwise give rise to ordinary gain or loss."
The rule provides procedures for when the Section 1091 wash-sale rule will not apply to the redemption of shares of an MMF. "The wash-sale rule disallows a loss realized by a taxpayer on a sale or disposition of stock or securities if the taxpayer acquires, or enters into a contract to acquire, substantially identical stock or securities, and the acquisition or contract is entered into within a period beginning 30 days before and ending 30 days after the date of the sale or disposition. Because investors may purchase and redeem MMF shares frequently, Section 1091 could apply to disallow a loss realized by a redeeming investor. Because the NAV method provides for no gain or loss for any particular redemption during a computational period, the NAV method would not implicate the wash-sale rule. However, a shareholder of a floating MMF that doesn't use the NAV method may typically experience frequent wash sales.... The IRS won't treat a redemption of an MMF as part of a wash sale if the MMF constituted a floating MMF at the time of the redemption."
What Boards Need to Know About SEC's Fees, Gates and Stress Testing
What do mutual fund boards of directors need to know about the SEC's money market reform rules? There are several provisions that directly impact fund boards, particularly with regard to fees and gates and stress testing. According to the new SEC rules concerning fees and gates, fund boards are charged with determining whether or not to impose fees and gates on prime MMFs under certain circumstances. States the SEC's final rules, "Today's amendments will allow a money market fund to impose a liquidity fee of up to 2%, or temporarily suspend redemptions (also known as "gate") for up to 10 business days in a 90-day period, if the fund's weekly liquid assets fall below 30% of its total assets and the fund's board of directors (including a majority of its independent directors) determines that imposing a fee or gate is in the fund's best interests. Additionally, under today's amendments, a money market fund will be required to impose a liquidity fee of 1% on all redemptions if its weekly liquid assets fall below 10% of its total assets, unless the board of directors of the fund (including a majority of its independent directors) determines that imposing such a fee would not be in the best interests of the fund." It continues, "In addition, under our proposal, a fund's board (including a majority of independent directors) could have determined not to impose the liquidity fee or to impose a lower fee."
The fees and gates rules are designed to address issues stemming from the 2008 financial crisis. "In particular, the amendments should allow funds to moderate redemption requests by allocating liquidity costs to those shareholders who impose such costs on funds through their redemptions and, in certain cases, stop heavy redemptions in times of market stress by providing fund boards with additional tools to manage heavy redemptions and improve risk transparency. Although no one can predict with certainty what would have happened if money market funds had operated with fees and gates during the financial crisis, we believe that money market funds would have been better able to manage the heavy redemptions that occurred and limit contagion, regardless of the reason for the redemptions."
Another important function of boards relates to stress testing. The newly adopted stress testing provisions require MMF funds to periodically test their ability to maintain weekly liquid assets of at least 10%. "The fund adviser must report the results of such stress testing to the board, including such information as may be reasonably necessary for the board of directors to evaluate the stress testing results."
On stress testing, the SEC established rules in 2010 that require funds to adopt procedures providing for periodic testing of the fund's ability to maintain a stable price per share based on certain hypothetical events: "Funds are currently required to provide the board with a report of the results of stress testing, which must include the dates of testing, the magnitude of each hypothetical event that would cause a fund to "break the buck," and an assessment of the fund's ability to withstand events that are reasonably likely to occur within the following year. We proposed modifications to these reporting requirements. First, we proposed adding a requirement that the fund report to the board the magnitude of each hypothetical event that would cause the fund to have invested less than 15% of its total assets in weekly liquid assets. Second, we proposed requiring funds to include in their assessment "such information as may reasonably be necessary for the board of directors to evaluate the stress testing ... and the results of the testing."
The SEC had several opportunities to observe the effectiveness of stress testing in recent years, including the 2011 Eurozone crisis and the 2013 U.S. debt ceiling impasse. "Our staff has observed that funds that had strong stress testing procedures were able to use the results of those tests to better manage their portfolios and better understand and minimize the risks associated with these events," said the SEC in the final rules. Considering this information, the SEC proposed certain enhancements to strengthen the stress testing requirements.
The final rules say: "We are adopting modifications to the proposed reporting requirements to boards regarding stress testing in response to comments we received on the proposal. Specifically, we are adopting a requirement that the board of directors be provided at its next annual meeting, or sooner if appropriate, a report that includes the dates on which the testing was performed and an assessment of the fund's ability to maintain at least 10% in weekly liquid assets and to limit principal volatility. Some commenters had concerns that the proposed requirement that funds report to the board the magnitude of each hypothetical event that would cause the fund to have invested less than 15% in weekly liquid assets was not feasible. We believe that requiring funds to provide an assessment of the fund's ability to maintain liquidity, rather than requiring the funds report a specific value for each hypothetical event, addresses such concerns."
On minimizing principal volatility, the rules explain: "We have also added the requirement for an assessment of the fund's ability to minimize principal volatility because, as discussed above, we have added this metric to the stress testing requirements in response to comments. We believe that requiring funds to provide an assessment of their ability to maintain liquidity and minimize principal volatility (and in the case of stable NAV funds, to maintain a stable share price), rather than the more prescriptive requirements proposed and that are in the rule currently, is also appropriate because we have modified the rule so that each "hypothetical event" is a combination of two events. We want to clarify that funds are not required to separately test for interest rate increases, a downgrade or default, a spread shift, or shareholder redemptions in isolation."
It continues, "We understand that under the current requirements, many funds, in addition to reporting the magnitude of each event that would cause the fund to "break the buck," provide a table showing how the fund's shadow NAV is affected by different combinations of events and different values. Some funds include information regarding, for example, the concentrations of several of the funds' largest portfolio holdings, both by individual issuer and by sector, and of historical redemptions rates, as points of reference. Several funds also include narratives to help explain the results. In some instances, for example, fund advisers used the narrative to compare results among funds or to explain results that they considered to be unusual. Some narratives also assessed the likelihood of the hypothetical events. We are not including requirements for any of these specific items in the rule because we recognize that there is no one set of factors that will be relevant for all funds, but we believe these are examples of items that we encourage fund advisers to consider when developing the required report assessing stress test results."
The amendments give boards oversight. "We are adopting as proposed the requirement that a fund's adviser provide "such information as may reasonably be necessary for the board of directors to evaluate the stress testing conducted by the adviser and the results of the testing." One commenter supported this requirement, noting that it is a common practice to provide directors with information that helps to place stress-testing results in context. Some commenters opposed this requirement, arguing that the provision of additional information could be burdensome for boards and would not provide useful information to fund boards. We disagree. As we noted in the Proposing Release, the staff's examination of stress testing reports revealed disparities in the quality of information regarding stress testing provided to fund boards. We believe that this requirement will allow boards of directors to receive information that is useful for understanding and interpreting stress testing results."
However, it does not require a fund adviser to provide the details and supporting information for every stress test that the fund administered. "To the contrary, a thoughtful summary of stress testing results with sufficient context for understanding the results may be preferable to providing details of every test. For example, information about historical redemption activities, as mentioned above, and the fund's investor base could help boards evaluate the potential for shareholder redemptions at the levels that are being tested. Additionally, information regarding any contemporaneous market stresses to particular portfolio sectors could be helpful to a board's consideration of stress testing results."
Finally, the SEC final rules added a requirement that the adviser include in the report a summary of the significant assumptions made when performing the stress tests. "We have, in response to comments, modified the required hypothetical events from the proposal to reduce the number and complexity of the assumptions funds are required to make. We recognize, however, that funds will need to make some basic assumptions when conducting the stress tests. These assumptions would include, for example, how the fund would satisfy shareholder redemptions (e.g., through weekly liquid assets or by selling certain portfolio securities, including any assumption of haircuts such securities can be sold at) and the amount of loss in value of a downgraded or defaulted portfolio security. We believe that having a summary of such assumptions will help the board better understand the stress testing results, and particularly the sensitivity of those results to given assumptions. We believe this information will allow the board to better understand money market fund risk exposures, and thus allow it to provide more effective oversight of the fund and its adviser."
ESMA Removes References to Credit Ratings in Euro MMF Definitions
The European Securities and Markets Authority issued an amendment last Friday, August 22, that would tweak the Committee of European Securities Regulators' guidelines on the Common Definition of European Money Market Funds. The key change by ESMA says all references to credit ratings in guidelines and recommendations must be removed. Specifically, "Article 5(b)(1) of the CRA Regulation -- as amended by the CRA3 Regulation -- states: [ESMA, EBA and EIOPA], shall not refer to credit ratings in their guidelines, recommendations and draft technical standards where such references have the potential to trigger sole or mechanistic reliance on credit ratings by the competent authorities, the sectorial competent authorities, the entities referred to in the first subparagraph of Article 4(1) of the CRA Regulation or other financial market participants. Accordingly, EBA, EIOPA and ESMA shall review and remove, where appropriate, all such references to credit ratings in existing guidelines and recommendations by 31 December 2013." (Note: For those interested in more on European money market fund regulations, our European Money Fund Symposium, which is Sept. 22-23 in London, is still accepting registrations.)
The definitions for money market funds in Europe were adopted by CESR in 2010. "The CESR guidelines distinguish between Short-Term Money Market Funds (ST MMFs) and Money Market Funds (MMFs) on the basis of certain key characteristics, such as the weighted average maturity and weighted average life. ESMA is the legal successor of CESR. The CESR guidelines also set out criteria that money market instruments should respect in order to be considered as eligible investments for ST MMFs and MMFs. In particular, ST MMFs and MMFs should only invest in high quality money market instruments. According to the CESR guidelines, a money market instrument should not be considered to be of high quality by managers of ST MMFs and MMFs unless it has been awarded one of the two highest available short-term credit ratings by each recognised credit rating agency that has rated the instrument."
However, after reviewing the CESR guidelines against the provisions of the CRA3 Regulation, "ESMA concluded that they had the potential to trigger sole or mechanistic reliance on credit ratings. As a consequence, the Authority decided to review the CESR guidelines as required by Article 5(b)(1) of the CRA Regulation; this led to the publication on 6 February 2014 by ESMA, EIOPA and EBA of the joint final report on Mechanistic Reference to Credit Ratings in the ESA's Guidelines and Recommendations (JC 2014 004). This report sets out the manner in which the CESR guidelines were to be amended, in particular with respect to the assessment of credit quality of money market instruments by managers of ST MMFs and MMFs. The purpose of this opinion is to explain how national competent authorities should apply the modifications set out in the aforementioned report when monitoring the application of the CESR guidelines by the relevant financial market participants." ESMA says national competent authorities should take into account the new amendments (highlighted below) when they monitor the application of the CESR guidelines on a Common Definition of European Money Market Funds.
Specifically, Paragraph 4 of Box 2 of the original ESMA guidelines should be replaced with the following: "For the purposes of point 3a), ensure that the management company performs its own documented assessment of the credit quality of money market instruments that allows it to consider a money market instrument as high quality. Where one or more credit rating agencies registered and supervised by ESMA have provided a rating of the instrument, the management company's internal assessment should have regard to, inter alia, those credit ratings. While there should be no mechanistic reliance on such external ratings, a downgrade below the two highest short-term credit ratings by any agency registered and supervised by ESMA that has rated the instrument should lead the manager to undertake a new assessment of the credit quality of the money market instrument to ensure it continues to be of high quality."
The replaced language said a money market instrument should not be considered "high quality unless it has been awarded one of the two highest available short-term credit ratings by each recognised credit rating agency that has rated the instrument or, if the instrument is not rated, it is of an equivalent quality as determined by the management company's internal rating process." The amendment also crosses out two other references to credit ratings: paragraph 10 of the explanatory text under Box 2 of the original CESR guidelines and paragraph 25 of the explanatory text under Box 3 of the original CESR guidelines "since this paragraph deals with the minimum credit rating of money market instruments."
Also, ESMA recommends that paragraph 2 of box 3 of the original guidelines should be amended as such: "May, as an exception to the requirement of point 4 of Box 2, hold sovereign issuance of a lower internally-assigned credit quality based on the MMF manager's own documented assessment of credit quality. Where one or more credit rating agencies registered and supervised by ESMA have provided a rating of the instrument, the management company's internal assessment should have regard to, inter alia, those credit ratings. While there should not be mechanistic reliance on such external ratings, a downgrade below investment grade or any other equivalent rating grade by any agency registered and supervised by ESMA that has rated the instrument should lead the manager to undertake a new assessment of the credit quality of the money market instrument to ensure it continues to be of appropriate quality. 'Sovereign issuance' should be understood as money market instruments issued or guaranteed by a central, regional or local authority or central bank of a Member State, the European Central Bank, the European Union or the European Investment Bank." ESMA will not reissue the CESR guidelines on a Common Definition of European Money Market Funds as ESMA guidelines under Article 16 of the Regulation. "This means that national competent authorities will not have to notify ESMA whether or not they comply or intend to comply with the amended version of the CESR guidelines. However, ESMA will monitor the application of this opinion by national competent authorities."
Here's some background on the CESR guidelines. "The key purpose behind a harmonised definition of 'money market fund' is improved investor protection. This reflects the fact that investors in money market funds expect the capital value of their investment to be maintained while retaining the ability to withdraw their capital on a daily basis. A common definition will also help provide a more detailed understanding of the distinction between funds which operate in a very restricted fashion and those which follow a more 'enhanced' approach."
CESR's guidelines define European money market funds in two ways: Short-term money market funds and money market funds. The former is similar to U.S.-style money funds. "This approach recognises the distinction between short-term money market funds, which operate a very short weighted average maturity and weighted average life, and money market funds which operate with a longer weighted average maturity and weighted average life." In the amendment, ESMA lays out the complete guidelines, including the new changes, as stated above, within the context of the guidelines.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, along with its July 23 Money Fund Reform proposal, also recommended removing references to credit ratings. Says the SEC, from our July 23 article: "The re-proposed amendments would implement section 939A of the Dodd-Frank Act, which requires the SEC to remove any reference to or requirement of reliance on credit ratings in its regulations and to establish appropriate standards of creditworthiness in place of certain references to credit ratings in SEC rules. Currently, to ensure that these funds are invested in high quality short-term securities, rule 2a-7 requires that money market funds invest only in securities that have received one of the two highest short-term ratings (that is, are rated either "first tier" or "second tier") or if they are not rated, are of comparable quality. It also currently requires that a money market fund invest at least 97 percent of its assets in first tier securities. In addition, rule 2a-7 requires that a fund's board of directors (or its delegate) determine that the security presents minimal credit risks. This determination must be based on factors pertaining to credit quality in addition to any rating assigned to the security.... The re-proposed amendments to rule 2a-7 would eliminate the credit ratings requirements for money market funds. Instead, a money market fund could invest in a security only if the fund's board of directors (or its delegate) determines that it presents minimal credit risks, and that determination would require the board of directors to find that the security's issuer has an exceptionally strong capacity to meet its short-term obligations."
Yellen Reiterates Rate Stance; Bullard, Strategists on Fed Reverse Repo
Jackson Hole, Wyoming was the center of the economic universe Friday as Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen was the featured speaker at the annual Economic Policy Symposium, sponsored by the Kansas City Federal Reserve. Interest rates were a hot topic, but there was also some discussion of the Fed's reverse repo program by St. Louis Fed President James Bullard during an interview with Bloomberg. In her keynote speech Friday morning, Chair Yellen said the Fed is waiting for further recovery in the job market before moving on interest rates. "At the FOMC's most recent meeting, the Committee judged, based on a range of labor market indicators, that "labor market conditions improved." Indeed, as I noted earlier, they have improved more rapidly than the Committee had anticipated. Nevertheless, the Committee judged that underutilization of labor resources still remains significant. Given this assessment and the Committee's expectation that inflation will gradually move up toward its longer-run objective, the Committee reaffirmed its view "that it likely will be appropriate to maintain the current target range for the federal funds rate for a considerable time after our current asset purchase program ends, especially if projected inflation continues to run below the Committee's 2 percent longer-run goal, and provided that longer-term inflation expectations remain well anchored.""
She continued, "But if progress in the labor market continues to be more rapid than anticipated by the Committee or if inflation moves up more rapidly than anticipated, resulting in faster convergence toward our dual objectives, then increases in the federal funds rate target could come sooner than the Committee currently expects and could be more rapid thereafter. Of course, if economic performance turns out to be disappointing and progress toward our goals proceeds more slowly than we expect, then the future path of interest rates likely would be more accommodative than we currently anticipate. As I have noted many times, monetary policy is not on a preset path. The Committee will be closely monitoring incoming information on the labor market and inflation in determining the appropriate stance of monetary policy," said Yellen.
Committee members remain divided on when rates will go up. Bullard predicts late first quarter of 2015, while others, like Atlanta Fed president Dennis Lockhart, say mid-2015, according to Bloomberg <iEhttp://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-08-22/u-dot-s-dot-index-futures-little-changed-before-yellen-speaks>`_.
In a live interview from Jackson Hole, Bullard talked to Bloomberg Radio's Kathleen Hays about a range of topics, including the Fed's reverse repo program. Writes Bloomberg reporter Matthew Boesler, "The Federal Reserve will probably borrow "several hundred billion" dollars from money-market mutual funds and others to anchor the federal funds rate when it begins tightening policy, according to St. Louis Fed President James Bullard. "I don't think it would have to be that large of a program. Possibly several hundred billion would be enough," Bullard said, referring to the Fed's overnight reverse repurchase facility, which it has been testing since September. "If that didn't work, the committee could revisit that and increase the size of the program if we thought that was necessary." ... The central bank has been testing overnight reverse repos with a limited set of counterparties, mostly money funds, as a tool to set a floor under short-term interest rates when it begins guiding those rates higher, an event Fed officials forecast to occur in 2015."
In his daily newsletter, Wells Fargo Securities strategist Garrett Sloan commented on the RRP. Writes Sloan, "The expansion of the repo program would represent a significant increase in the amount of repo sitting in money market funds, and could possibly cause some "crowding out" in front-end markets, forcing issuers to increase rates even further to entice buyers. This would most likely be true in credit-related markets, while we could potentially see other government-related products such as bills and very short coupons lag the increases. This kind of "policy leakage" is not likely a concern for the Federal Reserve unless it gets completely dislocated from other short-term rates."
J.P. Morgan Securities latest "Short-Term Fixed Income" says of the RRP program, "The likelihood that the Fed will extend the facility beyond its current sunset date of January 30, 2015 is almost certain at this point. Until then, the minutes noted that further testing could be done to limit the Fed's role in financial intermediation and mitigate run risks to the Fed during periods of financial market stress. In what form these additional tests could come in remains to be seen. Based on various Fed speeches and FOMC minutes, the Fed seems keen to include design features that could limit the program size while still be able to set a firmer floor under money market rates during normalization. To that end, it's possible that the Fed may test an aggregate cap on the RRP facility alongside or instead of the current allotment limit per counterparty."
Authors Alex Roever, Teresa Ho, and John Iborg add, "While the Fed is set to use the RRP facility during the normalization process, the minutes also noted that the RRP facility will only be a temporary facility, used as needed for effective monetary policy implementation. Eventually, the program will be phased out when it is no longer needed for that purpose. If this were to occur, this could of course become problematic for government money funds down the road to the extent that government supply continues to shrink and flows into government money funds remain prevalent post the implementation of money market reform in late 2016. As it stands, the RRP facility has been both a reliable and useful source of backstop supply for MMFs."
Finally, commenting on the Fed's reverse repo strategy from the July 29 FOMC minutes, Citi Research strategist Andrew Hollenhorst wrote "Consistent with the tone of the last minutes, "participants generally agreed that the ON RRP facility should be only as large as needed for effective monetary policy implementation." As we have previously discussed, recent reforms may increase money market mutual fund demand for repo and short-term government assets and reduce bank supply of repo and other short-term investments. The Fed may need to reconcile a fixed policy rate with the increased demand for and limited supply of short-term government assets by allowing the size of the RRP facility to grow. The RRP facility was characterized as "temporary" but in our view the large size of the Fed balance sheet may make RRP a necessary tool for flooring rates for the next few years at least."
ICI Economists Knock Knockers of Fees and Gates; Theory vs. Practice
ICI economists Sean Collins and Chris Plantier issued a rebuttal to NY Federal Reserve economists -- (see our August 19 "Link of the Day", "NY Fed Blog on Gates, Fees, and Runs") – in which they argue that the SEC's adoption of gates and fees on MMFs could increase run risk. In their August 20 column, "Preemptive Runs and Money Market Gates and Fees: Theory Meets Practice," Collins and Plantier disagree. They write, "A recent post on the blog of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York discusses the possibility that new rules by the Securities and Exchange Commission allowing money market funds to temporarily impose fees or gates during times of market instability could increase the risk of preemptive runs on such funds during times of stress, rather than helping to limit destabilizing withdrawals, as the SEC intended. Although the Fed's blog post provides an interesting theoretical insight, the discussion brings to mind the quote by Yogi Berra that "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is." In "Gates, Fees, and Preemptive Runs," the authors -- Fed economists Marco Cipriani, Antoine Martin, Patrick McCabe, and Bruno Parigi -- note that the academic literature on banks has traditionally seen "suspension of convertibility" (preventing the exchange of deposits at par for cash) as a means of preventing damaging bank runs. For example, by requiring a bank that cannot meet all depositors' withdrawals to temporarily close its doors, regulators might prevent further and potentially destabilizing withdrawals."
Collins and Plantier continue, "The authors then compare this to the new SEC rule, which -- among other things -- allows a money market fund to impose a liquidity fee of up to 2 percent and to "gate" (temporarily suspend) redemptions for up to 10 business days during a 90-day period if the fund's weekly liquid assets fall below 30 percent <b:>`_ of its total assets, and if the fund's board of directors determines that imposing a fee and/or gate is in the fund's best interests <b:>`_. In addition, a money market fund will be required to impose a liquidity fee of 1 percent on all redemptions if its weekly liquid assets fall below 10 percent of its total assets, unless the fund's board determines that this would not be in the best interests of the fund. Cipriani et al. suggest that this could in theory lead to "preemptive runs" on money market funds because "investors who face potential restrictions on their future access to cash may run when they anticipate such restrictions may be imposed."
Specifically, quoting the NY Fed piece, it says, "A bank, MMF, or other FI with the option to suspend convertibility may become more fragile and vulnerable to runs. In other words, we show that instead of offering a solution, policies relying on gates and fees can be part of the problem.... Giving an FI [financial intermediary] the option to impose gates or fees may be destabilizing because the option itself can trigger damaging runs that otherwise would not have occurred. This result is likely to hold for a variety of adjustments to the assumptions in our model, because the intuition is stark: The possibility of a fee or any other measure that is costly enough to counter investors' strong incentives to run amid a crisis will give investors a strong incentive to run preemptively to avoid such measures. Even though our model does not address how runs on FIs can create large negative externalities for the financial system and the real economy, one important policy implication is clear: Giving FIs, such as MMFs, the option to restrict redemptions when liquidity falls short may threaten financial stability by setting up the possibility of preemptive runs."
To which the ICI economists reply, "Theory and practice differ, however. In practice, fees and gates are just one aspect of the nuanced package of money market fund reforms that the SEC adopted in July 2014 after long study. Most notably, the reforms require institutional money market funds -- the kinds of funds that were most at risk of redemptions during September 2008 -- to move away from a fixed $1.00 net asset value (NAV) and adopt a floating NAV. All 12 Federal Reserve Bank presidents -- including William Dudley, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York -- are on the record stating that money market funds are susceptible to runs because they seek to maintain fixed NAVs. If correct, the SEC's new rule addresses this issue by requiring institutional money market funds to float their NAVs. Thus, by the Fed's logic, it is unlikely that a money market fund with a floating NAV would need to adopt fees and/or gates. Alternatively, putting this in the language of the Fed's blog post, requiring a money market fund to float its NAV means that a fund has already permanently suspended "convertibility at par" -- rendering "suspension of convertibility" through a fee or gate redundant."
Collins and Plantier add, "In addition, as the SEC pointed out in its rule proposal, gates and fees have in practice "been used successfully in the past by certain non–money market fund cash management pools to stem redemptions during times of stress." Some hedge funds and European-domiciled mutual funds operating under the Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) directives have provisions allowing them to impose gates. These provisions, which are disclosed to investors, have not caused runs. Moreover, since February 2010 -- when the SEC adopted its first postcrisis reform of money market funds -- these funds have had the ability (again, disclosed to investors) to halt shareholder redemptions, albeit with the restriction that a money market fund would then liquidate (i.e., go out of business). This provision has not fostered "preemptive runs" on money market funds."
They conclude, "And, in a final way that practice would differ from theory, money market funds would almost certainly take strong measures to avoid ever having to impose fees or a redemption gate. Investors value money market funds as a cash management tool, and fund managers would work very hard -- just as they have always done -- to avoid reducing that value."
Here's what the SEC said about the ramifications in its final Money Fund Reform rules. "We acknowledge the possibility that, in market stress scenarios, shareholders might pre-emptively redeem shares if they fear the imminent imposition of fees or gates (either because of the fund's situation or because other money market funds have imposed redemption restrictions). A number of commenters suggested investors would do so. Some commenters also suggested that sophisticated investors in particular might be able to predict that fees and gates may be imposed and may redeem shares before this occurs. While we recognize that there is risk of pre-emptive redemptions, the benefits of having effective tools in place to address runs and contagion risk leads us to adopt the proposed fees and gates reforms, with some modifications. We believe several of the changes we are making in our final reforms will mitigate this risk and dampen the effects on other money market funds and the broader markets if pre-emptive redemptions do occur."
The final rules state, "As discussed below, the shorter maximum time period for the imposition of gates and the smaller size of the default liquidity fee that we are adopting in these final amendments, as compared to what we proposed, are expected to lessen further the risk of pre-emptive runs. We understand that the potential for a longer gate or higher liquidity fee before a restriction is in place may increase the incentive for investors to redeem at the first sign of any potential stress at a fund or in the markets. We believe that by limiting the maximum time period that gates may be imposed to 10 business days in any 90-day period (down from the proposed 30 days), investor concerns regarding an extended loss of access to cash from their investment should be mitigated. Indeed, some money market funds today retain the right to delay payment on redemption requests for up to seven days, as all registered investment companies are permitted to do under the Investment Company Act, and we are not aware that this possibility has led to any pre-emptive runs historically."
It adds, "In addition, we note that under section 22(e), the Commission also has the authority to, by order, suspend the right of redemption or allow the postponement of payment of redemption requests for more than seven days. The Commission used this authority, for example, with respect to the Reserve Primary Fund. To our knowledge, this authority also has not historically led to pre-emptive redemptions. We believe that the gating allowed by today's amendments extends and formalizes this existing gating framework, clarifying for investors when a money market fund potentially may use a gate as a tool to manage heavy redemptions and thus prevents any investor confusion on when gating may apply."
FOMC Minutes Detail RRP, Interest Rate Deliberations; Jackson Hole
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors released minutes from its July 29 Federal Open Markets Committee Meeting on August 20. While there was no major change in interest rate policy (see our July 31 Link of the Day), the minutes offer some insight into the boards' deliberations on interest rates. They also talk about the impact of the Fed's reverse repo program on money market funds. On monetary policy, it says: "Meeting participants continued their discussion of issues associated with the eventual normalization of the stance and conduct of monetary policy, consistent with the Committee's intention to provide additional information to the public later this year, well before most participants anticipate the first steps in reducing policy accommodation to become appropriate. The staff detailed a possible approach for implementing and communicating monetary policy once the Committee begins to tighten the stance of policy. The approach reflected the Committee's discussion of normalization strategies and policy tools during the previous two meetings. Participants expressed general support for the normalization approach outlined by the staff, though some noted reservations about one or more of its features. Almost all participants agreed that it would be appropriate to retain the federal funds rate as the key policy rate, and they supported continuing to target a range of 25 basis points for this rate at the time of liftoff and for some time thereafter. However, one participant preferred to use the range for the federal funds rate as a communication tool rather than as a hard target, and another preferred that policy communications during the normalization period focus on the rate of interest on excess reserves (IOER) and the ON RRP rate in addition to the federal funds rate. Participants agreed that adjustments in the IOER rate would be the primary tool used to move the federal funds rate into its target range and influence other money market rates."
It goes on, "In addition, most thought that temporary use of a limited-scale ON RRP facility would help set a firmer floor under money market interest rates during normalization. Most participants anticipated that, at least initially, the IOER rate would be set at the top of the target range for the federal funds rate, and the ON RRP rate would be set at the bottom of the federal funds target range. Alternatively, some participants suggested the ON RRP rate could be set below the bottom of the federal funds target range, judging that it might be possible to begin the normalization process with minimal or no reliance on an ON RRP facility and increase its role only if necessary. However, many other participants thought that such a strategy might result in insufficient control of money market rates at liftoff, which could cause confusion about the likely path of monetary policy or raise questions about the Committee's ability to implement policy effectively."
The Fed Minutes add, "Participants generally agreed that the ON RRP facility should be only as large as needed for effective monetary policy implementation and should be phased out when it is no longer needed for that purpose. Participants expressed their desire to include features in the facility's design that would limit the Federal Reserve's role in financial intermediation and mitigate the risk that the facility might magnify strains in short-term funding markets during periods of financial stress. They discussed options to address these concerns, including methods for limiting the program's size. Many participants noted that further testing would provide additional information that could help determine the appropriate features to temper the risks that might be associated with an ON RRP facility."
It continues, "Most participants supported reducing or ending reinvestment sometime after the first increase in the target range for the federal funds rate. A few, however, believed that ceasing reinvestment before liftoff was a better approach because it would lead to an earlier reduction in the size of the portfolio. Most participants continued to anticipate that the Committee would not sell MBS, except perhaps to eliminate residual holdings.... Participants requested additional analysis from the staff on issues related to normalization as background for further discussion at their next meeting. A few participants also suggested that the Committee should solicit additional information from the public regarding the possible effects of an ON RRP facility, but some others pointed out that the Committee would continue to receive such feedback informally in response to its ongoing communications regarding normalization.”
The minutes also stated, "With respect to monetary policy over the medium run, participants generally agreed that labor market conditions and inflation had moved closer to the Committee's longer-run objectives in recent months, and most anticipated that progress toward those goals would continue. Moreover, many participants noted that if convergence toward the Committee's objectives occurred more quickly than expected, it might become appropriate to begin removing monetary policy accommodation sooner than they currently anticipated. Indeed, some participants viewed the actual and expected progress toward the Committee's goals as sufficient to call for a relatively prompt move toward reducing policy accommodation to avoid overshooting the Committee's unemployment and inflation objectives over the medium term. These participants were increasingly uncomfortable with the Committee's forward guidance. In their view, the guidance suggested a later initial increase in the target federal funds rate as well as lower future levels of the funds rate than they judged likely to be appropriate."
At the conclusion of the discussion, the Committee voted to authorize the following domestic policy directive: "Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in June indicates that growth in economic activity rebounded in the second quarter.... In light of the cumulative progress toward maximum employment and the improvement in the outlook for labor market conditions since the inception of the current asset purchase program, the Committee decided to make a further measured reduction in the pace of its asset purchases. Beginning in August, the Committee will add to its holdings of agency mortgage-backed securities at a pace of $10 billion per month rather than $15 billion per month, and will add to its holdings of longer-term Treasury securities at a pace of $15 billion per month rather than $20 billion per month."
The directive continued, "To support continued progress toward maximum employment and price stability, the Committee today reaffirmed its view that a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy remains appropriate. In determining how long to maintain the current 0 to 1/4 percent target range for the federal funds rate, the Committee will assess progress -- both realized and expected -- toward its objectives of maximum employment and 2 percent inflation.... The Committee continues to anticipate, based on its assessment of these factors, that it likely will be appropriate to maintain the current target range for the federal funds rate for a considerable time after the asset purchase program ends, especially if projected inflation continues to run below the Committee's 2 percent longer-run goal, and provided that longer-term inflation expectations remain well anchored. When the Committee decides to begin to remove policy accommodation, it will take a balanced approach consistent with its longer-run goals of maximum employment and inflation of 2 percent. The Committee currently anticipates that, even after employment and inflation are near mandate-consistent levels, economic conditions may, for some time, warrant keeping the target federal funds rate below levels the Committee views as normal in the longer run."
Only Charles Plosser voted against it. "Mr. Plosser dissented because he objected to the statement's guidance indicating that it likely will be appropriate to maintain the current target range for the federal funds rate for "a considerable time after the asset purchase program ends." In his view, the reference to calendar time should be replaced with language that indicates how monetary policy will respond to incoming data. Moreover, he judged that the statement did not acknowledge the substantial progress that had been made toward the Committee's economic goals and thus risks unnecessary and disruptive volatility in financial markets, and perhaps in the economy, if the Committee reduces accommodation sooner or more quickly than financial markets anticipate."
Investors are eagerly awaiting further clues on the direction of interest rates from this week's Economic Summit in Jackson Hole, Wy.,, sponsored by the Kansas City Federal Reserve. The symposium, which runs August 21-22, is an annual gathering of central bankers, economists, financial market participants, finance ministers, academics and to discuss economic issue facing the U.S. and world economies. Certainly, a hot topic this year will be interest rates and when they will be raised. Fed Chair Janet Yellen will deliver the keynote address Thursday morning.
Analyzing SEC's New Definitions, Rules for Government, Retail MMFs
While much of the focus of the SEC's recent Money Market Fund Reforms has been on institutional MMFs, the final rules also establish new guidelines -- and definitions -- for government and retail money market funds. We take a look at the key rules changes around government and retail MMFs below. On page 202 of the final rules (which were recently published in the Federal Register), it explains how the definition of government MMFs has changed, particularly with respect to the non-government basket. "The fees and gates and floating NAV reforms included in today's Release will not apply to government money market funds, which are defined as a money market fund that invests at least 99.5% of its total assets in cash, government securities, and/or repurchase agreements that are "collateralized fully" (i.e., collateralized by cash or government securities). In addition, under today's amendments, government money market funds may invest a de minimis amount (up to 0.5%) in non-government assets, unlike our proposal and under current rule 2a-7, which permits government money market funds to invest up to 20% of total assets in non-government assets." [Note: Though "government" money funds are currently allowed to buy up to 20% in non-govt assets, none do.]
On not imposing gates and fees or floating NAV on government MMFs it says, "Government money market fund will not be required to, but may, impose a fee or gate if the ability to do so is disclosed in a fund's prospectus and the fund complies with the fees and gates requirements in the amended rule. With respect to the floating NAV reform, most commenters supported a reform that does not apply to government money market funds. Commenters noted that government funds pose significantly less risk of heavy investor redemptions than prime funds, have low default risk and are highly liquid even during market stress, and experienced net inflows during the financial crisis.... Government money market funds face different redemption pressures and have different risk characteristics than other money market funds because of their unique portfolio composition. The securities primarily held by government money market funds typically have a lower credit default risk than commercial paper and other securities held by prime money market funds and are highly liquid in even the most stressful market conditions. As noted in our proposal, government funds' primary risk is interest rate risk; that is, the risk that changes in the interest rates result in a change in the market value of portfolio securities. Even the interest rate risk of government money market funds, however, is generally mitigated because these funds typically hold assets that have short maturities and hold those assets to maturity.... Most government money market funds always have at least 30% weekly liquid assets because of the nature of their portfolio (i.e., the securities they generally hold, by definition, are weekly liquid assets)."
It talks about providing investor with clear choices. "We expect that some money market fund investors may be unwilling or unable to invest in a money market fund that floats its NAV and/or can impose a fee or gate. By not subjecting government money market funds to the fees and gates and floating NAV reforms, fund sponsors will have the ability to offer money market fund investment products that meet investors' differing investment and liquidity needs. We also believe that this approach preserves some of the current benefits of money market funds for investors. Based on our evaluation of these considerations and tradeoffs, and the more limited risk of heavy redemptions in government money market funds, we believe it is preferable to tailor today's reforms and not apply the floating NAV requirement to government funds, but to permit them to implement the fees and gates reforms if they choose."
It explains in more detail why it changed the size of the non-government basket. "We agree with commenters who suggested that permitting government funds to invest potentially up to 20% of fund assets in riskier non-government securities may promote a type of hybrid money market fund that presents new risks that are not consistent with the purposes of the money market reforms adopted today. It would limit the effectiveness of our floating NAV reform, for example, to allow a hybrid government fund to develop and potentially present credit risk to institutional investors seeking greater yield, while keeping the benefit of a stable NAV. In order to evaluate an appropriate de minimis amount of non-government securities, Commission staff, using Form N-MFP data, analyzed the exposure of government money market funds to non-government securities between November 2010 and November 2013.... An analysis of the data also showed that, between November 2010 and November 2013, government money market funds generally invested between 0.5% and 2.5% of their total amortized cost dollar holdings in non-government securities and, more recently closer to 0.5% in non-government securities from November 2012 to November 2013. We expect that the 0.5% non-conforming basket is consistent with current industry practices and strikes an appropriate balance between providing government money market fund managers with adequate flexibility to manage such funds while preventing them from taking on potentially high levels of risk associated with non-government assets."
Retail MMFs also have their own new rules. "Our fees and gates reform will apply to retail money market funds, but our floating NAV reform will not. However, as discussed more below, we are revising the definition of a retail money market fund from our proposal to address concerns raised by commenters. As amended, a retail money market fund means a money market fund that has policies and procedures reasonably designed to limit all beneficial owners of the fund to natural persons."
On the differences between retail and institutional investors it says, "Retail investors historically have behaved differently from institutional investors in a crisis, being less likely to make large redemptions quickly in response to the first sign of market stress. During the financial crisis, institutional prime money market funds had substantially larger redemptions than prime money market funds that self-identify as retail. As noted in the Proposing Release, for example, approximately 4-5% of retail prime money market funds had outflows of greater than 5% on each of September 17, 18, and 19, 2008, compared to 22-30% of institutional prime money market funds."
It also discusses why fees and gates are imposed on retail funds. "Although, as discussed above, the evidence suggests that retail investors historically have exhibited much lower levels of redemptions or a slower pace of redemptions in times of stress, we cannot predict future investor behavior with certainty and, thus, we cannot rule out the potential for heavy redemptions in retail funds in the future. Empirical analyses of retail money market fund redemptions during the financial crisis show that at least some retail investors eventually began redeeming shares. Similarly, we note that when the Reserve Primary Fund, which was a mixed retail and institutional money market fund, "broke the buck" as a result of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, almost all of its investors ran -- retail and institutional alike.... Moreover, as we recognized in the Proposing Release, retail prime money market funds, unlike government money market funds, generally are subject to the same credit and liquidity risks as institutional prime money market funds."
The rules continue, "As such, absent fees and gates, there would be nothing to help manage or prevent a run on retail prime money market funds in the future. While retail investors are unlikely to be motivated to a substantial degree by the first-mover advantage created by money market funds' stable pricing convention, they may be motivated to redeem heavily in flights to quality, liquidity, and transparency (even if they may do so somewhat slower than institutional investors). Fees and gates are designed to address these types of redemptions... Further, while we recognize that a retail money market fund may be less likely to experience strained liquidity (and thus less likely to need to impose a fee or gate), we believe there is still a sufficient risk of this occurring that we should allow such funds to impose a fee or gate to manage any related heavy redemptions when the weekly liquid assets fall below 30% and doing so is in the fund's best interests. For the same reasons, we believe requiring a fund to impose a liquidity fee when weekly liquid assets fall below 10% is also appropriate, unless the board determines otherwise based on the fund's best interests. Accordingly, retail money market funds will be subject to the fees and gates reform."
Retail funds are not subject to floating NAV, however. "We are not imposing the floating NAV reform on retail money market funds. For purposes of the floating NAV reform, we are defining a retail money market fund to mean a money market fund that has policies and procedures reasonably designed to limit all beneficial owners of the fund to natural persons. We continue to believe that the significant benefits of providing an alternative stable NAV fund option justify the risks associated with the potential for a shift in retail investors' behavior in the future, particularly given that retail money market funds will be able to use fees and gates as tools to stem heavy redemptions should they occur. We also note that, as discussed below, our revised approach to defining a retail fund based on shareholder characteristics should minimize the potential for gaming behavior by institutional investors."
On the "natural persons" definition it says, "Drawing a distinction between retail and institutional investors is complicated by the extent to which shares of money market funds are held by investors through omnibus accounts and other financial intermediaries. We also recognize that any distinction between retail and institutional funds could result in "gaming behavior" whereby investors having the general attributes of an institution might attempt to fit within the confines of whatever retail fund definition we craft. We believe, however, that defining a retail fund using the natural person test will, as a practical matter, significantly reduce opportunities for gaming behavior because we believe that most funds will use social security numbers as part of their compliance process to limit beneficial ownership to natural persons, and institutional investors are not issued social security numbers. We expect that a fund that intends to qualify as a retail money market fund would disclose in its prospectus that it limits investments to accounts beneficially owned by natural persons. Funds will have flexibility in how they choose to comply with the natural person test. As noted by commenters, we expect that many funds will rely on social security numbers to confirm beneficial ownership by a natural person.... Funds that intend to satisfy the retail fund definition will be required to adopt and implement policies and procedures reasonably designed to restrict beneficial ownership to natural persons."
Finally, on costs it says, "The Commission estimates that based on those money market funds that self-report as "retail," approximately 195 money market funds are likely to seek to qualify as a retail money market fund under our amended rules. Based on staff experience and review of the comments received, as well as the changes to the retail definition in the final amendments, we estimate that the one-time costs necessary to implement policies and procedures and/or for a fund to qualify as a retail money market fund under our amended rules, including the various organizational, operational, training, and other costs discussed above, will range from $830,000 to $1,300,000 per entity."
ICI July Holdings Show Big Liquidity; Fitch on Assets Since MF Reforms
The Investment Company Institute released its latest "Money Market Fund Holdings" report, which tracks the aggregate daily and weekly liquid assets, regional exposure, and maturities (WAM and WAL) for Prime and Government money market funds (as of July 31, 2014). ICI's "Prime and Government Money Market Funds' Daily and Weekly Liquid Assets" table shows Prime Money Market Funds' Daily liquid assets at 23.2% as of July 31, 2014, down from 24.2% on June 30. Daily liquid assets were made up of: "All securities maturing within 1 day," which totaled 19.0% (vs. 19.7% last month) and "Other treasury securities," which added 4.2% (vs. 4.5% last month). Prime funds' Weekly liquid assets totaled 37.9% (vs. 36.1% last month), which was made up of "All securities maturing within 5 days" (31.6% vs. 30.0% in June), Other treasury securities (4.2% vs. 4.4% in June), and Other agency securities (2.1% vs. 1.7% a month ago).
Government Money Market Funds' Daily liquid assets total 59.1% as of July 31 vs 62.8% in June. All securities maturing within 1 day totaled 25.4% vs. 27.8% last month. Other treasury securities added 33.7% (vs. 35.0% in June). Weekly liquid assets totaled 79.8% (vs. 81.6%), which was comprised of All securities maturing within 5 days (37.4% vs. 39.0%), Other treasury securities (31.7% vs. 32.5%), and Other agency securities (10.7% vs. 10.1%).
ICI's "Prime and Government Money Market Funds' Holdings, by Region of Issuer" table shows Prime Money Market Funds with 41.6% in the Americas (vs. 47.9% last month), 19.9% in Asia Pacific (vs. 20.0%), 38.2% in Europe (vs. 32.0%), and 0.2% in Other and Supranational (same as last month). Government Money Market Funds held 83.1% in the Americas (vs. 89.9% last month), 1.0% in Asia Pacific (vs. 0.5%), 15.9% in Europe (vs. 9.6%), and 0.1% in Supranational (vs. 0.0%).
The table, "Prime and Government Money Market Funds' WAMs and WALs" shows Prime MMFs WAMs at 44 days as of July 31 vs. 45 days in June. WALs was at 78 days, down from 80 last month. Government MMFs' WAMs increased to 45 days, up from 42 last month, while WALs jumped to 74 days from 71 days. ICI's release explains, "Each month, ICI reports numbers based on the Securities and Exchange Commission's Form N-MFP data, which many fund sponsors provide directly to the Institute. ICI's data report for May covers funds holding 94 percent of taxable money market fund assets." Note: ICI doesn't publish individual fund holdings.
In other news, Fitch Ratings released its "US Money Market Funds Quarterly 2Q14" in which it tracks money market fund flows following the SEC money market reforms. Writes Fitch, "It appears that money fund investors have thus far taken a wait-and-see approach to the SEC's reform efforts, and many are still reviewing the final rules. Institutional investors will need to re-examine and update their investment policies to be able to use the new money fund structures or access alternative liquidity management solutions. Once this process is under way, prime money funds may experience more significant outflows and will need to be prepared to handle them." According to Crane Data's Prime Institutional Money Fund Index, as of August 15, prime institutional funds had $784.5 billion, down from $800.5 billion on July 23, when the SEC adopted money fund reforms, a decrease of 2.0%.
Fitch also commented on the Federal Reserve's reverse repo program. "Prime and government money funds allocated a record $275 billion to the Fed's reverse repo facility (RRP) at the end of 2Q14 to offset the seasonal reduction in banks' balance sheet capacity. Between May-end and June-end, money funds increased their allocations to the RRP facility by $148 billion, according to Crane Data. At the same time, the funds reduced investments in government and treasury repos with banks by $72 billion. Banks have historically sought to reduce the size of their balance sheets and leverage on quarter-end reporting dates, but the phenomenon seems to have been exacerbated due to new bank regulatory requirements."
The Fitch quarterly saw little change in liquidity in Q2. "At the end of June, Fitch-rated prime MMFs had on average 25% and 39% of their portfolios in daily and weekly liquid assets, respectively. This is almost unchanged compared to liquidity numbers at the end of March and remains well above Fitch's criteria guidelines for 'AAAmmf' funds."
The ratings agency also saw stable durations. "The weighted average maturity (WAM) and weighted average life (WAL) of Fitch-rated prime MMFs were at 41 and 66 days at the end of June, compared with March figures of 40 and 68 days. All funds remain under the respective WAM and WAL thresholds for Fitch's 'AAAmmf' rating of 60 days and 120 days. The average portfolio credit factor (PCF) of Fitch-rated prime MMFs ticked up slightly to 1.17 at the end of June, compared with 1.16 at the end of March. The maximum PCF threshold for Fitch's 'AAAmmf' rated funds is 1.50. PCF is a fund’s asset-weighted average of credit risk factors, based on each portfolio security's rating and maturity."
On holdings, Fitch commented: "The use of the Fed's reverse repo facility was at a record high of $339 billion for the June quarter end. Fitch-rated prime MMFs invested nearly 9.5% of assets altogether with the Fed. Demand for CP holdings in Fitch-rated prime MMF decreased to 22% of total assets in June, down from 23% at the end of March. Government MMFs made asset allocation changes by moving out of Treasuries and into repo. Municipal fund allocations were largely stable over the quarter."
Fitch also saw increased exposure in the U.S. "Allocations to the U.S. continue to increase as money funds take advantage of the availability of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's reverse repo facility. Exposure to Germany decreased the most across countries, driven by reduced investments in Deutsche Bank. All other country allocation changes amounted to less than 1% of prime funds' portfolios, reflecting the current relative stability of short-term markets."
No Negative Prognosis for Money Funds Says Citi's Rai; Repo and Regs
Citi's Vikram Rai writes in their latest "Short Duration Strategy" a piece entitled, "Why it is NOT "Prognosis Negative" for money funds. He says, "As the money fund industry continues to absorb the newly minted SEC reform rules there is significant dispersion in opinion among market participants regarding the impact of these changes on the overall money fund industry and specifically on the institutional prime money fund sector. Speculation regarding outflows from institutional prime MMFs (which have about $950 billion in AUM) has ranged from $50-$450 billion. While we might witness higher yields for commercial paper as the compliance date for rules comes nearer, which will act as a countervailing factor against outflows from institutional prime funds (as we discuss in more detail below), the yields increase is unlikely to be sufficient to clog the CP markets."
Rai writes, "Short term investors should jog their long term memory and recall that while the size of the institutional prime money fund industry has grown largely with the overall money fund industry, the CP market has declined significantly over the past decade. Thus, even if drastic outflows of $450 billion were to materialize, and we sincerely doubt that, the AUM for institutional prime funds would drop to about $500 billion, which is roughly the size of the sector in 2000. Now, in 2000, the size of the CP market was $1.6TR (vs. about $1TR now). If the CP markets weren't clogged then, it is unlikely that they would clog now, especially since asset scarcity is more prevalent now given the greater demand for HQLA."
The Citi piece continues, "While we do expect inflows into govt. MMFs at the expense of institutional prime MMFs, we wholly disagree with egregious estimates of $500 billion and expect net outflows to be a fraction of this number. While it is true that stable NAV funds are preferred by most corporate treasurers due to their investment guidelines, it is also well understood that just a change to reporting requirements will not change the fundamental nature of the fund. Additionally, short-term investors have shown flexibility and resilience when adapting to shocks in the past, for instance modifying AAA only mandates when US Treasuries were downgraded. Thus, an increase in this spread could incentivize corporate treasures and other investors to modify their guidelines such that they are able to invest in floating NAV funds and take advantage of higher yields."
Finally, Rai writes, "And, much as we would like to subscribe to the belief that demand for Tier 2 paper would increase, in our view, the changes should have limited impact on investment policies for most funds because: Most fund boards understand that a loosening of credit standards is unlikely to be one of the objectives of the new rules and they would prefer to avoid SEC scrutiny, especially since the SEC plans to keep an even closer watch on money funds with its enhanced disclosure rules. While the Tier 2 CP market has shrunk over the last 5 years, demand for such paper remains limited given that AAA funds constitute almost 2/3rds of the money funds universe."
In other Citi research, Andrew Hollenhorst writes in his latest "Short-End Notes" a brief entitled, "More repo regulation to come." He comments in his summary, "Regulators focused on reducing short-term funding - Boston Federal Reserve President Rosengren suggested a range of reforms to limit bank and broker-dealer reliance on short-term borrowing to fund longer term assets. We think minimum repo haircuts and a short-term funding "capital surcharge" remain the most likely reforms."
The piece adds, "Opportunity to shorten T-bill duration – Increased 1m bill auction size led frontend bills to sell off while geopolitical concerns brought down 12m bill yields. In our view this presents an opportunity to shorten duration. Fed minutes and Jackson Hole next week – We will look to the release of the July Fed minutes on Wednesday next week for any signals regarding an aggregate cap on the reverse repo facility."
In other news, an update entitled, "SEC New Money Market Fund Rules - Overview and Implementation Guidance was written by Peter Fariel of Rimon P.C.. It says, "On July 23, 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted final amendments to the rules governing money market mutual funds (MMFs). This article provides an overview of key provisions of the Rule and offers practical insights on next steps that MMF sponsors and fund boards should consider in implementing the Rule."
Fariel writes, "The Rule contains two key elements: Institutional prime and municipal/tax-exempt MMFs will be required to maintain a floating net asset value (NAV) for sales and redemptions that is generally based on the current market value of their portfolio securities rounded to four digits (e.g. $1.0000). All MMFs other than government money market funds will be subject to "default" rules that provide for permissive and mandatory use of fees upon redemptions ("liquidity fees") and temporary suspension of redemptions ("gates"). The Rule's application to a particular MMF hinges on two definitions: Retail Fund. A "retail fund" is a MMF that has policies and procedures reasonably designed to limit all beneficial owners to natural persons (referred to as the "natural person test") [and "Government Fund"]."
He continues, "The Rule also imposes enhanced disclosure, reporting, governance and investment requirements for MMFs, including a new report, Form N-CR on material events (e.g. the imposition of liquidity fees/gates), additional reporting requirements on Form N-MFP, immediate public availability of portfolio holding reports on Form N-MFP, stress testing of a MMF's ability to satisfy the weekly liquid assets requirement and stricter portfolio diversification requirements. The Rule also requires enhanced SEC reporting for private liquidity funds. Separately, the Internal Revenue Service and and U.S. Treasury Department issued guidance that simplifies MMF tax accounting and reporting to address the impact of the Rule. The compliance date for the floating NAV and liquidity fee/gate provisions is two years [the `Federal Register version was published Thursday, Aug. 14, and the effective date is 60 days from publication, so Oct. 14, 2016]."
Schwab, Northern, Franklin, BofA Few Gainers in July; MMF Assets Up
Crane Data published its latest Money Fund Intelligence Family & Global Rankings yesterday, which ranks the asset totals and market share of managers of money funds in the U.S. and globally. The August edition, with data as of July 31, shows continued moderate asset decreases for the majority of money fund complexes in the latest month, and over the past three months, but assets have been virually flat over the past year. (These "Family" rankings are available to our Money Fund Wisdom subscribers.) Schwab, Northern, Franklin, and BofA were some of the few that showed gains in July, rising by $1.4 billion, $1.4 billion, $1.3 billion, and $1.3 billion respectively, while Goldman Sachs, BofA Funds, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and SSgA led the increases over the 3 months through July 31, 2014, rising by $6.6B, $4.3B, $2.5B, $1.9B, and $1.8B, respectively. Money fund assets overall decreased by $21.8 billion in July, decreased by $29.5 billion over the last three months, but fell by just $2.4 billion over the past 12 months (according to our Money Fund Intelligence XLS).
Our latest domestic U.S. money fund Family Rankings show that Fidelity Investments remained the largest money fund manager with $404.7 billion, or 16.5% of all assets (down $440M in July, down $3.9B over 3 mos. and down $14.9B over 12 months), followed by JPMorgan's $231.2 billion, or 9.4% (down $7.0B, down $9.2B, and up 2.1B for the past 1-month, 3-months and 12-months, respectively). Federated Investors ranks third with $196.9 billion, or 8.0% of assets (down $5.0B, down $13.7B, and down $23.4B), BlackRock ranks fourth with $181.6 billion, or 7.4% of assets (down $2.7B, down $10.4B, and up $35.4B), and Vanguard ranks fifth with $171.3 billion, or 7.0% (up $495M, down $797M, and up $148M).
The sixth through tenth largest U.S. managers include: Schwab ($159.6B, 6.5%), Dreyfus ($153.4B, or 6.2%), Goldman Sachs ($135.0B, or 5.5%), Wells Fargo ($108.5B, or 4.4%), and Morgan Stanley ($101.4B, or 4.1%). The eleventh through twentieth largest U.S. money fund managers (in order) include: SSgA ($82.0B, or 3.3%), Northern ($75.9B, or 3.1%), Invesco ($59.3B, or 2.4%), BofA ($48.0B, or 2.0%), Western Asset ($40.1B, or 1.6%), UBS ($37.2B, or 1.5%), First American ($36.6B, or 1.5%), Deutsche ($33.1B, or 1.3%), Franklin ($19.7B, or 0.8%), and RBC ($18.7B, or 0.8%). Crane Data currently tracks 74 managers, down one from last month.
Over the past year, BlackRock showed the largest asset increase (up $35.4B, or 24.7%; note that most of this is due to the addition of securities lending shares to our collections), followed by Goldman Sachs (up $6.9B, or 4.9%), and Morgan Stanley (up $6.7B, or 7.2%). Other gainers since July 31, 2013, include: BofA (up $5.9B, or 13.9%), SSgA (up $5.6B, or 7.4%) American Funds (up $4.0B, or 30.0%), and JPMorgan (up $2.1B, or 0.9%). The biggest declines over 12 months include: Federated (down $23.4B, or -10.6%), Fidelity (down $14.9B, or -3.6%), UBS (down $11.6B, or -22.4%), and Deutsche (down $9.0B, or -21.4%). (Note that money fund assets are very volatile month to month.)
When "offshore" money fund assets -- those domiciled in places like Dublin, Luxembourg, and the Cayman Islands -- are included, the top 10 managers match the U.S. list, except for BlackRock moving up to No. 3, Goldman moving up to No. 4, and Western Asset appearing on the list at No. 9. (displacing Wells Fargo from the Top 10). Looking at these largest Global Money Fund Manager Rankings, the combined market share assets of our MFI XLS (domestic U.S.) and our MFI International ("offshore), we show these largest families: Fidelity ($410.7 billion), JPMorgan ($354.3 billion), BlackRock ($297.5 billion), Goldman Sachs ($214.9 billion), and Federated ($206.3 billion). Dreyfus ($178.2B), Vanguard ($171.3B), Schwab ($159.6B), Western ($132.7B), and Morgan Stanley ($120.4B) round out the top 10. These totals include offshore US dollar funds, as well as Euro and Sterling funds converted into US dollar totals.
In other news, our August 2014 MFI and MFI XLS show that both net and gross yields remained at record lows for the month ended July 31, 2014. Our Crane Money Fund Average, which includes all taxable funds covered by Crane Data (currently 841), remained at a record low of 0.01% for both the 7-Day and 30-Day Yield (annualized, net) averages. (The Gross 7-Day Yield was also unchanged at 0.13%.) Our Crane 100 Money Fund Index shows an average yield (7-Day and 30-Day) of 0.02%, also a record low, down from 0.03% a year ago. (The Gross 7- and 30-Day Yields for the Crane 100 remained unchanged at 0.16%.) For the 12 month return through 7/31/14, our Crane MF Average returned a record low of 0.01% and our Crane 100 returned 0.02%.
Our Prime Institutional MF Index yielded 0.02% (7-day), the Crane Govt Inst Index yielded 0.01%, and the Crane Treasury Inst, Treasury Retail, Govt Retail and Prime Retail Indexes all yielded 0.01%. The Crane Tax Exempt MF Index also yielded 0.01%. (The Gross Yields for these indexes were: Prime 0.18%, Govt 0.10%, Treasury 0.06%, and Tax Exempt 0.13% in July.) The Crane 100 MF Index returned on average 0.00% for 1-month, 0.00% for 3-month, 0.01% for YTD, 0.02% for 1-year, 0.04% for 3-years (annualized), 0.06% for 5-year, and 1.62% for 10-years.
In other news, ICI released its latest "Money Market Fund Assets" report, which showed money funds increasing for the second week in a row (up $23.3 billion in 2 weeks). It says, "Total money market fund assets increased by $10.51 billion to $2.58 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, August 13, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, Treasury funds (including agency and repo) increased by $8.15 billion and prime funds increased by $2.93 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $570 million." Year-to-date, money fund assets have declined by $141 billion, or 5.2 percent.
The release continues, "Assets of retail money market funds increased by $1.22 billion to $906.60 billion. Among retail funds, Treasury money market fund assets increased by $220 million to $202.88 billion, prime money market fund assets increased by $1.33 billion to $517.03 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $340 million to $186.69 billion. Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $9.30 billion to $1.67 trillion. Among institutional funds, Treasury money market fund assets increased by $7.93 billion to $714.58 billion, prime money market fund assets increased by $1.60 billion to $884.46 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $240 million to $71.80 billion."
NY, Boston Fed's Dudley, Rosengren Focus Fire on Wholesale Funding
The Federal Reserve continued its crusade to blame the Great Recession on everyone except banks with another set of speeches (and a conference) on the evils of "wholesale funding". The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York hosted a "Workshop on the Risks of Wholesale Funding" yesterday, which featured academics but no market participants. NY Fed President & CEO William Dudley gave the "Welcoming Remarks at Workshop on the Risks of Wholesale Funding" while Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren gave the keynote, "Broker-Dealer Finance and Financial Stability." The conference Overview explains, "Wholesale funding refers to a firm's use of deposits and other liabilities from institutions such as pension funds, money market mutual funds and other financial intermediaries. When a firm relies on short-term wholesale funds to support long-term illiquid assets, it becomes vulnerable to runs by its wholesale creditors. This risk manifested itself during the recent financial crisis, when many firms experienced an outflow of wholesale funds following the failure of Lehman Brothers. The resulting need to dispose of illiquid assets led to "fire sales" and the transmission of shocks throughout the financial system. The purpose of this workshop is to promote a better understanding of the risks posed by wholesale funding, and to explore policy options for minimizing these risks." (Note: The Federal Register version of the SEC's Money Fund Reform has been published; see today's "Link of the Day" for details.)
Dudley comments, "As you all know, the financial system plays an essential role in modern economies, and liquidity is in turn critical to the functioning of the financial system. Because financial intermediation is critical to economic activity and intermediation is dependent on funding and liquidity, disruption to funding and liquidity can cause severe damage to the economy. The experience of recent years revealed serious flaws in the system.... The extensive use by financial firms of short-term wholesale funding was one critical factor in the crisis. Not only did this reliance on short-term funding create the potential for a firm to fail in an extraordinarily rapid manner when faced with a loss of market confidence, but it also served as a channel through which the effects of those failures were widely propagated throughout the broader financial system."
He continues, "In the pre-crisis period, the growth of securitization was accompanied by an increasing reliance on short-term funds raised in wholesale markets to finance securities and activities essential to securitization. This ranged from the use of repo funding to finance inventories of securities held for market-making purposes to the issuance of asset-backed commercial paper by conduits created to acquire and hold securities. Both demand and supply factors drove the increased use of short-term wholesale finance. On the supply side, the growth of savings from corporations and institutional investors in need of deposit-like products in which to place their cash balances created a plentiful source of funds. These products were viewed as "safe" since, after all, the funds were only exposed for a short period of time, and in the case of repo, they were secured by collateral. On the demand side, setting aside any possible instabilities in this funding source, it was more profitable to use shorter-term funds to finance longer-term assets."
Dudley tells us, "In fact, the growing reliance on short-term wholesale funding to finance longer-term assets increased liquidity and maturity mismatch risk in the financial system.... Short-term funding of longer-term assets is inherently unstable, especially in the presence of information and coordination problems.... Of course, this insight is not a new one. Prior to the establishment of a lender of last resort and retail deposit insurance for banks -- which came with the quid pro quo of prudential regulation -- bank runs were a regular and disruptive feature of our financial system. These innovations solved the coordination problem and stabilized this source of funding."
He adds, "What was new prior to the crisis was the extent to which maturity transformation and financial intermediation had migrated outside of commercial banks. The growth of what we call the shadow banking system occurred largely without the types of safeguards -- robust prudential regulation, deposit insurance, lender of last resort -- that have safeguarded the commercial banking system from the types of widespread panics and runs that are capable of destabilizing the financial system. The systemic risk created by this gap in coverage was not well recognized by regulators or the private sector prior to the global financial crisis."
Dudley continues, "Heavy reliance on short-term wholesale funding exposed the system to a series of intertwined downward spirals in asset and funding markets. This spread in waves. It began in the market for asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) issued by off-balance-sheet conduits, and spread via auction-rate securities to the repo, money market and financial commercial paper markets that formed the core financing for market-based financial intermediation.... The inherent fragility of short-term wholesale funding was greatly aggravated by certain institutional shortcomings in these markets, particularly in the structure of the tri-party repo system and the U.S. money market mutual fund business."
He says, "Through the tri-party repo market, each day the two large clearing banks were providing a large amount of intraday credit to securities firms to facilitate the daily "unwind" of the prior day's transactions. In the run-up to the crisis, the daily "unwind" helped make tri-party repo look like a very liquid investment while still being an apparently highly durable source of funding. This masked the underlying risks and contributed to weak risk management practices. As the concerns about the U.S. housing market escalated in 2007, participants in the tri-party repo market became increasingly concerned about the liquidity and credit risks that they faced."
Dudley explains, "The "breaking the buck" by the Reserve Fund following the Lehman bankruptcy also made it clear that the monies provided to the money market mutual funds by their own investors were also inherently unstable. This made such funds, in turn, an unreliable source of finance in repo, commercial paper and other markets. Investors in a fixed net asset value (NAV) money market fund could take their money out on a daily basis at par value, with no redemption penalty. This could occur even if the money market fund did not have sufficient cash or liquid assets that it could easily sell to meet all potential redemptions. As with bank deposits prior to deposit insurance, this created an incentive for investors to be the first to get out whenever there was any uncertainty over the underlying value of the assets in the fund. By being first in line, they could exit while the fund could still repay at par, leaving others to bear any losses. The longer the investor waited, the greater the risk that the fund would be forced into the fire sale of assets to meet redemptions and end up breaking the buck."
He states, "As the crisis unfolded, the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Treasury and others took a series of actions to contain the spiral of funding runs and asset fire sales.... [T]he lender of last resort liquidity provision was extended to directly backstop key wholesale funding markets and made available to certain nonbank firms. The Federal Reserve created a direct backstop to the tri-party repo system through the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF). When the Reserve Fund broke the buck after the failure of Lehman Brothers, precipitating a run on money market mutual funds, the Treasury guaranteed money market fund assets and the Fed introduced the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Fund Liquidation Facility (AMLF). The Fed also backstopped the commercial paper market (formerly funded in large part by money market mutual funds) by introducing the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF). When wholesale funding for non-residential mortgage securitizations evaporated, the Fed rolled out the Term Asset-Backed Lending Facility (TALF)."
Finally, Dudley comments, "Much has been done over the past few years to mitigate the structural flaws that make wholesale funding a point of weakness in the global financial system. The New York Fed, for example, has led a Federal Reserve effort to make the tri-party repo system more resilient to stress, while the SEC has taken steps to address risks associated with money market mutual funds. Nonetheless, some important issues and vulnerabilities remain. Moreover, because the Dodd-Frank Act raised the hurdle for the Federal Reserve to exercise its Section 13.3 emergency lending authority, extraordinary interventions will be more difficult to undertake, perhaps causing investors to be even more skittish in the future. This is why it is essential to make the system more stable."
The "Summary" of Rosengren's speech says, "In a speech in New York, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Eric Rosengren called for a comprehensive re-evaluation of the regulation of broker-dealers (intermediaries that effect transactions in securities), given the lessons of the financial crisis." "Broker-dealers played a dramatic role during the crisis," said Rosengren. Given their dependence on unstable, short-term funding, "broker-dealers can experience significant funding problems during times of financial stress and, unfortunately, that potential for problems has not been fully addressed since the crisis."
It explains, "Before the crisis, broker-dealers' reliance on collateralized borrowing in the form of repurchase agreements was assumed to insulate them from runs, perhaps because many viewed collateralized lending as providing little default risk. But as Rosengren notes, this proved to be wrong once the crisis hit.... Rosengren added that the largest domestic net suppliers of repurchase agreement financing are money market mutual funds." He says, "During the financial crisis, deteriorating confidence in broker-dealers was compounded by the fact that investors were also fleeing money market mutual funds."
The summary says, "Given the lessons learned from the crisis, one might have expected less reliance by broker-dealers on repurchase agreements, and a significant increase in capital required of broker-dealers. "What is striking is the lack of change -- while there has been some improvement in capital, the 2013 liability structure looks surprisingly similar to the structure that prevailed before the financial crisis," said Rosengren.
Finally, Rosengren's speech comments on money funds, "That experience led to regulatory reforms by the Securities and Exchange Commission, including new liquidity requirements for money market mutual funds and recently issued rules that, among other things, will result in the fluctuation of net asset values of shares for some of these funds. While I would have preferred even more protection against financial runs on money market mutual funds, this element of the recent rulemaking does represent a meaningful improvement. Still, I am certainly on record as questioning whether the imposition of withdrawal restrictions ("gates") and fees will help to stabilize money market mutual funds in crisis situations."
Crane to Host European Money Fund Symposium Sept. 22-23 in London
Preparations are being made for our 2nd annual Crane's European Money Fund Symposium, which will be held Sept. 22-23, 2014 at the Hilton London Tower Bridge in London, England. Crane Data has attracted 20 sponsors for the event so far, and we expect our second "offshore" money fund conference to again be the largest gathering of money fund professionals outside the U.S. European Money Fund Symposium features an unmatched speaking faculty, including many of the world's foremost authorities on money funds in Europe and worldwide. We review the latest conference agenda and details below. (Visit www.euromfs.com to register, or contact us to request the PDF brochure or for more details.)
President Peter Crane comments, "Crane Data's first European event, held last September in Dublin, attracted 100 attendees, sponsors and speakers, and our latest U.S. Money Fund Symposium attracted almost 500. We expect our London event to be even bigger and better than Dublin. European Money Fund Symposium offers "offshore" money market portfolio managers and professionals, investors, issuers, dealers, regulators and service providers a concentrated and affordable educational experience, as well as an excellent and informal networking venue. Our mission is to deliver great conference content at an affordable price. With the recent passage of the SEC's Money Fund Reforms and pending regulatory changes in Europe, we expect that there will be a lot to talk about."
The Day One morning Agenda for Crane's European Money Fund Symposium includes: "State of MMFs in Europe & IMMFA Update" with Jonathan Curry, Chairman, IMMFA and Susan Hindle Barone, Secretary General, IMMFA; "Regulations in Europe: Bullet Dodged?" with Dan Morrissey of William Fry and Paul Wilson of SWIP; "Senior Portfolio Manager Perspectives," moderated by Yaron Ernst of Moody's Investor's Service and featuring Debbie Cunningham of Federated Investors, Joe McConnell of J.P. Morgan Asset Mgmt, and Jennifer Gillespie of Legal & General I.M.
The afternoon of Sept. 22 features: "MM Securities: New Sources of Supply," moderated by Laurie Brignac of Invesco and featuring Kieran Davis of Barclays, David Hynes of Northcross Capital LLP, and Jean-Luc Sinniger of Citi Global Markets; "Portals, Transparency & Investor Issues," with Greg Fortuna of State Street's Fund Connect, Justin Meadows of MyTreasury, and Maryum Malik of SunGard; "Accounting and Floating NAV Issues" with Sarah Murphy and Ken Owens of PwC Dublin; and an "Ireland & IFIA Update" with Kevin Murphy of Arthur Cox.
The Day Two Agenda includes: "MM Strategists Speak: Rates, Regulations, Risks" with Giuseppe Maraffino of Barclays and Vikram Rai of Citi; "Distribution: Major Issues & Client Concerns moderated by Peter Crane with Jim Fuell of J.P. Morgan A.M., Kathleen Hughes of Goldman Sachs A.M., and Kevin Thompson of SSgA; "Recent Ratings Research: Trends & Issues" with Yaron Ernst of Moody's; "State of US Money Funds & Rule 2a-7" with Charlie Cardona of BNY Mellon Cash Investment Strategies, Jane Heinrichs of the Investment Company Institute, and John Hunt of Nutter, McClennen & Fish; "Euro & Sterling MMF Issues" with David Callahan of Lombard Odier I.M. and Dennis Gepp of Federated Investors (UK) LLP; "Beyond MMFs: Enhanced Cash Strategies" with James Finch of UBS Global Asset Mgmt, Jason Granet of Goldman Sachs A.M., and Guyna Johnson of Standard & Poor's; "MMFs in Asia & Emerging Markets" with Peter Crane of Crane Data and Andrew Paranthoiene of Standard & Poor's; and "Offshore Money Fund Data & Statistics with Crane and Aymeric Poizot of Fitch Ratings.
Sponsors of the event and exhibitors to date include: HSBC Global Asset Management, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Moody's Investors Service, BofA Global Capital Management, Federated Investors, Standard & Poor's, State Street Global Advisors, BNY Mellon Liquidity Funds, Cachematrix, Invesco, R.P. Martin, MyTreasury, Northcross Capital, Nutter, McClennen & Fish, UBS, Treasury Management International, and Treasury Today. Registration for the 2014 Crane's European Money Fund Symposium is $1,500 (or 900 GBP), and registrations are still being accepted. A block of sleeping rooms has been reserved at The Hilton London Tower Bridge, and the conference negotiated rate of L261 (GBP) single and L272 (GBP) double are available through August 20th. (Please reserve soon as the hotel is sold out outside of our block and won't guarantee the rate beyond Aug. 20.) We hope to see you next month in London!
Crane Data publishes Money Fund Intelligence and produces the largest annual gathering of money market professionals in the world, Crane's Money Fund Symposium. (We had 495 this past June in Boston.) Our next U.S. Symposium is scheduled for June 24-26, 2015 in Minneapolis, Minn., and our next "basic training" event, Money Fund University is scheduled for January 22-23, 2015, in Stamford, Conn. Note: Our 2015 European Money Fund Symposium is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 21-22 in Dublin, Ireland, so mark your calendars.
August MF Holdings Show Plunge in Repo, Drop in Treasury, Jump in TDs
Crane Data released its August Money Fund Portfolio Holdings Monday, and our latest collection of taxable money market securities, with data as of July 31, 2014, shows a plunge in Repos, a drop in Treasuries, and a jump in Other securities (Time Deposits), Agencies and CDs. Money market securities held by Taxable U.S. money funds overall (those tracked by Crane Data) decreased by $6.2 billion in July to $2.364 trillion. Portfolio assets decreased by $18.0 billion in June, $3.7 billion in May, $39.1 billion in April, and $43.0 billion in March. CDs again surpassed Repo as the largest portfolio composition segment among taxable money funds, followed by CP, then Treasuries, Agencies, Other (Time Deposits), and VRDNs. Money funds' European-affiliated holdings jumped to 30.0% of holdings (up sharply from 23.5% last month), primarily due to a plunge in holdings of the NY Fed's RRP (repo) program (which replace dealer repo and TDs at quarter-ends). Below, we review our latest Money Fund Portfolio Holdings statistics.
Among all taxable money funds, Repurchase agreement (repo) holdings plummeted by $83.6 billion to $507.9 billion, or 21.5% of fund assets, after rising $76.1 billion in June and $32.9 billion in May. (Holdings of Federal Reserve Bank of New York repo fell by $158.5 billion to a record $116.0 billion.) Certificates of Deposit (CDs) rebounded in July, increasing $14.2 billion to $564.9 billion, or 23.9% of holdings. Commercial Paper (CP), which rose to become the third largest segment, increased by $12.4 billion to $375.4 billion (15.9% of holdings). Treasury holdings, dropping to the fourth largest segment, decreased by $22.0 billion to $368.5 billion (15.6% of holdings). Government Agency Debt was up $24.7 billion. Agencies now total $346.8 billion (14.7% of assets). Other holdings, which include primarily Time Deposits, rebounded sharply (up $52.8 billion) to $173.1 billion (7.3% of assets). VRDNs held by taxable funds decreased by $4.8 billion to $27.5 billion (1.2% of assets).
Among Prime money funds, CDs still represent over one-third of holdings with 37.7% (up from 37.2% a month ago), followed by Commercial Paper (25.0%, up from 24.5%). The CP totals are primarily Financial Company CP (15.3% of holdings) with Asset-Backed CP making up 5.7% and Other CP (non-financial) making up 4.1%. Prime funds also hold 6.2% in Agencies (up from 5.4%), 3.9% in Treasury Debt (down from 4.2%), 5.4% in Other Instruments, and 5.9% in Other Notes. Prime money fund holdings tracked by Crane Data total $1.499 trillion (up from $1.481), or 63.4% of taxable money fund holdings' total of $2.364 trillion.
Government fund portfolio assets totaled $425.6 billion, down from $431.6 billion last month, while Treasury money fund assets totaled $439.7 billion, down from from $457.7 billion at the end of June. Government money fund portfolios were made up of 59.4% Agency securities, 25.2% Government Agency Repo, 3.6% Treasury debt, and 11.2% Treasury Repo. Treasury money funds were comprised of 66.9% Treasury debt and 32.0% Treasury Repo.
European-affiliated holdings increased $150.2 billion in July to $708.2 billion (among all taxable funds and including repos); their share of holdings is now 30.0%. Eurozone-affiliated holdings also jumped (down $77.5 billion) to $401.5 billion in July; they now account for 17.0% of overall taxable money fund holdings. Asia & Pacific related holdings rose by $3.3 billion to $294.8 billion (12.5% of the total), while Americas related holdings decreased $160.1 billion to $1.360 trillion (57.5% of holdings).
The overall taxable fund Repo totals were made up of: Treasury Repurchase Agreements (down $104.1 billion to $249.4 billion, or 10.6% of assets), Government Agency Repurchase Agreements (up $18.0 billion to $172.2 billion, or 7.3% of total holdings), and Other Repurchase Agreements (up $2.6 billion to $86.3 billion, or 3.7% of holdings). The Commercial Paper totals were comprised of Financial Company Commercial Paper (up $15.0 billion to $229.4 billion, or 9.7% of assets), Asset Backed Commercial Paper (down $4.4 billion to $85.1 billion, or 3.6%), and Other Commercial Paper (up $1.7 billion to $60.9 billion, or 2.6%).
The 20 largest Issuers to taxable money market funds as of July 31, 2014, include: the US Treasury ($368.5 billion, or 15.6%), Federal Home Loan Bank ($217.5B, 9.2%), Federal Reserve Bank of New York ($116.0B, 4.9%), Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd ($61.8B, 2.6%), BNP Paribas ($59.6B, 2.5%), Credit Agricole ($55.7B, 2.4%), Bank of Nova Scotia ($55.6B, 2.4%), Wells Fargo ($55.0, 2.3%), JP Morgan ($54.1B, 2.3%), RBC ($50.6B, 2.1%), Deutsche Bank AG ($48.8B, 2.1%), Citi ($47.6B, 2.0%), Federal Home Loan Mortgage Co ($46.7B, 2.0%), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Co ($46.1B, 2.0%), Credit Suisse ($45.9B, 1.9%), Barclays PLC ($45.6B, 1.9%), Societe Generale ($43.9B, 1.9%), Bank of America ($43.0B, 1.8%), Federal National Mortgage Association ($42.4B, 1.8%), and Toronto-Dominion ($39.4B, 1.7%).
In the repo space, Federal Reserve Bank of New York's RPP program issuance (held by MMFs) remained the largest program (even after its plunge) with 22.9% of the repo market. The 10 largest Repo issuers (dealers) (with the amount of repo outstanding and market share among the money funds we track) include: Federal Reserve Bank of New York ($116.0B, 22.9%), Deutsche Bank AG ($38.6B, 7.6%), Societe Generale ($35.9B, 7.1%), Bank of America ($33.9B, 6.7%), BNP Paribas ($31.9B, 6.3%), Barclays PLC ($31.0B, 6.1%), Credit Agricole ($24.2B, 4.8%), JP Morgan ($24.1B, 4.8%), Credit Suisse ($22.1B, 4.3%), and RBC ($20.5B, 4.0%).
Crane Data shows 51 funds (down from 82 last month) participating in the NY Fed repo program with just 2 money funds holding over $7 billion (the previous cap). The largest Fed repo holders include: Morgan Stanley Inst Liq Trs ($9.8B), Goldman Sachs FS Trs Obl Inst ($8.1B), Federated Trs Oblg ($6.0B), Western Asset Inst Lq Res ($6.0B), State Street Inst Lq Res ($5.9B), Morgan Stanley Inst Lq Gvt ($5.7B), Northern Trust Trs MMkt ($5.4B), and Dreyfus Tr&Ag Cash Mgmt Inst ($5.2B).
The 10 largest CD issuers include: Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Co ($39.6B, 7.1%), Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd ($38.0B, 6.8%), Bank of Nova Scotia ($35.0B, 6.2%), Toronto-Dominion Bank ($33.7B, 6.0%), Wells Fargo ($26.0B, 4.6%), Bank of Montreal ($25.9B, 4.6%), Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd ($23.7B, 4.2%), Rabobank ($22.7B, 4.0%), Citi ($20.8B, 3.7%), and Natixis ($19.5B, 3.5%).
The 10 largest CP issuers (we include affiliated ABCP programs) include: JP Morgan ($21.7B, 6.8%), Commonwealth Bank of Australia ($16.1B, 5.0%), Westpac Banking Co ($16.1B, 5.0%), Lloyds TSB Bank PLC ($11.5B, 3.6%), RBC ($11.5B, 3.6%), BNP Paribas ($10.7B, 3.3%), Australia & New Zealand Banking Group ($10.0B, 3.1%), HSBC ($9.7B, 3.0%), FMS Wertmanagement ($9.2B, 2.9%), and Caisse des Depots et Consignations ($9.1B, 2.8%).
The largest increases among Issuers include: Deutsche Bank AG (up $21.7B to $48.8B), Federal Home Loan Bank (up $21.4B to $217.5B), DnB NOR Bank ASA (up $20.0B to $32.3B), Societe Generale (up $20.0B to $43.9B), Barclays PLC (up $15.8B to $45.6B), and Credit Agricole (up $10.7B to $55.7B). The largest decreases among Issuers of money market securities (including Repo) in July were shown by: Federal Reserve Bank of New York (down $158.5B to $116.0B), the US Treasury (down $22.0B to $368.5B), Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd. (down $2.9B to $30.0B), ING Bank (down $1.7B to $26.4B), and Bank of Montreal (down $1.4B to $28.8B).
The United States remained the largest segment of country-affiliations; it represents 48.6% of holdings, or $1.149 trillion. France (9.7%, $229.4B) moved into second place ahead of Canada (8.8%, $208.6B). Japan (7.6%, $180.1B) remained the fourth largest country affiliated with money fund securities. The U.K. (4.7%, $111.3B) moved up to fifth place, ahead of Sweden (4.2%, $98.3B) and Australia (3.7%, $87.4B). The Germany (3.5%, $82.7B) ranked 8th while Netherlands (3.0%, $71.2B) dropped to 9th place. Switzerland (2.7%, $64.4B) was tenth among country affiliations. (Note: Crane Data attributes Treasury and Government repo to the dealer's parent country of origin, though money funds themselves "look-through" and consider these U.S. government securities. All money market securities must be U.S. dollar-denominated.)
As of July 31, 2014, Taxable money funds held 24.1% of their assets in securities maturing Overnight, and another 14.4% maturing in 2-7 days (38.5% total in 1-7 days). Another 20.2% matures in 8-30 days, while 24.4% matures in the 31-90 day period. The next bucket, 91-180 days, holds 12.9% of taxable securities, and just 4.1% matures beyond 180 days.
Crane Data's Taxable MF Portfolio Holdings (and Money Fund Portfolio Laboratory) were updated Monday, and our MFI International "offshore" Portfolio Holdings will be updated Thursday (the Tax Exempt MF Holdings will be released Wednesday). Visit our Content center to download files or visit our Portfolio Laboratory to access our "transparency" module. Contact us if you'd like to see a sample of our latest Portfolio Holdings Reports or our new Reports Issuer Module.
Yet More on SEC's Money Market Fund Reforms: Floating NAV In-Depth
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the SEC's Money Market Reforms is the provision that requires prime institutional money market funds to maintain a floating net asset value for sales and redemptions based on the current market value of the securities in their portfolios rounded to the fourth decimal place (e.g., $1.0000). The requirement, which would also apply to institutional municipal money market funds, would result in the daily share prices of MMFs fluctuating along with changes in the market-based value of the funds' investments. The amendment would not have passed without an assurance from the IRS and the Department of Treasury for tax accounting relief. (SEC Commissioner Gallagher said that he would have joined Commissioners Kara Stein and Michael Piwowar in opposition to the reforms if the tax accounting issues weren't addressed.) We take a closer look at what the Floating NAV means for investors.
The SEC explains the reasoning behind the Floating NAV. "We considered the many reasons shareholders may engage in heavy redemptions from money market funds -- potentially resulting in the dilution of share value that the Investment Company Act's provisions are designed to avoid -- and have tailored today's final rules accordingly. In particular, while many investors may redeem because of concerns about liquidity, quality, or lack of transparency -- and our fees and gates, disclosure, and reporting reforms are primarily intended to address those incentives -- an incremental incentive to redeem is created by money market funds' current valuation and pricing methods. As discussed below, this incremental incentive to redeem exacerbates shareholder dilution in a stable NAV product because non-redeeming shareholders are forced to absorb losses equal to the difference between the market-based value of the fund's shares and the price at which redeeming shareholders transact."
They continue, "For the reasons discussed below, we believe that this incentive exists largely in prime money market funds because these funds exhibit higher credit risk that make declines in value more likely (compared to government money market funds). We further believe history shows that, to date, institutional investors have been significantly more likely than retail investors to act on this incentive. Thus, given the tradeoffs involved in requiring that any money market fund transact at a floating NAV, we are limiting this reform (and thus the repeal of the special exemptive relief allowing these funds to price other than as required under the Investment Company Act) to institutional prime funds.... One possible reason that institutional prime funds may be more susceptible to rapid heavy redemptions than retail funds is that their investors are often more sophisticated, have more significant money at stake, and may have a lower risk tolerance due to legal or other restrictions on their investment practices."
The objectives of the Floating NAV is: "(1) to reduce the first mover advantage inherent in a stable NAV fund due to rule 2a-7's current valuation and pricing methods by dis-incentivizing redemption activity that can result from investors attempting to exploit the possibility of redeeming shares at the stable share price even if the portfolio has suffered a loss; and (2) to reduce the chance of unfair investor dilution, which would be inconsistent with a core principle of the Investment Company Act. An additional motivation for this reform is that the floating NAV may make it more transparent to certain of the impacted investors that they, not the fund sponsors or the federal government, bear the risk of loss. Many commenters suggested that, among the reform alternatives proposed, the floating NAV reform is the most meaningful."
The SEC continues, "Under our reform, institutional prime money market funds will value their portfolio securities using market-based factors and will sell and redeem shares based on a floating NAV. Under the final rules, and as we proposed, institutional prime funds will round prices and transact in fund shares to four decimal places in the case of a fund with a $1.00 target share price (i.e., $1.0000) or an equivalent or more precise level of accuracy for money market funds with a different share price (e.g., a money market fund with a $10 target share price could price its shares at $10.000). Institutional prime money market funds will still be subject to the risk-limiting conditions of rule 2a-7. Accordingly, they will continue to be limited to investing in short-term, high-quality, dollar-denominated instruments, but will not be able to use the amortized cost or penny rounding methods to maintain a stable value.... Although some commenters, including some sponsors of money market funds, expressed general support for the floating NAV reform as it was proposed, the majority of commenters generally opposed requiring institutional prime money market funds to implement a floating NAV."
On fund pricing, the final rule says, "Having determined to adopt the floating NAV reform for institutional prime funds, there is a separate (albeit related) issue of how to price the shares for transactions. Today, for the reasons discussed previously in this section, we are amending rule 2a-7 to eliminate the exemption that currently permits institutional prime funds to maintain a stable NAV through amortized cost valuation and/or penny rounding pricing. We are also adopting, as proposed, an additional requirement that these money market funds value their portfolio assets and price fund shares by rounding the fund's current NAV to four decimal places in the case of a fund with a $1.0000 share price or an equivalent or more precise level of accuracy for money market funds with a different share price (e.g., a money market fund with a $10 target share price could price its shares at $10.000). Accordingly, the final amendments change the rounding convention for money market funds that are required to adopt a floating NAV -- from penny rounding (i.e., to the nearest one percent) to "basis point" rounding (i.e., to the nearest 1/100th of one percent), which is a more precise standard than other mutual funds use today."
It tells us, "In considering whether to require basis point rounding or, instead, to allow 10 basis point rounding, we have looked to the potential for price fluctuations under the two approaches. Based on our staff analysis of Form N-MFP data between November 2010 and November 2013, 53% of money market funds have fluctuated in price over a twelve-month period with a NAV priced using basis point rounding, compared with less than 5% of money market funds that would have fluctuated in price using 10 basis point rounding. We recognize that, either way, this limited fluctuation in prices is the result of the nature of money market fund portfolios, whose short duration and/or high quality generally results in fluctuations in value primarily when there is a credit deterioration or other significant market event."
On basis point rounding it explains, "After considering the results of the staff's analysis, we are persuaded to require basis point rounding. We believe that some of the institutional investors in these funds may not appreciate the risk associated with money market funds. As for this subset of institutional investors, we believe that the basis point rounding requirement may accentuate the visibility of the risks in money market funds by causing these shareholders to experience gains and losses when the funds' value fluctuates by 1 basis point or more. We further believe this may, in turn, have two potential effects that are consistent with our overall goal of addressing features in money market funds that can make them susceptible to heavy redemption. First, to the extent that some of these investors become more aware of the risks, they may develop an increased risk tolerance that could help make them less prone to run. Second, by helping make the risk more apparent through periodic price fluctuations, basis point rounding may help signal to those investors who cannot tolerate the risk associated with the fluctuating NAV that they should migrate to other investment options, such as government funds."
Regarding intraday liquidity and same day settlement, some commenters expressed concern that intraday liquidity and/or same-day settlement would not be available to investors in floating NAV money market funds. "We believe that floating NAV money market funds should be able to continue to provide shareholders with intraday liquidity and same-day settlement by pricing fund shares periodically during the day (e.g., at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.).... We believe that many floating NAV money market funds will continue to be able to provide same-day settlement. Second, we note that under the revised retail money market fund definition adopted today, retail investors should have ample opportunity to invest in a fund that qualifies as a retail money market fund and thus is able to maintain a stable NAV. As a result, this should significantly alleviate concerns about the costs of altering these features and permit a number of funds to continue to provide these features as they do today. Nonetheless, we recognize that not all funds with these features may choose to qualify as retail money market funds, and therefore, some funds may need to make additional modifications to continue offering these features."
In conclusion, the new rules add, "We are providing a two-year compliance date (as proposed) for money market funds to implement the floating NAV reform. A long compliance period will give more time for funds to implement any needed changes to their investment policies and train staff, and also will provide more time for investors to analyze their cash management strategies."
SEC Reform on Fees and Gates: Tools for Severe Stress, Not Required
In our continuing in-depth coverage of the SEC's Final Rules on Money Market Fund Reform, we take a closer look at the fees and gates provisions. Specifically, we examine the benefits, the impact on fund flows, the size of fees, when they should be imposed, and how often, among other things. Explains the final rules, "While we recognize that there is risk of pre-emptive redemptions, the benefits of having effective tools in place to address runs and contagion risk leads us to adopt the proposed fees and gates reforms, with some modifications. We believe several of the changes we are making in our final reforms will mitigate this risk and dampen the effects on other money market funds and the broader markets if pre-emptive redemptions do occur." (Note: Late Thursday, Fidelity Investments also published its most recent communication in a new "`Regulatory Reform educational series," a piece entitled, "Redemption Restrictions for Money Market Mutual Funds: Liquidity Fees and Redemption Gates.")
On the impact of imposing as fee or gate, the SEC's final rule states, "Commenters have suggested that once fees and gates are imposed, they may not be easily lifted without triggering a run. Similarly, other commenters warned that imposing a fee or gate would not help a fund recover from a crisis but rather force it into liquidation because investors would lose trust in the fund and seek to invest in a money market fund that has not imposed a fee or gate. We acknowledge that there is a risk that investors may redeem from a fund after a fee or gate is lifted. We believe this is less likely following the imposition of a fee, however, because investors will continue to have the ability to redeem while a fee is in place and, therefore, may experience less disruption and potentially less loss in trust. We think it is important to observe that whenever a fee or gate is imposed, the fund may already be under stress from heavy redemptions that are draining liquidity, and the purpose of the fees and gates amendments is to give the fund's board additional tools to address this external threat when the board determines that using one or both of the tools is in the fund's best interests.... Even if a fund ultimately liquidates, its disposition is likely to be more orderly and efficient if it previously imposed a fee or gate. In fact, imposing a fee or gate should give a fund more time to generate greater liquidity so that it will be able to liquidate with less harm to shareholders."
On the potential effects on liquidity, it states, "In our view, however, these reforms should not unreasonably impede the use of money market funds as liquid investments. First, under normal circumstances, when a fund's liquidity is not under stress, the fees and gates amendments will not affect money market funds or their shareholders. Fees and gates are tools for funds to use in times of severe market or internal stress. Second, even when a fund experiences stress, the fees and gates amendments we are adopting today do not require money market funds to impose fees and gates when it is not in the best interests of the fund."
How often will they be imposed? "We believe gates (as well as fees) will rarely be imposed in normal market conditions. In our view, in those likely rare situations where a gate would be imposed, investors would (in the absence of the gating mechanism) potentially be left in worse shape if the fund were, for example, forced to engage in the sale of assets and thus incur permanent losses; or worse, if the fund were forced to liquidate because of a severe liquidity crisis. Thus, we believe that allowing fund boards to impose gates should not be viewed as detrimental to funds, but rather should be viewed as an interim measure boards can employ in worse case scenarios where the alternative would likely be a result potentially more detrimental to investors' overall interests.... While we recognize these commenter concerns regarding liquidity, we believe that the overall benefits and protections that are provided by the fees and gates amendments to all investors in these money market funds outweigh these concerns.... Moreover, to the extent an investor wants to invest in a money market fund without the possibility of fees and/or gates, it may choose to invest in a government money market fund, which is not subject to the fees and gates requirements."
On flows out of money funds it states, "Some commenters expressed concern that the possibility of fees and gates being imposed could result in diminished investor appeal and/or utility of affected money market funds, and could cause investors to either abandon or severely restrict use of affected money market funds. For example, commenters suggested that fees and gates would drive sweep account money out of money market funds. Commenters warned that fees and gates may cause investors to shift investments into other assets, government money market funds, FDIC-insured accounts and other bank products, riskier and/or less regulated investments, or other alternative stable value products. Conversely, other commenters predicted only minor effects on investor demand and/or that investor demand would decrease less under the proposed fees and gates alternative than under the proposed floating NAV alternative. We recognize that, as suggested by certain commenters, our amendments could cause some shareholders to redeem their prime money market fund shares and move their assets to alternative products that do not have the ability to impose fees or gates because the potential imposition of a fee or gate could make investment in a money market fund less attractive due to less certain liquidity. We agree with one commenter that suggested it is difficult to estimate the extent to which assets might shift from prime funds to government funds or other alternatives."
The rules also commented on factors that a fund's board should consider when deciding whether or not to impose a fee or gate. "The "best interests" standard in today's amendments recognizes that each fund is different and that, once a fund's weekly liquid assets have dropped below the minimum required by rule 2a-7, a fund's board is best suited, in consultation with the fund's adviser, to determine when and if a fee or gate is in the best interests of the fund.... We agree with the commenter who suggested an exclusive list of factors could be counter-productive.... Instead, we believe a fund board should consider any factors it deems appropriate when determining whether fees and/or gates are in the best interests of a fund. Nonetheless, we believe it is appropriate to provide certain guideposts that boards may want to keep in mind, as applicable and appropriate, when determining whether a fund should impose fees or gates and are providing such guidance in this Release.... These may include, but are not limited to: relevant indicators of liquidity stress in the markets and why the fund's weekly liquid assets have fallen (e.g., Have weekly liquid assets fallen because the fund is experiencing mounting redemptions during a time of market stress or because a few large shareholders unexpectedly redeemed shares for idiosyncratic reasons unrelated to current market conditions or the fund?); the liquidity profile of the fund and expectations as to how the profile might change in the immediate future, including any expectations as to how quickly a fund's liquidity may decline and whether the drop in weekly liquid assets is likely to be very short-term (e.g., Will the decline in weekly liquid assets be cured in the next day or two when securities currently held in the fund's portfolio qualify as weekly liquid assets?); for retail and government money market funds, whether the fall in weekly liquid assets has been accompanied by a decline in the fund's shadow price; the make-up of the fund's shareholder base and previous shareholder redemption patterns; and/or the fund's experience, if any, with the imposition of fees and/or gates in the past.... Other commenters proposed that boards should be permitted to reasonably determine and commit themselves in advance to a policy to not allow a fee or gate to ever be imposed on a fund. We disagree. A blanket decision on the part of a fund board to not impose fees or gates, without any knowledge or consideration of the particular circumstances of a fund at a given time, would be flatly inconsistent with the fees and gates amendments we are adopting today, which, at a minimum, require a fund to impose a liquidity fee when its weekly liquid assets have dropped below 10%, unless the fund's board affirmatively finds that such fee is not in the best interests of the fund."
Regarding the size of fees, the rules say, "Today's amendments will permit a money market fund to impose a discretionary liquidity fee of up to 2% after its weekly liquid assets drop below 30% of its total assets. We are also adopting a default liquidity fee of 1% that must be imposed if a fund drops below 10% weekly liquid assets, unless a fund's board determines not to impose such a fee, or to impose a lower or higher fee (not to exceed 2%) because it is in the best interests of the fund. As proposed, the amendments would have required funds to impose a default liquidity fee of 2% after a fund's weekly liquid assets dropped below 15% of its total assets, although (as under our final amendments) fund boards could have determined not to impose the fee or to lower the fee.... We note that fund boards should not consider our 1% default liquidity fee as creating the presumption that a liquidity fee should be 1%. If a fund board believes based on market liquidity costs at the time or otherwise that a liquidity fee is more appropriately set at a lower or higher (up to 2%) level, it should consider doing so.... The amendments we are adopting today incorporate substantial flexibility for a fund board to determine when and how it imposes liquidity fees. As long as funds' weekly liquid assets are above the regulatory threshold (i.e. 30%), fund shareholders should continue to enjoy unfettered liquidity for money market fund shares. The likely limited and infrequent use of liquidity fees leads us to believe exemptions are generally unnecessary."
On the duration of gates and fees it says, "We are adopting, as proposed, a requirement that any fee or gate be lifted automatically once the fund's weekly liquid assets have risen to or above 30% of the fund's total assets. We are also adopting, with certain modifications from the proposal as discussed below, a requirement that a money market fund must lift any gate it imposes within 10 business days and that a fund cannot impose a gate for more than 10 business days in any 90-day period.... We also recognize commenters' concerns regarding the application of fees and gates in the context of sweep accounts. We note that during normal market conditions, fees and gates should not impact sweep accounts' (or any other investor's) investment in a money market fund. We also note that, unlike our proposal, the amendments we are adopting today will allow a fund boards to institute a fee or gate at any time of the days. To the extent a sweep account's daily investment is made at the end of the day, we believe this change should reduce concerns that the sweep account holder will find out about a redemption restriction only after it has made its daily investment and may lessen the difficulty and costs related to developing a trading system that can ensure an account has sufficient funds to cover the trade itself plus the possibility of a liquidity fee."
Finally, the SEC writes, "We believe the floating NAV requirement may encourage those investors who are least able to bear risk of loss to redirect their investments to other investment opportunities (e.g., government money market funds), and this may have the secondary effect of removing from the funds those investors most prone to redeem should a liquidity event occur for which fees or gates could be imposed."
August MFI: SEC MMF Reform Adopted, Modest Outflows Expected
The August issue of Crane Data's Money Fund Intelligence was sent out to subscribers on Thursday. (Sorry about the delay; we had some e-mail issues Thursday.) The latest edition of our flagship monthly newsletter features the articles: "SEC Passes MMF Reform on Split Vote: Combo is Coming," which discusses the adoption of money market fund reforms by a count of 3-2; "Chair White's Statement on New MMF Reforms," which excerpts SEC Chair Mary Jo White's discussion of the reforms; and, "Modest Outflows Expected from Reforms; 3 Questions," which examines the implications of the MMF reforms on fund flows. We also updated our Money Fund Wisdom database query system with July 31, 2014, performance statistics and rankings late last night, and we also sent out our MFI XLS spreadsheet this a.m. (MFI, MFI XLS and our Crane Index products are available to subscribers at our Content center.) Our July 31 Money Fund Portfolio Holdings data are scheduled to go out on Monday, August 11.
The latest MFI newsletter's lead article comments, "By a vote of 3-2, the SEC adopted long-awaited and much discussed reforms for the $2.6 trillion money market industry on July 23rd. "The amendments make structural and operational reforms to address risks of investor runs in money market funds, while preserving the benefits of the funds," stated the SEC in a press release. We distill the SEC's 869-page reform proposal down to the highlights. Chair Mary Jo White, along with Commissioners Luis Aguilar and Daniel Gallagher, voted in favor of the reform package. Commissioners Kara Stein and Michael Piwowar voted in opposition. Here's what they adopted."
The article explains, "Floating NAV -- Institutional Prime MMFs (including Inst Muni MMFs) are required to maintain a floating net asset value for sales and redemptions based on the current market value of the securities in their portfolios rounded to the fourth decimal place. The requirement would result in the daily share prices of the money market funds fluctuating along with changes in the market-based value of the funds' investments. These funds no longer will be allowed to use the special pricing and valuation conventions that currently permit them to maintain a constant share price of $1.00. Also, the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury and the IRS proposed new regulations to allow floating NAV MMF investors to use a simplified tax accounting method to track gains and losses."
Our monthly "profile" says, "At the Open Meeting of the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 23, the SEC voted to adopt its proposal to reform money market funds. Here are excerpts from Chair White's statement." White said: "Today's reforms will fundamentally change the way that most money market funds operate. They will reduce the risk of runs in money market funds and provide important new tools that will help further protect investors and the financial system in a crisis. Together, this strong reform package will make our financial system more resilient and enhance the transparency and fairness of these products for America's investors."
She continued, "Over the last several decades, money market funds have become a critical part of the American economy, providing an important source of short-term financing for issuers, including American businesses, state and local governments, and other market participants. Today, nearly $3 trillion is invested in money market funds, much of it in institutional prime funds held by investors such as pension funds and corporations. Issuers and investors now rely daily on money market funds, and the benefits of such funds are significant."
The August MFI article on `Modest Outflows Expected from Reforms; 3 Questions asks, "How much money could leave Prime Institutional money funds? How likely is a 30% (or 10%) liquidity buffer breach (and how likely will boards be to use gates and fees at these points)? Will the floating NAV actually float? These are what we see as the 3 most important questions fund companies and investors are asking as the money fund industry begins preparing for the SEC's Money Fund Reforms in August 2016. We examine these below."
Crane Data's August MFI with July 31, 2014, data shows total assets decreasing by $19.8 billion (after decreasing by $13.4 billion in June, rising $10.9 billion in May, and falling by $59.5 billion in April) to $2.461 trillion (1,238 funds, 10 fewer than last month). Our broad Crane Money Fund Average 7-Day Yield and 30-Day Yield remained at a record low 0.01% while our Crane 100 Money Fund Index (the 100 largest taxable funds) yielded 0.02% (7-day and 30-day). On a Gross Yield Basis (before expenses were taken out), funds averaged 0.13% (Crane MFA, unchanged) and 0.16% (Crane 100) on an annualized basis for both the 7-day and 30-day yield averages. (Charged Expenses averaged 0.12% and 0.14% for the two main taxable averages.) The average WAM for the Crane MFA and the Crane 100 were 42 and 45 days, respectively, increasing 1 day from the prior month for the Crane 100. (See our Crane Index or craneindexes.xlsx history file for more on our averages.)
Finally, the final agenda was sent out to subscribers for our European Money Fund Symposium, which will take place Sept. 22-23 in London at the Hilton London Tower Bridge. Though there has been no word from European regulators and the newly elected European Parlaiment has yet to even commence, we expect them to eventually craft legislation similar to the SEC's. This will be a main topic of discussion at Euro MFS, along with other issues impacting Euro, Sterling, USD and "offshore" money market funds domiciled in Dublin, Luxembourg and other European and global financial centers.
SEC Money Fund Reform Disclosure Requirements Not Quite Kitchen Sink
As we've mentioned in our News coverage over the past 2 weeks, the SEC included a host of enhanced disclosures and reporting requirements in its Money Fund Reform package, adopted July 23. The new rules, when they go into effect 18 months from this month (the rules have yet to be published in the Federal Register, so the effective date has not been set yet), will require funds to disclose daily on their web site daily and weekly assets, inflows/outflow, and market NAVs per share, as well as whether there has been any imposition of gates and fees, or any use of affiliate sponsor support. It will also remove the delay in disclosing monthly portfolio holdings via Form N-MFP, among other stipulations. Thankfully, the SEC pared back its exhaustive list of new disclosures from its 2013 proposal, though the list is still extensive. Below, we take a closer look at the disclosure requirements straight from the SEC's 869-page Money Market Fund Reform Final Rules. (See the SEC's "Money Market Funds" page here too.)
A summary of the "Amendments to Disclosure Requirements" (starting on page 281) says, "We are amending a number of disclosure requirements related to the liquidity fees and gates and floating NAV requirements adopted today, as well as other disclosure enhancements discussed in the proposal. These disclosure amendments improve transparency related to money market funds' operations, as well as their overall risk profile and any use of affiliate financial support. In the sections that follow, we first discuss amendments to rule and form provisions applicable to various disclosure documents, including disclosures in money market funds' advertisements, the summary section of the prospectus, and the statement of additional information ("SAI"). Next, we discuss amendments to the disclosure requirements applicable to money market fund websites, including information about money market funds' liquidity levels, shareholder flows, market-based NAV per share (rounded to four decimal places), imposition of liquidity fees and gates, and any use of affiliate sponsor support."
On revising the disclosure statements it says, "We are adopting amendments to rule 482 under the Securities Act and Item 4 of Form N-1A to revise the disclosure statement requirements concerning the risks of investing in a money market fund in its advertisements or other sales materials that it disseminates (including on the fund website) and in the summary section of its prospectus (and, accordingly, in any summary prospectus, if used).... We believe that enhancing the disclosure required to be included in fund advertisements and other sales materials, and in the summary section of the prospectus, will help change the investment expectations of money market fund investors, including any erroneous expectation that a money market fund is a riskless investment. In addition, without such modifications, we believe that investors may not be fully aware of potential restrictions on fund redemptions or, for floating NAV funds, the fact that the value of their money market fund shares will, as a result of these reforms, increase and decrease as a result of the changes in the value of the underlying securities."
Money markets that maintain a stable NAV must include the following statement in their advertisements, sales materials, and in the summary section of the prospectus: "You could lose money by investing in the Fund. Although the Fund seeks to preserve the value of your investment at $1.00 per share, it cannot guarantee it will do so. The Fund may impose a fee upon the sale of your shares or may temporarily suspend your ability to sell shares if the Fund's liquidity falls below required minimums because of market conditions or other factors. An investment in the Fund is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other government agency. The Fund's sponsor has no legal obligation to provide financial support to the Fund, and you should not expect that the sponsor will provide financial support to the Fund at any time." Funds with a floating NAV will be required to replace the second sentence of the above statement with: "Because the share price of the Fund will fluctuate, when you sell your shares they may be worth more or less than what you originally paid for them."
The Amendments also provide guidelines on the additional disclosures in the SAI or prospectus. "We anticipate that funds generally would consider the following disclosure to be appropriate for the prospectus, as disclosure regarding redemption restrictions provided in response to Item 11(c)(1) of Form N-1A: (i) means of notifying shareholders about the imposition and lifting of fees and/or gates (e.g., press release, website announcement); (ii) timing of the imposition and lifting of fees and gates, including (a) an explanation that if a fund's weekly liquid assets fall below 10% of its total assets at the end of any business day, the next business day it must impose a 1% liquidity fee on shareholder redemptions unless the fund's board of directors determines that doing otherwise is in the best interests of the fund, (b) an explanation that if a fund's weekly liquid assets fall below 30% of its total assets, it may impose fees or gates as early as the same day, and (c) an explanation of the 10 business day limit for imposing gates."
Further, it adds, "The DERA Study analyzed the distribution of weekly liquid assets and found that 83 prime funds per year, corresponding to 2.7% of the prime funds' weekly liquid asset observations, saw the percentage of their total assets that were invested in weekly liquid assets fall below 30%. The DERA Study further showed that less than one (0.6) fund per year, corresponding to 0.01% of the prime funds' weekly liquid asset observations, experienced a decline of total assets that were invested in weekly liquid assets to below 10%. Of those 83 funds that reported a percentage of total assets invested in weekly liquid assets below 30%, it is unclear how many, if any, would have attempted to keep the percentage of their total assets invested in weekly liquid assets at or above 30% to avoid having to report this information on their SAI (assuming they were to impose, at their board's discretion, a liquidity fee or gate)."
On website disclosure, the final rules read: "We are adopting, as proposed, amendments to rule 2a-7 that require money market funds to disclose prominently on their websites the percentage of the fund's total assets that are invested in daily and weekly liquid assets, as of the end of each business day during the preceding six months. The amendments we are adopting would require, as proposed, a fund to maintain a schedule, chart, graph, or other depiction on its website showing historical information about its investments in daily liquid assets and weekly liquid assets for the previous six months, and would require the fund to update this historical information each business day, as of the end of the preceding business day."
The SEC explains, "We believe that daily disclosure of weekly liquid assets and daily liquid assets ultimately benefits investors and could both increase stability and decrease risk in the financial markets. As mentioned above, while there is a potential for heavy redemptions in response to a decrease in liquidity, the increased transparency could reduce run risk in cases where it shows investors that a fund has sufficient liquidity to withstand market stress events. We also agree with commenters and believe that daily disclosure will increase market discipline, which could ultimately deter situations that could lead to heavy redemptions.... Finally, we note that several funds have already voluntarily begun disclosing liquidity information on their websites."
The SEC is also requiring funds to disclose "prominently on their websites" the fund's "daily net inflows or outflows as well as the fund's current NAV per share (calculated based on current market factors), rounded to the fourth decimal place in the case of a fund with a $1.0000 share price or an equivalent level of accuracy for funds with a different share price (the fund's "current NAV") as of the end of the previous business day during the preceding six months."
Regarding the new Form N-MFP Reporting Requirements, the rules state, "We are requiring the reporting of certain new information that will be useful for our oversight of money market funds.... We are not changing the requirement that funds continue to file reports on Form N-MFP once each month (as they do today), but are adopting a requirement that certain limited information (such as the NAV per share, liquidity levels, and shareholder flow) be reported on a weekly basis within the monthly filing.... We are also adopting, with some changes in response to comments, certain amendments to Form N-MFP's investment categories for portfolio securities.... We have revised the final investment categories to better align the categories with typical industry categorizations and provide a more precise description of fund investments."
The investment SEC's revised categories will include the following selections: "U.S. Treasury Debt; U.S. Government Agency Debt; Non-U.S. Sovereign, Sub-Sovereign and Supra-National debt; Certificate of Deposit; Non-Negotiable Time Deposit; Variable Rate Demand Note; Other Municipal Security; Asset Backed Commercial Paper; Other Asset Backed Securities; U.S. Treasury Repurchase Agreement, if collateralized only by U.S. Treasuries (including Strips) and cash; U.S. Government Agency Repurchase Agreement, collateralized only by U.S. Government Agency securities, U.S. Treasuries, and cash; Other Repurchase Agreement, if any collateral falls outside Treasury, Government Agency and cash; Insurance Company Funding Agreement; Investment Company; Financial Company Commercial Paper; Non-Financial Company Commercial Paper; or Tender Option Bond. If Other Instrument, include a brief description."
Note that Crane Data will revise its Money Fund Portfolio Holdings collection to reflect the new categories once funds begin using the new scheme. (The main change is the addition of "Time Deposits", though we will also utilize more of the Form N-MFP data instead of the website disclosures once the time lag on the former is removed.) We also will continue publishing the "Market NAV" or MNAV in our Money Fund Intelligence Daily, and this will switch to a live NAV for Prime Institutional funds. We will be adding Daily and Weekly Liquidity statistics to MFI Daily as they become available. (Currently, only a handful of funds publish these, but we will add the fields in coming weeks. We currently offer Daily and % Maturing in 7 Days fiellds, as well as percentages in Treasury and Govt agency securities, in our monthly `MFI XLS.)
SEC Proposal to Remove Credit Ratings Eliminates First, Second Tier
As part of its July 23rd Money Market Fund Reform package, the SEC re-proposed amendments for the "Removal of Certain References to Credit Ratings" which would eliminate the credit ratings requirements for money market funds. The biggest change is the SEC eliminating its "First Tier" and "Second Tier" definitions and replacing these with a single but more amorphous "minimal credit risk" standard. The proposals are open to a 60-day comment period (once they're published in the Federal Register), and comments may be submitted to rule-comments@sec.gov (include File Number S7-07-11 on the subject line). Below, we take a deeper dive into the proposal, which is posted on the SEC's web site. We believe these proposed changes should have little impact on fund's current investment policies (once finalized and implemented), but we believe they will reduce even further the already mimimal amount of "Second Tier" securities purchased by money funds. Note that the SEC's proposal only involved mandates for the ratings of money market securities, and does not involve or impact triple-A ratings on money market funds (which will still be permitted).
According to the proposed new rules, a money market fund could invest in a security "only if the fund's board of directors (or its delegate) determines that it presents minimal credit risks, and that determination would require the board of directors to find that the security's issuer has an exceptionally strong capacity to meet its short-term obligations," states the SEC's money market reform press release. They also proposed amendments to Form N-MFP. "Currently money market funds report their portfolio holdings and other information to the Commission each month on Form N-MFP, including certain credit ratings assigned to each portfolio security. The re-proposed amendments to Form N-MFP would require that a money market fund disclose any credit rating that the fund's board considered in determining that a portfolio security presents minimal credit risk," says the release.
The Proposal's summary says: "The Securities and Exchange Commission is re-proposing certain amendments, initially proposed in March 2011, related to the removal of credit rating references in rule 2a-7, the principal rule that governs money market funds, and Form N-MFP, the form that money market funds use to report information to the Commission each month about their portfolio holdings, under the Investment Company Act of 1940. The re-proposed amendments would implement provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. We are issuing this re-proposal in consideration of comments received on our March 2011 proposal. In addition, we are proposing to amend rule 2a-7's issuer diversification provisions to eliminate an exclusion from these provisions that is currently available for securities subject to a guarantee issued by a non-controlled person."
Here's some background on the amendments. The SEC writes, "Section 939A of the Dodd-Frank Act requires each federal agency, including the Commission, to "review any regulation issued by such agency that requires the use of an assessment of the credit-worthiness of a security or money market instrument and any references to or requirements in such regulations regarding credit ratings." That section further provides that each such agency shall "modify any such regulations identified by the review ... to remove any reference to or requirement of reliance on credit ratings and to substitute in such regulations such standard of credit-worthiness as each respective agency shall determine as appropriate for such regulations.""
The proposal explains, "As a step toward implementing these mandates, in March 2011 we proposed to replace references to credit ratings issued by nationally recognized statistical rating agencies ("NRSROs") in two rules and four forms under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Investment Company Act, including rule 2a-7 and Form N-MFP under the Investment Company Act The 2011 proposal preceded other amendments to rule 2a-7 and Form N-MFP that we proposed last year as part of our broader efforts to reform money market funds. At that time, we noted that we were not rescinding our 2011 proposal to remove ratings references from certain rules and forms under the Investment Company Act, but that we intended to address the matter at another time."
The Proposal adds, "We received several comments on the 2013 Money Market Fund Proposing Release suggesting that we act on credit ratings as part of our broader money market fund reforms. And today in another release, we have adopted certain amendments to rule 2a-7 and Form N-MFP that we proposed last year. We also received comments on the 2011 Proposing Release that raised a number of concerns with respect to the proposed amendments and suggested alternative rule text for some provisions. We have determined to re-propose amendments to replace references to credit ratings in rule 2a-7 and to modify provisions in Form N-MFP that reference credit ratings, in consideration of the mandate of Dodd-Frank Act section 939A, the comments on the 2011 Proposing Release, and the broader money market fund reforms we have adopted today."
It continues, "Rule 2a-7 contains "risk limiting" provisions designed to minimize the amount of risk a money market fund may assume.... Among these conditions, rule 2a-7 limits a money market fund's portfolio investments to "eligible securities," or securities that have received credit ratings from the "requisite NRSROs" in one of the two highest short-term rating categories or comparable unrated securities.... Rule 2a-7 further restricts money market funds to securities that the fund's board of directors (or the board's delegate) determines present minimal credit risks, and specifically requires that determination "be based on factors pertaining to credit quality in addition to any ratings assigned to such securities by an NRSRO." A money market fund is required to invest at least 97 percent of its total assets in eligible securities that have received a rating from the requisite NRSROs in the highest short-term rating category for debt securities ("first tier securities") or unrated securities of comparable quality."
It outlines the details of the proposal. "To implement the mandate of Dodd-Frank Act section 939A, we are re-proposing amendments to remove references to credit ratings in rule 2a-7. The re-proposed amendments would affect five elements of the rule: (i) determination of whether a security is an eligible security; (ii) determination of whether a security is a first tier security; (iii) credit quality. The re-proposed amendments to rule 2a-7 reflect our consideration of commenters' concerns and suggested modifications to our 2011 proposal, as well as the broader money market fund reforms we have adopted today. These re-proposed amendments are designed to remove references to, or requirement of reliance on, credit ratings in rule 2a-7 and to substitute standards of creditworthiness that we believe are appropriate."
Further, it states: "After consideration of the comments and the statutory directive to eliminate references to ratings in our rules, and to seek consistent standards of creditworthiness to the extent feasible, we are re-proposing amendments to rule 2a-7. The re-proposal would combine the two risk criteria into a single standard, which would be included as part of rule 2a-7's definition of eligible security. As re-proposed, an eligible security would be a security with a remaining maturity of 397 calendar days or less that the fund's board of directors (or its delegate) determines presents minimal credit risks, which determination includes a finding that the security's issuer has an exceptionally strong capacity to meet its short-term obligations."
"Thus, under our re-proposal, a money market fund would be limited to investing in securities that the fund's board (or its delegate) has determined present minimal credit risks, notwithstanding any rating the security may have received. In addition, fund boards would no longer be required to designate NRSROs. The re-proposed determination is designed to retain a degree of credit risk similar to that in the current rule by allowing for gradations in credit quality among securities that meet a very high standard of credit quality, while limiting a money market fund's investments in second tier securities to those the fund determines do not diminish the overall high quality of the fund's portfolio. As a result of the single standard and elimination of the distinction between first and second tier securities we are re-proposing, we also are re-proposing to remove the current prohibition on funds investing more than 3 percent of their portfolios in second tier securities."
On second tier securities, it states, "By eliminating the rule's current limitations on investments in second tier securities, funds theoretically could invest in second tier securities to a greater extent than permitted today. The re-proposed standard, however, is designed to preserve the current degree of risk limitation in rule 2a-7 without reference to credit ratings by requiring a fund's board (or its delegate) to determine that the issuer of a portfolio security has an exceptionally strong capacity to meet its short-term obligations, a finding that some boards or fund advisers may determine can be met by second tier rated securities (but only of the highest quality).... We request comment on consolidating the credit quality standard and eliminating the distinction between first and second tier securities. Do commenters believe that the re-proposed standard is an appropriate standard of creditworthiness for rule 2a-7?"
On stress testing it says, "Our re-proposed stress testing amendments would require that money market funds stress test for an event indicating or evidencing credit deterioration of particular portfolio security positions, each representing various exposures in a fund's portfolio." Finally, regarding Form N-MFP it proposes, "We have carefully considered these comments and are re-proposing instead to require that each money market fund disclose, for each portfolio security, (i) each rating assigned by any NRSRO if the fund or its adviser subscribes to that NRSRO's services, as well as the name of the agency providing the rating, and (ii) any other NRSRO rating that the fund's board of directors (or its delegate) considered in making its minimal credit risk determination, as well as the name of the agency providing the rating." The anticipated compliance date for these new rules is 18 months after the reforms are effective.
FSOC Stands Down from MMFs, Will Watch SEC Reforms; Fitch on LGIPs
The U.S. Treasury's Financial Stability Oversight Council met late last week to discuss the SEC's recent money fund reforms, and indicated that they won't act until they've had a chance to monitor the impact, which would be well over two years from now. FSOC's release states, "During the meeting, the Council discussed its ongoing assessment of potential industry-wide and firm-specific risks to U.S. financial stability arising from the asset management industry and its activities. The Council directed staff to undertake a more focused analysis of industry-wide products and activities to assess potential risks associated with the asset management industry. The Council also discussed the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC's) final rule on money market mutual fund (MMF) reform. The Council recognizes the SEC's work to adopt a significant set of structural reforms of MMFs, in particular a floating net asset value (NAV) for institutional prime MMFs. These structural reforms, along with enhanced transparency and diversification requirements as well as strengthened rules for government MMFs, are intended to reduce the risks to financial stability posed by MMFs."
The release continues, "Since the financial crisis, MMFs have represented an unaddressed source of risk to the financial system. MMFs proved susceptible to destabilizing runs that necessitated extraordinary government support during the financial crisis. Since then, the Council has highlighted this risk and recommended that the SEC undertake structural reforms of MMFs. In 2012, the Council used its authority under Section 120 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) to propose specific recommendations to the SEC for reform. The SEC proposed reforms in 2013 and adopted them last week. While not proceeding at this time to a final Section 120 recommendation, the Council intends to monitor the effectiveness of the SEC's reforms in addressing risks to financial stability. In particular, the Council believes it will be important to better understand any unintended consequences of liquidity fees and gates, as well as the treatment of retail funds."
The FSOC statement adds, "After these measures have been implemented, the Council will report on the effects of these reforms and their broader implications for financial stability. During the meeting, the Council continued its discussion of nonbank financial company designations under section 113 of the Dodd-Frank Act. Consistent with the Council's rule and guidance, the Council will not name any company under review in this process until a final designation has been made. This discussion also included an annual review of two nonbank financial companies designated in July of 2013, American International Group, Inc., and General Electric Capital Corporation. The Council did not rescind either company's designation."
FSOC also release the minutes from its June 24, FSOC meeting, where the Council discussed "Short-term Wholesale Funding Markets. The minutes state, "The Chairperson introduced the first agenda item, a presentation on risks in short-term wholesale funding markets. He introduced Mark Van Der Weide, Deputy Director of the Division of Banking Supervision and Regulation at the Federal Reserve, and Susan McLaughlin, Senior Vice President at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Mr. Van Der Weide discussed certain reforms to date, including increased bank capital requirements, reduction of liquidity risk in the banking system, and efforts to reduce structural risks in the market through tri-party repo reforms. With respect to tri-party repo reforms, he noted that although much has been accomplished, significant risks remain for potential fire sales of collateral held by lenders in the event of a large dealer default. He then discussed regulatory options to reduce residual risks by discouraging reliance on short-term wholesale funding and reducing lenders’ incentives to run. Ms. McLaughlin then discussed global and national initiatives to collect data to monitor securities financing transactions. After the presentation, members of the Council asked questions and had a discussion about topics including the global nature of the risks identified, the potential timing for implementing regulatory reforms, and proposed money market mutual fund reforms."
The Wall Street Journal wrote about FSOC on Friday, "Asset Managers Notch an 'Important' Win." Writes Andrew Ackerman: "After months of lobbying, large asset managers such as BlackRock Inc. and Fidelity Investments won a battle in their fight against tighter regulation Thursday. A panel of top financial regulators agreed to revamp their review of asset-management firms to focus on potentially risky products and activities rather than individual firms. The shift by the Financial Stability Oversight Council lessens the likelihood individual asset managers will be labeled "systemically important" -- a designation that would draw them in for greater oversight by the Federal Reserve."
In other news, Fitch Ratings says that SEC money fund regulations "represent a dramatic overhaul for the liquidity management industry." According to a Fitch report, "the operational changes necessary to continue using institutional prime and municipal money funds will likely prove too burdensome for many users of NAV-money funds, which are heavily represented by corporate and public sector cash managers. In surveys conducted by both Treasury Strategies and the Association for Financial Professionals, a majority of cash investors who use money funds have indicated that they will stop using, or reduce usage, of money funds with a floating NAV. Many investors in institutional prime and municipal money funds are expected move cash into government money funds exempt from the new rules, and/or bank deposits, assuming there is capacity to absorb the inflows. Corporate and public sector cash managers will likely also explore alternative liquidity management options like separately managed accounts, or increase their direct investments in the short-term markets."
Adds Fitch, "Many institutional investors will need to re-examine and update their written investment policies to be able to use the new money fund structures or access alternative liquidity management solutions.... For example, some policies specifically dictate that money funds must have a stable NAV, and corporations and municipalities will have to determine whether they would be comfortable investing cash in a floating NAV fund. In addition, fund managers are expected to introduce new liquidity products, but these may need to be added as approved investments to treasurers' policies."
The reforms will also create problems for local government investment pools (LGIPs), states Fitch in a July 31st release. "The SEC's reforms could mean that many LGIPs will no longer be able to price their shares at a stable $1.00 net asset value (NAV) as they have done in the past. Potential changes to the way LGIPs operate as a function of the new rules could also impact investors. Many LGIPs are "money market fund-like" investment pools that are required by state law, and under generally accepted accounting principles to operate consistently with the Securities and Exchange Commission rule governing money market funds (Rule 2a-7)."
Fitch continues, "LGIPs are governed by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), which allows LGIPs to use amortized cost as long as their policies and operations are consistent with Rule 2a-7. However, given the SEC's new rules, it is unclear whether LGIPs will now need to adopt floating NAVs if they invest in nongovernment securities (including municipal securities). GASB is aware of the ambiguity and has identified it as an agenda item to address in 2014, although LGIPs will remain in limbo while new rules are being written. Subject to GASB's interpretation, it's possible that LGIPs could continue to offer stable NAVs and maintain amortized cost accounting by investing in government and agency securities. However, while LGIPs generally operate with low expense ratios, investing exclusively in government securities may not cover operating expenses for the pool. Finally, the costs of making changes to systems and operations to comply with a floating NAV, as well as fees and gates, may also be prohibitive for LGIPs run by municipalities."
Further, Fitch states, "We believe that the new rules also create uncertainty for LGIP investors, whether captive or voluntary, because of the potential changes to LGIP structures. Captive investors are typically required by state law to invest in LGIPs, and in some cases specifically in those that transact at a stable NAV. Absent statutory or accounting relief, this change will leave some municipalities with limited or no alternative cash management options. For example, there is limited appetite from banks to accept institutional deposits given changes to bank regulations. Voluntary LGIP participants may elect to invest their cash elsewhere, but have historically favored LGIPs as a low-cost investment alternative."
They add, "Moreover, municipal treasurers' investment policies will need to be updated to account for the change to floating from stable NAV, a potentially time-intensive endeavor. While investment policies are usually updated on a yearly basis, this can be a complicated and costly process that will require a careful, strategic approach. We understand many investors have been waiting for clarity on the new regulations before making investment policy changes. The SEC set the implementation period for the main aspects of reform at two years, giving LGIP managers and participants time to adjust to the new rules. However, while private sector money fund managers and their clients can begin to respond to the new regulatory regime, LGIPs and their investors must still wait for guidance from GASB or statutory authorities. Without further guidance from various constituents, LGIPs are unable to make the necessary changes, causing uncertainty in the near term."
ICI's June Trends Confirm Big Repo Jump; Prime Inst Unfazed by Regs
On Wednesday, ICI released its latest "Trends in Mutual Fund Investing, June 2014," which tells us that total money fund assets decreased by $17 billion in June to $2.56 trillion after increasing $3.8 billion in May, decreasing $57.9 billion in April, and dropping $29.6 billion in March. For the 12 months through 6/30/14, ICI's monthly series shows assets down by $23.3 billion, or 0.7%. Month-to-date through July 30, money fund assets have declined by $11.4 billion, but Prime Institutional assets, which are the most impacted by the SEC's recent Money Market Fund Reforms have increased by $3.0 billion in July, according to Crane's Money Fund Intelligence Daily. (In the week since the SEC adopted reforms, total money fund assets are down $6.3 billion. But Prime Institutional Money Funds increased by $736 million over the last 7 days and by $1.9 billion on Wednesday.) Below, we review ICI's latest monthly and weekly assets survey, as well as their June Portfolio Composition totals.
ICI's June "Trends" says, "The combined assets of the nation's mutual funds increased by $221.08 billion, or 1.4 percent, to $15.67 trillion in June, according to the Investment Company Institute's official survey of the mutual fund industry. In the survey, mutual fund companies report actual assets, sales, and redemptions to ICI.... Bond funds had an inflow of $10.6 billion in June, compared with an inflow of $11.1 billion in May. Taxable bond funds had an inflow of $8.3 billion in June, versus an inflow of $7.6 billion in May. Municipal bond funds had an inflow of $2.3 billion in June compared to an inflow of $3.5 billion in May."
It adds, "Money market funds had an outflow of $17.15 billion in June, compared with an inflow of $3.19 billion in May. Funds offered primarily to institutions had an outflow of $4.59 billion. Funds offered primarily to individuals had an outflow of $12.56 billion." Money funds represent 16.3% of all mutual fund assets while bond funds represent 22.0%.
ICI's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $8.79 billion to $2.55 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, July 30, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, Treasury funds (including agency and repo) decreased by $6.58 billion and prime funds decreased by $870 million. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $1.34 billion." Note that ICI's weekly survey shows Prime Institutional funds flat, down a mere $110 million (compared to Crane Data's numbers cited above, which showed a slight increase).
ICI also released its latest "Month-End Portfolio Holdings of Taxable Money Funds," which verified our reported jump in Repo and plunge in CDs in June. (See Crane Data's July 14 News, "July MF Holdings Show Jump in Fed Repo; CD, TD Drop; Europe Plunges.") ICI's latest Portfolio Holdings summary shows that Holdings of Repos rose by $63.9 billion, or 12.5%, (after rising $33.5 billion in May, plunging $38.4 billion in April, and jumping by $41.7 billion in March) to $573.4 billion (24.9% of assets). Repo became the largest segment of taxable money fund portfolio holdings in June, bumping Certificates of Deposits out of first place, according to ICI's data series.
Certificates of Deposits decreased by $60.7 billion in June (after jumping $9.9 billion in May, $50.3 billion in April and declining by $54.1 billion in March) to $541.6 billion (or 23.5% of taxable MMF holdings). CDs are the second largest composition segment. Treasury Bills & Securities, the third largest segment, fell $3.6 billion in June (after plummeting $29.7 billion in May, plunging $52.7 billion in April, and increasing $1.6 billion in March) to $376.8 billion (16.3%).
Commercial Paper, which decreased by $9.8 billion, or 2.7%, remained the fourth largest segment just ahead of U.S. Government Agency Securities. CP holdings totaled $346.9 billion (15.0% of assets) while Agencies grew by $10.2 billion to $333.1 billion (14.4%). Notes (including Corporate and Bank) fell by $11.7 billion to $67.5 billion (2.9% of assets), and Other holdings dropped by $9.1 billion to $48.7 billion (2.1%).
The Number of Accounts Outstanding in ICI's Holdings series for taxable money funds decreased by 180.6 thousand to 23.644 million, while the Number of Funds decreased by 3 to 375. Over the past 12 months, the number of accounts fell by 1.0 million and the number of funds declined by 16. The Average Maturity of Portfolios stayed the same at 44 days in June. Over the past 12 months, WAMs of Taxable money funds declined by 6 days.
The latest numbers from our Money Fund Intelligence Daily show that total money fund assets are $2.45 trillion, down $11.4 billion month-to-date and down $155.2 billion (6.0%) year-to-date (through July 30). The Crane Money Fund Average, which tracks all taxable funds, has dropped $13.0 billion month-to-date to $2.20 trillion through July 30. Year-to-date, the Crane Money Fund Average is down $141.1 billion; over the last 7 days it's down $5.0 billion. The Crane Retail Money Fund Index has declined $4.4 billion over the last 7 days, $2.7 billion MTD to $758.4 billion and $34.7 billion YTD through July 30. The Crane Institutional Money Fund Index is down $555 million over 7 days, $11.0 billion to $1.4 trillion MTD and $106.3 billion YTD.
Note: Crane Data updated its July MFI XLS to reflect the 6/30/14 composition data and maturity breakouts for our entire fund universe on July 14. Note again too that we are now producing a "Holdings Reports Issuer Module," which allows subscribers to choose a series of Portfolio Holdings and Issuers and to see a full listing of which money funds own this paper. (Visit our Content Center and the latest Money Fund Portfolio Holdings download page to access the latest version of this new file.)
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Second Anniversary Special!
Author AL Connors Date November 11, 2009
November 27 & 28 Crush returns to the Gladstone with some friends to celebrate our Second Anniversary.
Put it in your calendars.
Friday November 27 – Showcase! – 8pm $10 (cash only)
Friday’s show will feature improvised performances from Crush, Uncalled For, PROJECTproject and Sex-T-Rex – each group performing their own styles and forms.
Saturday November 28 – Blender! – 8pm $10 (cash only)
Saturday’s show will have the performers of Crush and their special guests all mixed together creating new cocktails and melanges of storytelling and shenanigans – much like the “secret improv shows” of this past Ottawa Fringe Festival.
In two years, we’ve had the pleasure of playing with fantastic performers around town and from all over Canada (and the occasional American and Australian). You may have seen us at the Bytown Tavern / Yuk Yuks, Mercury Lounge, Black Sheep Inn, Ottawa Fringe, Club SAW, outdoors for the City of Ottawa, on the big screen at Scotia Bank Place
and at festivals in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
Time to kick off our terrible twos with a great show / party. A sharty?
A bit of info about our guests:
PROJECTproject (Toronto)
http://projectproject.ca/
Described by Eye magazine as “one of the biggest and most buzz-making comedy troupes on the local scene…”, 2009 Canadian Comedy Award nominees (Best Improv Troupe), PROJECTproject, make a weekly ruckus in Toronto – hosting shows that are equal parts improv experiments & house parties in their semi-secret underground lair. In the past two years, they’ve taken their mischief on the road, performing at the Vancouver, Victoria & Montreal International Improv Festivals, at the Canadian Comedy Awards & Festival in Saint John, New Brunswick and many points in between. They’re also the rascals behind the annual PROJECTproject COMBUSTIONfestival, Toronto’s alternative international improv festival.
Uncalled For (Montreal)
http://uncalledforimprov.com/
Uncalled For is a multi-talented, multi-tentacled Montreal-based comedy troupe. Their spontaneous theatre was recently described as “comely, near-perfect improv comedy wonderfulness” by the Hour, and their 2007 original sketch comedy experience, THUNDERSPANK!, was the winner of the Chapters Best Text Award at the Montreal Fringe Festival. Another favorite sketch comedy creation, Blastback Babyzap, was the top-selling show at the Montreal Fringe festival and was one of the winners of the Just For Laughs Best Comedy award, while Toronto’s Eye Weekly placed the show on the cover, calling it “a highly polished, side-splitting comedic gem.” At the 2009 Ottawa Fringe, they won “Best Ensemble” for “Today is All Your Birthdays” which went on to tour the Fringe circuit. Uncalled For can improvise, write sketches, produce plays, host late-night talk shows and crash weddings. Uncalled For can do pretty much anything.
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Star Trek: The Original Series books
science fiction, hollow planet
The Enterprise encounters--you'll never guess--a hollow asteroid that is really a spaceship with people inside who don't know that there's an outside world. Meanwhile, the ship gets stuck, Klingons show up to threaten them, and in the end Kirk confronts something like a god-computer.
Yeah, it's not really original, in the larger motions of the plot. However, the little details are done very well. The society in the asteroid is interesting, the mysteries are intriguing, and the sense of danger and urgency is convincing. Even though part of the urgency is provided by a literal ticking time bomb, it's well handled. An enjoyable book.
In the author's note at the end, Haldeman writes that this is "probably [his] last Star Trek book":
Since this is probably my last Star Trek book, I ought to take a page and thank the people who helped me with both of them: the Science Fiction League of Iowa Students, especially Sue Weinberg, who helped keep my stories consistent with the TV series (I was overseas when most of it was aired); Miss Sheila Clark, who supplied authentic dialect for Scotty; Dr. Gregory Benford, who helped me figure out what happens to bodies of water inside a planetoid such as the one in World Without End; Gay and Sydny, for quiet patience; Gene Roddenberry, who not only let me take liberties with his creations, but even suggested a few.
World Without End (1979-02), 149
In fact, Haldeman didn't want to write this Trek book, but he couldn't get out of his contract:
The end result was that I really enjoyed writing Planet of Judgment, and finished it in three months. Writing World Without End was like pulling your own teeth, and it took nine months. (Oddly enough, I’ve met people who liked the second book better. I certainly worked harder on it!)
Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion (2006-11-14)
Count me among those who liked the second book better!
Also, good odds on that Sheila Clark being this Sheila Clark , yeah?
Chatper 5
The teaser at the beginning is headed "attack of the mutant clones". That's promising.
And here we have a hollowed-out asteroid with people inside. Where have we seen that before?
Weird format. This is a summary of the meeting from the previous chapter, as might be distributed afterward to participants.
Kirk and co. beam in and are soon detained by the authorities. And to the surprise of no one, the people inside don't know they're in a spaceship.
Kirk and co. are taken to a court where they are questioned by behavior enforcers. They learn that these aliens belong to one of 256 'families', which seem connected to vocations ('behavior enforcer' is one, and 'interpreter' is another), and one of several castes.
On the surface of the asteroid they spot a Klingon ship. It was trapped there centuries ago by a net of the unobtanium stuff. Spock orders the Enterprise to move off so that they will not be caught as well, but it is too late.
A 'magician' arrives to interrogate the captives. He thinks them to be Klingons. During the interrogation, in the distance a phaser explodes as it was being examined, prompting the magician to order all but Kirk killed.
Upon hearing this, Spock beams down a security team, and follows shortly after. They all escape with the magician and translator in tow.
Escaping across a river, Kirk and co. come upon a jungle. There, the interpreter and magician assure them they will die. When pressed, it comes to light that the magicians use some kind of cloning to reproduce the species, and they release the 'mistakes' into the jungle, since custom forbids killing them. At night, the monsters will attack and, doubtless, kill them all.
Kirk and co. stand watch during the night, fighting off a constant stream of monsters.
They survive the night and procure a cart to ease their journey.
Klingons intercept the Enterprise's distress signal, and launch a bomb toward the asteroid. Scotty prepares to beam the crew into the asteroid, if necessary, on the chance that it will protect them.
Kirk & co. keep on traveling. Apparently the horse-rat creatures pulling the cart don't need sleep, as long as they think it's daytime.
On the Enterprise, they plan to transport everyone (except Scotty) inside the asteroid and then blow up the bomb early.
Inside, Kirk & co. reach the island of the magicians, and are captured as they approach--flying:
"I've been on the Moon a dozen times," Kirk said, "but I've never seen anyone fly." Wilson agreed, giving Moore a slightly dangerous look.
"Sirs, you've never been in Disneymoon, then."
"The amusement park?" Kirk and Wilson hadn't committed a frivolous act since getting their officers' stripes. Do they fly there?"
World Without End (1979-02), 97
The whole crew of the Enterprise, save Scotty, beam down. Scotty is not able to detonate the nova bomb--it does nothing when he hits it.
Prediction: fake bomb, so they can get everyone off the ship.
The rest of the crew, with Uhura in charge, begin to set up camp.
When the bomb was to explode, the viewscreen went white, and when they tried to contact Scotty afterward, they got only static. An EMP?
Kirk and co. learn more about the way the Chatalia are replaced. They have a machine ("the Father Machine") that produces copies, which they regularly visit to recordtheir memories and physical form. The ela do, anyway--the others, ven and lan, are similarly replaced, but by a different machine, and without memories.
Kirk and co. are taken Below, to where the Father Machine is. There, they find that they cannot communicate outside, and their chronometers, too, do not work. They are attacked just then by a large number of magicians.
Below, Kirk and co. are given a telepathic equivalent of the universal translator, which looks something like blue celery.
In order to gain the Chatalians' trust, Spock offers to mind meld with one of them. It does not work, which leads them to believe he is lying.
Scotty has not been vaporized--but it was not because the bomb was a fake. Instead, as soon as the blast hit the asteroid, it totally vanished, before it reached the Enterprise. The Klingons make plans to teleport a second bomb inside the asteroid, piece by piece, along with a team to reassemble it, and destroy it from within.
Kirk and co. are taken to the Father Machine--a giant plant, as it turns out. The comment that the first-caste magicians are all horticulturists now makes sense, if all the advanced technology of the species has been arranged in the form of plants.
The Klingon captain, Kulain, transports to the Enterprise perhaps to kill Scotty, but it is 40 below zero there due to the total power drain, and his weapon won't work. Scotty is burning whatever wood he could find to keep warm enough to survive for a while. Kulain ends up sharing Scotty's blankets.
The Father Machine determines that the humans are not Klingons. Spock decides he will attempt to communicate with it. This does not seem to go well.
A group of Chatalia attack Uhura's group. They stun them, but one magician is killed, falling from the air. Chapel does an autopsy, and finds that he has no central nervous system, no spinal cord, no brain.
The Father Machine tells spock that the Chatalia are not really alive. They are merely the creations of the Father Machine, 'toys'. At length, the Father Machine agrees to send away the humans in exchange for the Klingons.
The Klingons arrive with the bomb, but it does not explode, the Father Machine using its singular ability to absorb energy to maintain the reaction at a steady state, allowing the bomb to function as a small star.
Spock arranges to deliver the Klingons to the Father Machine by advising them that the Father Machine has challenged them, wishing to devour them, and strongly advising that they not take it up on its challenge, because they will be at a severe disadvantage.
I would have liked a resolution a little less convenient than "these people don't have brains, so they really aren't alive, QED" for the Chatalia. The Father Machine could well just be putting on a play, amusing itself by moving around its pieces in a semblance of a society, but it might have been nice to have a few more words about that, if so. Why would a creature like the Father Machine want to do something like that? Did it base this society on some real society it had encountered? Perhaps from some planet orbiting the star it lived near, that blew up. Perhaps even its own home planet.
It's a mark of a good book if it leaves you with something interesting to think about, but these are largely not questions that are going to lead to much insight--they're just 'factual' issues about the world of the story. They leave room for a sequel, but I can't do much with that, other than write a fanfic.
The big takeaway from the ending, I guess, is that everything that happened was a lie: if the Catalia don't have anything like brains, and they really are just toys that the Father Machine moves around, not even semi-autonomous but really just biological puppets, then everything that happened was just the Father Machine pretending not to understand what was going on, pretending to be captured, pretending to be afraid of dying without replacement, whatever. It was all just the Father Machine improvising a little play to amuse itself, like the author doing a self-insert.
I don't know that Spock's "I technically didn't tell a lie" is really enough to get him off the hook, morally, for tricking the Klingons to their deaths. Leaving them to their fate is one thing, since they probably wouldn't be willing to accept help anyway, but manipulating the drunken captain of the ship into getting his whole crew killed doesn't sound right to me. But, hey, it all ends on a joke, so all's well that ends well, right?
Bantam Books Publisher
Joe Haldeman Author
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how did joey zimmerman died
Joseph Zimmerman J. Paul Zimmerman J. P. Zimmerman: Occupation: Actor, musician: Years active: 1991–present: Spouse(s) Becky Zimmerman (m. 2020) Joseph Paul Zimmerman (born June 10, 1986) is an American actor and musician. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. Thanks for your help! According to reporting by Hawaii News Now, the fatal accident took place at around 4pm local time. Also an additional volunteer within fifty miles. This flower has been reported and will not be visible while under review. The sponsor of a memorial may add an additional, No animated GIFs, photos with additional graphics (borders, embellishments. She traveled in Haiti and the Amazon rain forest, and made a documentary film on Congolese refugee camps. He testified that Zimmerman's swearing and comments about Martin did not raise any particular concern, but under redirect said that Zimmerman's language could be interpreted as "hostile." View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro. GREAT NEWS! Judy Farris Zimmerman passed away on September 30, 2020 at the age of 70 in Somerset, Kentucky. Edit a memorial you manage or suggest changes to the memorial manager. In her online tribute to her daughter, Jordan Zimmerman described her as a globe-trotting humanitarian who helped refugees in Africa, volunteered in a low-income hospital in India, helped build classrooms in Uganda and worked with indigenous tribes in Peru. Looking for some great streaming picks? Flowers added to the memorial appear on the bottom of the memorial or here on the Flowers tab. We have a volunteer within fifty miles of your requested photo location. So, as the... Mystery British businessman bets $5million on Donald Trump winning the US presidential election in 'largest... Pollster who predicted president's victory in 2016 says 'there are more shy Trump voters than last time' -... Donald Trump tells final rally 'we are going to win everything': President closes out his marathon campaign... Get ready for the most nailbiting election in history: Your hour-by-hour guide to what to expect as America... Trump threatens legal action to stop Pennsylvania counting votes three days after the election in... Joe Biden says he's heading for a 'big win' and Lady Gaga tells rally crowd to vote out Trump because 'he... Biden secures the first Election Day victory while Trump takes the second as two tiny New Hampshire towns... 'Why should we trust Joe?' To suggest a change to a cemetery page, visit the Cemetery Corrections forum. ‘I am so proud of my Jamie Jo and life will never be the same without her. Joey Zimmerman Bio, Early Life, Parents, Age, Profile, Nationality, Ethnicity. Sorry! Travel back in time to check out the early roles of some of Hollywood's heavy hitters. She added that Jamie's legacy is to inspire others to take action and make our world a better place. To view a photo in more detail or edit captions for photos you added, click the photo to open the photo viewer. Police on Kauai say foul play is not suspected in the reporter's death. Posted: Friday, April 4, 2014 7:39 pm Dr. Joseph Zimmerman, beloved father, grandfather and friend to all in need, passed away in the early morning hours of March 27, 2014.
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how did joey zimmerman died 2020
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OFW Interview with Danilo, Filipino Falconer in Dubai
We have previously featured an article about traditional sports in Dubai, such as camel racing, archery, and free diving. Another popular sport is falconry,...
Labor Committee to Ensure Private Workers Get Proper Salary, Benefits
The Executive Committee of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council on Wednesday (April 22) has issued a resolution enacting the organization of the Abu Dhabi Workers Committee, chaired by the chairman of the Department of Economic Development.
ALSO READ: 70% of Employees in UAE Public and Private Sector Must Work From Home
Under federal and local laws, the committee is tasked with developing, executing, and evaluating the inspection programs for all private sector facilities to ensure they are complying with labor laws.
Credits: Abu Dhabi Media Office/Twitter
Abu Dhabi Committee to Check if Private Workers Get Appropriate Salary, Benefits
The committee will ensure the existence of valid work contracts, that workers’ rights are being upheld, and that they are receiving payment for their work, as shared in a report by the Abu Dhabi Media Office.
Moreover, the committee is also tasked to coordinate with the relevant authorities to ensure suitable living environments for workers.
The Executive Committee of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council has issued a resolution forming the Abu Dhabi Workers Committee, chaired by the Chairman of the Department of Economic Development. pic.twitter.com/Ci3BobpbKB
— مكتب أبوظبي الإعلامي (@admediaoffice) April 22, 2020
This also means that the committee will oversee activities conducted by relevant authorities to find solutions to reducing workers’ complaints, and establish a process for receiving and handling any issues that might arise.
Moreover, the committee will have to review issues relating to underperforming companies, including records and salary protection programs to protect workers’ rights.
By this, the committee will review legislation, and systems and policies regulating the labor market – and will submit proposals to enhance the economy and business environment in Abu Dhabi, in coordination with relevant entities.
Of note, the committee will design and fund programs aimed at raising awareness among workers and employers of labor laws, as well as their rights and commitments.
The committee is composed of representatives from the Department of Economic Development, Judicial Department, Abu Dhabi Police, the Department of Finance, the Department of Municipalities and Transport, the Department of Health, the Department of Community Development, the Higher Corporation for Specialised Economic Zones, the General Directorate for Residency and Foreigners Affairs (the Federal Authority for Identity & Citizenship) and the Ministry of Human Resources & Emiratisation (MOHRE).
In line with this, the MOHRE on April 6 has launched an ‘Early Leave’ initiative for all expat private-sector employees in the country which would allow them to temporarily return to their home country during the time that the COVID-19 precautionary measures are in effect in the UAE.
Earlier, the MOHRE announced that private sector companies in the UAE were allowed to restructure existing contracts with employees and grant employees both paid and unpaid leave, temporarily reduce salaries during the period in which their businesses are affected by the COVID-19 precautionary measures, and also permanently reduce salaries of its employees.
Through the establishment of the workers’ committee, private employees in the UAE will be safeguarded from discrimination, inequality, and abuse from their companies or employers during this time of crisis.
Meanwhile, as the rest of the world is battling with the immediate effects of the virus in the community and on the economy, a UAE health official has forecasted that life in the emirates will be changed by a coronavirus, and remote working and learning are likely to become more commonplace in the long term, even as the immediate threat subsides.
In line with this, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai has revealed that another team will be formed to develop the government’s human resources and provide new applications to raise productivity and skill-sets, with preparations for new post-COVID-19 government work techniques. The world after COVID-19 will never be the same.
ALSO READ: MOHRE Issues Decree Allowing Private Companies to Adjust Employee Contract, Grant Unpaid Leaves, Deduct Salaries
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@JasonKenney on Twitter, a Virginia man, is hearing from angry Albertans
Graham Neil CTV News Edmonton
@GrahamNeilCTV Contact
Published Friday, January 8, 2021 5:40PM MST
EDMONTON -- Jason Kenney is in the United States sending out tweets about his cabinet; not Alberta premier Jason Kenney, but a man who shares the same name and is renovating his kitchen.
“Someone said that I have to do something about my cabinet and I was conveniently changing the hardware on the cabinets in my house, and so I said, ‘I’m working on my cabinet,’” says Jason Kenney, who lives in Virginia.
The American Jason Kenney is a self-described news, political and social media junkie but thanks to his name, he’s now tuned into Alberta politics as well
“I’m not as enlightened as I probably could be but I’ve come a long way.”
He’s become more enlightened due to the international travel scandal involving UCP MLAs and staff, as more Albertans have mistakenly sent angry tweets to Jason Kenney’s Twitter account in Virginia instead of Premier Jason Kenney’s account.
Un... I’m working on cabinet... https://t.co/zIeA2bT8bt pic.twitter.com/jxFnMghqjy
— Jᴀsᴏɴ Kᴇɴɴᴇʏ �� (@jasonkenney) January 7, 2021
“There’s the stereotypes that Canadians are all polite and apologetic and peaceful which is largely true, but boy, when you get into politics it can be just as divisive and hot as it is down here too,” says Kenney.
But instead of fueling the flames, Kenney tries to have fun with his mistaken identity.
“Maybe it makes some folks take a step back and simmer down a little bit,” he says. “Because I’ve been able to be a good sport about it because folks I’ve engaged with have also been good sports about it.”
And Kenney, who has had his twitter account @jasonkenney since 2007 , says he has no plans to step back and change his name on social media.
"If I changed it no one would drag me into Canadian politics anymore," he said. "I’d be lost in the wilderness.”
Jason Kenney, but not Alberta's premier, is having fun on Twitter with the UCP travel scandal. Jan. 8, 2021. (@jasonkenney/Twitter)
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Canadian Arctic has all the mineral ingredients for prized blue gemstones
Baffin Island holds some of its treasures in plain sight with rocks that produce rare gems sitting exposed to the elements, scientists say.
A new study from the University of British Columbia shows the area is home to a mineral that is prized by jewellers and collectors.
Study co-author Philippe Belley said in an interview that cobalt-blue spinel, “which is a ridiculously rare gemstone” gets a lot of interest from gemologists and jewellers but there’s not enough supply.
The most significant source of the gems is Vietnam, and even then production is limited, said Belley, who’s a PhD graduate within the department of earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences.
He and report co-author UBC mineralogist Lee Groat conducted the first scientific study of the cobalt-blue spinel in Canada.
Research campsite on Baffin Island. (Submitted/Lee Groat)
Easy to spot on the island
Baffin Island is “really unique” because it has all the “right ingredients” needed to produce coloured gemstones but the area is “virtually” unexplored, Belley said.
“The rock is extremely well exposed so not only is it easy to see if you have a gem occurrence by just walking on the surface and doing geological mapping, but its also suitable for remote detection methods using drones and satellites to collect data on the rocks.”
Using remote detection can’t be done in most other gem-producing areas because of plant cover or challenging terrain, Belley said.
The researchers analysed 14 occurrences of spinel on Baffin Island, including two of cobalt-blue spinel, to better understand how it forms.
“It’s finding the right chemical components in the right concentration,” he said. “We found that most gem occurrences on Baffin Island were formed from the transformation of a mixture of mud and magnesium-rich limestone under high temperature and pressure.”
Understanding how cobalt-blue spinel forms changes the way people can look for it. According to Belley, the cobalt-blue spinel on Baffin Island is comparable in colour to the best sources worldwide. [Photo: B.S. Wilson] <a href=”https://t.co/ieZ2uSJ6nv”>pic.twitter.com/ieZ2uSJ6nv</a>
—@SachiWick
Almost 2 billion years old
They found it was formed 1.8 billion years ago at temperatures of about 800 C, but cobalt was only present in high-enough concentrations to produce gem-quality stones in small, localized areas.
Baffin Island spinel contains up to 500 parts-per-million of cobalt, giving it a vivid blue colour comparable to the best sources worldwide, Belley said in the news release.
Spinel also comes in red, pink and violet, Belley said.
Other gems found on Baffin Island include beluga sapphires, used in the Queen’s sapphire jubilee brooch, and lapis lazuli, a rock used as a gemstone by the Egyptians, he said.
Mining for the gems on Baffin Island wouldn’t necessarily leave a large geographical footprint, he said.
“Most gemstones are either mined from a relatively small mine and a lot of them are mined by one or a few people or families around the world, which is called artisanal mining.”
Baffin Island, Nunavut
ArcticblueCanadiangemstonesingredientsmineralprized
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A question to David Lifton
By François Carlier,
July 7, 2018 in JFK Assassination Debate
James DiEugenio
FC keeps on asking about Lifton's reply. Lifton has not replied FC, why don't you PM him?
But as to how this thread got sidelined, there are two reasons for it. Someone posted a story about the trajectory of the posterior bullet to the throat. Then you commented to someone's reply to that with this: "You also write "The extant videos also show, quite clearly, that everyone ran to the grassy knoll in search of the assassin(s) immediately after the shooting."
No, that's not true. That's one of the myths of the Kennedy assassination." You also then said that you found no indications that anyone interfered with the Parkland doctors' testimony.
I showed why those statements are wrong. And then DVP came to your aid. And that is why we are now here. With you and he still saying, after 55 years of contrary evidence, that somehow, according to Bugliosi, the WC and the FBI did an excellent investigation into Kennedy's murder. And me quoting FBI witnesses, including Hoover, that such was simply not the case.
Edited July 14, 2018 by James DiEugenio
David Von Pein 47 posts
Cliff Varnell 26 posts
François Carlier 25 posts
James DiEugenio 22 posts
W. Tracy Parnell
8 hours ago, Joseph McBride said:
The only interesting question is, Who is paying you?
I give David Von Pein and Francois Carlier a great deal of credit for putting up with these type of attacks in order to attempt to bring some common sense to the debate. I know what it is like because I have been the recipient of this type of thought pattern over the years myself. The fact is, there are many individuals on the CT side of things who demonstrably have devoted more time and energy to the JFK case than David and Francois or anyone on the LN side have (which is not to say these two fine gentleman have not spent a great deal of time because they have). But some of these people seem to have an obsession with the case and indeed apparently work full time on it and have found a way to get paid to do so.
One such person is Jefferson Morley who now is writing freelance for left-wing websites and in his spare time writes pro-conspiracy books disguised as biographies that are heavily related to the JFK case. But Mr. McBride, or anyone else here for that matter, doesn't seem too concerned about how Morley makes his living since he is working "for the cause." They also don't seem too concerned that Morley is spreading disinformation as he was when he was promoting Veciana's book and telling everyone that Veciana was a CIA agent when that is demonstrably not the case. At one time, Veciana was approved for use as an asset by the CIA, but was apparently never used in that capacity.
http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/04/another-slobbering-love-affair.html
So if anyone is making money from the assassination, it is people like Morley (there are others but I am using him as an example here because he is a public figure and can presumably withstand the criticism). Von Pein has written a fine book on the case but, as I'm sure he will tell you, the market for non-conspiracy books is very small. And the evidence that any LN people are doing their work at the behest of the CIA or the "Deep State" is non-existent. BTW, please keep up the good work David and Francois.
False dichotomy of CT vs LN. Instead of WC zealot vs critic. You either buy their malarkey or you don't.
Then this: Morley writes for left-wing web sites. You mean like Newsweek? That publication was revived from the dead, and is now edited by Chris Ruddy. If you do not know, Ruddy was the righting hatchet man who worked for Richard Mellon Scaife to create the Clinton Crazies. He was then rewarded with the rightwing media site Newsmax.
And oh puhlease, with that Veciana was not a CIA agent. Yeah, Phillips paid him 260,000 bucks because he only did asset work. I mean if you want to read some really hilarious stuff, take a look at what the CIA says about its interactions with the Garrison investigation.
23 minutes ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:
telling everyone that Veciana was a CIA agent when that is demonstrably not the case. At one time, Veciana was approved for use as an asset by the CIA, but was apparently never used in that capacity.
Tracy, to be sure, which one is it? Demonstrably false or apparently false?
David Josephs
Interests:History
2 hours ago, François Carlier said:
(which has absolutely nothing to do with the thread that I started).
You posted: But there was never any conspiracy. No plot. Nothing sinister. No pre-autopsy surgery at all. Nothing. (Maybe some bones moved a bit when the body was hastily moved around, that's all).
That might reconcile some of your findings (that can sometimes be hard to explain away) with the arguments of the defenders of the official version (who, you have to admit it, have good reason to doubt your – may I say - farfetched conclusions about pre-autopsy surgery and a we-shall-fire-from-the-front-with-a-patsy-being-behind-and-take-the-body-unnoticed-and-change-the-wounds conspiracy (which even other conspiracists don't believe in).
and you truly expected that your question would be taken seriously... newsflash buddy... we are not talking about “belief” but established fact...
this “thread” you started includes:
Here is my supposition (and I use the word "supposition" on purpose).
sup·po·si·tion
ˌsəpəˈziSH(ə)n/
an uncertain belief.
So while a theory is offered backed by evidence.. all you do is guess what might have happened and use this guess to do what?.... try and impeach decades of research..
François Carlier
Location:Paris, France
Interests:Science, history, critical thinking, crimes investigations.
1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:
Mister DiEugenio,
Allow me to sum up my experience (though I know most people won't care, so I'll be quick) so that you understand one important point.
I started learning about the JFK assassination when I was a student. At age 22, in 1989, I lived in Pennsylvania for a full year. I read David Lifton's book "Best evidence". I was very impressed. Lifton was my hero, no less. Then, in 1990, I met Cyril Wecht in his office in Pittsburgh, who told me that Lifton was completely wrong. Later that Summer I went to Dallas and met Robert Groden (whose book "High treason" I had just read) who also told me that Lifton was utterly wrong. It's not my fault. At least I discovered then that there was no such thing as a "research community" but separate individuals who all had their personal theories. Then I read Jim Garrison's book "On the trail of the assassins". I was impressed. I thought : "he is the guy !" Then David Lifton wrote about his experience with Garrison and you know how he denounced, criticized, or even castigated him. It's not my fault.
Then I had the great honor of meeting Pierre Salinger. I met him three times (in London and in France) and also exchanged letters with him. He was adamant that there had not been any conspiracy. Who better than Salinger knew JFK + RFK + LBJ + Jackie ? I mean, he lived with and among them for several years. He even slept at the White House on the night of November 22, 1963. Let me tell you : I say that he knew them better than you ! He said to me : no conspiracy whatsoever ! It's not my fault. Then I exchanged letters with Doctor Perry. He wrote that he agreed with the Warren commission version of events. It's not my fault. And please, don't tell me that he was afraid of me. Then I exchanged letters with Charles Baxter and Ronald Jones who said the same as Doctor Perry. In other words, they gave support to the official version. It's not my fault.
Then I read Robert Oswald's book and also watched him in several TV documentaries : every time he writes or says that his believes deep in his heart that his brother Lee was guilty of the assassination. He said it. It's not my fault.
All of that is just a tiny, ever so tiny part of my journey into the Kennedy assassination.
My point is : I am not talking through my hat and I am not just writing ideas out of thin air. You may disagree with me, you may think that I am wrong, you may claim that I reached the wrong conclusions, but for Heaven's sake, stop painting me as either ignorant or stupid, because I am neither !!!!!!
P.S. : Well, yes, I could send a personal message to David Lifton but I thought my question to him (and most important : his answer) would interest other people.
Edited July 14, 2018 by François Carlier
24 minutes ago, David Josephs said:
Mister Joseph,
I don't want to quarrel with you, nor anybody.
Instead of giving me the definition of the word "supposition", which is a waste of time, why don't you tell me what you think of my initial post ? What would you answer be ? Could it have happened that way ? Yes, or no ? Why not ? I'd be interested to know. Give me your arguments. And why don't the other members give me their take on that matter ? Possible, or impossible ? Likely or unlikely ? Why ? Why not ? For what reasons ? etc.
41 minutes ago, Michael Clark said:
There is some debate on this subject, but for the purposes of discussion let's define an agent as a regular employee of the CIA. An asset is someone they used who may or not have been paid. There is evidence that Veciana was chosen as an asset (a sabotage man) for the Bay of Pigs operation although he never was used in that capacity and he admitted he never worked on that. He was paid $500 at one point, but there is no evidence, save for his own assertions, that he was a regular CIA employee.
And oh puhlease, with that Veciana was not a CIA agent. Yeah, Phillips paid him 260,000 bucks because he only did asset work.
The only evidence of the $253,000 was Veciana's own story. The HSCA asked him to produce evidence of it and when he protested for alleged fear of income tax prosecution, they advised him that he had been given immunity. He still would provide no proof of receiving that sum.
Paz Marverde
41 minutes ago, François Carlier said:
which is a waste of time
Ditto 😁
According to Fonzi, his wife acknowledged the reception of the money.
As per Carlier:
I have heard this story from you a number of times. I still do not understand what its supposed to mean.
There are some people who believe the thesis of Lifton's book. There are some people who do not. But to me, that is not the point. The point is that almost everyone thinks today that something went really wrong at Bethesda. All one has to do is read the report of the ARRB on that issue. One which Jeremy Gunn approved.
Lifton's book, as he will admit, is a radical solution to this problem. For some he succeeded, for some he did not. There is a big difference between a private citizen trying to address a serious problem in the evidence in this case, and the government, via the WR, simply covering it up. Now if you do not think anything went wrong there, then say so.
As per Salinger, how is what he thought representative of what the Kennedy family thought? We know Jackie and RFK did not think that through the William Walton mission. Through the Talbot book, we also know that the family had a meeting and at the meeting, RFK asked them what they wanted to do about this problem as he perceived it. I find it hard to believe that you do not know this stuff FC. You always brag about how many books you read. And also your critical thinking skills.
As per certain doctors at Parkland, this is the same as Alyea. Alyea's testimony to Larry Hancock clearly denotes conspiracy, but he will not say that. But people who understand what he is saying, and fit it into the chain of evidence, can understand that in a way he can't.
Your failure to understand these rather simple points is puzzling.
33 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:
According to ....
I'll have to re-read some of the documents I have read. I could swear that I saw documents stating that Veciana got CIA money on numerous occasions, I think to the point of annoyance. I didn't realize it was a point of contention.
Cliff Varnell
Location:San Francisco
Interests:Music, film, history and current events.
3 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:
I give David Von Pein and Francois Carlier a great deal of credit for putting up with these type of attacks in order to attempt to bring some common sense to the debate.
But they are not bringing common sense to the "debate".
There is no "debate" except for the fallacious back and forth others engage in.
David Von Pein admits JFK's jacket was bunched up "a little bit" on Elm St.
That's the ball game. Bullet holes in the clothes too low to account for the throat wound.
End of subject since 1966!
10 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:
This is what happens when you get into a silly back and forth with these guys.
Then why are you getting into a silly back and forth with these guys?
Did Gaeton Fonzi get into a back and forth with Arlen Specter back in June of '66? No, he just confronted Specter with the clothing evidence and Specter had an emotional breakdown.
When confronted with the clothing evidence, David Von Pein let down his guard and made a salient observation -- JFK's jacket was bunched up "a little bit" on Elm St.
When confronted with the clothing evidence Dale K. Myers created animation depicting JFK's jacket collar elevated an inch up into the hairline -- an obvious fiction!
We don't have to "debate" obvious things -- we only need observe them.
32 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:
Don't worry, Cliff. I have come to know you by now.
Have no fear.
I know very well that you have never done any research. I am aware that you know very little about the Kennedy assassination. I know that you haven't written a book. I know that you have never written an article. I know that you have not even written the least developed argument, or even a single paragraph of any substance or quality.
I have noticed that you are only capable of throwing single sentences with no relations and most of the time no meaning either.
But I still wonder : are you capable of writing a post without the word "bunch" in it ?
I'm sorry. But keep trying !
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