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Israeli torture traders exhibit in Paris
David Cronin 31 October 2011
An Israeli company selling instruments of torture and repression has been given refuge at a Paris arms fair, six years after it was expelled from a similar event in London.
Electroshock shields were one of the items offered by TAR Ideal Concepts at the Milipol exhibition in the French capital earlier this month, a source who attended this bazaar informed me. Those shields are explicitly designed to inflict pain on people who come into contact with them.
TAR’s participation went unnoticed by the mainstream media. That was in contrast to the 2005 UK Defense System and Equipment International (DSEI) exhibition. On that occasion, the Israeli firm was instructed to pack up its stand because its brochures solicited orders for stun guns, batons and leg cuffs. TAR founder Tomer Avnon complained at the time that it was hypocritical to single out his firm. “Don’t forget we were among booths offering everything from sniper rifles to silencers, cluster bombs and all sorts of nasty stuff,” he told The Jerusalem Post.
Legal loopholes
Avnon has been able to avail of loopholes in European Union rules that came into effect in 2006, curbing the trade in goods intended for use during torture or the death penalty. Although the law is an important advance for human rights as it is the first of its kind in the world, it does not stop companies from outside the Union coming here to advertise tools of repression.
Reporters with IsraëlValley, a website promoting business ties between France and Israel, were evidently aroused by some of the other stalls at Milipol. According to the website, the weapons-maker Rafael was one of the Israeli companies to “shine” at the fair. Rafael displayed a new protection system for armored vehicles called Me’il Rou’ah (a Hebrew word for raincoat) and brought along a model of the Merkava IV tank to demonstrate how the system works.
It is perhaps unnecessary to add that the extra “protection” is intended to make the military, not civilians, safer. Equally, it might be unnecessary to explain that Palestinians are less enamored by the Merkava than Zionist entrepreneurs. When I was in Gaza in 2009, I got a lift from a man who spent much of the journey pointing through his broken windscreen. “There, Merkava,” he said more than once, indicating a building that Israeli forces had destroyed with these fearsome tanks.
The Milipol exhibition was sponsored by both the French government and by Europol, the EU’s police office in The Hague. Both are legally obliged to respect EU policies on human rights. Yet both appear happy to abandon ethics for euros. Data cited by the newspaper Les Echos suggests that the global “security” market was worth €420 billion in 2010, an increase of 5.5 percent over the previous year. The subtext was that we should rejoice about how this trade is blossoming at a difficult time for the global economy and not ask awkward questions about all the misery and death that it helps to cause.
Milipol
TAR Ideal Concepts
DSEI
Tomer Avnon
IsraelValley
Merkava tanks
David Cronin's blog
David Cronin
David Cronin is an associate editor of The Electronic Intifada. His books include Balfour’s Shadow: A Century of British Support for Zionism and Israel and Europe’s Alliance with Israel: Aiding the Occupation.
Twitter: @dvcronin
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Winning hearts and stomachs
David Cronin 13 June 2019
EU envoy admits he doesn't really care about Palestinian rights
David Cronin 3 May 2019
Leading Israel lobby group sees massive rise in budget
David Cronin 22 February 2019
Israel's Elbit eyes major Belgian weapons contract
David Cronin 25 January 2019
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Could you put a camera in a contact lens?
by Bernadette Johnson
Hardware the Contacts Would Likely Contain
An image-capturing contact lens would need to integrate tiny, thin chips, wires, antennae and other miniature hardware, either bonded on top of or embedded within contact lens material. According to Google's patent, each one would at the very least include a control circuit, a sensor and a camera (referred to in the patent as an image capture component), although more components may also be incorporated. The internal components might be connected using embedded wires, wirelessly, or a combination of the two.
The image capturing component would need or a sensor that can take in light and convert it into digital data. This could be achieved with a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor, a charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensor.
The other embedded sensors listed in the patent include:
photodiodes (which sense light)
conductivity sensors
electrical field sensors
micro-mechanical switches
A control circuit would be required to incorporate the various components to make the image capturing contact lenses work. This circuit would have a processor that would likely be made up of an imaging control component to instruct the camera hardware how and when to capture image data; an analysis component for processing the raw image data and generating metadata about things detected in the captured images; and an interface component to exchange instructions and data with remote devices.
Another necessary circuit control component is power. The lenses would have to include some way to receive (or generate), store and distribute electric power to the internal hardware without being wired directly to an outside power source. (We can all agree that power wires attached to contact lenses would not be practical.) Energy can be transferred from the outside via RF (radio frequency) waves, or the sensors might even be able to generate energy themselves and send it to the power component. The patent lists the following possible power components:
solar power source
radio frequency (RF) power source
electrochemical power source
temperature power source
mechanically derived power source
The circuit control would also incorporate transceivers (components that can transmit and receive data) to facilitate the exchange of images, commands or other information between internal components and external devices. The transceiver could include an RF antenna, according to the patent. Another likely component is a data store for saving data or instructions from the internal components or remote devices.
The smart contact lenses may also include a display and possibly light emitting diodes (LEDs) to provide output to the wearer. For a display to work, the lenses would need to include various sorts of micro-lenses (possibly refractive, diffractive or hybrid lenses) to focus the images and make them appear to be suspended at some distance in front of the user. One possibility mentioned in the patent is a liquid crystal lens, which is a variable-focus refractive lens that can be altered with application of an electrical signal. Another mentioned is a Fresnel lens, which is a diffractive lens that doesn't quite have the image quality of a refractive lens but can be made much thinner.
The system could work with one contact lens alone, or two contact lenses with identical or different distributions of components. With just one contact lens, the user would be able to capture images within view just fine since our two eyes move in conjunction with each other for the most part. With two contacts, the user could potentially capture 3-D images.
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The skin effect of the conductor increases the effective value of
In a power station, the cost of generation of power reduces when
asked May 13, 2018 in Electric Power Generation by Shimroz123
(A) diversity factor alone increases
(B) both diversity factor and load factor increase.
(C) load factor alone increases.
(D) both diversity factor and load factor decrease,
In a power station, the cost of generation of power reduces when both diversity factor and load factor increase.
Power generation cost reduces as
Power generation cost reduces as (A) Diversity factor increases and load factor decreases. (B) Diversity factor decreases and load factor increases. (C) Both diversity factor and load factor increase. (D) Both diversity factor and load factor decrease
asked May 8, 2018 in Electric Power Generation by Shimroz123
reduces
What is the most effective way to reduce the cost of power generation in a power station?
What is the most effective way to reduce the cost of power generation in a power station? (A) By increasing the diversity factor and decreasing the load factor (B) By increasing both the diversity factor and the load factor (C) By decreasing both the diversity factor and the load factor (D) By decreasing the diversity factor and increasing the load factor
In order to have a lower cost of electrical energy generation the load factor
In order to have a lower cost of electrical energy generation the load factor (1) and the diversity factor should be low (2) should be low but the diversity factor should be high (3) should be high but the diversity factor should be low (4) and the diversity factor both should be high
asked Apr 29, 2018 in Electric Power Generation by Shimroz123
Overall thermal efficiency of a steam power station in India is in the range:
Overall thermal efficiency of a steam power station in India is in the range: A) 18-24 percent B) 30-40 percent C) 44-62 percent D) 68-79 percent
asked Jun 17, 2018 in Electric Power Generation by Shimroz123
For high value of diversity factor, a power station of given installed capacity will be in a position to supply?
asked Mar 20, 2018 in Electric Power Generation by Shimroz123
What are the types of power generation?
asked Mar 10, 2018 in Electric Power Generation by Quiz
Load factor of a power station is generally?
Load factor of a power station is defined as?
What is the power generation?
The cost of fuel transportation is minimum in
The cost of fuel transportation is minimum in (a) Steam power plant (b) Diesel power plant (c) Hydro-electric plant (d) Coal based power plant
Which source is best suited for electricity generation in a remote rural area?
Which source is best suited for electricity generation in a remote rural area? (A) Nuclear Power plant (B) Solar farm (C) Wind farm (D) Biomass
A generating station has a maximum demand of 500 MW. The annual load factor is 50 percent. The energy
A generating station has a maximum demand of 500 MW. The annual load factor is 50 percent. The energy generated per annum will be: A) 2.19 x 106 MWhr B) 600 MWhr C) 250 MWhr D) 7.50 x 106 MWhr
For optimum generator scheduling for different power plants, the minimum fuel cost is obtained when
asked May 8, 2018 in Power system by Shimroz123
A generating station which has a high investment cost and low operating cost is usually operated as ...
A generating station which has a high investment cost and low operating cost is usually operated as A) Peak load station B) Spinning reserve station C) Base load station D) None of the above
State the types of radioactive waste generated in a nuclear power station. Explain the methods employed for their disposal.
Give some typical value of generated voltage in a power station. Why is it necessary to step up the...
Give some typical value of generated voltage in a power station. Why is it necessary to step up the voltage further before transmitting?
asked Apr 3, 2018 in Lesson 2 Generation, Transmission and Distribution of Electric Power an Overview by Shimroz123
In a hydel power station, the number of poles of an alternator is 24. At what rpm the alternator must...
In a hydel power station, the number of poles of an alternator is 24. At what rpm the alternator must be driven to produce 50 Hz voltage?
In ______ fuel transportation cost is least.
A large hydropower station has a head of 324 metre and an average flow of 1370 metre3 / second.
A large hydropower station has a head of 324 metre and an average flow of 1370 metre3 / second. The available hydraulic power from this station will be: A) 4.35 MW B) 4.15 MW C) 4.47 MW D) 4.73 MW
asked Jun 4, 2018 in Electric Power Generation by Shimroz123
Which of the following power plants involves high initial cost in erecting?
Which of the following power plants involves high initial cost in erecting? (A) Hydro-electric power plant (B) Steam power plant (C) Gas turbine power plant (D) Nuclear power plant
Transposition of communication and power lines reduces the induced voltages due to electrostatic and...
Transposition of communication and power lines reduces the induced voltages due to electrostatic and electromagnetic induction to a considerable extent. The lines shall be transposed to______ of the length in one barrel. (a) 1/4 (c) 1/6 (b) 1/5 (d) 1/3
The capital cost of a power plant depends on
The capital cost of a power plant depends on (1) Total installed capacity only. (2) Total number of units only. (3) Total installed capacity and number of units as well. (4) Neither the installed capacity nor number of units
asked Apr 30, 2018 in Power system by Shimroz123
In a power generating station the Demand Factor and Load Factor are 0.5 and 0.2, respectively. If the...
In a power generating station the Demand Factor and Load Factor are 0.5 and 0.2, respectively. If the connected load is 400 MW, the average demand is (A) 40 MW (B) 100 MW (C) 140 MW (D) 280 MW
State the function of cooling tower and condenser in thermal power station.
State the purpose of surge tank and spill way in hydroelectric power station.
hydroelectric
State the function of following components of a nuclear power station: i) Moderator ii) Shielding iii) Control rod iv) Coolant
State the functions of fuel system and exhaust system of a diesel power station.
At an industrial sub-station with a 4 MW load, a capacitor of 2 MVAR is installed to maintain the load power
At an industrial sub-station with a 4 MW load, a capacitor of 2 MVAR is installed to maintain the load power factor at 0.97 lagging. If the capacitor goes out of service, the load power factor becomes (A) 0.85 (B) 1.00 (C) 0.80 lag (D) 0.90 lag
A power station supplies the peak load of 60 Mw, 40 MW and 70 MW to three localities...
A power station supplies the peak load of 60 Mw, 40 MW and 70 MW to three localities. The annual load factor is 0.50 p.u. and the diversity factor of the load at the station is 1.55. The maximum demand on the station and average load respectively will be
List any two types of fuels used in electrical power generation plants.
Name three conventional ways of generating power. Of these three, which one contributes maximum generation in India.
The auxiliary power consumption in a thermal power plant is
The auxiliary power consumption in a thermal power plant is (A) 2-5% (B) 5-10% (C) 10-15 % (D) 15-20%
In a power plant if the maximum demand on the plant is equal to the plant capacity, then?
In a distribution system, in order to improve power factor, the synchronous capacitors are installed?
The type of alternator used in hydroelectric power stations is
What is the purpose of the turbines in coal fired power plants?
In which range the cost of a synchronous motor is likely to be comparable to the cost of induction motor?
The power in a series R-L- C circuit will be half of that at resonance when the magnitude of the current is equal to
Write the meaning of captive power generation.
The main reason for generation of harmonics in a transformer could be?
asked Mar 19, 2018 in Transformer by Shimroz123
For an earth station transmitter, with an antenna output power of 40dBW 10,000W, a back-off loss of 3dB, a
For an earth station transmitter, with an antenna output power of 40dBW 10,000W, a back-off loss of 3dB, a total branching and feeder loss of 3dB, a total branching and feeder loss of 3dB and transmit antenna gain of 4dB, the effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP will be a) 38dBW b) 40 dBW c 36 dBW d) 47 dBW
A diesel power station spends 0.25 kg/kWh fuel. If the calorific value is 10,000 kcal/kg then overall efficiency...
A diesel power station spends 0.25 kg/kWh fuel. If the calorific value is 10,000 kcal/kg then overall efficiency of the power station will be (a) 25% (b) 30% (c) 34.4% (d) 100%
Explain captive power generation in brief
In a thermal power plant, ash is collected in
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of coal-fired power station and wind power station from the environmental, economic and political aspects.
asked Dec 25, 2018 by kittylaw
For the protection of power station buildings against direct strokes the requirements are?
What is the largest power plant in the world?
What is spinning reserve in power station practice?
asked Dec 19, 2018 by EngMbes
In power station practice “spinning reserve” is
In power station practice “spinning reserve” is: A) reserve generating capacity that is in operation but not in service B) reserve generating capacity that is connected to bus and ready to take the load C) reserve generating capacity that is available for service but not in operation D) capacity of the part of the plant that remains under maintenance
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/ IoT Zone
Latest Algorithm for Cochlear Implants Block the Cacophony of Background Noise
A new algorithm to improve hearing for people with cochlear implants and hearing aids is a good thing. A byproduct of this research is likely to lead to speech recognizers that could work at a cocktail party!
Emmett Coin
Jun. 07, 16 · IoT Zone ·
Ambient babel and audio distortion is enough of a problem for regular people like you and me to endure. Our human audio processing system is so good at filtering out the aspects of our sonic environment that we are not focused on directly. We can understand people speaking while we're standing next to noisy machinery or walking in a large echoey train station. These kinds of noises which are categorized in the signal processing world as "stationary noise" and "reverberant noise" have been tackled with some measure of success by modern day noise cancellation algorithms. A decade ago most cell phones transmitted all of the sounds that their microphone picked up. Talking to someone who was driving in a convertible with the top down on the freeway was a torturous auditory experience. But today such a call can be eerily quiet and tranquil. Often the only clue the listener has of the environment is the Lombard effect that can be heard in the speaker's voice.
But there's another more insidious kind of noise that humans can deal with relatively easily. This kind of environmental noise is referred to as the cocktail party effect. It is a serious problem for all speech recognizers. But humans can just "magically" hear what a person in a crowd is saying. It's just another one of those amazingly complex computational tasks our brains do seemingly effortlessly. This task is more insidious because all of the noise is actually speech. As humans, we can focus on a single specific voice in a sea of babel. We're aware that people are speaking all around us, but we are listening to the person that we're having a conversation with.
Now imagine if you had to have a conversation in a babel-filled environment but you could only hear it through cell phone technology from a decade ago. The experience would range from very difficult to impossible. This is the experience that people with cochlear implants (and to varying degrees normal hearing aids) have to cope with.
This is the problem that Roozbeh Soleymani, an electrical engineering doctoral student at NYU, decided to tackle. The centerpiece of his idea was the observation that if you decompose the audio signal into wavelets and remove the more spectrally complex (those with the most wiggles) and finally recombined the simpler wavelets into a new audio signal, then the speech embedded in that new audio signal was more intelligible. The "babel noise" was more heavily represented in the complex wavelets. And with today's tiny but computationally capable devices it is practical to put this kind of analysis directly into the assisted hearing device. Below is a diagram of how this is done.
A simplified flowchart demonstrates NYU Tandon graduate student Roozbeh Soleymani's algorithmic solution for reducing babble signals to hearing aids.
This noise reduction technology is called Speech Enhancement using Decomposition Approach (SEDA) and is being developed at NYU in the Langone Department of Otolaryngology and the Tandon Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
In an interesting turn of events, this technology developed for the hard of hearing is now being considered for the cell phone platform. It seems quite likely that it will help make our calls clearer in the future. But I think even more important is that it will help with the cocktail party effect that speech recognizers suffer from. Speech recognition lately has gotten quite good. I suspect it's about to get a little bit better.
Imagine being able to do a voice search in the middle of an actual cocktail party!
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AI Must Not Change Us
audio processing ,speech ,hearing loss
Published at DZone with permission of Emmett Coin , DZone MVB. See the original article here.
IoT Partner Resources
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HomePosts tagged 'Japanese scientist'
Japanese scientist
Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire – Some Hot Facts!
June 9, 2015 June 7, 2015 fasab Factoids, Unusual 3rd-century, Abraham Lincoln, astronaut, atmosphere, Australia, Bill Clinton, Bill Nye, Byzantine Empire, Charlie Chaplin, cloud, contractions, delivered, Dr Otto Loewi, dream, Eastern Empire, eats at McDonalds, education, elected to congress, electrically, emails, Entertainment, fact, factoid, factoids, facts, false facts, fell, giant gas cloud, heat, Himiko, I did not do it, I did not have sexual relations with that woman, I didn't do it, Inca mail, information, interesting, Japanese scientist, Japanese shaman queen, John F Kennedy, Justinian, Kennedy, lake, Lake Hillier, last emperor to use the title Caesar, liar, light years, Lincoln, look-alike contest, messengers, nasa, nerves, network of roads, Nobel Prize, oceans, pink, President, relay system, Science Guy, scientists, shot in the head, space, statistically, Suns, survived, transmitted chemically, transmitted information, true, truthful statement, Western Roman Empire, world’s population
We’ll get to one of the biggest liars America has produced later.
But ahead of that have a look at another selection of fasab facts.
There is a lake in Australia called Lake Hillier
that is a bright shade of pink.
Unlike with other similar lakes,
scientists are still not completely sure why.
originally wanted to be an astronaut,
but NASA kept rejecting him.
In 476 AD the Western Roman Empire fell
and the Eastern Empire survived
as what we know today as the Byzantine Empire.
Charlie Chaplin once lost a
Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest
Although there have been emails floating about
for years containing many false facts about
Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy,
there were a few that are true and interesting.
Lincoln was elected to congress in 1846,
Kennedy in 1946.
Lincoln became president in 1860,
Kennedy in 1960 (though sworn in 1961).
And both were eventually shot in the head on a Friday.
Inca mail was delivered along their network of roads
by way of messengers who would hand mail off
to each other using a sort of relay system.
A bit like the Pony Express without the ponies!
1% of the world’s population
eats at McDonalds every day.
Named by a Japanese scientist after
a 3rd-century Japanese shaman queen, Himiko,
is a giant gas cloud and one of the largest
objects ever found in space.
With a length of about 55,000 light years,
the cloud is roughly the equivalent
mass of 40 billion Suns.
The top ten feet of the oceans
holds the same amount of heat
as the entire atmosphere
In the early 20th century, scientists thought
our nerves transmitted information electrically.
After a dream, Dr. Otto Loewi awoke during the night
and scribbled some thoughts on a paper.
Upon waking in the morning,
he realized he had written about information
being transmitted chemically,
later proven to be true and
winning him the Nobel Prize in 1936.
Justinian was the last emperor
to use the title ‘Caesar’.
A liar tends not to use contractions.
For example, “I didn’t do it”
statistically tends to be a more truthful
statement that “I did not do it”.
Remember Bill Clinton,
he didn’t say, “I didn’t do it”,
he said,
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
He lied.
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Call for (self)nominations to the Future Earth Health Knowledge-Action Network Steering Committee
This form has been designed for (self-)nominations to join the Future Earth Health Knowledge-Action Network (Health KAN) Steering Committee. If you wish to nominate a candidate other than yourself, then please indicate so in the designated section below. We are aiming for a mix between Development Team members and new incoming members for the establishment of the Steering Committee.
Support and enable solution-driven transdisciplinary research and action to improve understanding of how global and regional environmental changes can affect population health and health systems, and of effective and efficient solutions to maintain and improve planetary health and human well-being.
Engage with health and other research communities, policy-makers, educators, civil society, media, industry, and donors, to advance planetary health/One Health/eco-health research and build capacity for generating, sharing and applying knowledge.
The Health KAN activities are in line with the Visions and Missions and are strategic to bring transformation and innovation into society. They contribute to Future Earth Global Systemic Challenges and other focused activities in collaboration with Future Earth communities, such as Global Research Projects (GRPs), other KANs, and other research and non-research programmes. All in all, the activities are in line with the principles and strategies that link the scientific backbone with societal actions.
The Steering Committee develops, prioritizes, and executes agreed on the activities and objectives of the Health KAN. The Steering Committee regularly engages with other Members of the Knowledge-Action Network to develop, prioritize, and execute activities. The Steering Committee periodically informs other KAN stakeholders, including the Future Earth secretariat of its process (e.g. through the website). In principle, the Steering Committee consists of around 15 appointed members and officers that according to the needs of the KAN represent different regions, Future Earth subcommunities (e.g. Core Projects, FTIs, Clusters, Advisory Committee, Regional Centres and Offices and National Committees), subdisciplines, and sectors (academic, public, non-profit, and private). The Steering Committee aims for a balanced representation of geographies, disciplines, gender, and career stages. Transdisciplinary science expertise would be beneficial.
Contact: health@futureearth.org
Please note that the submitter of the form must provide his/her own email in this form even if the submitter is nominating a third party. All the content related details in the form are about the nominee. If the submitter is nominating a third party then the email of the nominee can be provided in the designated section.
Are you nominating yourself in this form? *
If you are nominating another candidate than yourself then please mark "no" and state your name and the contact information of the nominee in the below two sections. If you selected "yes" then you can leave the following two questions blank. From the section asking "Family name" and onward, all answers should be about the nominee
If you selected "no" in the above question then please provide YOUR full name
Please note that if you are nominating someone else than yourself this section is a requirement
If you selected "no" in the above question then please provide the email contact of the NOMINEE in this section.
Family name *
This name and all following questions are about the nominee
Given name(s) *
Is the nominee an early career? *
Early Career Professionals (ECP's) are defined as recent, post-secondary graduates within five years of graduating with what they anticipate to be their highest degree.
How many years of relevant professional experience does the nominee have? *
e.g. 15
Which sector(s) is the nominee based in? *
If multiple, then please indicate so.
Affiliation(s) *
E.g.: Associate Professor
Please provide a profile page
e.g. profile page of the nominee on the website of the organization that employs the nominee
Target continent of work *
Multiple choice is possible
Australia (or Oceania)
Focus region/country if any specific
E.g.: Southeast-Asia with a focus on Thailand
Indicate 5 keywords with the nominees' expertise *
e.g. climate change, heat, urban, nutrition, diseases
Statement of interest *
Please write a 200 words stating why the nominee wishes to be part of the Steering Committee or why you think the nominee should be.
What expertise will the nominee bring to the Steering Committee? *
Please write up to 200 words stating the expertise of the nominee (e.g. climate change and health with significant experience on resource mobilization, dedicated in-kind support, the nominee is based at a strategic geographical location, or have significant experience)
Comment or question?
This form was created inside of Future Earth. Report Abuse - Terms of Service
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Fisherfolk from Castle Bruce, San Sauver receive over $20,000 from World Development Foundation
GIS - Thursday, June 29th, 2017 at 9:45 AM
Officials at the presentation. Photo: GIS
The World Development Foundation in collaboration with the Fisheries Division of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries have contributed to the development of the fishing sector of Dominica, specifically in the communities of Castle Bruce and San Sauver.
Last Sunday, a signing ceremony was held at the Castle Bruce primary school to mark the handing over of fishing equipment valued at $26,200 to the fisherfolks of those communities.
“Today we are here to celebrate the gift of Mr. Guo in the advancement of our fishing sector and we are very happy about that and I look forward to us continuing to work together,” Minister for Fisheries, Hon Johnson Drigo said.
The Fisheries Minister, also the MP for the Castle Bruce constituency noted that further advancement of the sector will create opportunities for the young men.
He believes the opportunities afforded through the help of additional equipment will serve as an avenue for life changing prospects for young men of the community.
The equipment donated to the fisherfolk group of Castle Bruce and San Sauver include fish band saws, weighing scales, hanging scales and handsaws.
Chairman of the World Development Foundation, Dr. Xiangang Guo, said he looks forward to assisting various sectors of Dominica
“I want to help Dominica in different area; in agriculture, in education, in fishing and everything,” he said.
The Fisheries Division in collaboration with Youth Division, Small business unit, Food for the Poor and KIDS have been instrumental in providing support to the fisheries of the community of Castle Bruce and surrounding communities.
To date, seven fishing vessels have been donated to the Castle Bruce fisherman group. So far, the project has spent about $348,200.
Japan donates machinery and equipment to Fisheries Division
Youth and Community Advocacy Network (YouCAN) to launch in Castle Bruce
Drigo suggests cheaper prices for fish
Drigo says there is an export market for fish
First ever Castle Bruce community awards dinner a success
Lorraine do you have to be present? Dirgo is there already– anything for you is politic
Mr.Prolific
If I had to reside anywhere in Dominica, it have to be in Castle Bruce. The wise men came from the East. It is a joy to read their comments, short and sweet. Very encouraging and appreciated.
Very happy for the people of Castle Bruce.My adopted father who was are fisherman might be happy also were he is.may god continue blessing the residents of castle Bruce.?
JoeBoy
Good good news. Wishing the fisherfolk all the best.
Winston Paul
Fantastic news. Revitalizing the fishing industry is very important at this time.
C fraser
Fantastic! This will really help in the revitalization of an area that has been truly neglected. God is good all the time.
Blessed God the old CB bay is being brought back to life. Bless all those involved this needed to be done decades ago so happy to hear this news.
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The Carter Center and Venezuela: a history of intellectual and moral bankruptcy
Jennifer McCoy, the LatAm point woman of the Carter Center, came to Venezuela again. The stated objective was to close the Carter Center offices that were opened sometime in 2002 when the country seemed on the verge of civil war. Was closing the office a sign that their mission had been accomplished? Or an admission of failure and a classical case of "declare victory and leave"? From the press not subjected to the claws of chavismo it is easy to conclude that the Carter Center has completely failed in its role of mediator and peace harbinger, no matter what Dr. McCoy bravely declared in her report and farewell press conference. Let's look first at the chronological development of the visit.
Before the visit
It is noteworthy that the "last" visit of the Carter Center was not heralded long in advance. In fact it was announced to the press barely a couple of days before arrival of the mission. Visibly there was a desire of little exposure in Venezuela, an understandable strategy considering that a significant portion of the Venezuelan opinion saw the CC as discredited entity, worthy of a "cacerolazo" at best. The cloudy role of Carter in August 16 has damaged considerably its international image. Since Jimmy Cater is not eternal his people are forced to try to pick up some of the broken glass left in Venezuela if they want to have a job once Carter is gone. As expected the announced visit was not received well by the opposition, and the blogosphere was instantly condemnatory (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, just in English)
The stay was announced for two days and in fact lasted three. The first day of Jennifer McCoy did have a couple of semi surprises, and certainly some interesting moments.
Jennifer McCoy visits the C-osa N-ostra E-lectoral
Jorge Rodríguez is now officially the new capo di mafia of the Venezuelan Electoral Board, C.N.E., an organization that is not trusted by anyone in the opposition and the main roadblock to any recovery of our all but lost democracy. According to El Universal Dr. McCoy expressed that there was a need to restore the public's trust in the electoral system. I translate her words:
She mentioned that although the political climate in the country has improved "there is a need for a basic consensus because there are divisions between the citizens of what should be a common vision of the country"
Now this has to be one of the biggest understatements of the Venezuelan political situation where we have gone from near civil war to an authoritarian regime. No wonder the political situation has improved, what can the opposition do besides offering its chests to the guns of the army?
But she also said something more realistic:
"We have talked of impartiality and of the importance of having guarantees for transparency, to have controls and audits of the process, as well as modernizing the electoral registry"
It is of course easy to point out that this exactly where the Carter Center failed miserably through June and July of 2004. But at least one must be thankful for the final admission from the Carter Center that the electoral system of Venezuela is a sham. Better late than never, one may say as a consolation.
It is to be noted by the way that she did not accept any questions after reading her statements both at the CNE or at the National Assembly, her next stop.
Jennifer McCoy visits the National Assembly
The only results there is that an hysterical chairman, the most ineffable and intellectually limited Nicolas Maduro, showed his class by asking McCoy to go to the US and defend Chavez's life. Of course, Dr. McCoy, a well behaved person showed sympathy and seems to have assuaged some of Maduro's anguish at losing his job if his boss is shot to death by a CIA operation. Still, as was revealed on Saturday, Dr. McCoy seems to have asked the National Assembly to put some order in Venezuela by electing once and for all a really independent CNE and remove the repressive laws on freedom of expression that are being enacted and that have hit Tulio Alvarez and others already.
At any rate she was fast set right there as to any wishful thinking she might have had at the CNE about an improved political climate. The most visible leader of what is left from the opposition, Julio Borges of Primero Justicia (PJ) complained about the visit of McCoy. Maduro simply told Borges to go somewhere else with his show and that he was an "ultra rightist and fascist". Did Dr. McCoy wonder who was the real fascist there?
Jennifer McCoy meets Julio Borges
Possibly to the great disgust of ridiculous Maduro, Dr. McCoy had the courage to meet with Julio Borges. Until then it seemed that no one in the opposition was going to meet with her. Well, she would have probably being better off if no one had met with her.
The meeting with Borges did not go so well and gave the only surprise of the day. To begin with PJ had to debate for a while until finally deciding to meet McCoy. It decided to send Borges and it was worth it as he basically read the Carter Center the riot act. After pointing out that he told her that a large section of the Venezuelan population was dubious of the Carter Center as an independent observer of future elections and that she seemed to understand the positions put forward to her, he told the press:
"We made it clear that many, if not a majority of Venezuelans, as a matter of fact see that the Carter Center has lost the trust and the possibility of being a mediator, to facilitate and be a bridge in the country, because they had an attitude of hurrying up business and wash their hands of it"
"We told her that if they came to Venezuela it was to call things by their name, what has been done inside the CNE and that they must understand that this country after the referendum was left more divided, has lost faith in elections when people wanted to have more faith in the vote, that they feel the institutions are held hostage, that there is a desire to pass laws that are not good for the country, but politically to dominate institutions, [...] that our umpire belongs totally to Chavismo and that the Carter Center has a share of the blame"
Borges claims that McCoy seems to have understood.
Jennifer McCoy meets Milagros Socorro
Actually that meeting did not take place but Milagros Socorro Op Ed in El Nacional of Thursday certainly did not garner her an invitation. That probably could explain why the agenda of Dr, McCoy on Friday was not reported the way the one on Thursday was. But what did that editorial say?
The piece is titled "Jennifer comes back to the grey zone". In it Milagros Socorro explains how she took the time to read a lengthy assay of McCoy (with David J. Myers) published under the UCV editorial [Politeia] in Venezuela and where apparently it is quite clear that Dr. McCoy is a fine connoisseur of Venezuelan contemporary history. That article covers 1972 to 2002 and seems to indicate that McCoy (and the Carter Center, and Carter himself presumably) should have known in May 2003 where were things headed. Thus, the hard question: why did they accept to follow the rules imposed by the government and then the CNE as of that date, rules that eventually made it impossible for any serious observation to take place, making the European Union desist on monitoring the referendum? Why did they encourage the opposition to go ahead with those rule is added by this writer?
The implication of this Milagros Socorro article are quite clear: McCoy and Carter Center have a lot of explaining to do if they want some day to recover some moral and intellectual credibility.
The departure
Saturday Dr. McCoy made a press conference and left the country. It does not seem from what I can gather that she is ready to come back anytime soon. I must admit that her visit went actually better than what I expected: she made enough concessions to at least hint that she might have made some mistakes. Not enough, but a start.
Any positive spin would have been uphill as the Carter Center was even warned that trying to refloat the opposition to give Chavez more legitimacy would be a tactic easy to see through and would not help its standing, not to mention that as far as this blogger knows McCoy only met with Borges and that was not too good. She also seems to have met with some NGO with no better results, at least from the opposition side (1).
But still, McCoy managed not to look pitiful. Perhaps her big point was to state clearly that she did not think that the US is trying to kill Chavez, and that at any rate this one should take that matter directly to the US instead of doing a media show. She might be a US liberal but McCoy knows that the US has changed positively in this respect since her boss was president, credit where credit is due. On other points she made public her recommendations made to the National Assembly president who must feel right now quite inconsequential (but I trust he is used to it with his own boss). In short: a real independent CNE, guarantees for the freedom of speech, adaptation of Venezuelan laws to the international criteria to what constitutes slander, and even to consult with International Human Rights organizations when elaborating legislation. But a little too late, I am afraid. In an informal survey made by Globovision Friday 97% of respondents were critical of the Carter Center. Even by Globovision pro opposition standards, this number was very high.
She also released the final Carter Center Report on the Venezuelan effort but first reviews are not very good (and she seems to expect that). Still, the unscientific ethics used by the Carter Center in verifying the fraud claims made after August 15 cast yet an additional intellectual blotch on Dr. McCoy, who like other intellectual that tried to deal with chavismo found themselves quite burned (Amy Chua from Yale is one case that strangely comes to mind)
Conclusion (if possible)
The extended, and untimely visit hints to the Carter Center (and Jennifer McCoy) having obviously more problems than what they care to admit.
The Carter Center refuses to take any blame though it hints at things that could have been done differently. Too little, too late.
Thus, as expected, they came to declare victory and leave. They gave us, the natives, a list of things to do as they wash their hands of the mess to which they greatly contributed. On this aspect the Carter Center shows itself to be as clumsy about Venezuela as the Bush administration approach to Venezuela in its first term. At least this last one has recognized in recent hearings that it did not deal well with Venezuela.
The Carter Center, and Dr. McCoy, will need to do a lot more to recover their credibility and to demonstrate that they do have the intellectual mettle for this type of political conflict that the Chavez example is certain to seed further in Latin America. Their responsibility is heavy.
And of course, appeasement only postpones tragedy.
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Added one day later. Descifrado in its subscriber section reports that the media did not even want to meet with the Carter Center. Only one TV station bothered to send an observer. The irony of it all....
The award for Post of the Month goes without a doubt to Miguel who had the observing talent to see that "The Revolution will be photoshopped". The contest was hard as this blog had its second highest month since keeping tabs with a series of hard hitting posts. But this blogger knows when he is licked and bows to his good friend Miguel. Good going Miguel!
And there are people who actually think that chavismo plays fair in the media wars. Geez...
Posted by Daniel at 12:37 AM No comments: Links to this post
A portrait of Venezuela from Venezuela
Bloggers suffer from certain criticism that are inherent to their condition as free agents. In the comment sections there are often accusations that the given blogger does not offer the data(as if a blogger had access to data the way a journalist does, please!), that his/her English is deficient (quite an effort for those bloggers that must write in English to make the plight of their country known, and there are a lot of countries who must rely more and more on bloggers for the outside world to take notice) and a few more charges.
This particular blogger has never let these charges get to him for a very simple reason: he trusts the intelligence of his readers to understand the limitations of the media and to detect that his efforts are as serious as possible in his situation. However as it so happens, there are exquisite moments when one feels vindicated.
From Venezuela writes Vladimir Chelminski in the Wall Street Journal. To make it there it is assumed that the article has been edited at least for the English quality and the basic veracity of the data presented. The WSJ is a serious journal and an article such as the one of Mr. Chelminski is not an opinion piece: it is a summary of recent Venezuelan history and thus a reference subjected to scrutiny by the editorial board of the WSJ. Well, regular readers of this blog will surely recall that every single point that is addressed in this excellent report has been discussed in these pages, and the pages of Miguel's blog for that matter (or many other blogs in Spanish). It warms the heart of this blogger who surely hopes that such a respectable article will get a better treatment than this blogger words. After all, IT IS the WSJ!
VLADIMIR CHELMINSKI
CARACAS -- After six tumultuous years in power, the claim by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that he is leading Venezuelans toward greater prosperity cannot be sustained. Any serious analysis of our economy shows a dramatic deterioration in Venezuelan well-being. A series of feel-good government programs only help ameliorate the negatives that would otherwise accrue to Chavez with his disastrous handling of the economy.
In 1998, the vast majority of Venezuelans were very poor and had no good reason to hope for a better future. For decades, the quality of life had been deteriorating. The democratic process seemed to function well only for the benefit of politicians and their friends. The political parties that had alternated in power since 1958, Social Democrats and Social Christians, were very much the same. Both offered socialism with political freedom. Their policies paid lip service to the poor but always proved counterproductive. Private property and contracts meant little in their laws. Two-thirds of willing workers could not find employment in the formal economy and The Heritage/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom classified Venezuela as "mostly repressed." The country needed dramatic change.
In that same year, presidential candidate Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chavez swept the country's imagination with a good assessment of our problems, but wrongly naming economic liberalism as the cause of the misery. He promised a new state with new laws and sold hope to the poor. In December 1998 he won the presidency and for some time after his inauguration, he continued to gain popularity.
It is true that Mr. Chavez has expanded pension payments and implemented programs that did not exist before, like the 11 "missions" programs. Three of these programs are educational. "Misión Robinson" is designed to teach people to read. Participants receive a monthly stipend of 160,000 Bolivars (about $83) and in six months they may receive a sixth-grade diploma and can graduate to "Misión Ribas" where they have the same stipend and in six months may earn a high school diploma. In other words, an adult with no previous schooling can earn in just one year what normally takes 11 years.
There is no question that a monthly stipend is popular among the unemployed or those who earn very little but the quality of these diplomas is suspect. For the government, enrollment helps boost employment statistics since those studying do not count as unemployed.
Another "mission" program provides Cuban doctors, to live and work full-time inside poor communities, ready to help with minor health problems at any time, free of any cost to patients. But as in education, the quality of this care is an unknown. If a medical doctor with a Harvard degree arrives in Venezuela , he cannot work until he revalidates it. But a Cuban doctor's credentials are taken for granted. Moreover, no one knows the cost of these doctors to the nation since they seem to be provided in exchange for Venezuelan oil to Cuba.
Yet another "mission" sells food staples at significant discounts from regulated prices. This is destroying the private sector at the retail, wholesale and industrial level.
Meanwhile the fundamentals in the economy are troubling. The central bank says the economy grew 17.3% last year, one of the highest rates in the world, but this was after a 9.2% economic contraction in 2003 and an 8.9% contraction in 2002. Despite exchange and price controls imposed to rein in inflation, in the past two years we have had an inflation rate only surpassed by Zimbabwe. In 2004 inflation was 19.2% and in 2003 it was 27.1%. The central government ran a deficit of 3.8% of gross domestic product in 2004, even with unusually high oil prices, fictitious central bank foreign-exchange profits and record tax collections.
The financial transaction tax of .5% is particularly damaging. Because most of the population is poor and does not use checks, the government says the tax won't affect them. This ignores the fact that business passes its cost onto consumers. In addition, there are consumer taxes which I estimate create a 22% mark-up on staples. Tax rules now stipulate that even the purchase of a cup of coffee requires the consumer to tell the vendor his tax identification number and address.
A main characteristic of our repressed economy is the imposition of exchange and price controls two years ago. We've seen this movie before. Venezuela had these controls from 1983 to 1989 and from 1994 to 1996. In both cases, corruption ballooned, and the economy sank. In the end, they had to be discarded amid scarcities and hyperinflation.
Another economically pernicious measure introduced by this government is property confiscation. Earlier this year, the country's most productive ranch, owned by the British company Vestay Group LTD since 1903, became the target of a potential confiscation with plans to partition it for "cooperatives." This may be popular with the poor but if the past is any guide, the newcomers will either starve or go back to where they came from. Meantime, the nation will have lost a major productive asset. Next we'll be wondering why there is not enough investment and job creation.
Mr. Chavez still has credibility among his disciples and his charisma may carry him for some time to come, despite rising crime, filthier cities, declining services, an expanding informal economy and more beggars in the street than ever before. His followers are so infatuated that they do not pay attention to the contradictions in his speech or his numerous promises never fulfilled. But when the price of oil comes down, the "missions" will be unsustainable and the bloom is sure to fall off the rose.
Fait divers, France embassy in Caracas as a rendez-vous spot
In French "Fait Divers" is an expression not too easy to translate if one wants to keep its Gallic flavor. It is used when, for example, newspapers report strange events that have no relevance to the greater design such as a love triangle murder or a specific museum robbery. Not quite "miscellaneous" but somewhere along the line.
This is the best way to qualify the recent faux pas of French diplomacy, "diplomacy" used in a charitable way when France's foreign policy is concerned.
The item is that the French ambassador in Caracas, Pierre-Jean Vandoorne, did meet with Rodrigo Granda sometime in April 2004. This Granda is of course the "foreign minister" of the FARC who was arrested last December in Caracas, whisked to Cucuta, and became the cause of the latest diplomatic rift between Bogotá and Caracas. It is also the same Granda that walked around Venezuela as if nothing, who became a Venezuelan citizen "very easily" and just on time to vote on August 15 (for Chavez it is presumed). It is also the Granda that has just being implicated in the kidnapping and murder of the daughter of a Paraguayan ex-president. A very nice fellow this Granda, to the point that Colombia is already willing to send him to Paraguay to stand trial.
So why would Monsieur Vandoorne meet with Granda? In Venezuelan territory nevertheless!
Well, it is a long story of Gallic hubris. It turns out that a political rising star of Colombia, Ingrid Betancourt, former presidential candidate, with a nice sounding French name, happened to have resided in France in exile, married a French man, wrote in French, and was thus the toast of Paris salons who suffer from quite an inferiority complex in front of the advances of English in the Wide Wild World. I cannot say much about Mrs. Betancourt but I suspect that she was smart enough to use the French. Unfortunately for her she got kidnapped during her electoral campaign, a terrible and unfair situation that she is still enduring after three years.
But the French will have none of it and they have started a "free Ingrid" campaign. President Chirac has become personally involved, asking Chavez and Castro to help. But I suspect that this has been rather counterproductive since it gave only more bargaining power to whoever is holding Ingrid Betancourt. So, it seems that Mr. Vandoorne received the instructions to try to negotiate something in Caracas, with no one less than Granda...
I feel for the French ambassador. 2004 did not end very well for him as Mr. Muselier, the French foreign secretary made some rather unsuitable declarations backing the authoritarian state that is slowly but surely being installed in Venezuela. But we all know that French diplomacy will balk at nothing to peddle French goods. And boy, are they trying to sell stuff to Chavez!!! After all, Chavez is kicking out the US and surely France should step in less than China, or anyone else, takes too much of a bite.
And now this! How could Monsieur Vandoorne negotiate with Granda in Caracas? At the French embassy no less!!!!!!!!! Aren't there discrete restaurants where they could have met? And without even the agreement of the Colombian government!?!?! Though Betancourt's husband states that Uribe blocked the negotiations.
So? Is this the Granda 2 affair? Will Chavez blame Uribe for knowing that Granda was in Caracas having tea at the embassy?
I think that Chavez, and now the French, have a lot more to explain on Granda. More than a fait divers?
And the French should also explain how come their foreign policy is so sloppy, so mercenary, plagued with so many free agents (the husband of Ingrid is not the first Frenchman doing "independent" negotiations that could dangerously implicate the French government in business where it would be well advised to keep its distances, as it happened recently in an Iraq hostage negotiation).
PS: added two days later. It seems that the Colombian government did know something of the negotiations. Of course, like in all such cases who knew and what will reamin murky for ever and ever. But conveniently for France, and Parisian newspapers, a new scandal that forced the resignation of the finance minister comes right on time. After all, this is a Parisian affair, and Ingrid's fate will again depend on the salons activities of Paris.
George W. Bush wants to kill Hugo Chavez
Quite a headline isn't it?
Today at the OAS Venezuela's foreign minister Ali Rodriguez made his case that the US trying to end Chavez's life (in English here and here). I will not even bother rebating the silliness. Actually no one serious in Venezuela worries anymore about accusations that people are trying to kill Chavez as that Rayma cartoon of last Tuesday seems to indicate
Legend: If you are going to repeat a tale, do not pick the one of the darned presidential assassination (much better in Spanish of course). But that such a supposedly serious matter is taken like a cartoon (and Rayma is not the only one) tells you volumes about the mood of the country.
Besides it does not seem that Rodriguez made his case very well. Not to mention that he was promptly retorted by the US who is getting tired of the nonsense (maybe they read our cartoons?). No wonder when you read the transcript (El Universal translation):
"Therefore, we have to take note of intelligence data pointing out that attempts are being made to liquidate our President, who has been legitimated by the Venezuelan people every time he has faced an election," Rodríguez added.
I suppose that this is the very same "intelligence" that has not finished to reveal the Danilo Anderson case or the very same "intelligence" that had Granda and others vote in Venezuelan elections.
But in a spirit of cooperation I am posting this little table I made that could give an idea on the reasons why Chavez feels there are people after him, GWB notwithstanding.
I think that the intelligent readers of this blog will know how to figure out where the smoke screens really are.
The Carter center back in Caracas, the shame of it
Bwahahahah!!! Gasp! Bwahahahahahahah! (tears of laughter, blogger convulsing on the floor subject to one of the biggest laugh attacks recorded in blogdom).
(Breathe, breathe deeply, garner composure, start writing again)
Today we learn that Jennifer Mc Coy of the Carter Center will brave Venezuela to offer help in consolidating peace and democracy!
What is in store for us? Are they going to approve the new judicial system whose near uniform composition will ensure "peace" through a "uniform justice" (pun intended)? Will they offer to monitor the 2006 elections to validate yet another "fair" Chavez victory? Will they congratulate Jorge Rodriguez from becoming the new president of the C-osa N-ostra E-lectoral? I wonder even how Francisco Díez dared to give an interview on the subject!?
I have a piece of advice for any serious opposition leader: do not meet with them. Let them hang out with chavismo, DO NOT GIVE THEM ANY CAUTION. I can assure you that the opposition electorate will not forgive those who try to make new deals with the Carter Center. Actually, I would suggest that a good way to start the recovery of a prostrate opposition would be to organize a rally to protest the visit of Jennifer McCoy and whoever else is accompanying her.
But seriously dear Carter Center: what can you possibly expect? Have you not learned your lesson already? Don't you know that Chavez will be nice and accommodating just to do as he pleases as soon as you turn your back to him? Who are you trying to fool now? Certainly not the opposition who, I hope, has learned who you are. Really, that is a lot of chutzpah for you guys to come back to Venezuela. Can't you leave good enough alone? What are your real aims? What are you going to offer Chavez now? Are you looking for funds for a new wing for the Carter Center?
Please, please, leave us alone! You have no credit here!!!!!! Even if you were to try to do something to preserve democracy, what can you achieve at this point, having become El Tonto Util of Chavez and having lost any trust from the opposition? Please, get a grip! We all know, from both sides, that you are not here for us, that you are only trying to recover your image overseas. But I doubt it will work: the US press is on to you.
PS: this is written from someone that used to defend you from opposition attacks. I was wrong, they were right.
PS2 (added much later: Miguel has a nice run down of some of the failures of the Carter center mission. Do not miss it!
Iranian Bloggers in jail. Soon in a country near you?
OK, so this is a repeat title from a post last year. But since the folks at "Comittee to protect Bloggers" have made a day for two Iranian bloggewrs in jail, the least that I can do is to put a plug for them.
Youy can learn the details and take action by visiting this site.
And for those that would poooh poooh this, let me remind them that Chavez is pal with the Mullahs and that the Hebraica was raided while Chavez was in Teheran (!¡*?¿$&). It is very hard not to be paranoid in Venezuela this days when the government does its best to scare the media, even the US media.
Venezuela, Chavez, Montesquieu and Vargas, or why we might never make it
We are slowly emerging from the disaster in Venezuela. We got a start in Vargas and due to our 1999 psychosis we thought the end of the world was coming again, but it came to the Andes and Southern Zulia. Scores of killed and missing, whole villages flooded, when not torn away by the torrents with levels of water not recorded in recent memory.
The heavy rains have ceased, though it still rained/drizzled all day in San Felipe today, and in Vargas it rains frequently in the afternoon. But anyone with clear thinking knows that it will happen again sooner than later. The Andes disaster reports are quite clear: deforestation, planting of crops close to river beds, followed of course by the shacks, that became small houses of the laborers lured by a false sense of security since for many years the river did not flood. No public officials to come and to tell them to move away, before or since Chavez for that matter. This prevention activity does not get you votes, and with the most populist government of our history I suspect that it will not get better no matter how many disasters we will go through.
My brother went last Friday to get the car he had to abandon when he was evacuated in Vargas. He sent me this picture he took while driving back to Caracas. As it can be seen, the mountain pretty much slid down to the road. There is no more road to be seen, only a mud trail through which only all terrain vehicles can circulate.
However a closer examination of the picture makes one detect that the truck ahead is carrying a BMW, a status car in Venezuela as you really need to be making lots of money to afford to import a BMW. Rich people, even in time of disaster can manage to retrieve their property, glorious bolivarian revolution notwithstanding.
This picture became quite telling for me. Even more when you add what has become now a pattern with Chavismo, natural catastrophes are taken advantage of. In 1999 as Jorge pointed out, while pretending to rescue folks in Vargas 1, Chavez was busy grabbing the judicial power. During Vargas 2, (and Andes 1?) the government is trying to expropriate more land and to put an end to University autonomous statute (details in a future post).
The link between all of it, you may ask? Well, it is Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu. But let's go by parts.
Montesquieu came to fame when he wrote L'Esprit des Lois, The Spirit of Laws. With this essay he was the first one to articulate on a practical way the concepts of separation of powers, one idea that would contribute greatly to the political movements of the XVIII century that would eventually produce the American and French Revolutions, real revolutions those. It was from the British tradition that Montesquieu was trying to apply to France that we get concepts such as an independent judiciary, and a separate executive and legislative, concepts which are now totally missing in Venezuela, and whose lack certainly explain the lack of accountability that is in my eyes the main cause of the present administrative debacle, corruption and all.
But back to the car picture. That picture is possible simply because the Chavez administration has been unable to decide what to do with Vargas after 1999. It could not decide to leave it as the pre 1999 mess it was, it could not bring itself to make it an elitist resort area and cash big on tourism taxes, it could not create a new plan, but it could not resist the temptation to pour money in it so as to benefit a few cronies of the regime. The rich anyway went ahead, rebuilt a few resorts on their own, got evacuated again 2 weeks ago, and managed to retrieve their cars back. Showing how useless the governmental action IS FOR ALL (if the sight of a BMW upsets your stomach, look at the photo galleries I linked earlier to see poor people in the mud, all classes suffer the contempt of the regime).
But there also the Chavez regime is just a new avatar of the past. Unable to understand wealth (though quite able to enjoy it, even if illegally acquired), Venezuelan politicians have always been unable to come to grips with tourism, an activity that even Fidel in Varadero has understood to the point of letting his Jineteras have a run at US dollars.
From its very nature Vargas is not a very viable state in classical economical terms, a narrow strip of land clinging precariously between the deep sea and the high mountains, it can only get some limited urban development, but no lush fields or powerful industrial complexes. Half of Vargas should be allocated to luxury resorts whose taxes would finance the other half for day time beach goers from Caracas. The only people that could afford to live there would be simply the workers of the port, airport and resorts who should get subsidies enough to be able to afford what would unmistakably become an expensive real estate (generating still more taxes by the way). After all this is what happens in Rio except that there is more room there and the favellas manage to cling next to the high rises of Ipanema. The favellas already exist in Vargas, what is needed is to rescue the sea front.
And thus comes again Montesquieu in his other famous opus, Persian Letters, an imaginative way to criticize French society as it entered the XVIII century. Letter 107 is still the best case of why a society needs luxuries, and by extension tourist resorts, the luxury of our times. The creativity of a government should be directed, among others, in allowing folks with disposable income to enjoy it while generating jobs for the less fortunate and revenue for the government. On this measure the lack of creativity of the Chavez regime is for all to see.
PS: Not too unrelated. I did like the coincidence today where an old Venezuelan revolutionary, Jose Agustin Catala, who became one of our foremost editors, can declare at 90 years old, interviewed by Milagros Socorro:
Chavez mezcla una gran inteligencia con mucha incultura (Chavez mixes a great intelligence with a considerable lack of culture).
I wonder if Chavez ever read Montesquieu, and if he would able to understand the slight irony of the Persian Letters.
Finally I am getting around to do some serious updating. The link section has changed a lot. Since I am not done yet it is a good time to let me know blogs or sites that would be appropriate for me to add (do not forget that Venezuela Today has it all, I want to add only sites that go with what this blog aims to present).
Also I finally got around to have a feed system to work. I know, I know, I am HTLM illiterate (maybe there is a mision for that?). But the fact is that I do not use site feeds, and basically had no idea what they were for. Now the atom feed is working (or so I was told) and I will try to add another one over the week end.
The comment section will also change (I already changed the color, but I am toying with format and more control as the general tone has gone downhill)
Other suggestions are welcome (other than erasing this blog, of course).
A.M. Mora y León signing off...
Hola, it's A.M. Mora y León, signing off on Daniel's Venezuela News and Views. It's been a pleasure to "guest-blog," or "ghost-blog" as Daniel likes to put it, over the past couple weeks. Jorge Arena could not have been a finer complement with his thoughtful essays as well as a pleasure to work with behind the scenes, too. I thank you all - Bruni, Jose Roman, Barqui, Guillermo, Christina, Stig, John, Thomas, Roger, Quico, Feathers, Sydney, Ginger and many others - for your intelligent, informed comments from different perspectives that together added so much to the ultimately collaborative enterprise of blogging.
To sign off, here's a "news" item about Cuban doctors that interested me, and a repost of one item I deleted and didn't get around to reposting till now:
What's that about Cuban doctors again?
A Castroite state-controlled media organ reports that El Barbudo is incensed about Cuba not having enough doctors in Cuba in this news item here. Oh really? It's enough to make me wonder if he's almost as oblivious to economics as El Supremo.
Of course there aren't enough Cuban doctors, Castro! You sent them off to be spies in Venezuela! Cubans have noticed this. And so have Venezuelans! Daniel researched that Misión Barrio Adentro program and found quite a bit of evidence of such shenanigans here. You've got plenty of Cuban doctors, Castro. It's just that when you send them to another country, you don't have them there to exploit in Cuba.
The problem with this Misión Barrio Adentro Cuban doctor program is you've turned them into human chattel to be sent like a cash crop export to Venezuela to "pay" for all that "free" oil you get from Chavez. They're commodity chits, your very own Oil-for-Doctors program oozing in corruption for the 'love' of the barrio children and since these Cuban doctors now are effectively bushels of corn, you shouldn't be surprised there are shortages when you put artificially low prices on them. Corn after all goes for $2.20 a bushel while Havana doctors on the Castro Exchange trade at 50 cents a day. Not only that, as Miguel points out, real trained doctors from Venezuela are knocked out of the market because of these cheap Cuban 'freebies'. In the more economically serious parts of the world, this is called "dumping."
But never mind that. Why is it that Cuban doctors are paid less than cab drivers and hookers in Havana? Doctors in Havana make fifteen dollars a month. Nurses there make eight bucks a month. This shows how much Fidel values doctors and nurses, paying them accordingly. Chavez, by contrast, pays them a princely sum, with this article here showing that Cuban doctors on Misión Barrio Adentro duty making about $200 a month for a three-hour, three-day work week. You get what you pay for. And when you have a busy spying schedule, three hours a day to be a medical commodity export will have to do.
Speaking of lowball prices, does it ever occur to you, Barbudo, that you lose a lot of Cuban doctors to immigration? Some 500 Cuban doctors even in Caracas have decided that even the $200 a month doesn't cut it and have made their way to El Norte, Costa Rica, or any other country that will take them? People pretty well price themselves for what they are worth to put themselves to their best use. Economics 101.
But among doctors, there are many for whom money is not the biggest consideration. The problem is something far more damning: the inhuman system you've got there, Barbudo, one no humanitarianly instincted doctor would want to get near. Recently, I researched the life of Dr. Hilda Molina, an elite surgeon in Havana who trashed her party card ten years ago and tried to pay a visit to her grandchildren in Buenos Aires, something you wouldn't allow, because she was Cuba's 'intellectual property.' (That old commodity thing again, no?) She didn't want to be a doctor in your communist paradise because she objected to the inhuman two-tier system of medical care - one for rich Sandalistas, and the other for ordinary Cubanos. You can guess who gets the better end of the deal based on whose money was good enough and how any decent doctor would feel about it. But life is funny. There's something about those yanquis and their dollars that always puts them on top of things, even in the heart of your impoverished communist paradise hellhole that doesn't follow the rules of immoral global capitalism. Somehow the yanks and euros end up on top over there too. Try basic economics, you schmuck.
Barbudo, perhaps if you paid Cuban doctors, let them use their minds, stopped forcing them into spying, dumped the offensive two-tier health care system and quit treating them like chattel for El Supremo's political purposes, you might actually have a few doctors in Havana. But this isn't about providing health care to Cubans. This is about your own ego and your own effort to propagandize about your regime's supposed focus on health care. Which by all economic and humanitarian measures is one of the world's most dismal failures.
Repost: Today's Must-Read
Carlos Alberto Montaner, who first impressed me with his Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot, has got a stunning new essay out on his Firmas Press site, one that I found shocking with its clarity of thinking and dangerous implications. It is well worth reading.
(Jan. 26, 2005)
Posted by A.M. Mora y Leon at 6:45 AM 9 comments: Links to this post
Crapulent distribution of the relief effort in Venezuela
This posts deserves a subtitle:
How help for the victims of the Vargas 2 disaster and the floods in the Andes is distributed as long as it favors the political interests of Chavez and his minions.
Tal Cual makes a very serious accusation in its editorial today, an accusation that anyone who watches the current TV reports on the disasters that are besotting our country can make: the government, be it at the national level or at the local level, is trying to politically benefit from the relief effort. Immorally should I say, but let me translate part of the editorial. The full one in Spanish can be read here.
When in one of the reception centers in Petare people bringing packages for help are forced to accept that these packages are labeled with the logo of the MVR, before sending them to the victims (if not, "take your shit away"), we are in the presence of charity with claws [Venezuelan expression that means interested charity, that is giving hoping for some benefit which of course annuls the purpose of the charity]. When in an official institute in Merida state the dispatch of relief material is delayed several hours because we are waiting for the governor to have his photo op that we surely will see in some political campaign as street posters, we are in front of charity with claws. When the National Guard [Nazional Guard]
forbids in places distribution of relief help by whomever is not dressed with a red shirt or an equally colored beret, we are in front of charity with claws. When the state TV,VTV, broadcasts several times a day an add where victims thank "President Chavez" for the received help, we are in front of charity with claws. The incidents keep accumulating in our newspaper editing office.
The cheap political benefit from solidarity, the abuse that is to confiscate the generosity of all for the benefit of a political party in office and its office holders, the impudent use of state institutions with sectarian aims of political proselytism during moments in which the recipients of help go through the enormous calamity of having lost house, possessions and lives from relatives or neighbors constitute a behavior outrightly despicable, completely immoral, that can only feel anyone with indignation. The last thing that remains is for the help to be distributed along the infamous list of assemblyman Tascon [the one that made a list of all those who signed for the recall election, a list used extensively to deny jobs, passports, when not firing the public workers who dared to have a personal opinion]
In a gloriously infamous revolution, so rich in such moments were morality, decency and plain human rights are simply ignored or attacked out of sheer pleasure from the authorities, or so it seems at times, these new incidents will occupy a rather prominent place.
There is that myth that only the political left love people. Again, reality tells us otherwise. We can see that sycophants never love people. And their inspiration probably not much either.
I am writing a long postponed note to thank my ghost bloggers. I think that they did a great job, pleasing a lot of people and making a few miss me. Which is exactly the point of having ghost bloggers.
A blog is a personal page, where as a writer I am only limited by my conscience and my education in polite and civil behavior. But these being subjective values, what can be polite for me can be grossly offensive for others, or just plain wimpy. Ghost bloggers of course allow for people to compare and I am surprised at how well it worked, how many people were induced in expressing themselves on the subject from begging me to retain the ghosts to give it up (which seems to have been the real objective in those cases, not me, to close the blog altogether).
There is a lesson to be taken. A multi hand blog can be indeed a good thing, revitalizing an old formula. The trick is to find a way to still maintain the overall flavor of the original blog while letting new airs flow. Not easy, unfortunately.
As of today I am recovering full use of my blog. That is, I will cut today access to Mora and Jorge. A symbolic thing since they have stopped writing. And I will think about changes, many changes actually. But all in due time.
Mora, to my political right, was a clear example that the opposition voices can be quite more radical than me, or Mora for that matter! In fact, we are both placed in the same camp because we are both democrats and we equally dislike extremes. Putting Mora was to remind folks that oppose me that I am much more liberal than they thought I was. Yet, I have a fine relationship with Mora, simply because we share the same basic social values of tolerance, respect and democracy and we see in chavismo the same authoritarian evil. In a normal world we would be opponents, but in today's world there is much more that unite us than separate us and we are lucky to appreciate this and become friends. Freedom accepts no compromises.
Jorge was put there because we come from a similar scientific formation. But that I wanted to keep a scientist in was not the only reason to put Jorge in for a few weeks. For that I would have put Miguel if he did not have a blog of his own. I thought that Jorge has the ability to write a blog but does not have the time and this ghosting experience would be a nice way to try out. I think that the results speak for themselves.
I will, if Jorge requests it, re extend on occasion access to my blog. Not that I do not want to do so with Mora. But Mora has already quite an exposure elsewhere and does not need this modest blog when Mora can write in blogs with much larger audiences. However I will be honored if Mora wants to ghost blog again in the future as I might travel lengthily later in the year. After all Mora seems in the way to become an Internet star of ghost blogging!!!!
Finally a note. Someone of course wondered whether I could not find a pro Chavez person to also enter. I must confess that I would love to find a rational pro Chavez to ghost blog once. That would have been possible as late as 2002. But I think that it is not possible anymore. Since late 2002 it seems it has become difficult to establish a dialogue with the chavista camp. There might be many explanations but mine is very simple: this blog is about independence of criteria and chavismo has become all about submitting your free will to a leader or cause, as in "no questions asked". This is simply intellectually repulsive for me, not to mention offensive as it tries to pretend that I am submitting myself to other "forces". I do not mean to offend anyone with this and I would love to be proven wrong. I just write this as a statement of fact.
Again, my greatest thanks to Jorge and Mora for taking so much time to work on this blog. You have made it better.
Tal Cual Photo Gallery on the Vargas disaster in Venezuela
With the suggestive title of "An announced disaster", Tal Cual's Ilich Otero has come up with his own photo gallery of the Vargas disaster. From the cover pictures it will become quite clear, if there were any doubt still, that the victims of the governmental neglicence are as usual the poorer sectors of the population.
So much for a government who pretends to care for the poor.
Chutzpah award of the week
To Jesse "James" Chacon, Venezuela Interior (Homeland US equivalent) minister.
In some declarations published in El Nacional Monday, he simply states that the delays in the works for Vargas were due to the April "coup" and the general strike. Let's look at numbers a little bit closer and expose this liar.
Vargas 1: first two weeks of December 1999
Rescue efforts and basic communication with the shore reestablished by January 15 2000.
"First" useful recovery period of Vargas: From January 15 2000 until February 2002 when the currency is devaluated. Then we would give a couple of month for the government to readjust the budget EVEN THOUGH the monies for Vargas were already allocated. That gives TWO FULL years of work.
Allow me to remind the reader that for example Chavez had "promised" to build 5 000 subsidized housing in TWO YEARS. No more than 500 of these seem to have been built to date.
"First" suspension of works for Vargas: From February 2002 to June 1 2002. OK, so April was not a good time to restart the works of Vargas, even though the government HAD THE FULL MONTH OF MARCH 2002 to re-budget everything and give the order to restart the works even if more limited in scope. But by May 1 2002 the administration was functioning again, the country was in a relative peace and there was no excuse not to restart the Vargas works by June 1.
Restarting Vargas: From June 1 2002 until December 1 2002. For obvious reason, the start of the strike certainly would stop any Vargas work. Still this gives SIX more months of normal paced public works. Not to mention that oil prices were climbing by then.
"Second" suspension of works for Vargas: from December 1 2002 until, say, June 1 2003. OK, so the strike and its sequels certainly affected the ability of the government to continue the works in Vargas. So, why do I chose June 1 as a dead line to restart work? (I could have chosen as well May 1 or August 1, same difference)
1: oil money was again pouring in, at higher prices, compensating any lack of oil production. By June 1, as to the own government admission international reserves were up and THERE WAS THE MONEY to work again in Vargas, even at a lower speed.
2: the government certainly was willing and able to work. Those were days then the misiones went full speed, demonstrating without any ambiguity that there was the money and the capacity to work for anything that the government set its mind on.
Vargas 2: February 2005. Since work could have restarted as early as June 1 2003, and at full speed no later than January 1 2004, we can safely assume that 7 slow months of work could have been completed, with 13 more months of normal work following.
The grand total of time allocated for public works and subsidized housing in for Vargas is thus:
24 + 6 + 7/2 + 13 = 46 months (rounded down) which is:
3.8 years to rebuild Vargas
without ANY excuse.
3.8 years is enough to clean up, do a real highway along the shore, control more than half the streams, build 5 000 subsidized housing, restore utilities. The rest could have been taken care by the private sector AS IT DID wherever it could considering the slow pace of the Vargas recovery share allocted to the state.
But instead I will bet that part of the monies were allocated to the electoral effort of El Supremo, not to mention that the workers of Corpovargas had probably to go to marches or set up the campaign billboards instead of doing their job.
Yes, Jesse, it does not matter what spin you put, Vargas IS the symbol of how little your side really cares about the people, besides buying their votes.
=== === === ===
Since I have less chutzpah as the "personeros" of the regime, I must worte that I owe a thank you note to Jorge and Mora, a note coming shortly. But today's outrage had to come out first :-)
Rains and the Quest for Absolute Power: Chronicle of a Criminal Negligence
The most tragic event that has happened in recent years in Venezuela was the death of tens of thousand of people due to the rains and mudslides that took place in December 1999.
Since he was elected, in 1998, president Hugo Chavez referred to the old Venezuelan Constitution issued in 1961 as the “moribunda” (“the dying”). Even when he took power on February 2, 1999, he said that he swore on the “moribunda” constitution that he would make whatever necessary for Venezuela to have a brand new constitution. The question is why? What was so wrong about the old democratic 1961 Constitution? There was nothing wrong. Nothing that could not have been fixed with a normal constitutional amendment. There were, however, two important roadblocks to prevent Chavez’ quest for absolute power:
1.-the old Constitution stated that the presidential mandate lasted 5 years and was non-renewable. A former president could be re-elected but only after ten years of having finished his mandate. He needed more time to carry out his “revolution”. His idea was to have a presidential term of 6 years renewable to be able to stay at least 12 years in power.
2.-The maximum judicial figure in the country was the CSJ (Supreme Court). The judges had been nominated in previous presidential mandates. Chavez understood that to have total control of the country he needed a brand new Court and that was only possible if a new type of court was created in a new Constitution.
At that time, Chavez did not have the majority in Congress, which was needed to pass any Constitutional amendment. He then lost no time to pass a law for a referendum on the creation of a Constitutional Assembly. The Constitutional Assembly, without having any solid legal grounds, decided to dissolve the Congress and, in a record time, produced a brand new Constitution that contained all Chavez’ wishes. That new Constitution had to be approved by referendum. This takes us to the fatidic date of December 15, 1999. In what follows, I go through the news that appeared the days before and a few days after the Constitutional Referendum of December 15, 1999 to revisit the tragedy and the political climate that Venezuelans were living.
On December 4, 1999 there was already a major emergency in the Litoral, the strip of land that borders the sea north of Caracas. There were already people death, 20 collapsed houses, two major collapsed streets and the flights from and to Maiquetia airport had been re-routed
On December 7, 1999 people that lost their houses asked for help and claimed that the government aid was marginal. The authorities alerted that there will be new rains. They were right.
On December 9, 1999 new houses collapsed. The Civil Defense indicated that some regions should be evacuated. There had been mudslides in all Vargas state. The Cupira River overflowed and towns of the Miranda state were also inundated.
On December10, 1999 the civil defense informed of the emergency that was being lived in the whole country. Two collapsing bridges were also reported in Miranda.
On December 12, 1999 it is reported that many houses were destroyed by the rain in the Metropolitan Area of Caracas and in Miranda. The situation in Vargas worsened.
On December 13, 1999 the rains were affecting 17000 new people. The civil defense reported having met the CNE to see how it could be possible to take affected people to go to vote on December 15, 1999.
On December 14, 1999 Miranda Governor Enrique Mendoza declared the state of emergency in his state. Meanwhile, that very same day, the president of the CNE declared that everything was “on wheels” referring to the preparations for the Constitutional Referendum.
On December 15, 1999 the referendum process started despite the heavy rains. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez appeared on TV and asked the Venezuelan people to go massively to vote and to vote early. He said that nobody should be prevented to go to vote because of the rains. He reminded Venezuelans of the old sentence by Simon Bolivar “If Nature is against us; we will fight against her and make her obey”. Many centers could not open and many table witnesses could not be present because of the rain situation. Problems were reported in several states. Members of the church with the CNE directory prayed to God for the climate to improve. Evacuations started in the state of Falcon.
On December 16, 1999 the country realized the magnitude of the disaster. Vargas state was completely cut from the rest of the country. Some Constitutional Assembly members celebrated the referendum win but others, like Isturiz, asked for restraint.
On December 17, 1999 Chavez addressed the nation and said that he was “touched” by the tragedy. Some survivors reported their ordeal (see these two links).
On December 24, 1999 the judges of the new Supreme Court, baptized “Tribunal Supremo de Justicia” (TSJ) were swore in. They were hand-picked by the so-called “Congresillo”, a subset of the Constitutional Assembly that had taken the role of the dissolved Congress. In the turmoil that followed the disaster, very few eyes were paying attention to this very important nomination. The smooth transition that was supposed to take place from the old to the new Constitutional rule did not take place given the state of emergency.
So, by the end of December 1999, Venezuela had a brand new Constitution and a brand new Supreme Court. Chavez had won the first round for the absolute control of the country. There were however tens of thousands deaths, a major economic disaster and entire areas of the country to be rebuilt. If the government had declared the State of emergency sooner, stopped the referendum and evacuated as quick as possible the affected areas thousands of lives could have been saved. They did not do it because they put their political agenda before the well being of the Venezuelan people.
To me, that is criminal negligence.
History will be the judge.
Jorge Arena
A personal note to the readers: this is my last post as a ghost blogger. I would like to thank you for your support. I loved the experience but I must confess that it was quite a challenge. In fact,I know how much you appreciate Daniel style and how good he is at what he does. Therefore, I knew it was not going to be easy to replace him.
I would also like to thank A.M. Mora for being such a good team mate. Many thanks too to my fellow bloggers Miguel and Alek that were always ready to answer my questions and give a helping hand.
Daniel has asked me to contribute from time to time, which I will do if I have something interesting to write. I would like to publicly thank Daniel for his confidence.
My final thought goes to President Hugo Chavez and the MINCI guys. They provided me with so much material that I sometimes had the embarrassment of choice, making this neophyte blogger's job quite easy. In normal conditions this would be a somehow humorous statement but it has become a sour note given the recent events and the sad state of affairs in Venezuela.
Posted by jorge arena at 12:11 PM 3 comments: Links to this post
A review of articles evaluating the Vargas disaster in Venezuela...
...not to mention assessing the mendacity of the Chavez administration.
With the Vargas II disaster, relatives in the middle, and my return from a long trip, I have not been covering other items that I wanted to cover. For example the Danilo Anderson case which is turning out to be a case of rival extortion gangs in the prosecution offices of the state. Just today El Universal publishes that the sister of Danilo Anderson was to receive 80 millions Bs. (41 K USD) from her brother. Darn! I wish that one of my brothers would send me a gift for a quarter of that amount!
But before I cover a few of these issues which the government is desperately trying to cover up, I prefer to do a press review on Vargas articles that came out this week.
Factual information on what the government did not do for Vargas
Well, there is already the article of Miguel that I previously mentioned.
El Universal has a series of articles on Vargas. One covers the works that were incomplete or shoddily done. Another article serves as an introduction to a series of reports covering many aspects of the post 1999 pseudo-reconstruction. One article, adequately titled El Gran Fracaso (the great failure) carries an interesting item on something that could have been done rather cheaply but that was never done. Besides listing the monies that Vargas received IN ADDITION to its normal budget, it recalls the promise made by Chavez right after Vargas I to build housing for 5 000 families that lost everything, within TWO YEARS. Well, apparently only 500 were built (5 years later), and experts had said that around 16 000 were needed. The funds existed, so how come these houses were not built, not even the ones promised by Chavez himself. Not to mention that subsidized middle class housing was built only to end up in the hands of certain public officials that had no business in Vargas, Danilo Anderson being one of them, curiously.
Tal Cual is not any kinder. In an article they actually take the trouble to write down the chronological list of some of the stuff promised, some of the monies collected, some of the warnings made by experts and more stuff. Since it is by subscription I have posted that article in my Documents on Venezuela section (sorry, no transaltions, too many to do, but at least you can forward these post to your favorite chavista and sit tight waiting for answer).
I have also added a little text on the amounts of rain that fell these days, and more importantly how much rain needs to fall for how many days until mud slides begin. Vargas II seems not to bear comparison as to the potential damage of the rains as Vargas I. Yet, we all saw what we saw.
The mendacious people who are in charge of the future of our country
Two strong op-ed pieces have graced our newspapers last week. The first one I will report is the one by Milagros Socorro, a long time favorite of this blog. In it she muses about the symbolical value of the new Vargas disaster. Comparison with more organized societies and chavista Venezuela are certainly not flattering for Venezuela. At the end of the article she coldly alludes to the social disaster that awaits us as the Chavez administration keeps mismanaging the country.
The other piece is Teodoro Petkof editorial of Friday (posted right after the piece from Socorro). The title says it all "Eureka! It is Bush's fault!" In that short piece Teodoro ties it all up very nicely, from the supreme incompetence (and corruption ?) of Corpovargas to the abuse of weather information by people too interested in producing lies to hide they hide. He ends with a flourish quoting Lincoln's words: You cannot fool everybody all the time. (Note added: a translation of this article has been made by Mora Y Leon)
To these we can add the informative listing of the short comings of Vargas administration also published as editorials on Wednesday and Thursday.
From all of this emerges quite clearly the picture of a government more interested in building little Mercals (subsidized food distribution), giving little grants here and there to buy votes, than ensuring the durable welfare of its people. As we all know the two best social programs are stable jobs and a reasonably safe environment.
The truth on the most mendacious of the populist governments that we ever had is finally emerging for all to see. Courtesy of recent events from Danilo Anderson to Vargas II .
Vargas: the definitive tale of lies, incompetence and corruption
Miguel was inspired. He just gave us an excellent recapitulation of the main points in the Vargas story. From his report it should be crystal clear that the Vargas II episode of last week could have had much less negative effects than what it suffered had the government done the job it was commissioned to do by the National Assembly who provided ample funds to restart life on the state after Vargas I in 1999.
Read Miguel article and then read the spin doctors in my precedent post. You may weep after.
Now, the only question is: will someone pay for such an amount of inefficiency, incompetence, lies, corruption, arrogance and what not. With our judicial system I would not be surprised to see the whistle blowers go to jail.
Round up of news: floods in Venezuela and Colombia, with a silly appearance by Castro
Why include Castro in a round up of news on the Venezuelan, and now Colombian, disasters? Wits would say because Fidel Castro is a disaster himself. But the reason is that Chavez used a Castro speech to promote himself while visiting a disaster idea, once again.
But all in due time through the news recap for the day.
Disaster in the Venezuelan Andes.
If Vargas 2 was rather low in victims, this is not the case today in the Andes as tales of terror start coming from the area. Vargas was blissfully low in body count because in part people are scared by the rain and run for cover very fast, and because the normal holiday security support was in place and could shift into the evacuation mode fast.
But the Venezuelan Andes are not so lucky, and the rains that were supposed to shift to the Oriental part of the country actually seem to have backtracked and made havoc in the high peaks and valleys. Merida state reports 300 dead or missing (only 8 confirmed dead so far). The swollen rivers coming from the Andes are feeding a Tocuyo dam which is reported near collapse (which happened in Miranda state in 1999 when El Guapo dam broke). 11 000 are to receive anytime soon an evacuation order.
And in Colombia
The Bucaramanga area is the area closer to Venezuela, and thus although in the dry season is also suffering of the rains hitting the Venezuelan Andes. But it seems to be happening right now and news are not fast coming. Still, 11 death are already reported, due to the same weather. It seems that the weather does not care about which side Granda was caught.
Spin control number 1
The army acknowledges that the worse hit areas of Vargas have been Camuri and Naiguata (no word on Carayaca or Chichiriviche) Interestingly they showed videos that "supposedly" demonstrates that in some areas the Corpovargas Works had an effect. Which is a nice way, I suppose, to admit that in most places they were useless. Of course, this is the state trying to put some spin as a tsunami of criticism (even from some people loosely associated with the regime) is rising. I am taking bets right now as to whether some independent commission will be allowed to evaluate the achievements (?) of Corpovargas.
Spin control number 2, with a little help from Castro
Araira is a small village in the road between Caracas and the Eastern part of Miranda state, on the way to the beaches. It is a word from my child hood as regularly we drove by on our way to Higuerote and there was the only semi clean rest area, just half way to Higuerote, El Mirador. As a kid, seeing the sign "Araira" meant that within a couple of miles I would be getting out of the car for a few minutes.
Well, Araira has been washed out as the river broke through main street and muddied the whole place. What is noteworthy in the story is that apparently (as heard on TV) a very old resident remembered having seen as a kid the river go through the village. We are a country without memory, already in 1999 some elderly remembered that Vargas had experienced the same type of weather and disaster in the past, once in the early 50ies and once in the 20ies, if I recall well the newspapers of early 2000. Yet, nobody seems to have wanted to inquire about these available pieces of information whether they were building expensive real estate in Los Corales or building shanties wherever they could in the risky areas of Vargas.
So, perhaps considering that Araira was having damage interesting enough, or because it represents an interesting footnote in our history as an old Cacao center, Chavez went to look for the photo op in Araira. There he took the opportunity to say that all was fine, that all the government systems worked, etc.. He also blasted his ex-minister, Genatios, who created the initial plan for Vargas and who has criticized Corpovargas actions as improvised while his plan was the result of a deep study (1). Al this, no surprise, under the loving cameras and questions of the state TV, far from private reporters who could ask embarrassing cross questions.
While in Araira Chavez also thanked Castro for warning him that George W. Bush wanted to kill him. Huh? It seems that during a 6 hours speech where Castro announced that Cuba was doing fine (?), thank you very much (to Venezuelan oil, you old leech), he also declared that he knew that the US wanted to kill Chavez.
Let's obviate the fact that indeed Washington would like very much to get rid of Chavez. Now, the first thing that should come to the analytical mind is that if Washington would really want Chavez dead it would have happened long ago. Let's also remember that the days where a US president could decree the death of a third world head of state are gone, or at least the risks are now too big in front of a US public opinion which is more inclined to accept an Iraq style invasion than the murder of some foreign crapulent potentate. So, what is the real point there? Two at the very least.
1-Create yet another smoke screen. That is, try to have people talk about nasty Bush and not about the incompetent Chavez administration and corruption as Vargas is now the poster scandal. This fits perfectly well with the theory of Chavez "disappearing act" during important crisis, a disappearance calculated to prepare the spin campaign.
2-And of course prepare the grounds for Chavez to seek a similar situation of murder paranoia and blockade (or what not) which has been the biggest help for Castro to remain in charge since 1959. Blame it all on the US, it pays off, and it surely exempts you from ANY self criticism. Not to mention that it allows you to throw to jail anyone that disagrees with you accusing that unfortunate soul of treason to the fatherland.
Strong spirits of course laugh at such an infantile manipulation of the ignorant masses. After all, the informed observer could point out that more US presidents have been victims of real attacks than Castro; that Uribe in Colombia has had real bombs thrown at him while the Chavez assassination attempts have been shown to be risible montages for which we are waiting still for the first serious trial (arrest?) on that matter.
But this time, Chavez should remember that "you can run but you cannot hide". Evidence of a corrupt and particularly inefficient regime are piling up, and high. The Vargas II disaster is to be added to the Danilo Anderson corruption/extortion murder, the end of independent justice, the sheltering of terrorists, just in the last three months.
(1) Genatios is a scientist formed in France and who was part of the initial crop of ministers, in the days where Chavez was able to attract semi competent folks. At some point he resigned and left the administration. We seem to know why now: he was not a politician and he probably sensed the political corruption that was coming and probably did not want to have any part of it.
The Puerto Azul / Playa Azul / Naiguata story
The Naiguata promontory is formed by a torrent delta which separates the village of Naiguata with a large system of public beaches and the private resorts of Puerto Azul and Playa Azul. Puerto Azul was already almost done in in 1999. It looks like this time it was done in again. My brother was in Puerto Azul this holiday and he sent me the story and some pictures. The story first (at least as I understand, as I might to revise some details later as stories keep coming):
All was fine until Monday night when the rain became quite heavy. On Tuesday morning most guests tried to leave but after a few hours most had to come back: the roads were already impassable. He had decided to go on Wednesday morning thus he was relieved that he did not waste the effort to leave on Tuesday morning. Tuesday night the resort still worked. But Wednesday morning the personnel could not come back and the limited night crew had to start improvising things. Resort guests started managing the kitchen and the food distribution as the lights went out, water went out, etc... Long lines were formed for the two single meals of pasta and arepa given to all.
Through Wednesday a lot of people from Camuri and Naiguata village and beaches were sent to Playa Azul and Puerto Azul in prevision of an evacuation as Puerto Azul has the safe harbor of the area. Many arrived from Camuri through helicopter there, to fasten the evacuation instead of flying them to distant Maiquetia. Camuri was already a disaster area as the river had broken through the resort and wiped it out.
Still Wednesday night the situation was in control, and just sending food and water there could have allowed people to remain longer while more critical areas were evacuated. But by Wednesday night things were getting worse and a first evacuation scheme was attempted and failed due to rough seas and constant heavy rain. At some point early morning Thursday the river broke through Puerto Azul (in the pictures below). The first consequence of that, in addition of course to the thousands that were already refugees in Puerto Azul, was that people could not access the harbor anymore as it was cut from the resort by the river!!!!!
The torrent cutting through Puerto Azul, emptying in the harbour and cutting the escape way to the docks.
Another view, this time with the green roof of the walkway to cross the gounds when it rains. The people are standing on the roof and if they were to fall in the torrent they would be carried all theway to the sea.
Another fact aggravated the situation: apparently some of the guests did break in the kitchen at night and made out with the remaining food supply so that there was no more food left for Thursday morning breakfast! Talk about solidarity!!!! Evacuation was thus unavoidable, even more so that by now the only communication road was known to be washed out and could not be driven even if the rain were to stop.
The evacuation was made through Playa Azul, with children, elderly, people, residents, tourists, all waddling through the knee high mud, and the rescuers only able to limit themselves to carry children and elderly. Next picture gives an idea on how far people had to walk, under the rain, through mud to get to the evacuation ship open close to the end of Playa Azul.
Every one left behind all their belongings except a bag where they carried cameras, money, medicine and ID cards and blankets to cover themselves from the incessant rain. Garbage bags from the kitchens were used to protect children. All was left in the hotel rooms, or in the cars that had been parked in triple row in the most protected area of the parking lot (nobody knows if the river reached the parking lot, in the evacuation nobody could check out on that as all the grounds of Playa Azul and Puerto Azul were covered in a sticky layer of mud). Thus Puerto Azul, Playa Azul and the village of Naiguata are a prime target for the ransacking that characterized the incredible pillage scenes of Vargas 1.
Filling up the boat took quite a while, as natives and tourists were piled up, even on the deck where it kept raining on them as if there were no tomorrow. My brother chose the upper deck as the covered area was foul with the smell of gas oil. Eventually they sailed, just to be welcome by Chavez making his crass little show and prolonging the ordeal by a few more minutes. I was told that many people were booing him but the state TV crew, now well trained, managed to hide that aspect of the disembarking, able to shoes enough pro Chavez folks in the landing refugees to provide the "human touch". It must have hurt a lot as most people were loudly blaming Chavez for the renewed collapse of Vargas, and justly so, at least for in some areas.
Arriving in La Guaira as the rain finally relented for a short while. Note that all the sailors are wearing life vests...
Quite an ordeal, but at least with no tragedy. So far. It is raining again today and the soils are probably soaked enough that the mountain is now at risk of sending rocks down hill as it did in 1999. Mud might be a pleasant memory....
Awards of the day
To close this rather emotional day I wish to grant some awards as I used to do a few months ago.
=== === === === === ===
Craven person of the day
Hugo Chavez, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
After an absence of a few days he reappeared today in huff to try to take the limelight away from the Vargas II disaster. Among the many memorable words uttered were platitudes on bolivarian love and solidarity, a condemnation to the US and what not, a show camera hogging in front a refugee boat, and a few other pearls that are not worth reporting.
Yet all of this will not be enough to explain how come 5 years AFTER Vargas I and 1.5 billion dollars in investments, the Vargas littoral is so vulnerable, how the waters broke away as if nothing, how the new road that you refused the US to help you build was washed out as a sand castle, etc...
Who is responsible Mr. President? Who are you going to fire? Who is going to tell us where those 1.5 billions have gone? In whose pockets? If you need help understanding my questions I suggest that you read Tal Cual editorials that I gracefully reproduce for you here. You could also reply the real questions that the people from the rescue boat were asking you and that your TV crew skilfully hid during your tasteless one man show on the docks.
Hypocrite of the day
Flat earther of the day
(special double award)
Jose Vicente Rangel, vice president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
For trying to dodge the government responsibility on the Vargas mismanagement of 5 years by blaming the US for the rain for not signing the Kyoto protocol. In a stupefying performance all the floods of the world were blamed on the US. We knew you were manipulating all the naïve followers of your movement we did not know you thought so little of them to manipulate them in such a way.
Besides lying as you breathe, you showed a crass ignorance of science, climate, drought, el Niño and what not. Yes, JVR, the earth is round and one day it will bite your rear end.
Tonto util of the day
(special joint award)
Renaud Muselier, French foreign minister and the personnel of the French embassy in Caracas. During a recent memorable and scandalous visit, you congratulated pollution ridden and devastated Venezuela and presented it as a model just because it signed the Kyoto protocol. This of course as France is trying really bad to get the contracts to exploit the highly polluting heavy oil belt of the Orinoco, not to mention that sulfur rich Venezuelan oil is also a great source of pollution. With this any pretense to civilization that France holds should be revised and replaced by the crassest mercantile values and disregard for the third world. Then again, France's actions in Africa should have warned us.
I could give more awards, but with these ones it should be enough to join soon Tulio Alvarez who is the first official freedom of expression victim today.
My brother et al. made it to Caracas. I talked to them and they are fine. Tonight I will get the gory details of the ordeal. As I thought, they were OK until last night, except for the expected rationing and lack of electricity. But through the night and the morning things became much worse and that is why they had to be evacuated.
I also got news from Miguel who also just managed to get his trapped folks evacuated by helicopter. I am sure he will also regale us with quite a tale.
Thus except for material losses (which also occurred to me but that is another story and not relevant to this blog) it seems that Venezuelan English speaking bloggers are getting back on track.
It also seems that the disaster will be as big (or bigger?) as 1999, except that people knew better and few lives will be lost this time. The verdict on why so many things went wrong again will have to wait. But I will give you a hint: if there is an independent comission allowed to do its work it will be a real natural disaster. If no comission is installed and the administrations stalls and contradicts it self, and send Chavez for a few more shows, then you will know that the necessary work that should have been done after 1999 was not done.
But if some are fine now we should not forget that still thousand of folks are stranded and, as time runs short for the day, they are bound for a real bad night.
New update: The show must go on
I am mesmerized by the state TV. Chavez has come to greet the rescued party in which my brother and family have arrived. He is stuck on board as they are limiting the exist of people such as to give plenty of photo op for Chavez in his role of el gran rescuero. The anchor woman is interviewing all sorts of people but the camera is always fixed on El Supremo as he moves from group to group. Before Chavez arrival, the camera was trying to film refugees as they landed, thus why I stayed home to see if I could get to see my realtives. But Chavez arrived and that was that, all about him!
I have not seen my brother land yet but he is complaining through text of cold and hunger.
I would be mad at Chavez but for once what I am mad at is our cultural habits. That scene would have happened with any of our presidents (perhaps not with Leoni). Chavez is just a bigger showman and in Venezuela politics is about bread and circus... So the show goes on as selected group of rescued are introduced to the president, to great kisses and god bless you and what not. I am pretty sure that my kin will not be introduced :-)
Oh, well....
PS: of course the anchor woman from the state TV does not miss an opportunity to stick in here and there the revolution key words.
I have received more text messages. The crossing was OK in spite of a passing squall. Another message send told us that they were in sight of La Güaira and that apparently my other brother is going to be able to go down and pick them up. I think I can stop watching TV and go back to work.
Breaking News: Chavez Reappears to Assess Flood Damages
So, as predicted by my friend, and after being absent from the public eye for at least four days, President Hugo Chavez reappered today in public dressed in a military outfit and saving the people that were stranded in Camuri. El universal reports that he is assessing the situation of the Vargas State. This seems to be his natural way of handling an emergency situation: disappear for a while and then appear like the man in control.
I have a friend that lived the 1999 Vargas tragedy. Her family lived in Vargas and lost everything. Her mom and her grandparents that were in their eighties spent two days in the roof of their house waiting for help and seeing how their neighbors disappeared....meanwhile the president was in la Orchila celebrating.
Posted by jorge arena at 6:34 PM No comments: Links to this post
Chavez is back...
... and somehow I am far from being reassured.
After a long silence which included a surprise cancellation of the Sunday talk show Alo Presidente, Chavez reappeared today, supposedly on Camuri Chico. Supposedly as the only media as usual was the state media, chavistas being very careful to shield themselves from the inquiring media.
The usual platitudes followed but what was more striking was the opportunity to include yet again a few slogans to defend the revolution. Even as all the work made since 2000 in Vargas was collapsing, demonstrating that either we are in front of an even bigger cataclysm, or it was shoddy work. Of course I am not expecting an independent inquiring commission to check on it and chavismo will find some scapegoat or create yet another scandal to make people forget about the second Vargas wash out. Such is the way these regimes operate.
On other things
Union Radio has just put up its own photo gallery of the disaster.
A little snippet of Globovision on Vargas was fabulous. It showed the avenue in front of the Guipuzcoana in La Güaria, filled with mud and nearly impassable. And on the walls of the port there was still a painting left from August "Chavez fracasado, Revocalo" (Chavez loser, revoke him). I knew that the politicized of the Vargas disaster, from the refusal of US help to the awarding of reconstruction shoddy contracts to "friends" would come back to bite Chavez in the ass. Probably the reason why he was hiding?
On a personal note. My brother and his family finally had to board a navy ship as the situation had become untenable. They left the car, vacation bags, etc,.. behind though they were planning to tough it out with our advice. Apparently they could not hold it anymore. I only got a text message as his cel battery is running too low and he cannot give us much explanations. Right now we are waiting for the outcome as he must be shipped to La Güaira, land there and somehow be ferried up to Caracas as we are not allowed to go to that area (understandably I must say, there is little in the chaos there that we could do to find them, not to mention that I am in San Felipe). At least they made it through the most dangerous part which was to go over the rough seas from a small boat off the shore to the larger one at sea. We are worried of course, but confident that it will turn out all OK. It might take hours until we know and we must be patient.
PS: added later. Apparently the army has decided to complete evacuation of 6000 people stranded at diverse points of the shore. This tells us that the damage assesment must be worse than suspected at first. They probably know that restablishing land communication will take at least a few days, if the rains stop today, that is.
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Lil Mama, P.Star, & Miguelito: A study in how the Youngsta Card is played
Posted on April 11, 2007. Filed under: Lil Mama, Miguelito, My Musings, P.Star, young artists |
Jackson Five – ABC – Immature – Aaron Carter: All groups/artists who played the Youngsta Card and parlayed it into (for the most part) successful adult careers.
Currently on my radar are three up and comers: Lil Mama, P.Star, and Miguelito.
Lil’ Mama is a talented 17-year-old singer/rapper signed to Jive Records. She writes her own lyrics and seems to have her head on her shoulders. Her hit “Lip Gloss” is an example of teen targeted hip hop that is fun, age appropriate (wow!), upbeat, and clever.
If I had a young daughter (I don’t currently, thank you Jesus) I would not mind her listening to Lil’ Mama’s music. It’s not exactly a Baby Einstein DVD but you can’t force feed “intelligent” content on your kids 24/7. Lip Gloss is fun, dancible, and addictive. I’m not worried that my imaginary daughter would think that magical lip gloss would make her instantly cool – I would see it more as the power of imagination and healthy self esteem resulting in a hallway dance off. Fun!
What I like about Lil’ Mama is that she isn’t (yet) marketing herself as some over sexualized teenybopper for the sake of record sales. I believe she has a long career ahead of her and look forward to seeing what else she ends up doing.
A younger example of age appropriate, fun & cute young talent is P.Star.
This “young feminist phenomenon” has been rapping since she was seven. I actually saw her perform by accident when I randomly attended a freestyle competition in 2005. She was featured on MTV’s You Hear It First last year, and has penned songs about the struggles of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. Her first single, “Biggie Bounce,” is full of shout-outs to clubs, rides and cribs. “I Got It Made” is a throwback to the boastful party rhymes of old.
Here is a clip of a live performance from a year ago:
This extraordinarily talented little girl is all over the place. From TV spots, to modeling, to her music career - she's definitely the whole package. P.Star is another age appropriate talent who doesn't seem to be in a hurry to grow up before her time. It will be interesting to see how long she can hold on to her "feminist" persona (and zero-cuss word policy) and if the onset of puberty will mean booty short photo ops, or something more positive.
...Then there's 8 year old Miguelito.
Crowned Daddy Yankee's youngest protege, his album "Mas Grande que Tu" has been No. 16 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart since January. He has made appearances on Sabado Gigante and the family- oriented "Que Brillen los Ninos y sus Madres," has a deal with Disney Travel (his own package), and was recently interviewed by Latina Magazine,
where he is presented as a cute/precocious young man talking about school, his interests, and his career aspirations.
Now check out his video for Montala:
Am I taking crazy pills, or is this kid rapping about things that for someone his age would put any female over the age of nine in jail, while grown women are grinding their crotches and asses in his face? What is going on here?
There is no denying that this second grader is talented. But the way he is being marketed both fascinates are gives me the heebie jeebies.
On one hand, he's a cute & tiny reggaeton artist with a talent well beyond his years. On the other, he's some sort of tiny pimp/player bragging about his prowess with the ladies & sex, flashing his bling and grinding up behind practically bare assed video hoes.
Perhaps its the fact that he's 8, that he has this dual angel/devil persona going on, or the fact that in interviews no one is bringing this up, but I predict that unless someone in his camp ditches this disturbing over sexualized angle pronto, this kid is going to grow up way to fast for his own good and possibly have major issues as an adult.
The closest recent comparison I can think of, of a young male artist successfully transitioning from baby star to adult star, is Bow Wow. His lyrics were braggadocios, and yes the video for Take Ya Home was kind of gross but at least the women weren't touching him.
Again, am I taking crazy pills? Making a mountain out of a molehill? No. I really think that forcing youngsters to grow up ahead of their time for the sake of "entertainment" is really sick. Miguelito is talented enough for his handlers to come up with more age appropriate content and spare him his little childhood. Yes, I'm sure 8 year olds have smacked grown women's asses before. But I bet for the most part their mother's corrected them, while this one gets bling for it.
I wouldn't put this kid on par with Michael Jackson, but seriously in my lifetime I do not want to see some tiny tot grow up with a bunch of issues because a lot of greedy adults exploited him by forcing him to behave a lot older just for the entertainment value.
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Order of Nine Angles - Dark Empathy, Adeptship, and The Sevenfold Way (59.0 Kb)
The cultivation of the faculty of Dark-Empathy is part of the training of The Seven-Fold Way an esoteric skill possessed by all genuine Adepts, and a skill, a Dark Art, whose rudiments can be learnt by undertaking the standard (basic) Grade Ritual of Internal Adept, which Ritual lasts for one particular alchemical season (around three months), and mastery of which Dark Art involves - with one exception - undertaking the advanced Grade Ritual of Internal Adept, which lasts for a different alchemical season (usually six mo... More >>>
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The cultivation of the faculty of Dark-Empathy is part of the training of The Seven-Fold Way an esoteric skill possessed by all genuine Adepts, and a skill, a Dark Art, whose rudiments can be learnt by undertaking the standard (basic) Grade Ritual of Internal Adept, which Ritual lasts for one particular alchemical season (around three months), and mastery of which Dark Art involves - with one exception - undertaking the advanced Grade Ritual of Internal Adept, which lasts for a different alchemical season (usually six months or more, depending on geographical location).
The Order of Nine Angles (ONA; O9A) is a Satanic and Left-Hand Path occult group based in the United Kingdom, but with affiliated groups in various other parts of the world. Claiming to have been established in the 1960s, it arose to public recognition in the early 1980s.
Describing its approach as "Traditional Satanism", it has been academically identified as also exhibiting Hermetic and Neo-Pagan elements in its beliefs.
According to the Order's own account, it was established in the Welsh Marches of Western England during the late 1960s by a woman who had previously been involved in a secretive pre-Christian tradition surviving in the region. This account also states that in 1973 a man named "Anton Long" was initiated into the group, subsequently becoming its Grand Master. Several academic commentators to have studied the ONA express the view that the name "Anton Long" is probably the pseudonym of the British Neo-Nazi activist David Myatt, although Myatt has denied that this is the case. From the late 1970s onward, Long authored a number of books and articles propagating the Order's ideas, and in 1988 it began production of its own journal, Fenrir. Through these ventures it established links with other Neo-Nazi Satanist groups around the world, furthering its cause through embracing the internet in the 2000s.
The ONA promotes the idea that human history can be divided into a series of Aeons, each of which contain a corresponding human civilization. It expresses the view that the current Aeonic civilization is that of the Western, but claims that the evolution of this society is threatened by the "Magian/Nazarene" influence of Judeo-Christian religion, which the Order seeks to combat in order to establish a militaristic new social order, termed the "Imperium". According to Order teachings, this is necessary in order for a Galactic civilization to form, in which "Aryan" society will colonise the Milky Way. It advocates a spiritual path in which the practitioner is required to break societal taboos by isolating themselves from society, committing crimes, embracing political extremism and violence, and carrying out an act of human sacrifice. ONA members practice magick, believing that they are able to do so through channeling energies into our own "causal" realm from an "acausal" realm where the laws of physics do not apply, with such magical actions designed to aid in the ultimate establishment of the Imperium.
The ONA lacks any central authority or structure, instead operating as a broad network of associates - termed the "kollective" - who are inspired by the texts originally authored by Long and other members of the "Inner ONA". The group comprises largely of clandestine cells, termed "nexions", as well as gangs known as Dreccs, artists known as Balobians, and folk mystics known as Rounwytha. With the first nexion based in Shropshire, Western England, the majority of groups have been established in the British Isles and Germany, although others have been formed elsewhere in Europe, Russia, South Africa, Australia, and North America. Academic estimates suggest that the number of individuals broadly associated with the Order falls in the low thousands.
Order of Nine Angles - Grimoire of Baphomet Download eBook
Order of Nine Angles - Black Book of Satan Download eBook
Order of Nine Angles - Collection of Various Manuscripts Download eBook
Order of Nine Angles - Acausality, The Dark Gods, and The Order of Nine Angles Download Arch
Order of Nine Angles - Baphomet (An Esoteric Signification) Download Arch
Aleister Crowley - Sephiroth Ha Dborim The Emanations of Words Download eBook
Patricia Telesco - A Witchs Beverages and Brews Magick Potions Made Easy Review Only eBook
Benjamin Rowe - Enochian Temples Generating The Abyss Experience With The Temple Download eBook
Frater FP - Pocket Guide To Witchcraft Download eBook
Sepharial - Eclipses Astronomically and Astologically Considered Scanned Version Download eBook
Jakob Bohme - Von der Menschwerdung Jesu Christi (1682,in German) Download Arch
Don Webb - Uncle Setnakt Sez Practice Divinity in Your Own Life Download eBook
Yves Kodratoff - Seidr Seid Sol Iss Burs and Nordic Shamanism Download eBook
Howard Phillips Lovecraft - Dreams in the Witch House Download eBook
Michael Ford - The Book of Cain Download eBook
Correllian Times Emagazine - Issue 25 September 2008 Happy Mabon Autumn Equinox Download eBook
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Aleister Crowley - In Residence The Dons Guide to Cambridge (2.0 MB)
A collection of Crowley's early poetry, published in the same years as Crowley received The Book of the Law. The poems are mostly reprinted from magazines like 'Granta,' 'Cambridge Magazine,' 'Cantab,' etc. though some were previously unpublished. Includes twenty pages of extremely interesting, humorous, and informative advertisements for works by Crowley at the rear, as well as the detachable entry form for a competition which Crowley held for the best essay to be written on his own works. This was of course the competition... More >>>
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A collection of Crowley's early poetry, published in the same years as Crowley received The Book of the Law. The poems are mostly reprinted from magazines like 'Granta,' 'Cambridge Magazine,' 'Cantab,' etc. though some were previously unpublished. Includes twenty pages of extremely interesting, humorous, and informative advertisements for works by Crowley at the rear, as well as the detachable entry form for a competition which Crowley held for the best essay to be written on his own works. This was of course the competition won by J. F. C. Fuller whose essay was said to have been the only entry, although contrary to popular beleif he did in fact receive the promised hundred pound prize. Some light discoloration to the wrappers as always and creasing to the spine, detachable entry form detached but present.
Aleister Crowley, born Edward Alexander Crowley, (12 October 1875 - 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, prolific writer and poet, mystic, astrologer, drug experimenter, hedonist, aficionado of chess and mountain climbing, sexual revolutionary and social critic. He is perhaps best known today for his occult writings, especially The Book of the Law, the central sacred text of Thelema. Crowley was also an influential member in several occult organizations, including the Golden Dawn, the Argenteum Astrum, and Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.). Crowley gained much notoriety during his lifetime, and was famously dubbed "The Wickedest Man In the World."
Aleister Crowley founded the religion of Thelema, which became adopted by the Ordo Templis Orientis (O.T.O.) as well as the magical order Argenteum Astrum, the Order of the Silver Star. He was also a highly controversial member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where he was known by the magical name of Frater Perdurabo.
Crowley's lifestyle was absolutely shocking in the era in which he lived. Besides his interest in the occult, he was sexually promiscuous with both genders (at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in Britain), frequented prostitutes, was vocally defiant against Christianity and Victorian and post-Victorian prudishness toward sexual subjects, and was a drug addict.
While Crowley detested Christianity, he considered himself an immensely religious and spiritual person. His writings record incidents of experiencing deity, and Thelemites consider him to be a prophet. In 1904, he encountered a being known as Aiwass, described as a "minister" to Horus, the central deity in Thelema, and as a Holy Guardian Angel. Aiwass dictated the Book of the Law, which Crowley wrote down and published, becoming the central Thelemic text.
Crowley's beliefs included pursuing the Great Work, which included gaining self-knowledge and uniting with the larger universe. He also encouraged seeking out one's ultimate destiny or purpose, commonly referred to as one's True Will.
Aleister Crowley - Basic Techniques of Sex Magick Download eBook
Aleister Crowley - Control of The Astral Body Download eBook
Aleister Crowley - Magick Download eBook
Aleister Crowley - The Book Of Thoth Download eBook
Aleister Crowley - Magick In Theory And Practice Download eBook
Eduard Schubert - Paracelsus Forschungen (in German) Download Arch
Alan Macfarlane - Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart Essex Download eBook
Benjamin Rowe - The Lotus Of The Temple Contacting Extraterrestrial Influences With The Enochian Temple Download eBook
Ophiel - The Art Practice of Caballa Magic Download eBook
Mike Nichols - Eight Sabbats Of Witchcraft Download eBook
Frater Julianus - Beginners Guide to Crowley Books Download eBook
Order of Nine Angles - The Authority Of Individual Judgement (Interpretation And Meaning) Download Arch
Rowan Moonstone - Pagan History The Origins of Halloween Review Only eBook
Louis Claude De Saint Martin - Eclair sur l'Association Humaine (1797,in French) Download Arch
Henry Cornelius Agrippa - Occult Philosophy and Magick Book IV Download eBook
Henry Andrew Francken - The Key Of Masonry Philosophical Lodge Of The Knights Of The Eagle Or Sun Download eBook
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Author: Jon Tatting
Future releases added to the catalog!
The following titles have been added to the ECRL catalog.
Puppet Master by Dale Brown – 8/30/16
Sting by Sandra Brown – 8/16/16
The Jealous Kind by James Lee Burke – 8/30/16
Deep Shadows by Vannetta Chapman – 7/1/16
No Way Up by Mary Connealy – 7/5/16
Insidious by Catherine Coulter – 9/6/16
Pirate by Clive Cussler – 9/13/16
Because I’m Watching by Christina Dodd – 9/6/16
Traces of Guilt by Dee Henderson – 5/3/16
Razor Girl by Carl Hiaasen – 9/6/16
Downfall by Judith A. Jance – 9/6/16
An Obvious Fact by Craig Johnson – 9/13/16
Manitou Canyon by William Kent Krueger – 9/6/16
The Wish by Beverly Lewis – 9/6/16
High Stakes by George R.R. Martin – 8/23/16
Bullseye by James Patterson – 8/1/16
A Love Transformed by Tracie Peterson – 9/6/16
First Star I See Tonight by Susan Elizabeth Phillips – 8/23/16 (more…)
New Music CDs
The following music CD titles have been added to our catalog. Click here to search for and place holds on your favorite artist. All these titles will be published in April 2016.
Bang Zoom Crazy…Hello by Cheap Trick 4/1/16
White Album by Weezer 4/1/16
Cleopatra by The Lumineers 4/8/16
NOW That’s What I Call Music 58 4/29/16
Santana IV by Santana 4/15/16
Music is Medicine by Marie Osmond 4/15/16
New Lane Road by Josh Kelley 4/22/16
Reckless by Martina McBride 4/29/16
Upland Stories by Robbie Fulks 4/1/16
Never Enders by Lonestar 4/15/16
Sign Your Support for High Speed Internet
The East Central Regional Library and all 14 of its branch libraries across six counties are encouraging community members to sign their support for equal Internet access to all.
By putting th eir name to the Minnesota Broadband Vision, residents of all generations and backgrounds are letting their local legislators know that access to affordable, high-quality broadband needs to be available in rural areas, too, for new opportunities in education, health care and the economy of tomorrow. Already supporting the initiative have been cities, counties and stakeholders including the East Central Regional Library, which is encouraging the Minnesota Legislature and governor to provide sufficient leadership, resources and legal framework to ensure the state of Minnesota achieves this vision by 2020.
In addition, ECRL encourages local residents to share their “broadband story” in terms of how limited Internet access has affected their quality of life and livelihood. Perhaps you or your child is unable to do homework. Or maybe your home business is struggling to provide a service, even as simple as printing a single document. We want to hear your stories.
Sheets designated for signatures and “broadband stories” can be found at your local ECRL library or take the online survey here until March 26.
The Blandin Foundation, Minnesota Office of Broadband Development and many other stakeholders across the state developed the Minnesota Broadband Vision at last year’s Border to Border Broadband: Better Together conference. The mission: “Everyone in Minnesota will be able to use convenient, affordable world-class broadband networks that enable us to survive and thrive in our communities and across the globe.”
Sign your support and share your “broadband story” today. For more information on this initiative, contact your local ECRL library or visit http://ecrlib.org.
Lego Parent/Child Workshops at Cambridge Public Library
Children in grades 2-5 may sign up with one parent and/or guardian for 2 – 1 ½ hour workshops on consecutive Monday and Tuesday evenings from 6:30-8:00 pm at the Cambridge Public Library. Instructors from the Youth Enrichment League will be presenting their Extreme Logo workshop for moms and daughters; father and sons; moms and sons; fathers and daughters or any parent/guardian and child combination.
Each parent and child team will be given a different project to build, test and modify. Then they use use their project to investigate basic aspects of engineering. Emphasis is place on hands-on experiential activities and kid friendly lesson plans. This is an excellent opportunity for parent and child to work together. The kids will think it’s cool and you’ll know it’s educational!
There will be three 2 – 1 ½ hours workshops offered on the following dates:
Session #1 – Monday & Tuesday, March 14 & 15 (register by March 11)
Session #2 – Monday & Tuesday, March 21 & 22 (register by March 18
Session #3 – Monday & Tuesday, April 11 & 12 –FULL (waiting list ONLY)
You must be able to attend both evenings of the workshop and you can only sign up for ONE session. The same lesson will be taught at each 2-day session. Space is VERY limited. To register for one of the two-day workshops, please stop by the Cambridge Public Library or call 763-689-7390 and ask to sign up for the Cambridge Lego workshop. We’ll need the name of the parent, child, grade the child is in and contact information. You must be able to attend both days of each session!
The workshops are made possible by a grant received by East Central Regional Library from Resource Training & Solutions, a Minnesota Service Cooperative.
ONCE UPON A READER PROGRAM
WHAT IS THE ONCE UPON A READER PROGRAM?
Once Upon a Reader, entering its 2nd year, is a Minnesota one-book program designed for pre-K children and their families. The focus of the program is to promote Minnesota children’s literature and authors and encourage families to talk, sing, read, write, and play together – five important practices that build early literacy skills. Once Upon a Reader is sponsored by the Council of Regional Public Library System Administrators (CRPLSA) and funded from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
The book chosen for the 2016 Once Upon a Reader program is Ten Pigs: an Epic Bath Adventure by Minnesota author and illustrator, Derek Anderson. For the second year as well, all children enrolled in Head Start in Minnesota will receive a paperback copy of Ten Pigs: an Epic Adventure by Derek Anderson. Books will be distributed to over 500 Head Start children in Aitkin, Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Mille Lacs and Pine counties and the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibway. This year ECRL also earmarked money from its Legacy funds to purchase a paperback book to be distributed to every licensed daycare provider and center in our 6 county-region as well.
Join Minnesota author and illustrator, Derek Anderson, for a one-of-a-kind show that will be held at three branches of East Central Regional Library on March 8 and 9 as part of the Once Upon a Reader program. He will read his book Ten Pigs: an Epic Bath Adventure aloud, lead a reenactment of the book, sketch, sing and more in his portable one-man show. Don’t miss out on this great opportunity for fun! Suitable for families and groups with children ages 0-6.
For those East Central Regional Library branches not being visited by Derek Anderson and the Ten Pigs Trunk show, we have something special for you. Nalah and the Pink Tiger is a book and also a delightful, interactive, original puppet show designed and performed by artist, author and puppeteer, Sawyer-Aitch that will be presented at each of the other eleven of East Central Regional Library. This program is free, open to the public and suited for children pre-K thru Grade 5. Nalah and the Pink Tiger program is also part of the Once Upon a Reader program.
Anne has worked with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater, Barebones Productions, Three Legged Race, Steppingstone Theatre, Artstart, Galumph Interactive Theatre, Gustavus Adolphus College, and Open Eye Figure Theatre.
All East Central Regional Library branches will also be offering the Ten Pigs: an Epic Scavenger hunt contest and Ten Bubbles: an epic early literacy adventure during March and April for children ages 0-6. Check with your local ECRL branch for the dates of each contest. Help us celebrate the Once Upon a Reader by attending the puppet show and participating in these activities at your local ECRL branch.
For more information about the Once Upon a Reader program visit the website at www.onceuponareader.org.
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8000ers
Urubko: K2 Teams Have No Chance
Angela Benavides
8000ers K2 21/02/2019
Denis Urubko.
As forecast, hurricane-force winds are currently pounding K2. The Eastern team in BC amuse themselves by posting clips of the violent gale on social media, while Alex Txikon and his Team-beyond-the-Wall enjoy slightly better shelter in their ice fortress.
https://explorersweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ALEX-TXIKON-K2-EXPEDITION-2.mp4
Back in Europe, well-known climbers from Reinhold Messner to Krzysztof Wielicki have been offering non-committal opinions about the Winter K2 season to inquiring media. Everyone, that is, except Denis Urubko, who in opinions as in climbing, is always fully committed.
The Polish-Kazakh strongman believes, first of all, that winter in the Greater Ranges ends on March 1, not March 20. Since “Txikon is sitting in BC” and Pivtsov’s high point is the Black Pyramid, Urubko claims that there’s “no chance” of success on K2 this season. “It is impossible to go to K2 without significant acclimatization [and] a well-prepared road…They do not have time,” he told a Polish publication.
Coloring Urubko’s opinion, perhaps, is his ambition to climb K2 in winter himself as the capstone to his career.
Meanwhile, the ever-analytical Messner explained the difference in style between the teams that suggests why, despite an early and rumored alliance, the two are not working together: “While the first expedition advances with a typically Soviet method, based on many days of sacrifice and constant work, even in adverse conditions, the second moves less and only then can be fast. Txikon tries to reserve as much as possible the energies, physical and mental.”
Sport journalist, published author and communication consultant. Feeling back home at ExplorersWeb after five years exploring distant professional ranges.
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Home > Mission Tools > ASP Mission Tools Suite
ASP Mission Tools Suite
Airborne Science Mission Tool Suite
Go to the Airborne Science Mission Tools Suite
The NASA Airborne Science Mission Tool Suite supports the Airborne Science Program (ASP) and the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Earth Science Division by providing a suite of web-based capabilities to support Airborne Science Missions. ASP Mission Tool Suite is the ground complement to the NASA SensorNet project, which is developing the airborne networking infrastructure to enable high speed SATCOM of aircraft parameter data, and instrument data during flight missions. The ASP Mission Tools Suite provides a common operating picture for improved situational awareness for all participants in NASA Airborne Science missions from scientists and engineers, to managers, as well as the general public. The intent of the system is to encourage more responsive and collaborative measurements between instruments on multiple aircraft, satellites, and on the surface in order to increase the scientific value of the measurements, and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of flight missions. At its most basic, ASP Mission Tool Suite provides a means for visualizing the position of the aircraft and instruments during the course of the mission. Such information is made more useful when compared with or overlaid upon other datasets and model outputs used for mission planning and science data analysis. Additionally, ASP Mission Tool Suite facilitates communication between mission team members to enable analysis and discussion of multiple data sources to help plan and execute science missions.
The ASP Mission Tool Suite contains a core set of tools that provide Airborne Science Participants with a host of capabilities:
remotely monitor real-time aircraft location
view current and archived aircraft flight tracks
ability to add information overlays from a curated product registry
customized user workspaces
communication and collaboration tools
integrated IRC client supporting multiuser and person-to-person private chat
remotely monitor real-time instrument engineering data
plotting and graphing
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5 Tips on How to Elevate Your Home: The Experts Weigh In
BY Cristina Merrill
● Sep 04, 2018-10:00 am
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Scaling furniture is just one way to enhance your home.
Personal tastes may vary among home dwellers, but there are a few things everyone can keep in mind when they want to enhance and elevate the feel of their home. Whether you live in a studio or an apartment o a townhouse or a mansion, your home is a reflection of you, and it should always look its best while also showcasing your life and interests.
ESTATENVY spoke with two professional interior designers -- Shannon Gatewood, owner of SJL Interiors in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Deb Reinhart, owner of Deb Reinhart Interior Design Group in Wilmette, Illinois.
“I’ve encountered a lot of people who tend to get overwhelmed when they think about decorating and the simple truth is that styling your home is not that different from styling your body,” Gatewood said.
Decorating a home and keeping it looking fresh doesn’t have to be expensive. It’s quite likely you even already possess items that will give your home an enhanced look and feel.
“The secret is to get your personality to be highlighted in the architecture and the furnishing,” Reinhart said, adding that a “big box store” look can be impersonal and lack the magic of wanting to pull in guests and the owner. “That is the number one mistake I think a lot of homeowners make, is that they buy into a programmed design concept,” she said.
Without further ado, here are five tips on enhancing the atmosphere of your home.
Remember the basics
Enhancing a home comes down to five major points for Gatewood: fit, color, texture, shine, and print and patterns. She takes these from her love of fashion and encourages home dwellers to think of the mood they’d like to create.
Fabric, she noted, is a good way to elevate the look of a home, whether updating rugs, throw blankets, wall hangings, lamp shades or floor cushions, and home accessories such as pillows and throw blankets are an easy way to integrate texture, print and pattern, while also creating a cozier, more welcoming space.
“In theory you want people to feel as if you really want them there when you’re hosting them in your home and I find that throw pillows and blankets do some of the work for you,” Gatewood said.
Reinhart noted that couch slipcovers are an inexpensive way to change out a library, den or living room.
“It’s a fun way of changing the character and the color and the look of a room, either seasonally or just because you’re tired of what you have,” Reinhart said.
And you don’t have to be a carpenter or electrician to make hardware changes.
“Lamp bases and sculptures are the perfect decorative accents that come in a variety of metallic finishes,” Gatewood said, adding that the hardware on kitchen cabinets, media stands and other closed storage units can easily be swapped and updated.
And when it comes to painting walls, it’s all about testing colors until you find the right one.
“Samples, samples, samples will save a lot of time and frustration on the back end when it comes to picking out color choices,” Gatewood said, adding that it’s important to test the colors at different times of the day to see how lighting affects those colors.
A great thing about paint, Gatewood noted, is that it’s a relatively easy change to make if you don’t like it, whereas wallpaper is more difficult to remove.
“Keep those kinds of things in mind when you’re selecting paint versus some kind of wall covering,” Gatewood said.
When it comes to choosing furniture and accent pieces, make sure they’ll fit in the room for which they’re destined.
“The number one rule in making a wow factor is scale,” Reinhart said, adding that she often sees DIY people take huge pieces of furniture that are not scaled to the floor space of the room. “If you are purchasing furniture, make sure the scale works to the size of the room.”
The same way that you’ll want to buy clothes that fit you, Gatewood noted, it’s the same with furniture and accent pieces.
“You want to make sure they are scaled for the size of the space you’re working in,” Gatewood said.
Accessories should be about Y-O-U
Accessories that represent you and your interests are a surefire way to enhance your home.
“Make sure the accessories and artifacts in your home represent your soul and represent your personality,” Reinhart said, adding that “Maybe you have a mirror from your grandmother. Maybe you have a bowl that was your mother’s. Maybe you have your dad’s war memorabilia. There’s something that is valuable to you. It doesn’t have to be an antique, but it does have to be meaningful.”
Walls are a terrific opportunity to display personal items. Movie and concert posters that are significant to you, for example, should be framed nicely “because we are all adults here and that tape and masking tape are not going to cut it,” Gatewood said. She noted there should be something besides a television to capture people’s attention.
“Whatever the case may be, putting something up on your walls is an opportunity to not just create visual interest in your home but can also lead to some great conversations about where you are, where you come from, where you’ve been, the kind of things you’ve seen or done, and what matters to you most,” Gatewood said.
Budget. Budget. Budget.
Setting a budget is key to home-enhancing projects. Lacking a budget often leads to confusion, as it won’t be clear what takes precedence on a project, Gatewood said.
“You can prioritize your improvement from there,” Gatewood said, adding that it’s crucial to know the style and mood you’re trying to achieve “before you spend a dime.”
Gatewood recommends that home dwellers looking to enhance their home start out by purchasing three to five new items, trying them out in the space they’re meant for, and seeing how they work together in that space. If you feel you need more products, she said, then you can purchase more until you have achieved the look and the feel that you want.
“The last thing that you want to do is overspend on all of your finds,” Gatewood said. “I don’t think anyone really wants to eat ramen on a really nice, expensive couch because they’ve overspent on that couch and on other things.”
She cited budget-friendly options such as Target, Marshalls and T.J. Maxx as preferred places to pick up accents for the home, and advises home dwellers to frequent antique, consignment and thrift shops, as well as flea markets and estate sales. By doing so, consumers can find items that come in at various price points and will maximize their budgets.
“You might be willing to splurge on a couch or a coffee table - some of those larger foundational pieces that will anchor your space - but you don’t necessarily have to spend luxury-level money on your accessories and accents,” Gatewood said.
Don’t forget the great outdoors
Enhancing your home can also involve sprucing up your outdoor spaces - think porches and backyards - and bringing some greenery indoors.
Creative lighting can go a long way in an outdoor space.
“Candles, torches, and solar-powered lights are a really wonderful addition that will enhance the ambiance,” Gatewood said.
One major suggestion Gatewood had as far as enhancing an outdoor area is to add a firepit or a fire bowl to the backyard - provided, of course, that it meets all of the necessary building codes.
“There’s just something welcoming and cozy and fun about being able to sit around a controlled fire,” Gatewood said.
Gatewood noted that people tend to overlook plants, and said they’re a great way to liven up an indoor space, as they “give us an overall sense of well-being.”
And if you don’t have a green thumb?
“Go faux,” Gatewood said. That said, not all hope is lost for the plant-challenged. Per Gatewood, “Succulents are by far the best option for anyone who doesn’t have a green thumb.”
When it comes to the outdoor decor and furniture, Reinhart noted that natural light “changes the drama of what you have out there, so mix up your color.” Incorporating more color can work wonders in an outdoor space.
“On the outside, you can be more daring in the contrast,” Reinhart said, adding that outdoor decor can be really fun and playful. “Don’t be afraid.”
Cristina Merrill
ESTATENVY Contributor
More Stories By Cristina Merrill
The opinions expressed in this section don't necessarily represent the opinions of the publication. Unless they do. Columns is all about opinion. We all have them, this is just the outlet to share them.
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US Senate Majority leader Harry Reid criticized over "Negro" comments
17 July 2019: Retired US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens dies
12 July 2019: Louisiana declares state of emergency as Tropical Storm Barry approaches U.S. coast
1 July 2019: Charlottesville, Virginia killer sentenced to life in prison
28 June 2019: Driver in New Hampshire multi-motorcycle crash pleads not guilty
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Location of United States
Senator Harry Reid
Image: United States Congress.
Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who is US Senate Majority leader, is under a lot of criticism over comments he made during the 2008 United States presidential election, toward US President Barack Obama. The highlighted comment made by Reid was calling Obama a "light-skinned" black man "with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one." The remarks were released in a book co-written by Time magazine reporter Mark Halperin, and New York magazine reporter John Heileman.
Reid has since apologized for "using such a poor choice of words." President Obama quickly accepted the apology. Reid has been a partner with the Obama Administration on issues such as health care reform. Democratic Party chairman Tim Kaine told Meet the Press "the comments were unfortunate and they were insensitive", but "I think the case is closed because President Obama has spoken directly with the leader [Reid] and accepted his apology. [...] We're moving on."
Members of the Republican Party have called on Reid to resign over his comments. Party chairperson Michael Steele told Fox News Sunday "There is this standard where the Democrats feel that they can say these things and they can apologize when it ... comes from the mouths of their own. But if it comes from anyone else, it's racism,". Having appeared alongside Kaine, where the Democrat Party chairman stated the case was closed, Steele argued that there was a double standard, on the basis of then-Senator Obama calling in 2002 calling for Trent Lott, at that time the majority leader, to be ousted for supporting the views of Strom Thurmond, who stood as a segregationist Presidential candidate in 1948.
The book Game Change published today, also says that New York Senator Chuck Schumer encouraged Barack Obama to run in early 2006, even though he later endorsed his former colleague Hillary Clinton. Other revelations included that John McCain's aides were concerned about Sarah Palin's failure to understand basic facts prior to her ABC News interviews with Charles Gibson, including why North Korea and South Korea are separate countries.
Co-authors Halpern and Heileman have a history of vocal criticism of media coverage of the 2008 Presidential election. In late 2008, Daily Kos reporter Jed Lewison drew attention to comments by Halpern, on-stage with Heilmen, asserting the reportage was, "extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage"; he characterised election coverage as, "the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war". Halpern's centrepiece example was an analysis of New York Times profiles on the prospective First Ladies; overlooking earlier NYT coverage that reported on Obama's Caucasian ancestors being slave owners.
NBC. "RNC Chairman Steele, Govs. Kaine, Schwarzenegger on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’" — CQpolitics.com, January 10, 2010
Todd Eastham. "Republicans call on Senator Reid to quit post" — Reuters, January 10, 2010
Jeff Zeleny. "G.O.P. Chairman Pressures Reid on Obama Remarks" — The New York Times, January 10, 2010
"GOP chair: Reid should step down following race remark" — CNN, January 10, 2010
"Harry Reid taking heat for Obama remarks" — USA Today, January 10, 2010
Jed Lewison. "Defending The Media From Halperin's Tin-Foil Attack" — Daily Kos, December 1, 2008
Retrieved from "https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=US_Senate_Majority_leader_Harry_Reid_criticized_over_%22Negro%22_comments&oldid=4457273"
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Today's Kindle Daily Deal & Free App of the Day
November 5, 2013 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment
Each day, Amazon sponsors the Kindle Daily Deal and the Free App of the Day.
Amazon’s Kindle Daily Deal is a one-day only offer where a specific Kindle book for adults, one for young readers (children or young adults), a romance, and a science fiction / fantasy title have been hand-selected by the editors at Amazon and significantly discounted for today only. Amazon has recently changed it up and is offering an additional genre for the Daily Deal: today’s additional genre is History.
Amazon’s free App of the Day can be utilized on a Kindle Fire and Android-based smartphones and tablet computers, and the app can be a game, utility, or who knows? Each app is offered free for 24 hours and, after that period is over it goes back to paid status and a new app is the Free App of the Day.
Today’s Kindle Daily Deal for adults is A Cruise to Die For, by Aaron Elkins and Charlotte Elkins, and this book was $9.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 80% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4 out of 5 stars based on 89 customer reviews.
Today’s Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Rainstack!, by Onur Tukel, and this book was $9.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 80% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars based on 26 customer reviews.
Today’s Science Fiction / Fantasy Daily Deal is The Daedalus Incident, by Michael J. Martinez, and this book was $15.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 88% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars based on 13 customer reviews.
Today’s Romance Daily Deal is Intimate Surrender , by Laura Landon, and this book was $9.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 80% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4 out of 5 stars based on 36 customer reviews.
Today’s History Daily Deal is This Time We Win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive , by James S. Robbins, and this book was $17.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 89% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars based on 21 customer reviews.
You can check each of them out if you click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the A Cruise to Die For book description from the Amazon website:
This should be the cushiest job Alix London’s ever had.
The second Alix London mystery finds the art restorer in a world brimming with idle luxury, spectacular locations, and deadly intrigue.
Surrounded by art and wealth and the sun-drenched Greek isles, she’s aboard a sumptuous mega-yacht with no responsibilities save the occasional lecture to the guests of her temporary employer, Panos Papadakis, one of the world’s richest men. But there’s a catch: Papadakis has long been suspected of being at the center of a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme and Alix is actually there as an undercover operative of FBI special agent Ted Ellesworth, a member of the Bureau’s Art Crime Team. They hope Alix can gather the inside information they need to finally put the cagey Papadakis away.
Alix’s exposure to the enormous wealth of high-end collectors and the shadier aspects of the art trade—the avarice, naked greed, and ingenious scams—somehow brings her closer to her charming, “reformed” rogue of a father, and helps crystalize in her own mind just where she fits into the mix.
Moguls, murders, a forged Manet, and the Albanian mafia all play a role and send this pleasure cruise into brutally dangerous waters.
Set on the Aegean—Homer’s fabled “wine-dark sea”—with stops at enchanted islands where ancient legends still live, A Cruise to Die For delivers a witty blend of suspense and mystery, as well as an insider’s take on the contemporary art world and its eccentric characters. It’s all served up with the style and sophistication with which Charlotte and Aaron Elkins have rewarded mystery readers for the past 30 years.
You can pick up your copy of A Cruise to Die For by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the Rainstack! book description from the Amazon website:
The animals are suffering from a drought in the dry, dusty valley. They are worried that their river is drying up, but then Rabbit, who has always been a talented inventor, makes a robot. Still, the robot alone cannot solve the problem. All the animals have to work together to make it rain.
You can pick up your copy of Rainstack! by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the Intimate Surrender book description from the Amazon website:
The bewitchingly beautiful Hannah Bartlett never meant to fall in love, and certainly not with a vicar. But when she meets Vicar Rafe Waterford, she discovers a warmth and tenderness she’s searched for her entire life. Not until it’s too late does she realize that Rafe holds more than the key to her heart; he possesses the power to destroy her—especially when he discovers who she really is.
For years, Vicar Rafe Waterford’s family has made every attempt to find him a wife and see him settled down. Yet, no lady has enchanted him enough to draw him into matrimony…until he crosses paths with the breathtakingly beautiful Miss Hannah Bartlett. Struck by her wit, her charm, and her heart overflowing with love and compassion, he relentlessly pursues her. But when he discovers the secret she’s kept from him, that she is Madam Genevieve, owner of London’s most famous bordello, their love is tested beyond all measure.
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of Intimate Surrender .
Here is the The Daedalus Incident book description from the Amazon website:
Mars is supposed to be dead…
a fact Lt. Shaila Jain of the Joint Space Command is beginning to doubt in a bad way.
Freak quakes are rumbling over the long-dormant tectonic plates of the planet, disrupting its trillion-dollar mining operations and driving scientists past the edges of theory and reason. However, when rocks shake off their ancient dust and begin to roll—seemingly of their own volition—carving canals as they converge to form a towering structure amid the ruddy terrain, Lt. Jain and her JSC team realize that their realize that their routine geological survey of a Martian cave system is anything but. The only clues they have stem from the emissions of a mysterious blue radiation, and a 300-year-old journal that is writing itself.
Lt. Thomas Weatherby of His Majesty’s Royal Navy is an honest 18th-century man of modest beginnings, doing his part for King and Country aboard the HMS Daedalus, a frigate sailing the high seas between continents…and the immense Void between the Known Worlds. Across the Solar System and among its colonies—rife with plunder and alien slave trade—through dire battles fraught with strange alchemy, nothing much can shake his resolve. But events are transpiring to change all that.
With the aid of his fierce captain, a drug-addled alchemist, and a servant girl with a remarkable past, Weatherby must track a great and powerful mystic, who has embarked upon a sinister quest to upset the balance of the planets—the consequences of which may reach far beyond the Solar System, threatening the very fabric of space itself.
Set sail among the stars with this uncanny tale, where adventure awaits, and dimensions collide!
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of The Daedalus Incident .
Here is the This Time We Win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive book description from the Amazon website:
Most of what Americans have heard about the Tet Offensive is wrong. The brief battles in early 1968 during the Vietnam conflict marked the dividing line between gradual progress toward possible victory and slow descent to a humiliating defeat. That the enemy was handily defeated on the ground was considered immaterial; that it could mount attacks at all was deemed a military triumph for the Communists. This persistent view of Tet is a defeatist story line that continues to inspire America’s foreign enemies and its domestic critics of the use of force abroad.
In This Time We Win, James S. Robbins at last provides an antidote to the flawed Tet mythology still shaping the perceptions of American military conflicts against unconventional enemies and haunting our troops in combat. In his re-examination of the Tet Offensive, Robbins analyzes the Tet battles and their impact through the themes of terrorism, war crimes, intelligence failure, troop surges, leadership breakdown, and media bias. The result is an explosion of the conventional wisdom about this infamous surge, one that offers real lessons for today’s unconventional wars. Without a clear understanding of these lessons, we will find ourselves refighting the Tet Offensive again and again.
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of This Time We Win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive.
Free App of the Day
Today’s Free App of the Day is Starfall All About Me , and this app is normally $1.99 in the Amazon App Store but is free for today only.
Here is the app’s description from the Amazon App Store website:
Your child will love creating and interacting with his or her Me Character. Players learn essential vocabulary while making choices about everyday objects, body parts, pets, and household environments. This app is excellent for emerging readers and English language learners.
You can pick up your free copy of Starfall All About Me by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/appdeal into your web browser.
Want to have this blog sent wirelessly to your Kindle vs. reading it on your computer? Try out the free two-week subscription! Click here for the Amazon page for Free Kindle Books Plus a Few Other Tipsor type in http://smarturl.it/fkblog into your computer’s web browser.
Download the Kindle Books and Tips blog app for your Kindle Fire or Android-based smartphone or tablet – for free, of course – by clicking here or type in http://smarturl.it/fkbtfreeapp into your computer’s web browser from the Amazon App Store or click here or type in http://bit.ly/fkbtgoogle into your computer’s web browser for the Google App Store.
Filed Under: Free App of the Day, Free Kindle Games / Apps, Kindle Daily Deal, Kindle Fire Tagged With: app of the day, children's book, fantasy, history, kindle daily deal, kindle game, romance, science fiction, suspense, thriller
October 22, 2013 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment
Amazon’s Kindle Daily Deal is a one-day only offer where a specific Kindle book for adults, one for young readers (children or young adults), a romance, and a science fiction / fantasy title have been hand-selected by the editors at Amazon and significantly discounted for today only. Amazon has recently changed it up and is offering an additional genre for the Daily Deal: today’s additional genre is Political & Social Sciences.
Today’s Kindle Daily Deal for adults is Oleander Girl, by Chitra Benerjee Divakaruni, and this book was $9.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 80% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars based on 59 customer reviews.
Today’s Kindle Teen Daily Deal is Silent Harmony series, by Michele Scott, and this book was $9.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 80% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars based on 145 customer reviews.
Today’s Science Fiction / Fantasy Daily Deal is King of Swords, by Dave Duncan, and this book was $9.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 80% to just $0.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars based on 6 customer reviews.
Today’s Romance Daily Deal is actually 16 books in the Entangled series, and these book were $6.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but have been discounted 86% to just $0.99 each for today only.
Today’s Politics & Social Sciences Daily Deal is Athwart History, by Linda Bridges and Roger Kimball, and this book was $19.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 90% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars based on 12 customer reviews.
Here is the Oleander Girl book description from the Amazon website:
Beloved bestselling author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has been hailed by Abraham Verghese as a “gifted storyteller” and by People magazine as a “skilled cartographer of the heart.” Now, Divakaruni returns with her most gripping novel yet, a sweeping, suspenseful coming-of-age tale about a young woman who leaves India for America on a search that will transform her life.
THOUGH SHE WAS ORPHANED AT BIRTH, the wild and headstrong Korobi Roy has enjoyed a privileged childhood with her adoring grandparents, spending her first seventeen years sheltered in a beautiful, crumbling old mansion in Kolkata. But despite all that her grandparents have done for her, she is troubled by the silence that surrounds the circumstances of her parents’ death and clings fiercely to her only inheritance from them: the love note she found, years ago, hidden in a book of poetry that had belonged to her mother. As she grows, Korobi dreams of one day finding a love as powerful as her parents’, and it seems her wish has finally come true when she meets the charming Rajat, the only son of a high-profile business family.
Shortly after their engagement, however, a sudden heart attack kills Korobi’s grandfather, revealing serious financial problems and a devastating secret about Korobi’s past. Shattered by this discovery and by her grandparents’ betrayal, Korobi decides to undertake a courageous search across post-9/11 America to find her true identity. Her dramatic, often startling journey will ultimately thrust her into the most difficult decision of her life.
With flawless narrative instinct and a boundless sympathy for her irrepressible characters, in Oleander Girl Divakaruni brings us a perfect treat of a novel— moving, wise, and unforgettable. As The Wall Street Journal raves, “Divakaruni emphasizes the cathartic force of storytelling with sumptuous prose. . . . She defies categorization.”
You can pick up your copy of Oleander Girl by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the Silent Harmony book description from the Amazon website:
Small town seventeen-year-old Vivienne Taylor is a talented equestrian with Olympic dreams and a little something extra going on—she is also an “equine empath,” someone who has the ability to read horses’ minds and moods. When she receives a full scholarship to attend Fairmont Riding Academy, a prep school with a famous riding program, she struggles with homesickness, hazing by the school’s snooty drama queen, intense competition in the sport of three-day-eventing, and the not-altogether-unwelcome interest of a hot guy. On top of all of that the horse given to Vivienne via the scholarship is an animal that she cannot “read” or understand. When Vivienne learns that her new horse Harmony belonged to the school’s vet, who recently died in a freak accident, she senses that the horse’s aloof behavior may be the result of her witnessing this accident. But as a connection begins to unfold between Vivienne and Harmony, Vivienne begins to believe that the vet’s death was no accident at all–but rather murder–and she resolves, at considerable peril, to track down the killer.
You can pick up your copy of Silent Harmony by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
16 books in the Romance category would make for one heck of a long post. However, you can check each of them out if you click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the King of Swords book description from the Amazon website:
Rigel has always known he is not quite human, but the only clue to his origin is the otherworldly bracelet he has worn since childhood.
His search for his parentage leads him to the Starlands, where reality and fantasy have changed places. There he learns that he is a human-starborn cross, and his bracelet is the legendary magical amulet Saiph, which makes its wearer an unbeatable swordsman. Fighting off monsters, battling a gang of assassins seeking to kill him, Rigel finds honorable employment as a hero. He knows that he must die very soon if he remains in the Starlands, but he has fallen hopelessly in love with a princess and cannot abandon her.
Through the imaginative landscape of the Starlands, Rigel’s quest leads him to encounter minotaurs, sphinxes, cyclops, and more fearsome creatures in Dave Duncan’s latest fantasy series.
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of King of Swords .
Here is the Athwart History book description from the Amazon website:
For most of the last century, William F. Buckley Jr. was the leading figure in the conservative movement in America. The magazine he founded in 1955, National Review, brought together writers representing every strand of conservative thought, and refined those ideas over the decades that followed. Buckley’s own writings were a significant part of this development. He was not a theoretician but a popularizer, someone who could bring conservative ideas to a vast audience through dazzling writing and lively wit.
Culled from millions of published words spanning nearly sixty years, Athwart History: Half a Century of Polemics, Animadversions, and Illuminations offers Buckley’s commentary on the American and international scenes, in areas ranging from Kremlinology to rock music. The subjects are widely varied, but there are common threads linking them all: a love for the Western tradition and its American manifestation; the belief that human beings thrive best in a free society; the conviction that such a society is worth defending at all costs; and an appreciation for the quirky individuality that free people inevitably develop.
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of Athwart History.
Today’s Free App of the Day is Brain Trainer Special Pro , and this app is normally $0.99 in the Amazon App Store but is free for today only.
Brain Trainer is very simple but effective way how to keep your brain jogging. Brain is like a muscle and the more you train it, the better results you get in everyday life.
Supports move to SD card.
Available game modes: math ninja, save ninja, letter sequences, number sequences, memory trainer (pictures), math workout 1 and math workout 2 game modes, math madness, speedy shapes, memory letters, memory numbers, tricky colors, memorize 123, 3D CUBES, target mode, phone numbers, question mode, 18 session modes…sudoku of course and other modes like puzzle.
You can pick up your free copy of Brain Trainer Special Pro by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/appdeal into your web browser.
Filed Under: Free Kindle Games / Apps, Kindle Daily Deal, Kindle Fire Tagged With: app of the day, fantasy, free from amazon, mystery, politics, romance, science fiction, young adult
October 9, 2013 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment
Amazon’s Kindle Daily Deal is a one-day only offer where a specific Kindle book for adults, one for young readers (children or young adults), a romance, and a science fiction / fantasy title have been hand-selected by the editors at Amazon and significantly discounted for today only. Amazon has recently changed it up and is offering an additional genre for the Daily Deal: today’s additional genre is Environmental Science
Today’s Kindle Daily Deal for adults is Oxygen, by Carol Cassella, and this book was $15.00 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 87% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars based on 227 customer reviews.
Today’s Kindle Kids Daily Deal is all seven books in the Saltwater Taffy, by Eric DelaBarre and R.C. nason, and this book was $15.95 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 88% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars based on 17 customer reviews.
Today’s Science Fiction / Fantasy Daily Deal is The Status Civilizationby Robert Sheckley, and this book was $3.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 75% to just $0.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars based on 353 customer reviews.
Today’s Romance Daily Deal is Soul Seducer , by Alicia Dean, and this book was $4.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 80% to just $0.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars based on 27 customer reviews.
Today’s Environmental Science Deal is How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything Else , by Mike Berners-Lee, and this book was $14.00 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 93% to just $0.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars based on 18 customer reviews.
Here is the Oxygen book description from the Amazon website:
With the compassion of Jodi Picoult and the medical realism of Atul Gawande, Oxygen is a riveting new novel by a real-life anesthesiologist, an intimate story of relationships and family that collides with a high-stakes medical drama.
Dr. Marie Heaton is an anesthesiologist at the height of her profession. She has worked, lived and breathed her career since medical school, and she now practices at a top Seattle hospital. Marie has carefully constructed and constricted her life according to empirical truths, to the science and art of medicine. But when her tried-and-true formula suddenly deserts her during a routine surgery, she must explain the nightmarish operating room disaster and face the resulting malpractice suit. Marie’s best friend, colleague and former lover, Dr. Joe Hillary, becomes her closest confidante as she twists through depositions, accusations and a remorseful preoccupation with the mother of the patient in question. As she struggles to salvage her career and reputation, Marie must face hard truths about the path she’s chosen, the bridges she’s burned and the colleagues and superiors she’s mistaken for friends.
A quieter crisis is simultaneously unfolding within Marie’s family. Her aging father is losing his sight and approaching an awkward dependency on Marie and her sister, Lori. But Lori has taken a more traditional path than Marie and is busy raising a family. Although Marie has been estranged from her Texas roots for decades, the ultimate responsibility for their father’s care is falling on her.
As her carefully structured life begins to collapse, Marie confronts questions of love and betrayal, family bonds and the price of her own choices. Set against the natural splendor of Seattle, and inside the closed vaults of hospital operating rooms, Oxygen climaxes in a final twist that is as heartrending as it is redeeming.
You can pick up your copy of Oxygen by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the Saltwater Taffy book description from the Amazon website:
Endorsed by Teachers of the Year around the country, Eric DelaBarre’s Saltwater Taffy follows the lives of five friends as they uncover a treasure map that once belonged to the ruthless New Orleans pirate, Jean Lafitte. The discovery thrusts them from one treasure hunting adventure to the next as they try to out-wit, out-think and out-maneuver everyone from the one-legged junk-yard man and an overbearing town bully, to the creepy old man living at the top of the hill. Saltwater Taffy is a raceto-the-finish adventure that grabs the reader and never lets go.
You can pick up your copy of Saltwater Taffy by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the The Status Civilization book description from the Amazon website:
“Yes sir. Well, there are three men outside trying to kill me….”
“Quite right,” Mr. Frendlyer said. “And today is Landing Day. You came off the ship that landed today, and have been classified a peon…. I’m happy to say that everything is in order. The Landing Day Hunt ends at sundown. You can leave here with the knowledge that everything is correct and that your rights have not been violated.”
“Leave here? After sundown, you mean.”
Mr. Frendlyer shook his head and smiled sadly. “I’m afraid not. According to the law you must leave here at once.”
“But they’ll kill me!”
“That’s very true. Unfortunately it can’t be helped. A victim by definition is one who is to be killed…. We protect rights, not victims.”
Omega: Prison planet
Life Expectancy: Three years maximum
Most people are luckier than that….
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of The Status Civilization .
Here is the Soul Seducer book description from the Amazon website:
She has spent her entire life fighting death. Now she’s falling in love with him. . . .
Audra Grayson became a nurse in order to help save lives. But one night after a brutal beating, she almost loses her own. The near-death experience opens a door between the world of the living and the world beyond. Two Grim Reapers invade her life. One is charming, with the angelic blonde looks of a saint and the black soul of a psychopath. The other is dark, dangerously attractive and, in spite of her distaste for his reaper duties, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to him.
When Audra’s patients begin to die unexpectedly and her loved ones are threatened, she will risk her life—even her soul—to save them. But can she risk her heart to an inhuman being whose very purpose is to take those she is trying to save?
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of Soul Seducer .
Here is the How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything Else book description from the Amazon website:
Part green-lifestyle guide, part popular science, How Bad Are Bananas? is the first book to provide the information we need to make carbon-savvy purchases and informed lifestyle choices and to build carbon considerations into our everyday thinking.
The book puts our decisions into perspective with entries for the big things (the World Cup, volcanic eruptions, the Iraq war) as well as the small (email, ironing, a glass of beer). And it covers the range from birth (the carbon footprint of having a child) to death (the carbon impact of cremation).
Packed full of surprises — a plastic bag has the smallest footprint of any item listed, while a block of cheese is bad news — the book continuously informs, delights, and engages the reader. Solidly researched and referenced, the easily digestible figures, statistics, charts, and graphs (including a section on the carbon footprint of various foods) will encourage discussion and help people to make up their own minds about their consumer choices.
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything Else .
Today’s Free App of the Day is Weather Ex , and this app is normally $1.99 in the Amazon App Store but is free for today only.
* Weather Pro does not contain ads and requires less permissions!
Weather is exceptionally easy to use app for staying always updated with the weather conditions.
The Weather app is specifically designed to be as simple and intuitive as possible. With just one click you receive the weather condition in your status bar at your current location.
The climate state is gorgeously animated so that you can almost experience it, seeing how the weather comes alive.
The app is using Weather Underground as a data source and the live updates are really tiny so that you would not use up your data cap.
– Weather supports geo-positioning, retrieving the latest weather conditions for your current location
– An option to manually add your location
– Add and track the weather conditions in multiple locations
– Weather is one of the most lightweight weather apps on Google Play!
– Animated weather conditions – see how the weather comes alive!
– Widgets for different locations
– Hourly and weekly forecasts
– Intuitive, seamless user interface
– Support for the new lock screen widget in Android 4.2
– Weather benefits all known screen resolutions
– Offers quality support for Android devices – from Android 1.5 to Android 4.2
– Tap on the temperature to switch between Celsius and Fahrenheit
– You can allow and disable the notifications
– Choose by yourself what will be the next feature of Weather! Leave a comment or send us an e-mail and help us make Weather the best app of its kind.
You can pick up your free copy of Weather Ex by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/appdeal into your web browser.
Filed Under: Free App of the Day, Free Kindle Games / Apps, Kindle Daily Deal, Kindle Fire Tagged With: app of the day, children's book, fantasy, free from amazon, mystery, romance, science fiction
The Kindle Daily Deal & Free App of the Day
September 5, 2013 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment
Amazon’s Kindle Daily Deal is a one-day only offer where a specific Kindle book for adults, one for young readers (children or young adults), a romance, and a science fiction / fantasy title have been hand-selected by the editors at Amazon and significantly discounted for today only.
Today’s Kindle Daily Deal for adults is The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow, by Rita Leganski, and this book was $14.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 87% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars based on 89 customer reviews.
Today’s Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison, by Lois Lemski, and this book was $7.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 72% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars based on 108 customer reviews.
Today’s Science Fiction / Fantasy Daily Deal is TekWar: 1by William Shatner, and this book was $9.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 80% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars based on 25 customer reviews.
Today’s Romance Daily Deal is Falling for Frederick , by Cheryl Bolen, and this book was $9.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 80% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars based on 83 customer reviews.
Here is the The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow book description from the Amazon website:
A magical debut novel from Rita Leganski, The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow is the tale of a mute boy whose gift of wondrous hearing reveals family secrets and forgotten voodoo lore, and exposes a murder that threatens the souls of those who love him.
Bonaventure Arrow didn’t make a peep when he was born, and the doctor nearly took him for dead. But he was listening, placing sound inside quiet and gaining his bearings. By the time he turns five, he can hear flowers grow, a thousand shades of blue, and the miniature tempests that rage inside raindrops. He also hears the voice of his dead father, William Arrow, mysteriously murdered by a man known only as the Wanderer.
Exploring family relics, he opens doors to the past and finds the key to a web of secrets that both hold his family together, and threaten to tear them apart.
Set against the backdrop of 1950s New Orleans, The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow is a magical story about the lost art of listening and a wondrous little boy who brings healing to the souls of all who love him.
You can pick up your copy of The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison book description from the Amazon website:
Mary Jemison has been captured by a Shawnee war party! How will she survive?
When twelve-year-old Mary Jemison and her family are captured by Shawnee raiders, she’s sure they’ll all be killed. Instead, Mary is separated from her siblings and traded to two Seneca sisters, who adopt her and make her one of their own. Mary misses her home, but the tribe is kind to her. She learns to plant crops, make clay pots, and sew moccasins, just as the other members do. Slowly, Mary realizes that the Indians are not the monsters she believed them to be. When Mary is given the chance to return to her world, will she want to leave the tribe that has become her family?
This Newbery Honor book is based on the true story of Mary Jemison, the pioneer known as the “White Woman of the Genesee.”
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lois Lenski including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.
You can pick up your copy of Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the TekWar: 1book description from the Amazon website:
In this national bestseller, a private detective in twenty-second-century Los Angeles fights to destroy the synthetic high that nearly ruined him
Not satisfied with the thrills of being one of Greater Los Angeles’ toughest cops, Jake Cardigan turns to Tek, a computerized brain stimulant which transports the user to any reality he can imagine. He’s soon addicted to this fantasy-enabler—and it isn’t long before Cardigan is accused of dealing. When he fails to convince the mechanized jury of his innocence, the state strips his badge and sentences him to fifteen years in suspended animation. Four years later he’s awakened. His sentence has been changed, but no one will tell him why.
Cardigan’s search for answers takes him to Mexico, where a rogue scientist is attempting to rid the world of Tek. But these efforts have roused powerful enemies. Aiding this quest is the right thing to do, but for an ex-con, doing good can be the most dangerous decision of all.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of William Shatner including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of TekWar: 1.
Here is the Falling for Frederick book description from the Amazon website:
Her second day doing doctoral research in the basement archives of Siddley Hall, England’s grandest Tudor home, American Antonia Townley stumbles upon the hall’s curator with a knife plunged into his chest. Police suspect Antonia of being the killer because of two insignificant—to her—reasons: The first is the pesky matter of her fingerprints on the murder weapon. The second is the unfortunate email she had sent to her sister saying she would kill for the curator’s job.
Handsome bachelor Frederick Percy, Lord Rockford of Siddley Hall, learns that the curator was on the trail of the Percy family monstrance, the most valuable monstrance in England before Henry VIII’s dissolution. Frederick becomes convinced that the curator’s death is tied to the priceless artifact, and he must find it before the killer does to free Antonia from suspicion of murder. More importantly, Frederick vows to protect the beautiful scholar against the menacing forces after her.
But as Frederick and Antonia crisscross England seeking information on the Percy Monstrance, it becomes clear that someone is stalking her every move. Could Frederick, the man Antonia has fallen in love with, be the very person who is out to destroy her?
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of Falling for Frederick .
Today’s Free App of the Day is Flick Golf , and this app is normally $0.99 in the Amazon App Store but is free for today only.
Experience for yourself the most addictive Golf game to ever hit the Amazon App Store! Flick Golf is unique, beautiful and so challenging it’s hard to put down.
No clubs. No rules. Just flick, spin and curve your shots to try and sink that perfect hole in one. Watch out for the usual hazards: bunkers, trees, sand… and of course the wind!
We’ve added our trademark spin control, created the most beautiful hole-in-one courses around and what you have is the most addictive Golf game ever! It’s not that easy, just madly addictive.
TAKE THE CHALLENGE! Think you can master the wind and bounce to sink that ultimate hole in one? Many have tried, and failed, but remember – Practice makes perfect!
You can pick up your free copy of Flick Golf by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/appdeal into your web browser.
Want to have this blog sent wirelessly to your Kindle vs. reading it on your computer? Try out the free two-week subscription! Click here for the Amazon page for Free Kindle Books Plus a Few Other Tipsor type in http://www.tinyurl.com/fkblog into your computer’s web browser.
Filed Under: Free App of the Day, Free Kindle Games / Apps, Kindle Daily Deal, Kindle Fire Tagged With: app of the day, children's book, fantasy, free from amazon, kindle game, literary fiction, romance, science fiction, young adult
September 2, 2013 by Michael Gallagher 1 Comment
Today’s Kindle Daily Deal for adults is A Thread Unbroken, by Kay Bratt, and this book was $9.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 80% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars based on 103 customer reviews.
Today’s Kindle Teens Daily Deal is Walls Within Walls, by Maureen Sherry, and this book was $6.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 72% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars based on 15 customer reviews.
Today’s Science Fiction / Fantasy Daily Deal is Magic Bites: A Special Edition of the First Kate Daniels Novelby Ilona Andrews, and this book was $7.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 75% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars based on 426 customer reviews.
Today’s Romance Daily Deal is A Heart to Heal , by Symithia Williams, and this book was $4.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 80% to just $0.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars based on 20 customer reviews.
Here is the A Thread Unbroken book description from the Amazon website:
The exhilarating novel of an elegant woman’s subversive new chapter in life
At forty, Madame Wu is beautiful and much respected as the wife of one of China’s oldest upper-class houses. Her birthday wish is to find a young concubine for her husband and to move to separate quarters, starting a new chapter of her life. When her wish is granted, she finds herself at leisure, no longer consumed by running a sixty-person household. Now she’s free to read books previously forbidden her, to learn English, and to discover her own mind. The family in the compound are shocked at the results, especially when she begins learning from a progressive, excommunicated Catholic priest.
In its depiction of life in the compound, Pavilion of Women includes some of Buck’s most enchanting writing about the seasons, daily rhythms, and customs of women in China. It is a delightful parable about the sexes, and of the profound and transformative effects of free thought.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.
You can pick up your copy of A Thread Unbroken by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the Walls Within Walls book description from the Amazon website:
After their father, a video-game inventor, strikes it rich, the Smithfork kids find they hate their new life. They move from their cozy Brooklyn neighborhood to a swanky apartment on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. They have no friends, a nanny who takes the place of their parents, and a school year looming ahead that promises to be miserable.
And then, one day, Brid, CJ, and Patrick discover an astonishing secret about their apartment: The original owner, the deceased multimillionaire Mr. Post, long ago turned the apartment itself into a giant puzzle containing a mysterious book and hidden panels—a puzzle that, with some luck, courage, and brainpower, will lead to discovering the Post family fortune. Unraveling the mystery causes them to race through today’s New York City—and to uncover some long-hidden secrets of the past.
Maureen Sherry’s page-turning debut novel is filled with adventure, intrigue, and heart.
You can pick up your copy of Walls Within Walls by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the Magic Bites: A Special Edition of the First Kate Daniels Novel book description from the Amazon website:
New York Times bestselling author Ilona Andrews invites you to experience the first novel in the “intriguing world” (Locus) of Kate Daniels with this special edition of Magic Bites…
Kate Daniels is a down-on-her-luck mercenary who makes her living cleaning up magical problems. But when Kate’s guardian is murdered, her quest for justice draws her into a power struggle between two strong factions within Atlanta’s magic circles. Pressured by both sides to find the killer, Kate realizes she’s way out of her league—but she wouldn’t want it any other way…
This special edition includes in-depth information about the world of Kate Daniels, with descriptions of its characters and factions. Explore Kate’s Atlanta like never before with answers to FAQ and a quiz to find your place there. And don’t miss the prequel story “A Questionable Client,” as well as scenes of events in Magic Bites from Curran’s point of view.
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of Magic Bites: A Special Edition of the First Kate Daniels Novel .
Here is the A Heart to Heal book description from the Amazon website:
Shayla Monroe fled her hometown of Helena, South Carolina, after a shocking situation broke the heart of the only guy she’d ever loved. Years later, after losing her job in Atlanta with her name once again shrouded in scandal, she has nowhere to go but home.
Now a devastatingly handsome and well-respected man, Devin Jones became a successful doctor as a way to forget Shayla’s betrayal. When she returns as infamously as she left, he plans to put aside old feelings and treat her as any other person in town. But after looking into her soft brown eyes, the feelings he thought long dead quickly rush to the surface.
Ignoring rumors, disapproval from family and friends, and promises to avoid each other, the two become friends . . . then lovers. Devin wants all or nothing, but Shayla, haunted by her past, is afraid their relationship will damage what’s left of her reputation. Can two broken hearts survive the fight against past and present demons to heal and find love?
Sensuality Level: Sensual
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of A Heart to Heal .
Today’s Free App of the Day is Tennis in the Face , and this app is normally $2.99 in the Amazon App Store but is free for today only.
Tennis in the Face is a hilarious bouncer-game where you save the city from the evil Explodz Inc. with your extraordinary tennis skills. Simply move your finger on the screen, observe the aiming line, and lift your finger to serve a furious tennis smash.
The ball bounces off walls and platforms and triggers Explodz-crates, ball tubes, and countless other objects. Your actions will set off chain reactions and you’ll watch the events unfold while knocking out the enemies. The more enemies you knock out with a single serve, the higher your score!
Win levels to move to the next district and towards your ultimate goal: The destruction of Explodz mega-factory. Try to earn a crown from each level!
Join ex-tennis-pro star Pete Pagassi in his quest to save the city from the grasp of Explodz!
You can pick up your free copy of Tennis in the Face by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/appdeal into your web browser.
Filed Under: Free App of the Day, Free Kindle Games / Apps, Kindle Daily Deal, Kindle Fire Tagged With: app of the day, free from amazon, kindle daily deal
August 27, 2013 by Michael Gallagher
Today’s Kindle Daily Deal for adults is Pavilion of Women: A Novel of Life in the Women’s Quarters, by Pearl S. Buck, and this book was $14.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 87% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars based on 76 customer reviews.
Today’s Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Saving the Team, by Alex Morgan, and this book was $15.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 88% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars based on 12 customer reviews.
Today’s Science Fiction / Fantasy Daily Deal is Tears in Rainby JRosa Montero, and this book was $9.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 80% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4 out of 5 stars based on2063 customer reviews.
Today’s Romance Daily Deal is Last Man Standing , by Cindy Gerard, and this book was $7.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 75% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars based on 58 customer reviews.
Here is the Pavilion of Women: A Novel of Life in the Women’s Quarters book description from the Amazon website:
You can pick up your copy of Pavilion of Women: A Novel of Life in the Women’s Quarters by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the Saving the Team book description from the Amazon website:
From star soccer player and Olympic gold medalist Alex Morgan comes the first book in an empowering, fun-filled middle grade series about believing in yourself and working as a team.
Twelve-year-old Devin loves to play soccer. If she hadn’t just left Connecticut to move across the country, she would have been named seventh-grade captain on her school soccer team.
But now that Devin is starting seventh grade in Kentville, California, all bets are off. After all, some of the best players on the US national team come from California. She’s sure to have stiff competition. Or so she thinks.
When Devin shows up for tryouts, she discovers that the Kentville Kangaroos—otherwise known as the Kicks—are an absolute mess. Their coach couldn’t care less whether the girls win or lose. And Devin is easily one of the most talented players.
The good news is, Devin quickly makes friends with funny, outgoing Jessi; shy but sweet Zoe; and klutzy Emma. Can Devin and her newfound friends pull together and save the team from itself?
You can pick up your copy of Saving the Team by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the Tears in Rain book description from the Amazon website:
Death is inevitable. Especially when you have an expiration date.
As a replicant, or “techno-human,” Detective Bruna Husky knows two things: humans bioengineered her to perform dangerous, undesirable tasks; and she has just ten years on the United States of Earth before her body automatically self-destructs. But with “anti-techno” rage on the rise and a rash of premature deaths striking her fellow replicants, she may have even less time than she originally thought.
Investigating the mysterious deaths, Bruna delves into the fractious, violent history shared by humans and replicants, and struggles to engage the society that fails to understand her—yet created her. The deeper she gets, the deadlier her work becomes as she uncovers a vast, terrifying conspiracy bent on changing the very course of the world. But even as the darkness of her reality closes in, Bruna clings fiercely to life.
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of Tears in Rain .
Here is the Last Man Standing book description from the Amazon website:
The final “powerfully intense” (Romantic Times) Black Ops, Inc. novel from New York Times bestseller Cindy Gerard, featuring a covert private security team and electrifying romantic suspense.
Black Ops, Inc. operative Joe Green is determined to bring to justice the man responsible for former team member Bryan Tompkins’s death. He’s convinced the ambush that killed Bryan was no coincidence, but a setup. Unsure of the consequences of the battle he’s about to start, Joe distances himself from both his Black Ops, Inc. team members and the woman he loves, Bryan’s sister, Stephanie Tompkins. But Stephanie knows there must be some reason Joe broke it off, and when she hears Joe’s charged with a murder in Sierra Leone, she wastes no time in breaking him out of prison. Then they must unravel the mystery behind the ambush, and bring resolution to a long-ago betrayal….
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of Last Man Standing .
Today’s Free App of the Day is Hidden Garden Fantasy , and this app is normally $0.99 in the Amazon App Store but is free for today only.
Hidden Garden is back with even more beautiful scenes and more amazing music. Continue your journey through the Hidden Gardens in this beautiful hidden object adventure game. Hidden Garden Fantasy is the next title in the Hidden Garden series. Relax and enjoy the gorgeous scenery as you find hundreds of butterflies, birds, lady bugs, and honey bees throughout many breathtaking locations. The stunning visuals are accompanied by four new equally stunning musical compositions.
You can pick up your free copy of Hidden Garden Fantasy by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/appdeal into your web browser.
Filed Under: Free App of the Day, Free Kindle Games / Apps, Kindle Daily Deal, Kindle Fire Tagged With: app of the day, children's book, fantasy, free from amazon, literary fiction, romance, science fiction
August 20, 2013 by Michael Gallagher 1 Comment
Today’s Kindle Daily Deal for adults is actually four novels in the Triple Threat, by Lis Wiehl and April Henry, and each of these books were $9.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but have been discounted 80% to just $1.99 for today only.
Today’s Kindle Teen Daily Deal is Adaptation, by Malinda Lo, and this book was $17.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 83% to just $2.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars based on 38 customer reviews.
Today’s Science Fiction / Fantasy Daily Deal is The Scarlet Figby Avram Davidson, and this book was $4.67 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 35% to just $3.03 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4 out of 5 stars based on 2 customer reviews.
Today’s Romance Daily Deal is actually 22 different titles that have been discounted to $1.99 or less (most seem to be proced at 99 cents) for today only.
For the sake of time and length of the post, I am not going to list out each of the Triple Threatbooks with the cover photo and description from the Amazon website; however, you can click here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to see all four books.
Here is the Adaptation book description from the Amazon website:
Reese can’t remember anything from the time between the accident and the day she woke up almost a month later. She only knows one thing: She’s different now.
Across North America, flocks of birds hurl themselves into airplanes, causing at least a dozen to crash. Thousands of people die. Fearing terrorism, the United States government grounds all flights, and millions of travelers are stranded.
Reese and her debate team partner and longtime crush David are in Arizona when it happens. Everyone knows the world will never be the same. On their drive home to San Francisco, along a stretch of empty highway at night in the middle of Nevada, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won’t tell them what happened, where they are–or how they’ve been miraculously healed.
Things become even stranger when Reese returns home. San Francisco feels like a different place with police enforcing curfew, hazmat teams collecting dead birds, and a strange presence that seems to be following her. When Reese unexpectedly collides with the beautiful Amber Gray, her search for the truth is forced in an entirely new direction–and threatens to expose a vast global conspiracy that the government has worked for decades to keep secret.
Adaptation is a bold contemporary science-fiction thriller from the acclaimed author of Ash.
You can pick up your copy of Adaptation by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the The Scarlet Fig book description from the Amazon website:
The Last Manuscript of a Master
It began with an accident, as if Fate had a plan for Vergil Magus . . .
After his trials in the Very Rich City of Averno but before his crowning achievement of a certain magic mirror, the great sorcerer and alchemist finds himself on a journey nothing short of epic. Sure he is slated for death in Rome, Vergil seeks safety in the far reaches of the Empire—and finds a world teeming with wonders and magical oddities.
The “unhistoric” sea adventure is a deft mix of fantastic fact and fable, showcasing the author’s keen attention to the often forgotten connections between them.
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of The Scarlet Fig .
Similar to today’s Kindle Daily Deal for adults, I’m not going to list out all 22 of the romance deals. However, you can
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to check each of them out.
Today’s Free App of the Day is Monkey Boxing , and this app is normally $2.99 in the Amazon App Store but is free for today only.
Enter the Monkey Boxing League with Monkey Boxing!
Step inside the ring, do powerful K.O.s and combos, customize your monkey, and compete for HUGE Trophies!
You can pick up your free copy of Monkey Boxing by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/appdeal into your web browser.
Filed Under: Free App of the Day, Free Kindle Games / Apps, Kindle Daily Deal, Kindle Fire Tagged With: app of the day, fantasy, free from amazon, mystery, romance, science fiction, thriller, young adult
August 16, 2013 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment
Today’s Kindle Daily Deal for adults is The Corpse Reader, by Antonio Garrido and Tom Burnstead, and this book was $9.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 80% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars based on 348 customer reviews.
Today’s Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Sherlock Bones and the Missing Cheese, by Susan Stevens Crummel and Dorothy Donohue, and this book was $9.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 80% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars based on 32 customer reviews.
Today’s Science Fiction / Fantasy Daily Deal is Transmigrationby J.T. McIntosh, and this book was $3.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 75% to just $0.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars based on 3 customer reviews.
Today’s Romance Daily Deal is The Perfect Marriage , by Kimberla Lawson Roby, and this book was $19.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 85% to just $2.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars based on 308 customer reviews.
Here is the The Corpse Reader book description from the Amazon website:
After his grandfather dies, avid scholar and budding forensic investigator Cí Song begrudgingly gives up his studies to help his family. But when another tragedy strikes, he’s forced to run and also deemed a fugitive. Dishonored, he has no choice but to accept work as a lowly gravedigger, a position that allows him to sharpen his corpse-reading skills. Soon, he can deduce whether a person killed himself—or was murdered.
His prowess earns him notoriety, and Cí receives orders to unearth the perpetrator of a horrific series of mutilations and deaths at the Imperial Court. Cí’s gruesome investigation quickly grows complicated thanks to old loyalties and the presence of an alluring, enigmatic woman. But he remains driven by his passion for truth—especially once the killings threaten to take down the Emperor himself.
Inspired by Song Cí, considered to be the founding father of CSI-style forensic science, this harrowing novel set during the thirteenth-century Tsong Dynasty draws readers into a multilayered, ingenious plot as disturbing as it is fascinating.
In 2012, The Corpse Reader received the Zaragoza International Prize for best historical novel published in Spain (Premio Internacional de Novela Histórica Ciudad de Zaragoza).
You can pick up your copy of The Corpse Reader by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the Sherlock Bones and the Missing Cheese book description from the Amazon website:
What’s that smell in the Dell? It comes from a cheese, a great big cheese, a smelly, scrumptious cheese, if you please, made from the milk of a cantankerous cow—oh, wow! The one-horned, two-eared, three-legged Cowabunga!
But the Cowabunga cheese has gone missing, and Sherlock Bones is on the case! That brainy bloodhound must use all five of his senses to track down the thief.
Children will have fun following the clues in this roll-off-your-tongue read-aloud inspired by the popular children’s song “The Farmer in the Dell” and illustrated with Dorothy Donohue’s lively signature cut-paper artwork.
You can pick up your copy of Sherlock Bones and the Missing Cheese by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the Transmigration book description from the Amazon website:
One man’s terrifying journey out of his mind – and into many others!
Fletcher was dying. But it wasn’t that simple. His mind refused to follow his body; instead, it moved from brain to brain: young, old, healthy, ill, men, women. But now he found himself in the brain of Charles Searle, the twisted scientist who had altered Fletcher’s mind, leaving him a disembodied personality.
Fletcher now shared his brain.
And Searle was dying.
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of Transmigration .
Here is the The Perfect Marriage book description from the Amazon website:
The New York Times bestselling novel from the author of the Reverend Curtis Black series…
ADDICTION. DECEPTION.
PRETTY PICTURES HIDE UGLY SECRETS.
Denise and Derrek Shaw are the perfect American couple. Happily married for fifteen years, they have a wonderful daughter, Mackenzie, successful careers, and a beautiful home in a posh Chicago suburb. They are attractive, respected . . . and hiding a shocking secret: a dangerous addiction to drugs.
It started innocently enough. Denise occasionally used prescription drugs to help her deal with the long hours and demanding nature of her job. Derrek, also under pressure at work, began using cocaine socially with some of his colleagues.
They can quit whenever they want to. At least, that’s what Denise would like to believe . . .
As her job becomes more stressful, Denise can no longer get through the day without a fix. Derrek realizes his harmless habit has become anything but, and desperately wants to get clean. However, his attempts are derailed when there is a sudden family tragedy. Once soul mates, now this husband and wife are quickly losing the immense love that had been the cornerstone of their marriage. With her parents spiraling out of control, Mackenzie makes an unexpected move to take matters into her own hands. Is her sacrifice too late-or is there still hope? Is there a final chance to save the Shaw family?
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of The Perfect Marriage .
Today’s Free App of the Day is Turbo Movie Storybook , and this app is normally $2.99 in the Amazon App Store but is free for today only.
Turbo Movie Storybook lets fans ride along for the greatest under-snail story of all time. Turbo has big dreams of becoming a race car driver like his hero, Guy Gagné, but his brother Chet doesn’t understand his need for speed. Turbo believes that no dreams are too big and no dreamer too small. Will Turbo make his dreams come true and race in the Indy 500? Join Turbo, Chet, Tito, Whiplash, Smoove Move, Burn, and colorful cast of characters to find out if Turbo can cross the finish line!
The storybook features Auto Play, Read To Me, and Read To Myself narration options with genuine character audio from the movie.
You can pick up your free copy of Turbo Movie Storybook by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/appdeal into your web browser.
Filed Under: Free App of the Day, Free Kindle Games / Apps, Kindle Daily Deal, Kindle Fire Tagged With: app of the day, children's book, contemporary fiction, fantasy, free from amazon, historical fiction, kindle game, romance, science fiction, young adult
Today’s Kindle Daily Deal for adults is City of Dreams, by Beverly Swerling, and this book was $17.00 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 88% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars based on 95 customer reviews.
Today’s Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Stink: The Incredible Shrinking Kid , by Megan McDonald and Peter H. Reynolds, and this book was $4.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 80% to just $0.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars based on 28 customer reviews.
Today’s Science Fiction / Fantasy Daily Deal is I Am Legendby Richard Matheson, and this book was $7.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 75% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars based on 872 customer reviews.
Today’s Romance Daily Deal is Knight Awakened , by Coreene Callahan, and this book was $9.99 yesterday in the Amazon Kindle Store but has been discounted 80% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars based on 107 customer reviews.
Here is the City of Dreams book description from the Amazon website:
In 1661, Lucas Turner, a barber surgeon, and his sister, Sally, an apothecary, stagger off a small wooden ship after eleven weeks at sea. Bound to each other by blood and necessity, they aim to make a fresh start in the rough and rowdy Dutch settlement of Nieuw Amsterdam; soon lust, betrayal, and murder will make them mortal enemies. In their struggle to survive in the New World, Lucas and Sally make choices that will burden their descendants with a legacy of secrets and retribution, and create a heritage that sets cousin against cousin, physician against surgeon, and, ultimately, patriot against Tory.
In what will be the greatest city in the New World, the fortunes of these two families are inextricably entwined by blood and fire in an unforgettable American saga of pride and ambition, love and hate, and the becoming of the dream that is New York City.
You can pick up your copy of City of Dreams by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the Stink: The Incredible Shrinking Kid book description from the Amazon website:
Becker Drane’s coolest job in The World-as a Fixer in The Seems-is in jeopardy. So when a trainload of Thought goes missing, Becker reluctantly agrees to join a veteran team of Fixers on a mission in The Middle of Nowhere. Turns out getting the train back on track is just a temporary Fix, and Becker’s real mission just might end his Fixing days forever. This third book takes readers deeper into The Seems than ever before. It’s a nail-biting thrill ride at every turn.
You can pick up your copy of Stink: The Incredible Shrinking Kid by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser.
Here is the I Am Legend book description from the Amazon website:
Robert Neville has witnessed the end of the world. The entire population has been obliterated by a vampire virus. Somehow, Neville survived. He must now struggle to make sense of everything that has happened and learn to protect himself against the vampires who hunt him constantly. He must, because perhaps there is nothing else human left.
I Am Legend was a major influence in horror and brought a whole new thematic concept to apocalyptic literature. Several humanistic and emotional themes in this book blend the horror genre with traditional fiction: we see Neville as an emotional person, and observe as he suffers bouts of depression, dips into alcoholism and picks up his strength again to fight the vampiric bacteria that has infected (and killed off) most of humankind. Neville soon meets a woman, Ruth, (after three years alone), who seems to be uninfected and a lone survivor. The two become close and he learns from Ruth that the infected have learned to fight the disease and can spend short amounts of time in the daylight, slowly rebuilding strength and society as it was.
The novel was adapted to film in 1964 as The Last Man on Earth, as Omega Man in 1971 and finally as I am Legend in 2007, starring Will Smith.
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of I Am Legend .
Here is the Knight Awakened book description from the Amazon website:
In AD 1331, warlord Vladimir Barbu seizes control of Transylvania. But in spite of his bloody triumph, his claim to the throne remains out of reach. The king of Hungary opposes his rule, the Transylvanian people despise his brutal ways, and the high priestess needed to crown him has vanished without a trace. But Barbu hasn’t come this far only to be thwarted by a woman. He unleashes his best hunters to track her down and bring her to him—dead or alive.
For Xavian Ramir, killing is the only life he has ever known. Torn from his family when he was a child, he was trained from an early age to be an elite assassin. But now he longs for something more, vowing to start anew after one last job. The bounty on his target’s head is enough to set him up for good—if he can resist the long-dead conscience that stirs to life when he meets his beautiful mark.
Afina Lazar never wanted to become high priestess, but the brutal murders of her beloved mother and sister leave her no choice. Now she is running for her life, desperate to protect the magical amulet entrusted to her care. But when Barbu’s assassin comes for her, she realizes her only chance of stopping the warlord’s rise to power is to convince this enigmatic—and handsome—hunter that she is more valuable alive than dead.
Dramatic and fast-paced, Knight Awakened is a stirring love story between two people searching for a second chance in a magical world of assassins, warlords, unearthly beasts, and nonstop adventure.
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of Knight Awakened .
Today’s Free App of the Day is Pic Shop – Photo Editor , and this app is normally $4.99 in the Amazon App Store but is free for today only.
Full-Featured Photo Editor for Android
PicShop – Photo Editor features a beautiful design combined with tons of editing options and dozens of filters. With support for HD images up to 8MP, PicShop is great for serious photographers as well as casual. Post your perfected photos to Facebook, Twitter or e-mail with a single click.
The UI Layer for PicShop is fully GPU accelerated, which translates into extremely low battery consumption, and a beautifully smooth 60hz interface. This app is a joy to use.
Photo Editing Controls
The Editing Suite includes Color/Saturation, Brightness/Contrast, Sharpen/Blur, Tilt Shift, Depth of Field, Blemish Remover, RedEye Remover, Auto-Correction, Crop, Rotate, and Flip.
• Full Editing Suite
• Filters and Effects
• Frames and Overlays
• Sketch Mode w/ 8 different brushes
• Meme Maker (YES RLY)
• Speech Bubbles
• Text w/ Adjustable Font
• Fun Stickers (Hats, Moustaches, Love etc)
• Social Integration (Facebook, Twitter, Email)
• Customize app with your own personal theme
You can pick up your free copy of Pic Shop – Photo Editor by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/appdeal into your web browser.
Filed Under: Free App of the Day, Free Kindle Games / Apps, Kindle Daily Deal, Kindle Fire Tagged With: app of the day, children's book, fantasy, free from amazon, historical fiction, kindle daily deal, kindle game, romance, science fiction
August 3, 2013 by Michael Gallagher Leave a Comment
Today’s Kindle Daily Deal for Adults is Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West, by Stephen E. Ambrose, and this book was $18.00 yesterday but has been discounted 89% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars based on 500 customer reviews.
Today’s Kindle Kids Daily Deal is The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett, and this book was $15.99 yesterday but has been discounted 88% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars based on 210 customer reviews.
Today’s Kindle Sci-Fi / Fantasy Daily Deal is Wolfhound Century, by Peter Higgins, and this book was $9.99 yesterday but has been discounted 70% to just $2.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars based on 12 customer reviews.
Today’s Kindle Romance Daily Deal is Highland Fling: 1 , by Amanda Scott, and this book was $7.99 yesterday but has been discounted 75% to just $1.99 for today only. This book has received an average user rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars based on 6 customer reviews.
Here is the Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West book description from the Amazon website:
In this sweeping adventure story, Stephen E. Ambrose, the bestselling author od D-Day, presents the definitive account of one of the most momentous journeys in American history. Ambrose follows the Lewis and Clark Expedition from Thomas Jefferson’s hope of finding a waterway to the Pacific, through the heart-stopping moments of the actual trip, to Lewis’s lonely demise on the Natchez Trace. Along the way, Ambrose shows us the American West as Lewis saw it — wild, awsome, and pristinely beautiful. Undaunted Courage is a stunningly told action tale that will delight readers for generations.
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West .
Here is the The Wee Free Men book description from the Amazon website:
A nightmarish danger threatens from the other side of reality . . .
Armed with only a frying pan and her common sense, young witch-to-be Tiffany Aching must defend her home against the monsters of Fairyland. Luckily she has some very unusual help: the local Nac Mac Feegle—aka the Wee Free Men—a clan of fierce, sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men.
Together they must face headless horsemen, ferocious grimhounds, terrifying dreams come true, and ultimately the sinister Queen of the Elves herself. . . .
A Story of Discworld
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of The Wee Free Men .
Here is the Wolfhound Century book description from the Amazon website:
Investigator Vissarion Lom has been summoned to the capital in order to catch a terrorist — and ordered to report directly to the head of the secret police.
A totalitarian state, worn down by an endless war, must be seen to crush home-grown insurgents with an iron fist. But Lom discovers Mirgorod to be more corrupted than he imagined: a murky world of secret police and revolutionaries, cabaret clubs and doomed artists.
Lom has been chosen because he is an outsider, not involved in the struggle for power within the party. And because of the sliver of angel stone implanted in his head.
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of Wolfhound Century .
Here is the Highland Fling: 1 book description from the Amazon website:
Forbidden passion has never been more dangerous—or more irresistible—in the first novel of bestselling author Amanda Scott’s spellbinding Highland series
Scotland, 1750. In the aftermath of the Jacobite rebellion, Maggie MacDrumin vows to keep fighting to liberate her people. But the intrepid Scotswoman is risking her life for a dangerous cause. When her latest mission lands her in a London courtroom on a trumped-up larceny charge, she has only one hope of survival. Enlisting the aid of Edward Carsley, the powerful fourth Earl of Rothwell, is a two-edged sword. The seductive aristocrat who awakens treacherous desire is her clan’s mortal enemy—a man she can never trust.
Edward will do whatever it takes to quell another bloody uprising. But how can he fight his passion for the rebellious Highland beauty in his safekeeping? As their lives come under siege, Maggie lays claim to the one thing Edward vowed never to surrender: his heart.
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/dailydeal into your web browser to pick up your copy of Highland Fling: 1 .
Today’s Free App of the Day is Magic Academy 2: Mystery Tower , and this app is normally $2.99 in the Amazon App Store but is free for today only.
Trouble is brewing in the world of magic: A priceless treatise has gone missing and if it falls into the wrong hands, a demon that was banished long ago could be summoned from exile… It’s up to you to start your investigation and find out who has been tempted by the ancient demon and has started negotiating with powers of darkness!
Magic Academy is a fascinating hidden object puzzle adventure game that mixes hidden object hunts with mini-games. It was developed by a team of professionals including: script writers, artists, and real-life wizards, who created a unique, magical setting. Together they created mysterious game play and the magical aura of Tirisfal Fortress and Magic Academy.
– Fantastic storyline
– Dynamic gameplay: hidden object searches and puzzles unlock the adventure
– Interactive spells
– Charmed mini-games
– Splendid graphics
– Magical soundtrack
Will you manage to find the priceless Treatise on Light and Darkness? Hurry, the fate of the world is in your hands!
You can pick up your free copy of Magic Academy 2: Mystery Tower by clicking here or typing in http://smarturl.it/appdeal into your web browser.
Filed Under: Free App of the Day, Free Kindle Games / Apps, Kindle Daily Deal, Kindle Fire Tagged With: app of the day, children's book, fantasy, free from amazon, historical fiction, history, kindle game, mystery, romance, science fiction, thriller
The FKBT Free App
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Florida Wildlife
Mapping the best places for wildlife viewing & photography in Florida
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Audubon of the Everglades
Society of the Everglades - Florida Audubon Chapter based in Palm Beach County
Project Perch is working to save burrowing owls in Palm Beach County. The Audubon Society of the Everglades is having a meeting to discuss the project on July 11.
Great Florida Birding Trail
The Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail is a network of 510 premier wildlife viewing sites across the state. When you want to know where to go in Florida to see native birds, butterflies and more, head for the Trail. It?s Your Road to Adventure!
Atlas of Florida Plants
Florida has over 4,700 species of native or naturalized plants in Florida, including over 4,300 species of vascular plants and over 400 species of bryophytes (plants known only from cultivation are not included).
Florida Friendly Landscaping
Florida-Friendly Landscaping? (FFL) means using low-maintenance plants and environmentally sustainable practices. Learn how you can have a beautiful landscape that could save you time, energy and money while protecting our future
Florida Friendly Plants
Learn about Florida Friendly landscaping and gardening, Florida native plants and lawn care
Florida Native Plant Society
The Mission of the Florida Native Plant Society is to promote the preservation, conservation, and restoration of the native plants and native plant communities of Florida.
Invasive and Exotic Species
A Field Guide for the Identification of Invasive Plants in Southern Forests
Mounts Botanical Gardens
Now celebrating 40 years and with a mission to "inspire and educate through nature," Mounts Botanical Garden is Palm Beach County?s oldest and largest botanical garden with more than 2,000 species of tropical and sub-tropical plants.
The Florida Master Naturalist Program
The mission of the Florida Master Naturalist Program (FMNP) is to promote awareness, understanding, and respect of Florida's natural world among Florida's citizens and visitors.
University of Florida Yards and Gardens
EDIS is the Electronic Data Information Source of UF/IFAS Extension, a collection of information on topics relevant to you.
Everglades Coaltion
The Everglades Coalition is an alliance of more than sixty local, state and national conservation and environmental organizations dedicated to full restoration of the Greater Everglades Ecosystem
Uniting all Americans to ensure wildlife thrive in a rapidly changing world, the National Wildlife Federation builds upon our nation's conversation heritage for present and future generations.
National Wildlife Refuge System
Nature Conservancy
The mission of The Nature Conservancy is to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends. Our vision is a world where the diversity of life thrives, and people act to conserve nature for its own sake and its ability to fulfill our needs and enrich our lives.
The Sierra Club is dedicated to exploring, enjoying, and protecting it for everyone.
World Wildlife Fund - The leading organization in wildlife conservation and endangered species. Learn how you can help WWF make a difference.
Busch Wildlife Center
ADMISSION FEE: We are a donation-based non-profit organization! *Organized groups, schools, or clubs
FWC Wildlife Alert to report violations or sick inured or dead wildlife
Report fish kills, wildlife emergencies, sightings, etc.
Loggerhead Marinelife Center
WELCOME TO Loggerhead Marinelife Center! Loggerhead Marinelife Center (LMC) is one of Florida?s most unique nonprofit cultural destinations focused on ocean and sea turtle conservation.
Ashton Biodiversity Research and Preservation Institute (Gopher Tortoise)
Contributing to a better understanding and management of biodiversity in Florida, the U.S. and worldwide, currently focusing on turtle and gopher tortoise conservation.
Burrowing Owl Preservation Society
A program of Urban Bird Foundation. Birds. People. Communities. A better, sustainable living for all
Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife
Dedicated to Protection, Preservation and Education. Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife is a volunteer organization whose purpose is to preserve and enhance the habitats of protected wildlife species and to educate the community about Cape Coral?s wildlife resources.
Florida Panther National Refuge Center
Florida Turtle Conservation Trust
Working to Conserve Florida's Rich Turtle Diversity
North American Butterfly Association
A membership-based not-for-profit organization working to increase public enjoyment and conservation of butterflies in North America.
Save the Manatee Organization
We help protect manatees and their aquatic habitat for future generations by aiding in the recovery and protection of manatees and their aquatic ecosystems throughout the world.
Scrub Jay Trail
The Florida Scrub-Jay Trail is dedicated to increase awareness of the need to restore habitat for scrub-jays, gopher tortoises, and native plant species.
Sea to Shore Alliance
Is an Alliance, our organization emphasizes collaborative partnerships to advance the conservation of coastal species, communities, and habitats... We are proud to share our Alliance with the following institutions, and thank them for their support.
The Owl Pages
Owls have fascinated humanity from time immemorial: to some cultures they are symbols of wisdom, while to others they are harbingers of death.
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Florida Society for Ethical Ecotourism
Florida SEE is dedicated to maintaining a professional code of ecotourism ethics in order to encourage an awareness and stewardship of Florida's natural and cultural heritage
Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee Wildlife Refuge
The National Wildlife Refuge System, within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, manages a national network of lands and waters set aside to conserve America's fish, wildlife, and plants.
Daggerwing Nature Center
Daggerwing Nature Center is set within the beautiful confines of Burt Aaronson South County Regional Park in western Boca Raton. Features include a 3,000 sq. ft. exhibit hall with live animals and interactive state-of-the-art exhibits, classroom facilities, laboratory, art gallery, reading area, butterfly garden, and an elevated boardwalk which takes you on a relaxing journey through a swamp.
Frenchmans Forest
Home of Seven Ecosystems. The wet, low-lying areas of this 172-acre natural area were once part of the headwaters of Lake Worth Creek, a meandering blackwater creek that flowed north to the Loxahatachee River.
Grassy Waters Preserve
City of West Palm Beach Grassy Water Everglades Preserve | One of Florida?s most dynamic cities
Green Cay Wetlands
Green Cay Nature Center is the county's newest nature center that overlooks 100 acres of constructed wetland and provides educational opportunities about this unique habitat. The wetland features 1.5 miles of elevated boardwalk featuring interpretive signs about the habitat. The Nature Center includes a lecture hall, gift shop, and live animals in an extensive exhibit room that highlights wetland attributes. Come for a visit and find that there's something for everyone at this fantastic facility!?
John D MacArthur Beach State Park
Jupiter Ridge
Over 270-acres of scrub, scrubby flatwood, mesic flatwoods, depression marsh, and mangrove swamp ecosystems are located in this natural area. Take a walk down the path to "Ski Beach" where you might be lucky enough to see a manatee swim past as this site has the longest shoreline along the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway of any other natural area in the County. Features
Okeeheelee Nature Center
The Okeeheelee Nature Center and Nature Trails are a fantastic resource for learning about nature and animals or taking walks on over 90 acres of woodlands through the 2.5 miles of wooded trails winding around the various ponds.
Peaceful Waters
Peaceful Waters Sanctuary is a 30 acre wetlands park with 1,500 feet of elevated nature boardwalks and one mile of walking trails. The park features an assortment of displays that represent the variety of animals and plant species native to South Florida and provides an excellent opportunity for nature photography.
Riverbend Park
To continually improve, in the most cost effective manner, the services to our customers; protection of the overall public good, as guided by the policies of the Board of County Commissioners; and to achieve a recognized high level of public satisfaction for costs and quality of service.
Snook Islands
This 118-acre wetland restoration project created 11 acres of mangroves and 2 acres of oyster reefs within the Lake Worth Lagoon along the shoreline in downtown Lake Worth. Public use facilities include a boardwalk, kayak launch, and floating dock. Restrooms available at Bryant Park.
Wakodahatchee Wetlands
The Wakodahatchee Wetlands, opened in 1996, are located in Delray Beach at 13270 Jog Road. Constructed on 50 acres of previous wastewater utility property, the created wetlands are free and open to the public. Wakodahatchee features a three-quarter mile boardwalk that crosses between open water pond areas and islands with shrubs and snags to foster nesting and roosting.
Winding Waters Natural Area
This 548-acre natural area contains mesic flatwoods, hydric hammock, depression marsh, wet prairie, and dome swamp. Several areas were cleared for agricultural purposes and have been restored to shallow-water and deep-water marshes. Birdlife is abundant with bald eagles, anhingas, green herons, belted kingfishers, wood storks, roseate spoonbills, and loggerhead shrikes making appearances.
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Posts Tagged With: Ebionstark
A Short Synopsis & Minor Treatise On the History & Nature of Creation (Part 3 – The Ancient Era)
This synopsis focuses on the Heartlands of Avalon as it has been the focus of the campaign game, with very short excursions elsewhere, for essentially it’s entirely since the early 1980’s.
A Short Note
For all intents and purposes the recorded history of humanity starts about 6000 years ago with founding of the White Empire in the ruins of what had been the Second City. Before this the details are murky at best regarding the Diaspora and records of the Invoked Detestation, the War Without End, and the Second City, are derived almost entirely from Elven and Dwarven sources and there is very little detail that even the educated have. The Druid’s Isle is said to have some of the oldest records, as is the Great Library of Irem, while some others say that the Oracles of Sylentia have the most complete records. The Society of Light maintains excellent records of membership, tithes, and family lineage that go back to Enoch.
The Diaspora of Humankind (-4700 to -3700 R.A.)
In the wake of the Invoked Devastation there is the great Diaspora of the survivors of humankind throughout the now unmoored Mortal Realms, and even into the Shadowlands and even the Great Waste. Desperately seeking safety, over the next thousand years humanity colonizes the continents of Thule and Avalon, Khem and Khitain, few finding themselves in the shattered remnants of the lands that surrounded the Second City, Atlan. It is out of this Diaspora that the modern human peoples can trace their ancestry, with many rich cultural groups – the Northmen, the Avalonians, the Kistathians, the Khitainese, even the Atlanteans who are the root stock of all peoples.
The White Empire (-3700 to -2600 R.A.)
Out of the Diaspora, in Atlan, an individual rises up who slowly forms what becomes known as the White Empire. A highly skilled and powerful mage whose abilities are said to rival those of dread Ilhiedrin, he does not age with the passage of time and becomes known as the Immortal Emperor. Within the safety of the White Empire and the High Law life flourishes for many, and the reach of the White Empire grows far with colonies and embassies far and wide, keeping the humanity in contact with each other. The Immortal Emperor rules wisely and justly for over a thousand years, and then disappears, revealing the rot hidden in the heart of the empire.
The Chaos Wars and the Age of the Black Empire (-2700 to -2500 R.A.)
While the White Empire survives for a time through sheer inertia, soon the Chaos Wars break out as the inheritors of the Immortal King’s power, the Lords of the Seven Darks, face rebellion and revolt to their goetic perversions. It is a horrible war that lasts only a hundred years, and was primarily a human one, terrible in its own way but it is only a minor skirmish in the War Without End. This time period is known as the Black Empire, and the Empire dissolves in fire and blood, the last of the great human empires to rule over or have significant control across more than a single continent.
Enoch the Patriarch (-2531 R.A.)
What speeds the end of the Black Empire was nothing as simple and as complex as the faith of single man. Enoch. Bloodied under the lash, bent under the labors of a slave, Enoch was a man of such compassion that the Sarim Themselves looked down with mercy at the suffering of his people when he prayed for help. The first Lightbringer, Enoch is the Patriarch of the Church of the Lords of Light and the First of the Elect in the Eternal City – and his service was the rock the Society of Light was built upon.
Dawn of the Society of Light (-2500 to -500 R.A.)
Taking his people out of bondage, Enoch led the members of the Society of Light away from the ruins of the Black Empire and fled into the wilderness of Khem. Here they founded the settlements that would eventually become known Kistath, a grand series of kingdoms and empires built for the most part on the bedrock that is the Church of Lords of Light.
The Trinitarian Heresy
An early, but significant, threat to the soundness of the Society of Light was a resurgence of an old issue. The lessons and offspring the Grigori still plagued the Celestials of the Eternal City, and within the Society of Light there began to come desire to be more than servants, more than helpmeets, of the Celestials and join them in a more perfect union both spiritual and physical. While the High Men are often considered among the greatest of the hero’s of the War Without End, they can often prove to be the most despicable of villains as well. As result, the mating of human and Celestial remained forbidden, and all such lines of worship and philosophy were declared heresy. Despite this, the flames of the heresy rekindle every few generations and must be ruthlessly stamped out.
Ishtarian Schism (-1694 R.A.)
In -1394 R.A. a group of conservative members of the Church of the Lords of Light fled Kistath, sailing across the sea to the rich northern Heartlands of Avalon to found Istar, the “Star of Heaven”. Successful though almost immediately in conflict with the native cultures which followed the Old Faith as well as several other cults, the Istarian Oligarchy lasts over a thousand years before ultimately falling to rebellion and conquest, creating a culture of sophistication and education. Existing in an uneasy relationship with the Council of Deva’s, the “western church” appointed one and then another “High Archon” to oversee their affairs and rarely seek guidance from the authorities in Kistath.
Rise of the Third Cities (-1000 to -100 R.A.)
After the end of the Chaos Wars and the Black Empire there came the rise of the Lesser Kingdoms and the High Men. This was the time of the Third Cities, built across continents and realms – Silverveil, the City of Radiance, built by the Tudarin and an alliance of other races; El-Obeid, the Cynosure, built in a crossroads of time and space where it still exists today; Chorazin, the City of the Darkness, eventually damned by the Sarim; Harrow, Gate to the Shadowlands, home to the Black Watch and the Vault of Tears; Dolmen, the Necropolis, now lost to the Lords of Dearth; Ys, the City by the Sea, decadent in its trades and appetites; Ebionstark, the Citadel of Shadows, the stronghold of the Witch-King; Irem, the City of a Thousand Pillars, lofty in ideals and knowledge; Ringhold; the Clockwork City, stronghold of alchemists and science; Carcosa, the City of Seven Essences, now fallen to the King in Yellow; and Ryl Shantor, the City of Kinship, built by the Pendragon. There was a insularity to this time period of nine hundred years that had never quite existed before, a flowering of various cultures and races marred little by major war or other conflict other than small border conflicts as various countries established themselves.
The Wars of Binding (-200 to 100 R.A.)
The Wars of Binding were a three-hundred year long series of conflicts on the continent of Avalon and were marked relentless warfare against the dreaded Witch-King and his lieutenants, the Lords of the Seven Darks, also known as the Dark Apostles, who served him in the mistaken belief that he was the reincarnation of the Thrice-Cursed, Ilhiedrin. Fought primarily in Avalon, the conflict reached as far as Thule and Khem, even south into Ith, with the Witch King winning until Tobin I of Albion formed the Grand Alliance of humans, elves, dwarves, and gnomes and carrying the fight to the Witch King himself in the Shadowlands. The Wars ended with the siege of Ebionstark, the Witch-Kings citadel, and the raising of the Veil between the Shadowlands and the Mortal Lands. The Witch-King was slain by an avatar of the Godling Tyrmic, the Silver Fist, in the final battle within Ebionstark itself.
Formed in response to the threat of the Witch-King as well as the hostility of the Church of the Lords of Light, the Circle was a organization devoted to preserving the natural order, thwarting the Lords of Dearth, and providing inspiration to all those inclined by way of both words and deeds. A select organization, it’s members were originally all members of the Old Faith, though it gradually came to encompass many cults and even select members of the Society of Light if they deemed worthy. Comprised of mostly of humans, half-elves, elves, and gnomes, it was based out of Silverveil and it’s members were often rangers, bards, druids, and mages. It was instrumental in the Wars of Binding and throughout the history of Albion it was an important, though secretive, force for good in the world.
Tobin I, Darktreader and Dragonlord, Founder of Gwynarch and Albion
The son of a clan-chieftain of Oss, Tobin was trained as a ranger of the Old Faith and pursued this career across the Heartands for years in the early parts of the Wars of Binding as a member of the Circle. It was not until he visited Lady of the Singing Fountain in the Great Realm of Faerie, and trained to be a mage that he grew to see his true calling though over the years he also studied as a druid as well. Gathering companions around him of many races, he founded Albion, formed the Great Alliance with the help of his friends, and fought the trolls of Black Hills, the giants of the Wall of the World, and united the kingdoms of Brittit and Lorewood with his own realm of Gwynarch to create Albion – ultimately standing against the Witch-King and prevailing.
Albion (0 to 1377 R.A.)
Founded by Tobin I towards the end of the Wars of Binding in the Heartlands of Avalon Albion and was a multi-racial center of learning and civilization. While not having the size or the breadth of the White Empire, most agree that Albion had all the depth of that great civilization and perhaps more. Home to the fabled University of Art in Dinas Fforan, Albion was a haven of tolerance and scholarship in lands that had become known for suspicion and close-mindedness during the trials of the Wars of Binding. While the ruling family and much of it’s nobles were of the Old Faith, they not only tolerated but welcomed all other faiths. Over time these both resulted in stronger ties and better trade with Kistathians, Northmen, and even the Ithians and Sh’dai. Similarly, while tensions rose with their main rivals, the Iron Court of Tierna, Albion ruled over a period of magical and technological expansion that remains unrivaled for the most part.
Dulain the Archimage and the Veil: (42 R.A.)
Born the son of a minor noble, Dulain the Archimage grew in power during the crucible of the Wars of Binding. A genius, his skill came not from the Mouth-to-Ear teachings of the Elder Races, not through careful study over time, but because his innate understanding of the arcane arts was perhaps the greatest there ever was and he ruthlessly pursued every potential advance he could find to expand his skill and power. The Veil was his creation and it is the greatest magic ever cast by mortal mages and it casting was at the sacrifice of a generation of mages and the aid of the Celestials, Archfey, Fiends, and Elementals alike. The Veil is a marvel, a living enchantment that spread across the Mortal Realms and the even into the Shadowlands and it bound and limited Undead, Fiends, Elementals, Abberations, and Creatures of the Dearth among other things.
The Cult Wars (152 to 277 R.A.)
After the Wars of Binding there was a time period of relative peace and prosperity. The hero’s of the Wars slowly died off and the there peace – until the Cult Wars. The dread Arch-Lich, Shator, He whose name should only be whispered, manipulated the Society of Light and the Druidic Order into open conflict and it was only the sacrifice of King Tobin I of Albion in slaying the Arch-Lich and the creation of Crown Peak that brought the Cult Wars to an end. The Cult Wars wreaked an incredible amount of havoc as a result of the use of horrific weapons left over from the Wars of Binding. The city of Ryl Shantor was lost during the Cult Wars and legend has the people scattered to the four winds and the seven realms in sorrow and shame.
The Compact and the Hall of Tears (300 R.A.)
Following the Cults Wars the University of Art gathered mages from across the Heartlands together and in the 300th year in the Roll of Albion singed the Compact and laid the foundation for the Hall of Tears. The Compact bars the teaching of certain magic and the creation of a host of magical artifacts. The Hall of Tears is a repository for magic that is deemed too dangerous to be allowed to wander around loose, guarded by the organization known as the Black Watch which had been set guard the borders to the Shadowlands.
The Great Horde (450 to 600 R.A.)
The nomads and barbarians of the Tawill Plains began incursions raiding more and more frequently in the Heartlands and over about one hundred years these grew in intensity until the Horde invasion. The Horde swept up through the Petty Kingdoms and into the southern realms of the Heartlands (then known as Cathalia). There the Horde was stopped by the mixed forces of the southern realms, the navies of Albion (both air and sea) along with the various armies stopped the Horde in it’s tracks in 747 R.A. and the next 50 or so years saw the gradual end of that threat for the time being.
Flight of Dragons (521 to 603 R.A.)
Known only in lore there was one Flight of the Dragons in the Ancient Era, when the great Wyrms flew forth from their hidden lairs and caused much calamity and sorrow. This lasted for around 100 years overall, rising, peaking, and then falling off. The great Dragon of Mithril Hall took up residence there at this time and the dwarves have desired to return there ever since. The Green Wyrm of Halstor’s Tower also appeared at this time and no-one has managed to slay either one.
The Nightfall War (627 R.A.)
In a foolish attack, Tierna attempted to take capture the Hall of Tears in what has become known as the Nightfall War. The Masters of the Black Watch, faced with an armada of Wind-ships, were forced to open the Vaults of the Hall and use the items there in it’s defense. Not one ship survived and the Masters were reminded of the old adage “Call not up what you cannot put down again.” The City itself was almost destroyed in the process and spent years in recovery, trying to regain the trust of the lands around it.
Seven-Day War (652 R.A.)
After a series of provocations on both sides, Albion and Tierna clashed for seven days and six nights in the air above Oss and the Bay of Iasrod. The navies of both countries were savaged by the magical fury that both unleashed in an effort to win what was ultimately a draw. Tierna and Albion both withdrew, neither having gained more than a slow and expensive process of rebuilding shattered windship navies and equally damaged wet navies.
Rebellion and Reformation in Albion (659 to 705 R.A.)
Attempting to take advantage of the aftermath of the Seven-Day War, the Duchy of Bria tried to rebel and separate from Albion. While unsuccessful, this marked the beginning of bad relations between the nobles of Bria and the Crown of Albion. Many families have blamed their current status on actions that date back to this time and while the now Grand-Duchy of Bria is almost a separate state in many respects there is great deal of animosity. The separate nature of the Grand-Duchy of Loren (formally Lorewood) also dates back to this time. The commonly held reason that Bria has not rebelled again is the magical might of the Crown of Albion and the continued vigilance of the Wardens.
Zymora and the T’zarr Border States (689 to 822 R.A.)
In 1689 R.A. the realm of Zymora was found out of the old realm of Prythain. Well-regarded, Zymora was often counted as an ally of Albion and the two nations are good trading partners. The T’zar Border States were formed at this time as an answer to possible northern expansion of Zymora. In fact, the Border States became an excellent trading partner of Zymora and while not allied in any military sense there were numerous intermarriages between Zymora and the various Buffer States. This time period included worsened relations with the Ossian Clans of the Tanglehills with both Albion and Tierna. Factions within the Society of Light within Cathalia resurrected the Inquisition and the cities and towns of that country and various of the Petty Kingdoms and other small nations were gripped with fear as a result.
Alkenzamier the Dark and the Lords of Dearth
Though the Wars of Binding were past, evil remained in the world – much of older than any would wish. When Ilhiedrin brought forth the Five Demon Emperors into Creation again, he was far from their only servant. The Lords of Dearth are the most powerful among those, and they have sacrificed morality for power, life for unlife, doing their utmost to subvert all that Creation is. Alkenzamier the Dark was foremost amongst the Lords of Dearth and chose his moment to strike most carefully.
The Tearing of the Veil (1042 to 1043 R.A.)
As the years grew long, the wonder and magic that was the Veil grew strained, tattered, and it was at this moment that the Dearth chose to strike. Divining that a living enchantment needed a living anchor Alkenzamier abducted that anchor, the direct descendant and incarnation of Dulain, and slowly tortured her to death, ripping apart the Veil beginning the deconstruction of Creation as well. It fell to a group of heroes, old and new, to save the Multiverse, some at the cost of their lives. Ancient of days and mere saplings with their greatest deeds still to come, they sought out Alkenzamier in the depths of Abyss, on the edge of Creation itself, and Called the Gods Themselves to heal the Veil, awakening Old Powers that had long slumbered.
Categories: Campaign, Campaign Development, Game Design, Game Play, House Rules | Tags: Albion, Alkenzamier the Dark, Ancient Era, Atlan, Atlanteans, Avalon, Avalonians, Black Empire, Black Watch, Carcosa, Cathalia, Chaos Wars, Chorazin, Church of the Lords of Light, Compact, Cult Wars, Diaspora, Dolmen, Druidic Orders, Druids Isle, Dulain the Archimage, Ebionstark, El Obeid, Enoch, Flight of Dragons, Grand Alliance, Grand Duchy of Soahc, Great Horde, Great Library of Irem, Hall of Tears, Harrow, Heartlands of Avalon, High Lord of the Shadowlands, Ilhiedrin, Immortal King, Inquisition, Invoked Devastation, Irem, Iron Court, Istar the Star of Heaven, Istarian Oligarchy, Istarian Schism, Ith, Khem, Khitain, Khitainese, Kistath, Kistathians, Lords of Dearth, Lords of the Seven Darks, Mortal Realm, Nightfall War, Northmen, Old Faith, Oracle of Sylentia, Phoenix King, Ringhold, Ryl Shantor, Seven Days War, Shadowlands, Shator, Shator the Arch-Lich, Silverveil, Society of Light, T'zarr Border States, Tawill Plains, The Circle, The Veil, Third Cities, Thule, Tierna, Tobin I, Trinitarian Heresy, University of Art, Valerius the Mad God, Warlord of Tierna, Wars of Binding, White Empire, Witch King, Ys, Zymora | Leave a comment
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Joe Ostman could be a reason why Eagles seem happy with what's at defensive end
byEd Kracz
May 10 -edited
Last year's practice squad standout gained weight and feels more comfortable this season
Chris Long still has a dressing stall inside the Eagles locker room. Whether or not the veteran defensive end, who had 6.5 sacks last season, will use it won’t be known probably until sometime this summer, when he will decide to return or retire or try to land with another team.
Pass rusher Ziggy Ansah, a free agent as recently as midweek, signed with the Seahawks.
So the Eagles seem happy – at least for now - with what they have at defensive end, with Brandon Graham and Derek Barnett the starters and Vinny Curry as the primary backup. After that, though, it’s a group of young and unproven guys.
Three players are trying out this weekend as the Eagles opened a three-day rookie camp on Friday. They are Tennessee’s Kendal Vickers (6-3, 295), Notre Dame College’s (OH) Claudy Mathieu (6-6, 250), and Vanderbilt’s Louis Vecchio (6-5, 270).
“This is what I tell our tryout guys,” said head coach Doug Pederson on Friday. “They're not only competing for this team, but there are 31 other teams. A lot of guys the past couple weekends have been a part of at least two rookie minicamps. I think for us it's a great way to - guys that were not drafted but yet on your board - to get them now in here this weekend and really watch them, get them in the meetings, get them with their position coaches, and then watch them run around for these next three days. You never know.”
The other young guys include Shareef Miller, who was drafted in the fourth round and is also in town for the weekend rookie camp, Daeshon Hall, who was a third-round pick of the Panthers in 2017, Josh Sweat, a fourth-round pick last year, and Joe Ostman, who was a practice squad standout last year for the Eagles and a player who was mentioned repeatedly by executive vice president of football operations Howie Roseman during the offseason when the conversation turned to the defensive line.
On the final night of the NFL Draft Roseman said: “Joe Ostman is a guy that, again, when you look at the transition he's made with his body just in the offseason, I know a lot of the coaching staff is excited to see him in his second year.”
Ostman is in rookie camp, even though he is technically a second-year player, but, because he was on the practice squad, is eligible to participate.
He said he heard some of the things Roseman and even Pederson said about him this offseason.
“Briefly, a little bit,” said Ostman. “I appreciate that because they don’t have to do that. They could easily not mention any of that, so I appreciate that. But I’m just going to continue to work hard and let the rests take care of itself.
“This is my second year now and I do feel a lot more comfortable. I know with that comes a little higher expectation. I have to go out there and make plays. But really all I’m focusing on is working as hard as I can and trying to be as prepared as I can then going out there to play hard and let the rest fall into place.”
Ostman sees the opportunity ahead, with Long still pondering his future and Michael Bennett traded to New England.
“Yeah, I’d say,” he said. “That’s just part of the NFL, there’s a lot of turnover, but whoever is going to be out there, it’s going to be a competition. We’re going to be competing every day. That’s just the way it is at this level. All I can really focus on is putting my best product out there and getting myself as ready as I can be then playing hard.”
Ostman was undersized last year, playing at 250. Not so much this year. He is up to 260, and wants to stay between 258 and 264.
“They (the Eagles) raised my goal weight to seven to 10 pounds after last season,” said Ostman. “I kind of knew that, too, looking around at the guys. They were a little bit bigger than me, so I knew that was something I had to get done in this offseason. That was the main goal, to get bigger, but also without losing any flexibility and speed in the process. I’m still working on it, but I’m happy right now sitting around 260 and I feel good out there.”
Ostman may not have been on the roster last year, but his role during the week was to play the opposing defense’s best player in order to give the Eagles’ first-team offense good looks in preparation for an upcoming game, which meant having to study tape on opponents like the Los Angeles’ Aaron Donald, New Orleans’ Cam Jordan, and Chicago’s Khalil Mack, to name a few.
“It helped me a lot studying those guys throughout the season,” he said. “I was able to see how the best in the game succeed every Sunday, so just kind of helped getting an understanding of what they do and why they do their counter moves and their main moves.
“But also having the guys in our locker room, we probably have the best defensive line in football, in my opinion, learning from guys like Brandon Graham, Derek Barnett, Chris Long, the list goes on and on, was huge for me to be able to learn from those guys. With that being said they were very willing to help. There’s a lot to be said for that, someone with that much success helping young guys. I was thankful for that.”
Ostman could turn out to be one of the reasons the Eagles are happy with what they have at defensive end.
Doug Pederson sees a more mature Carson Wentz, though some questions linger
EditorEd Kracz
Chris Maragos retires from football after another surgery on his knee
Five bold predictions for training camp
There is talent aplenty on the Eagles roster, and here are some dynamic duos
Carson Wentz and some of his pass catchers head to Houston with camp on horizon
Entering 10th year, Graham looking for first double-digit sack season
Eagles should bring Connor Barwin to training camp
Doug Pederson not amused by Gruger-Hill's comments about the Cowboys choking
Chris Long announces retirement on Twitter
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LuxuryAirline
How Airlines Are Trying to Make Flying a Little Less Miserable in 2016
Christopher Elliott
The airline industry wants to have it both ways: It wants to be profitable and be loved by its customers.
It nailed the first one, with a projected $19.2 billion in profits this year, thanks to dramatically lower fuel prices and a string of unpopular fare increases.
And the second one? Well, that’s a work in progress. In fact, the more successful the airline industry gets, the more customers seem to loathe it. American carriers top a recent list of most-hated airlines and airline complaints are at a 15-year high.
But that isn’t stopping them from trying. The domestic airline industry is spending more than $1 billion a month to improve its products and services — even for economy class customers.
On Valentine’s Day, Delta Air Lines passengers flying between New York’s John F. Kennedy airport and San Francisco or Los Angeles received complimentary mini bottles of Veuve du Vernay Rosé sparkling wine and a three-pack of Baked by Melissa bite-size cupcakes in the main cabin. “We love our customers,” said Allison Ausband, the airline’s executive in charge of customer service.
American Airlines earlier this month announced it would include snacks and movies in the price of its tickets, even in economy class. Customers traveling on flights departing prior to 9:45 a.m. will receive Biscoff cookies as part of their fare. On flights departing after 9:45 a.m., passengers will have a choice between cookies or pretzels, rotated on a seasonal basis. “Free” snacks were phased out after 9/11 in an aggressive cost-cutting effort.
Late last year, United Airlines announced that “free” snacks were back, featuring a morning “stroopwafel” – a Dutch, caramel-filled waffle that “pairs perfectly with coffee or tea” or packaged savory snacks, such as an Asian-style snack mix of rice crackers, sesame sticks and wasabi peas or a zesty-ranch mix of mini pretzel sticks, Cajun corn sticks and ranch soy nuts. It also introduced illycaffe’s signature scuro dark roast coffee at its airport club locations. Technically, none of these items are free, but they are now included in the price of your fare.
Airline critics, who are watching the industry report record earnings quarter after quarter, say this is nothing more than a good start. They note that the domestic airline industry has a lot of runway in front of it before it can reclaim the reputation it has lost.
But what about the customers?
Economy class passengers, accustomed to years of dramatically reduced services and amenities, are welcoming the changes. But in interviews, some also pointed out that it isn’t the “free” amenities that make a flight better. It’s something that costs the airline nothing.
Just ask Tim Pylant, an engineer from La Grange, Texas, who has flown on United several times this year. “The service improvement probably has to do with flight attendant attitudes,” he says. “They just seem happier and more helpful than the past. I can’t explain it but it does make the flight more pleasant.”
Listening to complaints
In fact many say listening to customers makes a big difference.
“Airlines are listening to user complaints,” says Jessica Coane, who works for a technology company in Nassau, NY. For example, United Airlines, the legacy airline with the lowest customer-service scores, has a new site dedicated to soliciting customer feedback. And it acts on the suggestions, though not as quickly as some customers might want it to.
What they aren’t doing
All those complaints about shrinking seats and legroom in economy class appear to be falling on deaf ears. None of the major carriers are adding space.
Even JetBlue Airways, which famously promised to bring “humanity” to air travel, recently upgraded its main cabin to squeeze more seats into the plane, upping cabin capacity from 150 passengers to 162. Each row will lose two inches of legroom, which is unfortunate, but still not as tight as the average economy cabin.
And don’t count on them lowering fares. In January, airline fares increased 1.2% in January. Farecompare.com, a fare tracking site, says airlines are charging $22 more for roundtrip flights in 2016.
Industry watchers expect airlines to continue adding more amenities and services this year, given the bright earnings outlook. That is likely to be good news for elite flyers. Airlines tend to lavish the best perks on their business and first-class passengers while tossing economy-class customers an occasional scrap, says Matt Wilson, the co-founder of a tour operator called Under30Experiences.
“I find that the low end-flights are getting worse and the high-end companies are just getting better,” he says.
While the domestic airline industry spent $12.1 billion in the first nine months of 2015 on product enhancements, and to make its customer love it more, the precise breakdown is not public knowledge. All of which seems to suggest that some passengers will love the improvements more than others.
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Tag: Aluminium Profiles Catalogue Pdf and Double Channel Aluminum Track
Double Channel Aluminum Track Top
Aluminum is one of the most used metals in today’s society – Double Channel Aluminum Track in Top it can be found across a number of industries, such as construction and commercial, and in a number of applications, such as beverage cans and appliances. When choosing a manufacturer of aluminium extrusion for supplying the metal that you use in your workplace, however, it is important that you carefully consider which one will be best for your needs.
The manufacturer will begin by removing the aluminium from deep within the earth’s crust (either as bauxite ore or feldspar). Often, the Bayer’s method, Wohler’s method or Hall Heroult method is chosen to remove the metal in its molten form. It is then hardened and moulded into whatever shape the manufacturer desires. When the aluminium is extracted from the earth in its solid form, Aluminium Frame Company it will be passed through a number of mechanical processes that are designed to give the metal its desired shape. These processes include: rolling, drawing, forging, spinning, piercing and extrusion.
Double Channel Aluminum Track in Top?
Aluminium Extrusion Manufacturing Process
High strength aluminium alloys.
The origin of aluminium alloys in aircraft construction started with the first practical all-metal aircraft in 1915 made by Junkers in Germany, of materials said to be `iron and steel'. Steel presented the advantages of a high modulus of elasticity, high proof stress and high tensile strength. Unfortunately these were accompanied by a high specific gravity, almost three times that of the aluminium alloys and about ten times that of plywood. Aircraft designers during the 1930s were therefore forced to use steel in its thinnest forms. To ensure stability against buckling of the thin plate, intricate shapes for spar sections were devised.
In 1909 Alfred Wilm, in Germany, accidentally discovered that an aluminium alloy containing 3.5 per cent copper, 0.5 per cent magnesium and silicon and iron, as unintended impurities, spontaneously hardened after quenching from about 480°C. The patent rights of this material were acquired by Durener Metallwerke who marketed the alloy under the name Duralumin. For half a century this alloy has been used in the wrought heat-treated, naturally aged condition. The improvements in these properties produced by artificial ageing at a raised temperature of, for example, 175°C, were not exploited in the aircraft industry until about 1934.
In addition to the development of duralumin (first used as a main structural material by Junkers in 1917) three other causes contributed to the replacement of steel by aluminium alloys. These were a better understanding of the process of heat treatment, the introduction of extrusions in a wide range of sections and the use of pure aluminium cladding to provide greater resistance to corrosion. By 1938, three groups of aluminium alloys dominated the field of aircraft construction and, in fact, they retain their importance to the present day. The groups are separated by virtue of their chemical composition, to which they owe their capacity for strengthening under heat treatment.
The first group is contained under the general name duralumin having a typical composition of: 4 per cent copper, 0.5 per cent magnesium, 0.5 per cent manganese, 0.3 per cent silicon, 0.2 per cent iron, with the remainder aluminium. The naturally aged version was covered by Air Ministry Specification DTD 18 issued in 1924, while artificially aged duralumin came under Specification DTD 111 in 1929. DTD 111 provided for slight reductions in 0.1 per cent proof stress and tensile strength.
The second group of aluminium alloys differs from duralumin chiefly by the introduction of 1 to 2 per cent of nickel, a high content of magnesium and possible variations in the amounts of copper, silicon and iron. `Y' alloy, the oldest member of the group, has a typical composition of. 4 per cent copper, 2 per cent nickel, 1.5 cent magnesium, the remainder being aluminium and was covered by Specification DTD 58A issued in 1927. Its most important property was its retention of strength at high temperatures, which meant that it was a particularly suitable material for aero engine pistons. Its use in airframe construction has been of a limited nature only. Research by Rolls-Royce and development by High Duty Alloys Ltd produced the `RR' series of alloys. Based on Y alloy, the RR alloys had some of the nickel replaced by iron and the copper reduced. One of the earliest of these alloys, RR56 had approximately half of the 2 per cent nickel replaced by iron, the copper content reduced from 4 to 2 per cent, and was used for forgings and extrusions in aero engines and airframes.
The third and latest group depends upon the inclusion of zinc and magnesium and their high strength. Covered by Specification DTD 363 issued in 1937, these alloys had a nominal composition: 2.5 per cent copper, 5 per cent zinc, 3 per cent magnesium and up to 1 per cent nickel. In modern versions of this alloy nickel has been eliminated and provision made for the addition of chromium and further amounts of manganese.
Aircraft structural aluminium.
Of the three basic structural materials, namely wood, steel and aluminium alloy, only wood is no longer of significance except in laminates for non-structural bulkheads, floorings and furnishings. Most modern aircraft still rely on modified forms of the high strength aerospace aluminium alloys which were introduced during the early part of the 20th century. Steels are used where high strength, high stiffness and wear resistance are required. Other materials, such as titanium and fibre-reinforced composites first used about 1950, are finding expanding uses in airframe construction.
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Fern Gully Have Aluminum Track Channel List
Author ferngullyPosted on January 9, 2019 January 9, 2019 Categories Aluminum Track Channel ListTags Alspec Aluminium Catalogue and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Extrusion and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Extrusion Catalogue and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Extrusion Profiles Catalogue and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Frame Profile and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Profile and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Profiles Catalogue Pdf and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Sections Catalogue and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Sections Catalogue Pdf and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Structural Framing and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Window Frame Extrusions and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Window Frames and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Window Frames Catalogue and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Window Frames Details and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Window Frames For Sale and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Window Sections Catalogue and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows And Doors Catalogue and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows Cape Town and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows Catalogue and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows Durban and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows For Sale and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows Pretoria and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows Sizes and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows South Africa and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminum Extrusion Framing and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminum Window Frame Extrusions and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Extrusion Aluminium and Double Channel Aluminum Track, How To Make Aluminium Windows and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Modular Aluminium Extrusions and Double Channel Aluminum Track
Double Channel Aluminum Track Rating
Aluminum is one of the most used metals in today’s society – Double Channel Aluminum Track in Rating it can be found across a number of industries, such as construction and commercial, and in a number of applications, such as beverage cans and appliances. When choosing a manufacturer of aluminium extrusion for supplying the metal that you use in your workplace, however, it is important that you carefully consider which one will be best for your needs.
Finally, the aluminium will pass through an extrusion and drawing process that runs almost parallel to each other. This is the final step in the whole extrusion process and is the step that gives the metal its entire shape. Deep drawing, for example, is used give the metal a cup, conical tapered, cylinder and seamless tube shape. For less curved shapes, Where To Buy Aluminum Extrusion the drawing process is skipped.
Double Channel Aluminum Track in Rating?
Scrap Aluminum Grades - How to Sort and Clean Scrap Aluminum to Maximize Its Value
Aluminum sliding doors are located in various rooms of a building. This could be used as terrace or patio doors leading into the garden. Other places could be on first floor leading into the balcony from a family room upstairs or bedroom. The are different types used, one side fixed and other sliding and or two sliding panels and a fixed one. The room and size of opening determines which type to use. This also determines the glazing to be put.
When ready to fix an aluminum sliding door, whether due to replacement or anew, first measure the opening. Ensure that all railings , rollers, glazing are all in place. Line the opening smooth with plaster and check sides, floor and top. Ensure corners are square, jambs are plumb while top and bottom level. Fix the frame work by screwing into the reveals and jambs. Hacking the bottom part slightly recesses the framework for it to be flush with floor.
After the aluminum sliding door framing is in place, assemble the fixed part. Take the glazing and tie the frame round, it while inserting the rubber lining. Slide this panel and screw it into the frame firmly. Start sliding panel assembly and fix glazing as before, insert the rollers and push into the guiders. Let the panel roll along to the fixed side. screw adjust the wheels by pushing them up or down. Clean debris on guiders and remove dust.
Now that aluminum sliding door is assembled, place correctly each panel. Ensure that the fixed panel is on the outer guider and sliding part in the inside one. This prevents draught during windy days. Add the linings on the grooves provided to stop shaking during windy days or when opening. Add the locking latch and test the mechanism when inside and outside the room. Fix the alarm system if provided on moving panel and frame,then clean the door.
Double Channel Aluminum Track South Africa
Aluminum is one of the most used metals in today’s society – Double Channel Aluminum Track in South Africa it can be found across a number of industries, such as construction and commercial, and in a number of applications, such as beverage cans and appliances. When choosing a manufacturer of aluminium extrusion for supplying the metal that you use in your workplace, however, it is important that you carefully consider which one will be best for your needs.
The manufacturer will begin by removing the aluminium from deep within the earth’s crust (either as bauxite ore or feldspar). Often, the Bayer’s method, Wohler’s method or Hall Heroult method is chosen to remove the metal in its molten form. It is then hardened and moulded into whatever shape the manufacturer desires. When the aluminium is extracted from the earth in its solid form, Aluminum Glazing Extrusions it will be passed through a number of mechanical processes that are designed to give the metal its desired shape. These processes include: rolling, drawing, forging, spinning, piercing and extrusion.
Finally, the aluminium will pass through an extrusion and drawing process that runs almost parallel to each other. This is the final step in the whole extrusion process and is the step that gives the metal its entire shape. Deep drawing, for example, is used give the metal a cup, conical tapered, cylinder and seamless tube shape. For less curved shapes, Aluminum Extrusion Rail the drawing process is skipped.
Double Channel Aluminum Track in South Africa?
Metal fabrication equipment is used in important facets of the manufacturing industry. It serves the structural steel industry very well as it helps in other metal fabricating industries. Producers of this equipment have clients ranging from small and medium size enterprises to iron and fabricating shops and large construction companies.
The most common types of metal fabrication equipment include hydraulic press brakes, pinch rolls, plate shears, bending machines, tube benders and plate rolls. All these machines will help the entire workload easier. Look into the features of these types of equipment.
Hydraulic press brakes are created to deliver the kind of ease and comfort an operator is looking for in the product. They are equipped with a ram system to provide maximum efficiency on operator control. Down stroking ram systems are favored over up stroking systems because they lessen operator fatigue. The system with a thick ram makes it easier to move in between extra heavy frames. Alongside with this component, a steel torsion is also utilized. At times, the hydraulic press brake contains limit switches and overload protection systems. Speeds of the press brakes are adjustable and controllable as well.
This is yet another type of metal fabrication equipment used in order to make the job of individuals easier. Looking for those with foot pedals and emergency stops is highly favorable for the company. Programmable axes may help control blade gaps, stroke length, back gauge and shearing times. At times, the shears are also commendable for its capacity to transfer balls and load metal sheets. It also possesses a full protection guard system. Shears are used in order to provide smooth and quiet operation while cutting or manufacturing metal parts.
Plate bending machines
Plate bending machines vary according to specifications of the particular industry making use of this industrial product. There are goods that are best suited for small to medium production requirement for pipes, angles, flats and tubes. Ornamental and job shops will surely favor this type of bending machine. There are plate bending machines that are versatile enough with hydraulic forming features. This is commendable in industries were pipe, tube and aluminum extrusion bending is required.
There are other types of metal fabrication equipment sold by a lot of manufacturers. At times, this equipment may be available from second hand machine stores. What matters is that the machine will work for the particular manufacturing process it has to serve.
Double Channel Aluminum Track Best
Aluminum is one of the most used metals in today’s society – Double Channel Aluminum Track in Best it can be found across a number of industries, such as construction and commercial, and in a number of applications, such as beverage cans and appliances. When choosing a manufacturer of aluminium extrusion for supplying the metal that you use in your workplace, however, it is important that you carefully consider which one will be best for your needs.
The manufacturer will begin by removing the aluminium from deep within the earth’s crust (either as bauxite ore or feldspar). Often, the Bayer’s method, Wohler’s method or Hall Heroult method is chosen to remove the metal in its molten form. It is then hardened and moulded into whatever shape the manufacturer desires. When the aluminium is extracted from the earth in its solid form, Aluminum Extrusion Profiles it will be passed through a number of mechanical processes that are designed to give the metal its desired shape. These processes include: rolling, drawing, forging, spinning, piercing and extrusion.
Finally, the aluminium will pass through an extrusion and drawing process that runs almost parallel to each other. This is the final step in the whole extrusion process and is the step that gives the metal its entire shape. Deep drawing, for example, is used give the metal a cup, conical tapered, cylinder and seamless tube shape. For less curved shapes, Aluminum Extrusions For Sale the drawing process is skipped.
Double Channel Aluminum Track in Best?
Aluminum is one of the most used metals in today's society - it can be found across a number of industries, such as construction and commercial, and in a number of applications, such as beverage cans and appliances. When choosing a manufacturer of aluminium extrusion for supplying the metal that you use in your workplace, however, it is important that you carefully consider which one will be best for your needs.
The manufacturer will begin by removing the aluminium from deep within the earth's crust (either as bauxite ore or feldspar). Often, the Bayer's method, Wohler's method or Hall Heroult method is chosen to remove the metal in its molten form. It is then hardened and moulded into whatever shape the manufacturer desires. When the aluminium is extracted from the earth in its solid form, it will be passed through a number of mechanical processes that are designed to give the metal its desired shape. These processes include: rolling, drawing, forging, spinning, piercing and extrusion.
Finally, the aluminium will pass through an extrusion and drawing process that runs almost parallel to each other. This is the final step in the whole extrusion process and is the step that gives the metal its entire shape. Deep drawing, for example, is used give the metal a cup, conical tapered, cylinder and seamless tube shape. For less curved shapes, the drawing process is skipped.
How Custom Bi-Fold Doors Can Help You Save Space
Aluminum doors are once popular in the home building industry. With the changes in architectural taste, however, many people opted for different styles of sliding doors. Nonetheless, even when the interest in this type of door has already declined, it still has various advantages that could not be provided by other types of doors.
For one, aluminum pocket doors are great space savers. They could be used in several instances when space is an issue. For example, a room which could not be fixed with a hinge door could make use of a pocket door. This is the case when there is a permanent obstruction along the pathway where the door swings. Since the door runs along a hidden track and vanishes inside a pocket in the wall, there is no longer a need to open the door fully by swinging. Thus, the door does not require more space before it could be opened. Also, a pocket door could effectively replace a standard door when there is no other way but hide the door inside the walls.
Aluminum sliding doors is also a great alternative to ordinary wood, vinyl or plastic doors. This is because the doors are predicted to capture the future trend in home designing alongside glass and other metals.
There are downsides to using the doors though. For one, these doors could not be used in places where there are extreme temperatures as aluminum tends to adopt to the temperature of its surrounding. This would not help neutralize the heat or the coldness inside a room, for example. Also, aluminum, unlike wood, glass and fiberglass doors, tends not to blend in with most architectural design. For instance, the doors would not work well with Victorian-style inspired homes. They are, however, common among conventional houses where steal panels and other metals are used in decorating the house.
Also, one cannot really play well with colors on the doors. Usually, homeowners have to settle with the metallic look. This doesn't say that the natural aluminum surface is not good. In fact it is. However, for people who are fond of playing with colors, the doors may not be the best choice.
Another drawback to using the doors is that they tend to catch the atmosphere of large kitchens since they are usually associated with the kitchen doors of most restaurants. But again, this may not be as bad at all since many people actually love to create a certain atmosphere in their kitchen that may only be contributed to metals.
A change of look is what a sliding door could give when used in residential homes. In the industrial settings however, they have become the mainstay.
Author ferngullyPosted on December 4, 2018 December 4, 2018 Categories Aluminum Track Channel ListTags Alspec Aluminium Catalogue and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Extrusion and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Extrusion Catalogue and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Extrusion Profiles Catalogue and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Frame Profile and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Profile and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Profiles Catalogue Pdf and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Sections Catalogue and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Sections Catalogue Pdf and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Structural Framing and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Window Frame Extrusions and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Window Frames and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Window Frames Catalogue and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Window Frames Details and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Window Frames For Sale and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Window Sections Catalogue and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows And Doors Catalogue and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows Cape Town and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows Catalogue and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows Durban and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows For Sale and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows Pretoria and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows Sizes and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminium Windows South Africa and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminum Extrusion Framing and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Aluminum Window Frame Extrusions and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Extrusion Aluminium and Double Channel Aluminum Track, How To Make Aluminium Windows and Double Channel Aluminum Track, Modular Aluminium Extrusions and Double Channel Aluminum Track
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Japan's Motegi, USTR Lighthizer likely to hold trade talks on Sept 21: source
Reuters September 12, 2018
FILE PHOTO: Japanese Minister of Economic Revitalization Motegi attends a news conference on the TPP Ministerial Meeting during APEC 2017 in Da Nang
FILE PHOTO: Japanese Minister of Economic Revitalization Toshimitsu Motegi attends a news conference on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Ministerial Meeting during APEC 2017 in Da Nang, Vietnam, November 11, 2017. REUTERS/Kham
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will likely hold a second round of trade talks on Sept. 21 in the United States, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
Their meeting is planned to precede an expected summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Donald Trump on the sidelines of a U.N. General Assembly General Debate starting Sept 25, the source said.
Tokyo wants to avert steep tariffs on its car exports and fend off U.S. demands for a bilateral free trade agreement as Japan is wary such an agreement would increase pressure the Japanese government to open sensitive markets such as agriculture.
Motegi and Lighthizer acknowledged the importance of expanding trade between the two nations at their first round of meeting in August, and explore ways to bridge their differences.
(Reporting by Yoshifumi Takemoto, writing by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Eric Meijer)
Meghan McCain Feels Trump’s Racism Takes Away Her ‘Agency’ to Bash Ilhan Omar
‘Tell Them to Leave’: Trump Sics Rally Crowd on ‘The Squad’
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Feedback for Affinity Publisher on Desktop
Feature Requests, Suggestions & Discussions
Layers a little confusing
By Jeremy Bohn, August 30, 2018 in Feedback for Affinity Publisher on Desktop
Jeremy Bohn 88
I was a little confused with the Layers palette at first. This is because it didn't actually have any layers. Each object I created in my document was listed in the Layers palette instead and there were no layers listed. I could create a new layer, but it wasn't clear that I could move my existing objects onto the new layer because when I drag an object onto the layer, it highlights a line either below or above the layer and not on top of it. Eventually I figured out that dropping the object "below" the layer was actually moving it onto the layer.
I think a new document should have a default starting layer.
musiberti 48
LocationBerlin, Germany
The most confusing thing for me is the fact that each single page has it's own layers. That's not practicable. I started a thread about the layer concept here:
As a layout artist you see your project as a whole. Not as a collection of single pages. For the latter one better uses a illustration app like AD.
I consider it's a big mistake adopting the level concept of AD and AP for AP. Most layouters use layers primarily for alternative designs, which can then be faded in and out with a single mouse click. Exactly this is not possible with AP and its current layers concept.
I know, it is difficult to change, because AP should be compatible with AD. But maybe you could bypass the problem by offering the option to mark selected layers as cross-project. This could be a publisher-only function.
BSAS 0
Agreed with all
Wow, musiberti. I had no idea because I only fiddled around with a one page document.
One of my main uses for layers at work is to turn a template on and off. For instance, the template turned on for the customer to see a proof, but it's not needed when printed so I turn it off. I know you can toggle the items and Printable, but using a layer is much quicker.
Also, often in a new job if I am copying the layout of something, I will scan it in and stick it into my layout on a separate layer so I can try to line things up as close as possible to the original.
Pixelkobold 2
On 9/3/2018 at 1:40 PM, musiberti said:
Well, InDesign uses layers too for the objects and it also uses an own layer set for each page, if I remember right.
So I dont see the problem with that
rather in my opinion it is good to give each page own layer, since when I have a book with a lot of pages, putting everything in one layer structure could be quite confusing the mopre pages are in the layout
6 minutes ago, Pixelkobold said:
You remember incorrectly. Layers are at the document level, not per page.
13 minutes ago, Jeremy Bohn said:
hmm okay,
perhaps I might got something wrong with that.
But why is it then that page 1-2 of my latest project in InDesign has a wholly different layer set than pages 3-4 (always double pages)?
and pages 5-6 have another layer set and so on and so forth?
I have screenshots attached of the two pages.
Its in german language but "Ebenen" are layers in german language
Dont get me wrong, I dont want speak against you, just want to understand where I am thinking wrong with InDesign layers.
You're looking at the items on each layer, not the layers themselves. It looks like "Ebene 1" is the actual layer in your file. Since you have different items on different pages, those items will be different but the layers themselves remain the same across all pages.
Pixelkobold reacted to this
@Pixelkobold: The Layers in ID show the objects of the site too. But they are working across the whole document. My englisch is too bad to explain the details. I am working for 18 years with ID. Itˋs Layer Concept is much more better than Publisher´s layers.
9 minutes ago, musiberti said:
...I am working for 28 years with ID.
Really? August of 1999 is when it was released.
But I get the point.
12 minutes ago, MikeW said:
I already corrected this. Before InDesign, I used QuarkXPress. The developers at Adobe and Quark know exactly why their customers want global layers. It is not always good to be different.
But not before I quoted
1 minute ago, musiberti said:
...It is not always good to be different.
Absolutely. There are more than a couple functions I consider "novel" in how they are presently implemented. "Novel" here simply meaning no other applications do these things or handle them differently. They do them differently for good reason.
Cineman 32
InDesign isn't any less confusing, it just confuses in a different way. It's "global" in what it tracks but then doesn't present a UI that is consistent with a global layer list.
By default, if you set up a new document and begin adding dozens of objects to the document (regardless of which page), and then go back later you will see the entire document has 1 layer. In effect, instead of giving each new object you place onto or drag across the canvas its own layer ID, it makes them all sub-layers of the default — Layer 1. You have to explicily go into the Layers panel and create a new layer and then with that active the next object you add (and the next) goes into that layer. But then the same thing continues to happen. If you don't add new layers, every page will list Page "X, 2 Layers" (in this example), regardless of what is placed on any given page.
It you explicitly set up 1 layer at the start of each new page, and then jump around, the layers panel will show you only the contents of the active page's layers, but also show all the other layers as empty even when they're not (which is a little weird / not a good UI practice IMO). In terms of visual layer management, at the panel level I prefer Affinity's method because it's more intuitive in the sense that it doesn't show me all the other layers that are not applicable to the active page.
The only thing that might be nice is a search field, but that requires you to name each layer in a memorable way as you go along. But yeah. I don't think InDesign's layer implementation is anything special. Kind of reminds me of Illustrator's layers which I find to be overly complicated and counterintuitive, depending on what you're trying to do. Spoiled by years of using Photoshop's layers I guess.
15 hours ago, Cineman said:
Sorry, only someone who has never worked properly with InDesign can claim this. Too bad that I have to defend InDesign here. All I really want is for the Publisher to get basic functionality, without which professional work under time pressure is unfortunately not possible.
@Cineman an all others, who don't know what gobal layers are: Please look at this thread. There is a good example (Video). It's such an easy thing, but you can't actually do this in Affinity. If you need alternative Content (language versioning etc.) you have to set up an new document in Publisher. In InDesign you can deactivate the layer with the text und make a new layer for another language. Just two Mouseclicks - FOR EVERY SITE OF THE WHOLE DOCUMENT!
If you try to do this in the same Publisher document you have to do this for every site, again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again ......
Impossible for documents with a large amount of sites, catalogs etc.
17 hours ago, musiberti said:
then I misunderstood how ID handles the layers.
Thanks for your adive
(oh und du hättest mir das in Deutsch erklären können, meine Muttersprache)
This gives reason for hope:
odd affi 2
indesign now shows every object listed under its layer? This confusing idea is adopted in affinity publisher. Why would one want to list each object, and bother to name them? This is not what page layout is about. One wants a simple global list of layers, to control visibility, draw order, and layer effects. Why clutter this with listing 20-some objects on each layer so one can't find ones layers? Why make it hard instead of easy? Is it fancy to show all the objects listed under each layer, with just generic names like object 1 and 2? Should layout work be about naming ones object on the layer list? Maybe have a separate screen set up to show the all too busy layers palette? Maybe hire a separate assistant to monitor and arrange the objects list, which is no longer a layers palette, to get this thing out of ones way? I just can't understand this thing.
JGD 205
LocationLisbon, Portugal
On 5/31/2019 at 11:32 PM, odd affi said:
To be fair to Serif, Adobe, et al., that's a bit of an over-reaction on your part. As long as you set up your layers properly when starting a new project, and take care to add objects to their rightful layers, it works fine.
It's not like you can't collapse layers by clicking the disclosure triangle [from ▼ to ▶︎ ] to hide those objects. There you have it, a clean and quiet Layers panel all over again.
What you've mentioned is only tangentially related to what we're discussing here, but I feel I should clarify that. No matter what layer model Serif or others are using (be it the current one, or the one I'm proposing on this thread), that layer collapsing thing will always be there, so there's no need to worry about that.
On 9/5/2018 at 12:11 PM, musiberti said:
Precisely. And the same goes for Designer. That's what we've been complaining about… Layers as containers? It was a good option for digital illustration documents made up of three or four artboards. For design work, as in stationery, maps, signage, etc., that may very well share conceptually equivalent layers across different artboards, it's completely bonkers.
On 9/4/2018 at 8:53 PM, Cineman said:
But you see, if you have a complex document, where universal layers are absolutely needed, the tables are turned and the end-user won't really care if a certain layer doesn't have a single object in a certain page. They are an abstraction, and they act upon a book or manual as a an entire system, not as a collection of pages or an individual page.
I find it weird that DTP typesetters would ever be bothered by this, really. Books are thought-out more like an “application” than like artwork. They are systems, mere vehicles for content. Semantics is usually more important than visuals, as styles are set beforehand so that they can be tweakable at any time during the publishing process, or even afterwards for a reedition. And universal layers also factor into that thinking and designing process.
I know this sounds overly boring, because it is. But you must understand that the publishing world is not made up of just the glamorous/gritty niche of self-publishing and zines. Most of it is made up of really, reaaaaally booooring stuff that requires interaction models which, I'll give you that, you'll personally find boring and unintuitive but which are, for their use cases, absolutely spot on.
Fixx reacted to this
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Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (December 20th 2019)
By Julius, September 6, 2017 in General Chit Chat
We’re 12 months from Episode IX releasing! Which also means that we’re 12 months from The Last Jedi’s release, and I still don’t know where I land on that film...
I really, really enjoy The Force Awakens, and I like The Last Jedi for the most part, but I am nervous as hell for IX; I just think that there’s too much to potentially see and wrap up, and far too little time to do that in — at least when compared to the original trilogy, or even the prequel trilogy, because at this point with those films we knew the general direction that their plots were going in.
Hopefully we’re only a month or so out from a title reveal, and I’d love to see something prior to Star Wars Celebration in April, but yeah, I’m much more excited for pretty much everything else Lucasfilm has planned for Star Wars right now
There probably felt like a lot to wrap up at the end of Empire and that turned out ok, and a ton happened in Revenge of the Sith, much as I try and forget that horrible, horrible film. I'm actually very confident in IX, I think JJ will do a good job and that's from someone who (for the most part) loved Last Jedi. The only part I'm nervous about is how they'll deal with Carrie Fisher. I'm thrilled she'll be in it, I'm just worried it won't work particularly well. A really tough job they have.
So, that’s a wrap on BB-8 for Episode IX...
Principal photography should be completed by the middle of the month, so I think we can expect a title announcement in the coming weeks. We probably won’t be getting a trailer until mid-April at Star Wars Celebration, as it lines up far too perfectly with the release of Avengers: Endgame (typically trailers are released within the two week window prior to a film which they are aiming to be attached to).
Any thoughts on a possible title for the film? I’ve been backing A New Order: it harkens back to A New Hope, but is also ambiguous in a way that both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi brought to the table.
BB-8 has been one of the (many IMO) standout highlights of the sequels so far, fantastic design, personality, character.
On 01/02/2019 at 10:26 PM, Julius said:
I could see something like that. The Force Awakens would have actually made a good title for Last Jedi, or at least, the last scene of the Last Jedi. Something that describes Ep IX but also hints at the state of the galaxy post-Skywalker saga maybe.
And that's a wrap for Artoo, too!
Aaaaaaaand filming has officially wrapped!
Just over ten months to go! It's time for the cogs in the promotional onslaught to finally start churning!
We should be getting a title soon, surely? Perhaps even by the end of the month? Can't see them holding onto it until April...
Great photo. So excited.
To absolutely everyone's surprise (read: no-one's), an Episode IX panel has been announced to be taking place on Friday 12th April at Star Wars Celebration Chicago.
So yeah, I guess now we know the day when we're learning the film's title and seeing it's first trailer. Now we just need a time...
I'll be watching the teaser trailer at Celebration and nothing after that, like I did with 7 and 8. The thatrical trailers are way too spoilery for me, even if they don't ruin plot points, they ruin setpieces and locations etc. I'd love to avoid the teaser too but that'll never happen.
Edited March 14 by Ronnie
There was a guy sitting in front of me during Captain Marvel who yelped when the Avengers trailer came on beforehand. He was flailing around stuffing his fingers in his ears until eventually his girlfriend threw a coat over his head.
10 hours ago, bob said:
I’m a tad cooler than that.
I’m not.
Won't put the title here yet, just see for yourself!
Edited April 12 by Julius
WOW. Was NOT expecting that at the end!!! Both the cameo or the title
Edited April 12 by Ronnie
The biggest take-away from the IX panel to me was JJ describing the film as an adventure these characters go on, I LOVED the sound of that. That to me is what Star Wars is about. That's why I think The Phantom Menace is the only decent prequel film. Ep II and III weren't an adventure at all, just a hodgepodge of CGI and setpieces on various places with characters jumping around all over the place. Having this (fantastic) new cast of characters sticking together for a chunk of the film really gives me good vibes.
I'm glad the teaser trailer barely showed anything of the film, makes me happy to go on media blackout from now till release.
I'm not a massive fan of the title, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. My big fear with this film is they've given in to "fan" (and I use that term loosely) pressure and are pandering to their demands rather than follow through with their vision.
The big reveal at the end was incredibly surprising. In no way did I expect that.
Overall very happy, CANNOT f-ing wait. I 100% trust JJ to deliver a brilliant conclusion to the saga and I also liked what he said about having to do that AND tell a great standalone story for these characters. Bring it on.
Plus Lando flying the Falcon again
My shields can't repel hype of this magnitude!
I'm sitting here and I'm with a massive Star Wars fan and he keeps watching fans reactions to this trailer.
Meanwhile, I'm just like...
Yeah, I'm not a Star Wars Fan and yet I've probably seen it more than everyone here...
People seem happy about it at least.
Edited April 12 by Glen-i
VERY interesting theory about the title, they've got me convinced...
Would also be a great way of ushering a new post-saga era, whilst still respecting what started it all. Might need to read that book.
8 hours ago, Glen-i said:
I have my doubts about that
3 hours ago, Julius said:
Probably should clarify that I'm talking about the latest trailer.
Around 4 hours of inadvertant trailer watching through fan reaction videos.
The trailer is 2 minutes 18 seconds long, let's add 42 seconds for each time he went to find another person reacting to it and make it 3 minutes.
By my calculations that means I've seen it around 81 times. Even if I was playing games while it was going on.
Yeah, I think that would beat some people here.
38 minutes ago, Glen-i said:
Not me. For starters.
Always love watching this kind of thing.
4 hours ago, Ronnie said:
I can't help but feel that there are some things you just don't brag about.
Nice to see you're so hyped about it.
I've seen it once so I definitely don't win this fight.
Rounded up, I've seen it about zero times.
LazyBoy
On 12/04/2019 at 8:34 PM, Ronnie said:
Exactly what I read into the title.
Unfortunately I don't share your enthusiasm for the movie itself.
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Replay: The Place Fox 13 TV Schedule
Hundreds remember the ‘extraordinary life’ of restaurateur John Williams
Posted 3:01 pm, May 31, 2016, by Ben Winslow, Updated at 05:37PM, May 31, 2016
SALT LAKE CITY -- John Williams lived his life with an "unmatched passion and enthusiasm for everything he did."
That is how his family remembered him at his funeral services. About 1,700 people turned out to Abravanel Hall on Tuesday to pay their last respects to the restauranteur, architect, developer and philanthropist.
"Our city has been touched by John in so many different ways that there's probably no one in this community that hasn't been touched by the work he's done, they just don't know it," said Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski.
Restauranteur John Williams (family photo)
Williams co-founded Gastronomy (which runs the popular Market Street restaurants), helped start the Downtown Alliance, restored historic buildings in the city and championed social issues. At his funeral, he was referred to as a "quiet, strong ambassador for the LGBT community."
He pioneered fine-dining in Salt Lake City, bringing in fresh seafood.
Restaurateur remembered for his commitment to business and community
"He taught us how to eat!" Sen. Jim Dabakis, D-Salt Lake City, told reporters outside the funeral. "John was the first guy to bring into town real, honest-to-goodness expensive food that we sat down, we loved and we ate and we enjoyed."
During the service, family members shared favorite memories of Williams and his generosity. They spoke of him quietly paying the tuition of a parking attendant at one of his restaurants or helping a server out.
"John was a remarkable, imaginative leader," said John Becker, the marketing director of the Gastronomy Restaurant group. "He was a guy who always loved his companies, his employees, his community of Salt Lake and the state of Utah."
Husband booked for homicide, arson in death of Utah restaurant owner John Williams
Williams was found dead in his Capitol Hill home on May 22. His estranged husband, Craig Crawford, is jailed on suspicion of aggravated murder and arson. Salt Lake City police have written in jail booking documents that when firefighters arrived, they could hear someone yelling for help inside the burning home. Crawford was found outside, but did not call 911 or ask anyone for help, police allege.
Williams had recently filed for divorce from Crawford.
At his funeral, Williams' family and friends paid tribute to his life saying he told them to "enjoy every day to its fullest."
"You name it, he was there," said Salt Lake County Councilman Jim Bradley. "I tell you, it's a tragedy he's not here anymore."
Topics: Craig Crawford, John Williams, Market Street Grill, murder, police, utah
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Watch Now: FOX4 News at 5 pm FOX4 TV Schedule
Authorities have located the car Maleah Davis’ stepfather was driving the night she went missing
Posted 11:32 am, May 9, 2019, by CNN Wire
HOUSTON — Authorities have located the vehicle that 4-year-old Maleah Davis’ stepfather was driving the night she went missing.
The car, a silver Nissan Altima, was found Thursday morning at a Wal-Mart in Missouri City, Texas, just outside of Sugar Land, according to Tim Miller, the director of Texas EquuSearch, a search and rescue organization.
“I think this is going to give us an idea,” Miller told CNN. “They’ll process it and see what clues it can give.”
Maleah was not in the car, Miller said.
Maleah’s stepfather, Darion Vence, reported on Saturday that he was on the way to the airport with Maleah and his 1-year-old son to pick up Maleah’s mother from the airport. On the way, he pulled over to investigate a “popping noise,” he told police, and was knocked unconscious by three strangers who pulled up in a blue pickup truck.
When he woke up a day later, Maleah was gone.
The car Vence was driving en route to the airport had been missing up until now, according to police.
Their only lead was an image captured by a traffic camera that showed the Altima driving through an intersection in Sugar Land just before 3 p.m. on Saturday, several hours before Vence said he woke up and discovered Maleah was missing.
CNN is attempting to reach Vence for comment. No one has been arrested or charged in the girl’s disappearance.
Maleah’s father looking for answers
Among those looking for answers in Maleah’s disappearance is her father, who wants Vence to tell him directly what happened the night she went missing.
“I’m not putting the blame on anybody,” Craig Davis told CNN affiliate KTRK. “I just need the questions that aren’t answered to be answered. There are so many unanswered questions. It’s not for the public to answer to them for me. It’s not for the police to answer them for me. It’s not for the news to answer them for me. It’s for Darion to answer for me.”
Houston police are leading the investigation, but Doug Adolph, a spokesman for police in Sugar Land, Texas, said that Vence’s story changed multiple times.
“His story did not add up,” Adolph told CNN Wednesday, without elaborating.
Asked for clarification Thursday, Adolph said he couldn’t go into specifics, but “the substantive details of what he described to us changed.”
“I can say that fundamental parts of his story changed throughout the course of our initial interview,” Adolph said.
Maleah is about 3 feet tall and weighs 30 to 40 pounds. She was last seen wearing a light blue Under Armour jacket, blue jeans and gray Under Armour tennis shoes with pink and white details.
Houston police ask anyone with information about the case to call 713-308-3600.
As police look for the girl, Davis is left to wait.
“I haven’t spoken to the public because I can’t talk about my daughter. I can’t control my emotions. I can’t predict myself. I break down and I cry,” he said.
Maleah had undergone three head surgeries due to an injury, and her father remarked on the strength she has shown throughout the ordeal.
“Even in pain, even in her injury, my daughter went through everything she went through and it did not change anything about her,” he said.
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Category Archives: publishing
Fraudcast News – lifting lid on media’s “subtle and pervasive bias”
I was delighted to meet Ian Fraser the other day, an award-winning journalist and author of Shredded: Inside RBS, The Bank That Broke Britain. We compared our respective wounds received as journalists kicking outside of the usual confines of our chosen professional activity – an all-too-rare breath of fresh air for me.
We did one another the favour of paying cash for our respective books accompanied with promises to read and review the other’s output.
Ian came good, way ahead of me, doing me the following review on Amazon.
I am delighted by his enthusiasm for the book while also being cheered by his references to the likes of the ex-Telegraph columnist Peter Oborne as proof of the ongoing relevance of its arguments about democracy and journalism.
If I could be so ungrateful, my sole, additional wish would be to encourage anyone who is moved to buy a hard copy to do so via the more independently minded book retailer Hive.co.uk rather than adding to the tax-phobic coffers of Bezos and co.
There’s also the PDF version that you can download for free from here.
Whatever you do, this is the review – many thanks again Ian.
Patrick Chalmers has written an important and timely book. Building on his experience as a Reuters correspondent in London, Brussels and Kuala Lumpur, he lifts the lid on the subtle and pervasive bias of our mainstream media.
He outlines how this bias can include self-censorship, journalists allowing themselves to be “co-opted” by the rich and powerful, the cozying up of media to major advertisers (as we saw with Peter Oborne’s recent revelations that the Daily Telegraph either removed, toned down or failed altogether to cover negative stories about major advertiser HSBC) and the “spiking” of stories that undermine media proprietors’ prevailing pro-globalisation, neo-liberal agenda.
The chapters on the frustrations he felt as a Reuters correspondent trying to provide balanced coverage of the European Union, of dusty corners of the financial markets and of the attempts of Malaysian prime minister Mahathir bin Mohamad to resist the “Washington Consensus” are particularly good.
Patrick argues that the mainstream media in the West, as well as global news outfits such as Reuters and Bloomberg (whose journalism is largely funded by the leasing of data terminals to the finance sector), now see their role as being to buttress a failed economic ideology and to pander to an often corrupt elite. As such, he says they have become a pernicious influence that’s obstructing understanding and democracy. The lack of scepticism that most journalists display for international trade treaties like TTIP and unaccountable EU decision-making processes are just two of the areas of media failure covered in the book. Readers, listeners and viewers are being badly let down, writes Chalmers, adding that by amplifying ‘spin’, the media has unleashed a dangerous tide of misinformation that threatens to engulf our democracies.
The media failures outlined in Fraudcast News are also giving rise to a phenomenon that the writer and journalist Tariq Ali has separately described as the rise of the “extreme centre”. Prefiguring his recently published book The Extreme Centre: A Warning, Ali wrote: “What is the point of elections? The result is always the same: a victory for the extreme centre. Since 1989, politics has become a contest to see who can best serve the needs of the market, a competition now fringed by unstable populist movements. The same catastrophe has taken place in the US, Britain, Continental Europe and Australia.”
Chalmers ends on a positive note. In his conclusion, he examines how as a result of, among other things, the rise of social media and the internet, it has never been easier for civil society and public-interest journalists to develop a more ethical, balanced and responsible approach to covering the news. He provides examples of the rise of alternative channels of communication that bypass the mainstream media, arguing that these are much more capable of challenging our dangerously flawed governance structures than the media we grew up with.
Filed under democracy, journalism, publishing
Tagged as accountability, activism, alternative media, Amazon, austerity, capitalism, citizen journalism, citizen journalsim, climate change, creative commons, democracy, direct democracy, economics, fraudcast news, grassroots media, Ian Fraser, Independent book sellers, journalism, media, patrick chalmers, publishing, Shredded, tax avoidance
Book reading benefits
Fraudcast News has been out and about for three years now, making its way into the world without the benefits of a conventional publishing push behind.
Without me exactly knowing how – the free PDF has been downloaded more than 10,000 times now and I’ve managed to sell a few hundred paperback copies both online and face to face.
Promotional work has been somewhat haphazard – depending on my attention and energy levels. Probably the best means of all has been by doing book readings – organised on the hoof on my own or with fellow enthusiasts for improving journalism and governance practices.
Fraudcast News on tour
Last Thursday, during a visit to meet Professor Clive Spash, Chair of Public Policy and Governance at WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, I had a chance to do a reading at the bookshop Shakespeare and Co in Vienna’s Sterngasse street.
It was one of the most stimulating and enjoyable I’ve done – a lively audience of 30 or so people slotted in among the books and tables of this great venue. It’s a reminder of what independent bookshops can be.
Writing a book is a solitary experience, meaning successful readings such as this one are a treat. There were some excellent questions from the floor and what seemed like some genuine engagement and exchange of ideas.
So – if you’re in Vienna and you fancy some English-language reading material then I would recommend Shakespeare and Co. Its eclectic mix of books had me hooked – I’d have been happy to spend the evening browsing if it hadn’t been for having to do the reading.
Vienna meets Fraudcast News
Tagged as activisim, anti-fascism, Austria, capitalism, citizen journalism, climate change, Copenhagen 2009, democracy, direct democracy, EU, euro, European Union, fascism, finance, financial markets, fraudcast news, journalism, Kyoto 1997, media, public interest journalism
Fraudcast News reading in Vienna
22 January at 19:30–21:00
Shakespeare and Co, Sterngasse 2, 1010, Vienna
Find all the details here
Tagged as activism, anti-fascism, Austria, capitalism, citizen journalism, creative commons, democracy, direct democracy, EU, euro, European Union, fascism, finance, financial markets, fraudcast news, Vienna, Wien
Quakers and Business review of Fraudcast News
I was delighted to get a full review of Fraudcast News in a recent issue of The Friend magazine. Below is an excerpt while this a link through to the complete article.
How Bad Journalism Supports Our Bogus Democracies – A Review
An article by Elizabeth Redfern that appeared in the 4th July 2014 edition of the Friend.
Press corruption is sadly a subject we’re now familiar with, from the press’s own coverage of the Leveson Inquiry and more recently the trial of Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and others, who – in what might become the longest criminal trial in English history – are charged with phone hacking at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid. It would be nice to think that this is an unfortunate blip in an otherwise sparkling British press history. Certainly I hadn’t taken much notice of the inquiry or court case until I’d started to read Patrick’s book, when some familiar words started to nag at me.
Tagged as activism, capitalism, citizen journalism, democracy, direct democracy, environment, fraudcast news, governance, independent journalism, journalism, media, patrick chalmers, public interest journalism, publishing, Quakers, thomson reuters
Fraudcast News reading and Q+A, London, Aug 1
Friday August 1, 2014
St Mary’s Community Centre, Upper Street, Islington N1 2TX.
When Patrick Chalmers hit on becoming a foreign news correspondent, he dreamed of somehow helping advance the cause of social justice around the world. When he eventually landed that dream job, he soon realised it had little to do with improving people’s lives. So he quit to work out where he’d gone wrong, in the process transforming himself into an author, activist and campaigner for better media and governance structures.
Among the results was Fraudcast News – How Bad Journalism Supports Our Bogus Democracies published in paperback and as a free PDF download. Patrick will read from the book and discuss how it relates to current political events at all levels, ranging from climate change inaction, renewed conflict in Iraq, Scottish independence or the rise of UKIP.
Filed under democracy, publishing, video activism
Tagged as activism, banks, Book reading, capitalism, citizen journalism, climate change, democracy, direct democracy, environment, EU, europe, fraudcast news, governance, independent journalism, Independent publishing, journalism, media, occupy, patrick chalmers, politics, public interest journalism, visionontv, VOTV01.5
Wikileaks and Assange – complicated but compulsory reading
I’ve let my thinking about Julian Assange and Wikileaks swing one way and then the other in the last 10 days – and make no apologies for what you might call being quick to change position but I’d rather say is being open minded. The work done by Wikileaks and its founder is so important that it bears time and attention to work out what’s going on as best we can.
Assange’s publisher Colin Robinson added some excellent perspective today in the Guardian, following on from what was a lengthy but revealing and insightful recent piece by would-be Assange ghost writer Andrew O’Hagan. It prompted me to write the following comment in response to the Guardian piece.
Great to have this counter point to O’Hagan’s piece – this is valuable material.
I disagree with you on this bit, the second sentence:
O’Hagan’s LRB piece is no part of an organised dirty tricks campaign. But by focusing as it does on Assange’s character defects, it ends up serving much the same purpose.
O’Hagan’s piece is essential to understanding where all the confusion arises from in all things Assange.
I read it as a huge admirer of what Assange has achieved. I concluded it thinking that Wikileaks and/or its founder were done – too difficult to work with to the point of taking themselves out of the equation on these issues.
Your piece has re-opened my thoughts on this – so I’m grateful for that.
Must get my copy of Cypherpunks.
Tagged as activism, afghanistan, Andrew O'Hagan, capitalism, citizen journalism, Colin Robinson, direct democracy, documentary, fraudcast news, governance, independent journalism, journalism, Julian Assange, media, occupy, patrick chalmers, public interest journalism, publishing, Wikileaks
Dare Scots take heed of Lesley Riddoch?
I wrote this brief review of my chosen book for Green Left Weekly’s annual recommended books of 2013
I went for “Blossom : What Scotland Needs To Flourish” by Lesley Riddoch, a gem of a book that had me both laughing and despairing as I raced through its insightful pages about my native land.
This was my review, one in a long list of great books chosen by GLW writers, contributors and others. I’ll be reading well into the new year at this rate.
Lesley Riddoch is the sort of life-long friend everyone needs – the one to warn you against making a total berk of yourself just as you thought you were looking pretty sharp. In Blossom : What Scotland Needs To Flourish, the lucky beneficiary of her advice isn’t a single person but an entire nation.
Riddoch chides her fellow Scots for their timorous beastiness in the face of what is a truly rare moment – the chance for a straight-out vote on regaining independence. Her book channels the Renton character in Trainspotting to tell potential voters they’ve more to fear from themselves than any supposed auld enemy to the South.
Her work stares straight into causes and effects of severe poverty and inequality in Scotland, not least the health statistics so truly awful they’ve earned infamy as “the Scottish effect”. Somehow she’s also truly funny.
Dare Scots pay heed?
Tagged as activism, citizen journalism, direct democracy, EU, europe, governance, Holyrood, independence, independent journalism, journalism, Lesley Riddoch, media, Scotland, SNP, United Kingdom, Westminster
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Frostsnow https://frostsnow.com/
Danielle Staub and His Estranged Husband Marty Caffrey's Divorce is Finalized
Updated On 22 Feb, 2019 Published On 22 Feb, 2019
by Mahammad Arsad shekh
Marital relationship between Danielle Staub and Marty Caffrey has officially ended! It's been nearly six months since The Real Housewives of New Jersey star filed for divorce from her estranged husband and the filing has finally been finalized.
The pair finalized their divorce at the Bergen County Courthouse on Thursday, February 21, after less than a year of marriage.
The clerk said the two "barely looked at each other" and "did not look happy".
A rep representative for the Bravo personality exclusively told Us Weekly, "Danielle is extremely relieved this toxic situation is coming to a close and looks forward to getting her life back."
As we previously reported, Danielle filed divorce papers in court, just after four months of marriage. The had tied the knot on May 5 in the Bahamas in front of Bravo cameras.
The duo's split had come shortly after the television personality filed a temporary restraining order against Marty, 66, following a quarrel at their home.
The altercation between the two began after Danielle found her husband "under the influence of alcohol, agitated and confrontational."
Marty then filed his own restraining order against his then wife on August 13, claiming that she has been "angry since receiving a letter from his attorney indicating he was filing for divorce.”
He had also accused Danielle of threading "to stab [him] in the neck at least a dozen times" at the time.
For more updates, stay connected with Frostsnow.
Marty Caffrey
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Meet the 700 MPH Hyperloop That’s Breaking Into Another Country
The super-fast hyperloop would cut a 24-hour trip down to just 80 minutes.
Neil C. BhavsarMarch 3rd 2017
/ Hyperloop
/ Hyperloop One
/ India
/Hyperloop
/Hyperloop One
/India
From its record-shattering single-day launch of 104 satellites to hosting the world’s largest solar farm, India has been making headlines lately. Now, another big development is on the horizon, and this one involves a hyperloop.
CLICK TO VIEW FULL INFOGRAPHIC
Hyperloop One is set on revolutionizing the way we transport everything from people to cargo. The company believes in a simpler, tube-based mode of transportation that ramps up to speeds rivaling that of an airplane with the fees of a bus ticket, and India might find itself one of the lucky few countries where the company builds a hyperloop transportation system.
According to Hyperloop One CEO Rob Lloyd, the company has been in communication with the ambitious government on ways to optimize a public-private partnership, with the Los Angeles-based company expecting to raise more than $100 million to invest in the country. For reference, Hyperloop One has already raised $32 million for its current projects in the U.S., Slovenia, and the U.A.E. — a third of the amount needed for the deal with India.
Hyperloop Concept for India
However, the government of India is willing to spend $59 billion to transform and modernize its transportation systems, which may just benefit the Hyperloop One team after all. A project of this scale would fit right into India’s “make in India” country-building initiative. The increase in business and manufacturing would put the hyperloop’s 1,000 kph (621 mph) speeds to great use by significantly decreasing transportation times between India’s major cities. For example, a ride from Delhi to Mumbai, which currently takes about a day, would be cut to just 80 minutes on a hyperloop.
Starship Enterprise
Elon Musk: SpaceX Hopes to Launch Starship “Test Hopper” This Week
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The AI Nonprofit Elon Musk Founded and Quit Is Now For-Profit
Tesla Reverses Course, Raising Car Prices and Keeping Stores Open
Boring Las Vegas
Las Vegas Wants Elon Musk’s Boring Co to Dig a Massive Tunnel
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ModPlug Central
Website | Downloads | Issue Tracker | English Wiki | German Wiki
Discover the music inside...
ModPlug Central »
OpenMPT Development (Archive) »
Feature Requests »
Macro Patterns
Author Topic: Macro Patterns (Read 6208 times)
nobuyuki
Active artist
« on: June 06, 2009, 03:39:26 »
I discussed this request on IRC earlier today, when someone asked me to make image mockups to illustrate what I was attempting to explain. Basically, my request is a rather large one but I think would have a large pay-off for trackers willing to work in itp or mptm format -- I'd like to see the idea of macros implemented into MPT.
When I think of macros, normally I think of old chiptunes and music programming languages like MML, only keeping with MPT's tradition of visually illustrating the concept in an easy, straightforward manner. What inspired this idea specifically was the ability to change various properties of an instrument in FamiTracker, namely the duty cycle and arpeggio "envelopes" could be changed independently of other features.
I thought it would be extremely useful to genericize this as macros rather than creating endless redundant bloat in the instruments tab with various envelopes. By decoupling instruments and some more special properties into macros, they can be re-used in other instruments, and I can think of many traditional demoscene tricks made much easier with them.
Here is a practical example of a possible implementation:
This is how a default macro would be associated with an instrument, if any. In this mockup, I used a spin button, but it would probably be more appropriate to use a combo box (drop-down) with names and numbers of the macros, so it would be easier to choose macros by name (name examples: "-- None", "01: Guitar Strum", "02: five-note arpeggio", "03: Major chord", etc).
The macro tab itself would look something like this:
Please ignore the fact I mostly ripped off the existing patterns window for consistency. There shouldn't be any orders in the macros, since each macro should only consist of one pattern of variable length and only have as many rows / channels as necessary. The very first thing that's different in the macros tab from patterns would be that the primary instrument is a pass-thru to whatever its parent instrument is. I also toyed with the idea of having pass-thru offsets for multiple-sample instruments, but this may be overly complex and that level of decoupling may not be necessary in the majority of cases. (I can mainly only think of using it for multiple-duty-cycle samples, dual instruments, etc.) From here, the primary notes and effects are entered into the pattern macro. Patterns can be imported or saved individually for re-use or redistribution.
Ideally, no effects in macros would have a global effect on the MOD. Instead, their scope should be adjusted for the fact they're being used as a macro (for example, Vxx would translate to an instrument volume falloff, not the entire MOD getting quieter). Similarly, the speed multiplier (Axx) would allow for fast trills and arpeggios "between rows" in the main patterns window not normally possible at the default speed without unnecessarily expanding patterns to fit these notes otherwise.
Once macros are attached to instruments, playing the instrument in the normal patterns window should produce the sound from the associated macro transposed to the note in the main patterns window. All effects in the main pattern window would override the macro on a global level, for example making a chord from a single string sample in a macro, and using the "string popping" trick common in oldschool mods and doskpop tunes.
If there is still letter space internally for mapping a new effect, I would propose something like \xx to switch an instrument's macro on the channel level. The override could behave similarly to other instrument control effect extensions implemented into MPT -- allowing the musician to change an instrument to a duet or trio for example on the fly, or adding a "fake echo" / delay effect from the macro.
Hmm, this request would probably take a lot of overhead and possibly new logic in the replayer to be implemented, but I sure would use it a lot if it ever did get implemented
Extreme artist
Operating System: Windows XP
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2009, 05:17:14 »
My first reaction was, "what do we need those for?" and you answered it. I could definitely make use of "one-touch" arpeggios, and i can see the potential of VSTi "knob-turning."
My initial concern would be syncing with the MPT's timer. After all, automated arpeggiation isn't any good if you can't stay on beat. Plus, i'm sure if this was worked on, they'd probably put it into the .mptm structure.
Implementation, however, would require something that i'm not sure our devs are up to, or have the time for: wholesale code creation. Right now they're inserting little snippets of code to a tightly-bound code structure, and able to make functional though simple tweaks (relative to what you're suggesting). Macro's would be useful for sure, but are going to require a lot attention, and i'm sure a lot of insertion points into existing code.
The devs of course can speak from themselves, but i guess all i'm saying is, even though it's a good idea, don't get any hopes up. After all we've been waiting for some GUI improvements that are not that easy to come by. :wink:
The speed would be ideally based on a tick multiplier based off the original speed. I don't know how MPT does timings anymore but essentially it would be locked to the original tempo with only a speed multiplier being configurable. The replayer wouldn't "bake" the sound in a macro, but rather reproduce the sounds as if the mod itself was being played at a higher resolution with the notes in between rows according to whatever tick rate it's at by transposing the notes in the macro individually. (sorry for not being clear on that, it's like 3am and I'm not exactly really clear on the tracker terminology for its internal timing)
AS FOR GUI IMPROVEMENTS, hmm a friend of mine was messing with the gui earlier today and sounded like he made a lot of progress in a short period of time, but you didn't hear that from me :lol:
Workaholic artist
Re: Macro Patterns
Sounds like a useful feature, I've been thinking about something like this too. But another issue that may turn this into a can of worms is its compatibility with .IT and .XM. I don't think I'd be able to use these macros in game music, as FMOD / BASS wouldn't support them.
But they would be pretty groovy still.
Saga Musix
OpenMPT Developers
aka Jojo
Operating System: Windows 10 x64
Well, I'd just implement them for MPTM and when converting to another format, they'd be resolved automatically... or just add some kind of "transparent" support for XM/IT.
» No support, bug reports, feature requests via private messages - they will not be answered. Use the forums and the issue tracker so that everyone can benefit from your post.
christofori
christofori -aKa- Chris Molyneux
Operating System: Windows 7 Pro x64
Quote from: Jojo on July 07, 2011, 14:23:35
You have a knack for making everything sound easy... when you want to..!
/christofori
'slightly disturbed and wonderfully content'
*Master of the Obvious*
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Other crypto collection blockchain games
Mooncatrescue review
Thread starter CryptoGuru
CryptoGuru
Mooncatrescue is one of the first blockchain games. The project started in August 2017.
Mooncatrescue is an example of an amazing trend when the most advanced technologies and developments that we used 20-25 years ago combine together. Mooncatrescue is an 8-bit game with a look from the early 90's. Whether this was the developer's original idea or they simply could not create a more modern product, we will never know. But it's obvious that fusion of the blockchain and the 8-bit design today is not perceived by users.
According to the Mooncatrescue plot, there are more than 4 billion kittens on the Moon. They live happily, but their existence is threatened by a solar eclipse. Mooncatrescue developers offer a chacne not to kill kittens and save them from the Moon.
For a kitten to be saved, it must first be found. To do this, Mooncatrescue uses an algorithm that is very similar to mining in Ethereum. The player needs to use the computing power of his computer to find a kitten. As the developers assure, the search lasts from a few seconds to several minutes. The higher the computer's performance is, the faster it is possible to detect a kitten, even though the result is influenced by luck. All the same as in mining.
Once the kitten is found, the user can decide what to do with it - pick it up or leave it. If the player saves the cat, then he needs to come up with a name for it. If the animal did not like it, and you want to find another, then you can leave the kitten in the adoption house, and other players will take it from there.
You can choose not spend your computer resources to search for a cat, and immediately go to the adoption house and purchase a kitten. One animal costs about $ 0.5 in Ethereum gas.
By the way, in Mooncatrescue there are also unique animals - Genesis Mooncats. There will be only 256 of them, the creators produce such cats in batches of 16. Genesis Mooncats from the first batch cost 0,3 ETH a piece, in each subsequent round their price increases by 0.3 ETH in comparison with the previous one.
What to do with cats after their adoption is unknown. There are battles between animals in Mooncatrescue, cats cannot be developed either. Apparently, players can only hope that the next CryptoKitties will become popular among collectors, and in the future, they can be sold higher.
However, the probability of such an outcome is very small. There are dozens of projects like Mooncatrescue and society is gradually beginning to get bored by blockchain euphoria. A year ago, only a single mention that blockchain is used in the game, would cause a tremendous hype, but today it doesn't matter that much. And besides the blockchain, there is nothing that could interest potential users in Mooncatrescue.
Likes: Igor78, Orange Company, Mir17 and 1 other person
VadimSokol
In my opinion, the appearance of the cats in the Mooncatrescue is awful. Just take a look:
Of course, I understand, 8-bit games, nostalgia ... But is it so much in demand today? I think that players now want exciting visuals in the game, and do not want to return to the 90s.
Likes: Igor78, Orange Company and Mir17
Another game without an idea and without real prospects. Seriously, does anyone still buy crypto-animals, hoping to sell them higher in the future? The project has nothing special in it, which means that kittens will not go up in price. But, apparently, not everyone understands that yet.
Mooncatrescue developers clearly stated in the FAQ that this game is their first project. Therefore it is not surprising that they did not create anything stunning. Maybe in the future, they will come up with something cool, but Mooncatrescue clearly is not the game you want to play more than one or two hours.
Likes: Igor78 and Orange Company
Orange Company
The only advantage I see here is that you can get a kitten for free, after just a little bit of mining. But why do I an animal (even a free one) if I can not do anything with it?
Likes: Igor78
It's interesting, but where do the computing powers that players spend on searching for cats go? After all, there is no need to confirm any transactions, unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum. I think the developers should tell the audience about it.
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/ Forums
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Would a bigger television get me back into Pancake gaming?
snowdog Posts: 6,736 Valuable Player
Nope, not free stuff. All of the paid satellite channels. He claims that provider boxes actually STOP you from receiving stuff until you pay them extra. All of the channels are broadcast over the airwaves and you can pick them all up for free using this magic device lol
Probably a load of old bollocks but it's worth 20 quid just to find out.
"This you have to understand. There's only one way to hurt a man who's lost everything. Give him back something broken."
Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever
inovator Posts: 1,850
You will see the outside world all around u know matter how big the tv. I played 2d games in a 70 inch and a 65 inch. It's not much more immersion. But for me a 2d game on my other headset Playstation vr with dark surrounding and massive imax like screen is pretty good immersion even with less than HD quality.
Watching the football on a 65 inch screen is awesome, shame that I didn't find a HD stream last night though. My dodgy aerial is on its way now so I hopefully won't have that problem for most matches...unless it's a con job of course lol
bigmike20vt Posts: 3,823 Valuable Player
snowdog said:
hmmm i think that is unlikely TBH, however PM me the supplier if it comes through
Fiat Coupe, gone. 350Z gone. Dirty nappies, no sleep & practical transport incoming. Thank goodness for VR
RuneSR2 Posts: 2,573 Valuable Player
February 28 edited February 28
inovator said:
So the question was: "Would a bigger television get me back into Pancake gaming?"
- and the conclusion may be: "No, but it'll get you back into watching a helluva lot more TV and movies - and possibly greatly limit your time in VR"
Something like that. Apart from the Rift, I think my new Sony 85" is one of the most awesome technological achievements I've experienced - it's truly a magic black mirror - the amazing (anti-depressive) colors, the image size, the deep OLED-like blacks, the resolution and the 48+ fps motion flow are holding me hostage in my couch Am I becoming like a moth to a flame?
Intel i7 7700K (4.5 GHz); MSI GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Gaming X (oc 2100 MHz boost, 11 Ghz ram); 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200 MHz; MSI Z270I Gaming Pro Carbon AC (VR-Ready) mainboard; Samsung 960 Evo M.2 SSD + Toshiba P300 HD; Windows 10 OS; Oculus Rift CV1 - nearly always using super sampling 2.0.
"Ask not what VR can do for you – ask what you can do for VR"
I'm still amazed that you can fit an 85" telly in your house lol
My 65" telly is almost the maximum size I can possible fit in my bedroom, I reckon I might be able to fit in a 70" one at a push but I can't see me going any bigger than that.
I've certainly come a long way from buying a 26" CRT from someone living in one of the room of a shared house in the late 90s for 20 quid...it wasn't even a widescreen Previous to that I just had a 10" black and white portable lol
I then went to a 28" widescreen CRT which weighed a fucking TONNE that I got off a mate of mine for free, with a 37" 1080p telly after that and then my telly before this one was a 50" 1080p telly.
If someone had told me in the 90s that I'd have a 65" telly in 2019 I probably would have called an ambulance for them to take them to the local Looney Bin lmfao
Zenbane Posts: 14,103 Valuable Player
So... I'm still dabbling in pancake gaming world. It still takes me anywhere from 6-10 months to finish a game. Even if the game can be completed in less than 40-60 hours. I don't think pancake gaming will ever be something that I can go back to in the same capacity as when I first started gaming.
Are you a fan of the Myst games? Check out my Mod at http://www.mystrock.com/
Catch me on Twitter: twitter.com/zenbane
pyroth309 Posts: 1,549 Valuable Player
I feel like an 85" is too large for 4k gaming for me as the optimal viewing distance is like 8-10 feet and I like to game up close. That's more like 8k territory I think. If I was using it in my living room and sitting across the room from it then yea sure. I'm sure it does look incredible for movie watching lol.
I use a Sony X900F 49" as a monitor for 4k gaming and it's mounted up on my desk. I sit probably 4 feet back from it and it's pretty nice. Any larger and it would be a problem I think as the Pixels per inch start to get really low.
I also have a 144hz 1440p monitor on an arm that I pull across for when I play twitch games. So yea, for me, pancake gaming is still alive and well and will be for awhile. I only have 1 real life friend who has taken the VR plunge and so many coop VR games pretty much require you to have friend/friends to get the full enjoyment. so I'm always getting pulled back to flatscreen to play with other friends.
Right now I'm working on Metro Exodus and it's pretty awesome. A game like this in VR would be mind blowing...And horrifying.
I can still remember the first time I saw her - well, sort of, I think it was in 2014 - it was a mesmerizing moment
Back then the price was about £ 35,000 which - even among friends - may be considered a substantial amount Since then it has been a dream of mine getting a 85" 4K TV. The last year 85" has been reduced a lot in price, often more than 50 %, so I thought the time was right. Maybe I could wait another 5 years for the price to come down another 50%, but I don't want to wait anymore. Ok, never got the Samsung S9 85", but the Sony 85" is like 5 years newer and uses less than 50 % of the S9 in power
BTW, I've got a gut feeling that 75" and beyond isn't what the local crack addicts are going to remove from your home. 85" is incredibly cumbersome to move - it's heavy and difficult to hold, and it's simply too big for many homes (I don't think I can get it downstairs due to it's size). Even if the price comes down even more, I'm unsure how popular such TVs will become... (then again, maybe someone said that about 28" TVs in the early 1980s )
LZoltowski Posts: 6,755 Volunteer Moderator
I bought an LG Ultrawide Curved (21:9) 34 incher ...3440x1440 res, made me want to replay some of my favourite games and the level of immersion is incredible, with your peripheral vision filled in. Since most movies are 21:9 aspect ratio, watching them has been a completely new experience, no black bars! It definitely made me play more pancake games.
Core i7-7700k @ 4.9 Ghz | 32 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance @ 3000Mhz | 2x 1TB Samsung Evo | 2x 4GB WD Black
ASUS MAXIMUS IX HERO | MSI AERO GTX 1080 OC @ 2000Mhz | Corsair Carbide Series 400C White (RGB FTW!)
The only downside with this telly is that it's only a 50Hz 4K telly so any 60Hz signal is halved to 30Hz so that it can display it. 1080p at 60Hz isn't a problem though.
I still can't get this Netflix app to work though, I was thinking that it might be down to the 60Hz issue but in the stick settings I changed the resolution from 4K 30Hz to 1080p 60Hz and it still isn't working. Also tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app and doing a factory reset and setting the stick up again from scratch but still no dice. Very odd.
March 1 edited March 1
Hmmm, my TV has MotionFlow XR 1000 Hz (yup, "one-thousand"), now I'm wondering if that could mean that 30 fps 4K games on the XBox One X will be converted into 60+ fps or better... Actually that may be quite true... Still I think I'll continue waiting for the PS5...
Info about the older MotionFlow 200 Hz to illustrate the principle (although the frames have to be recalculated to fit 120 Hz refresh rate):
So tonight I completed the entire collection of, The Longest Journey. It took me damn near a year!
I played the original release of Longest Journey back in 1999, and it always stuck with me as one of my favorite adventure series of all time. For me it comes second only to Myst/Riven.
I knew of the sequel, Dreamfall, back in 2006 but I kept prolonging acquiring it. Then in 2017 they released the third and final chapter (or chapters I should say), with the Dreamfall Chapters - the Final Cut.
I started from the very first 1999 version of the game and played all the way to the end. I began replaying them in summer of 2018, and finished everything tonight, in March of 2019.
I found the entire experience and story to be quite amazing. Which is why I am posting about it.
But I also can't help but notice that it took me way too damn long to get through what should have taken maybe 2-3 months tops. A large part of this is simply due to the fact that... not matter how challenging, compelling, or intriguing a game is, in the end if it is not an immersive experience (VR) then I'm gonna struggle committing time to it.
In contrast, I have completed over a dozen VR Games in the last year, and have written reviews about the most memorable. So this experience is just more confirmation (to me) that pancake gaming has taken a permanent back seat. There are other flat games I do plan to engage in, such as the Metro series. But I can't even imagine how long it'll take me to play through them (assuming I can actually commit to the end).
It's not just PC games that have suffered in this way. Consoles are even worse. It was a damn chore to play through Assassin's Creed, and any time I load a console it's usually just to show someone something real quick.
Then there's mobile app gaming. Where I once enjoyed mobile games like Clash of Clans, I haven't even installed a mobile game since I acquired my Rift in 2016.
Once true AAA VR Titles start hitting the market, pancake gaming will be in for some serious change. I imagine that flat gaming will serve as an extension to VR Gaming. Although this shift probably won't happen until 2025 or later.
I fully agree with Zenbane's last post, but also - maybe - large black 4K mirrors may work their magic to some extend when gaming in true 4K (not upscaled). This is gaming in true 4K (PC) on a 75" 4K TV comparing PC and consoles (PS4 Pro 4K upscaled and more). The depth of the perceived image is indeed much better in 4K, when everything is sharp.
Then again - even though the 2D image quality is great, you don't have real arms and hands in game - and remember that the VR screen is virtually unlimited = *much* bigger than any 2D TV will ever be. No matter the resolution and image quality I don't think any TV can even remotely beat VR. But if you're used to gaming in 2K on a small TV, then using a large 4K TV in 60+ fps (native 4K res) may be a night and day experience.
I might get this player next week and see if I can see any difference between 4K vs. "1080p upscaled to 4K" in movies - most persons I've asked about this couldn't see any difference, but of course movies are a 24 fps blurry mess
Fun thing - this is the Sony UBP-X800, and there's also the Sony UBP-X1000ES, which more or less looks exactly the same when turned off - but X1000ES is 2 or 3 times as expensive compared to X800. Among Amazon users, some observed the X1000ES to have much better image quality than the X800. This is quite funny, because X800 and X1000ES (and even the X700) use exactly the same drive and image processers. So the image quality is exactly the same comparing X700, X800 and X1000ES (even Sony has admitted that). But the X1000ES has much better audio options (including optical output and much more - and it has a front display, while X800 is pure Japanese minimalism - requiring a TV for display). My point with all this being that knowing you payed more for option A vs. B may introduce a cognitive bias, and may get you to notice things that aren't true. Therefore we need blinded-experiments to get rid of all the mumbo-jumbo. And therefore videos like this one is of great interest (love the white coats and the protective glasses - does Linus expect the monitors to like ... explode? ):
But note that they're using relatively small screens for gaming. For 4K I'd love to see a similar blinded test using really big TVs - like 75" or larger (like the first video in this post, but the reviewer was not blinded in that video and may - at least to some degree - be subject to a cogitive bias).
Zen, the good news is the first 2 Metro games are only about 12 hours each unless you're a completionist, but Exodus took me more like 35. Game definitely drags on in the middle of it, but not bad enough to make me quit playing. It was worth it because the end is awesome.
I agree Rune that if you compare them with the same game, then VR is a more impressive/better experience. But it comes back to content for me. One of the most impressive games I have ever experienced in VR is Titan Slayer...and it's like 20 minutes long. But battling huge bosses like that and having to side step attacks really opened my eyes early to the potential of VR. Now we just need a game like that that's 30+ hours lol. It really made me dream about playing a MMORPG with that kind of combat in VR. Sadly though, Titan Slayer was one of the earliest games I bought and I'm still waiting for something to compare to it that's longer.
RedRizla Posts: 6,251 Valuable Player
Has to be a really good 2D game to get me interested. I have lots of 2D PC games that I need to play, but soon get fed up with. But I purchased a PlayStation just because I didn't want to miss out on Red Dead Redemption 2, and I have to say I just love this game. If Red Dead Redemption 2 came to VR, it would be a dream come true. I also like games like Xcom 2 and other strategy games, but VR has come nowhere near delivering something like Xcom 2.
pyroth309 said:
I started the first Metro game tonight!
It does pull you in much quicker and time just flies by due to nature of the "mission" approach. The same thing happens to me in games like StarCraft where the story of the Campaign that connects missions together makes you forget how long you've been playing.
A 12 hour game is right up my alley. That's like VR game numbers lol
Zenbane said:
Yea, 4A games has exceptional storytelling. I was kind of disappointed with Arktika.1 even though I enjoyed it. It became obvious after the first couple of missions that they simply didn't have the budget or time to make it up to their usual standards. It's a very Poor man's metro.
Am I wrong in thinking you can play Metro in big screen using 3D? I know I've done this with a few 3D capable games and it's not bad if you pull the screen quite close to you.
I know Last Light was in 3d, not sure if the original was. Maybe they are in the Redux versions? You should play the Redux if you play original games as they graphics were greatly improved.
Here's a post on Steam about Redux -
Metro Redux is UNREAL in 3D Vision
Just purchased Metro Redux a few hours ago. 3d Vision takes this game to a WHOLE another level. Played vanilla Metro back in the day and enjoyed it but this game in 3d......WOW.
I have a 3D projector, so I might have a look at it on that. That should give me a sense of feeling like I'm in the game when I'm playing on a 110 inch screen in 3D.
I don't usually play games on my projector even though it's a gaming one.
I still haven't forgiven the bastards at 4A making that who're at the start of the game rip you off. That's just not cricket!
I loved Arktika.1!
But I can totally see how anyone who started with Metro and then played Arktika.1 could be rather disappointed.
What I love about both Metro and Arktika.1 is that the theme reminds me of being a Terran in StarCraft fighting some Zerg! It also reminds me of my old favorite Mutant Chronicles books.
Just finished Metro 2033 today, it was fantastic!
Quite a few members of this community recommended that I try this (can't remember who), but I'm glad I took the advice. This was definitely a fun pancake gaming experience. It took me forever, of course, since I still struggle to stay in standard gaming for long periods of time; but I did enjoy every minute of it.
I bought the sequel to Metro 2033 and at some point will buy the new Exodus game. But I will probably take a nice break from pancaking gaming and head back in to VR.
About 1 pancake gaming experience every 3-5 months seems right up my alley!
I've decided not to buy an XBox One X for the 85" TV, basically because I have little time to play my VR games, and the new TV already has increased my time watching movies and (Netflix) TV shows. Adding a new console may limit my VR time way too much - and I don't want that to happen. Furthermore don't want the kids to use my TV too much
Jumped into the 4K waters last night by finally deciding what to buy first - and I chose this show. It's 9.3 on IMDB and made in real 4K (not fake/upscaled 4K):
Later today I'm picking this up - and I'll reconsider pancake gaming when the PS5 arrives:
I was one of them. 2033 is indeed fantastic. The story continues with Last Light so you might want to consider just plowing through it in the near future while 2033 story is relatively fresh. All 3 games are great in their own ways. Definitely one of my favorite series.
Fair point. Maybe I will load up Last Light this weekend then, to keep the story fresh. It is a short playthrough, and I really got addicted to that "starcraft" feel the game has.
Yea, 2033 is probably the Darkest of of the 3 games which is why I love it. Your gaming preferences will determine if Last Light is superior for you or not. It seems to be for most people. I kind of liked the more horror vibe of 2033 but there was definitely some things Last Light did better as well. Last Light Redux is still one of the best looking games on PC to this day. Exodus is kind of like an amalgamation of the two and added more open world elements. It's also longer than both games combined which is also good and bad.
Started Metro Last Light yesterday, and played through in to the AM lol
This one is more addicting than the first. I think the story does a great job of keeping me intrigued.
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Yazoo, Calfkiller collaboration brew, “The Beacon,” shines light on Tenn.’s high beer taxes
November 30, 2012 By: mike Category: Breweries, Craft beer, Events, Government
Tennessee’s highest-in-the-nation beer taxes, including the state’s 17% beer wholesale tax, have inspired a new beer.
Yazoo Brewing Company and Calfkiller Brewing Company are shining a light on Tennessee’s beer taxes with a new collaboration brew, The Beacon, which will be available to taste for the first time Saturday at the sold-out 12 South Winter Warmer beer festival in Nashville.
The Beacon is an unfiltered beer brewed with some German oak smoked wheat malt, Tennessee honey and some in-house Calfkiller-roasted coffee. A seven-barrel batch of the beer was brewed in Sparta, Tenn., earlier this month.
Here’s more about the collaboration beer from Yazoo’s Linus Hall:
One thing we definitely have in common is our drive to change Tennessee’s beer taxes, which unfairly tax craft brewers at a higher per-gallon rate than beers from the big brewers, and which have risen every year since 1954, to where TN’s beer taxes are the highest in the country. So… we decided to put our frustrations into liquid form. Introducing… THE BEACON! Shining a light on a STYLE OF BEER UNIQUE TO TENNESSEE! THE “TENNESSEE HIGH TAX ALE” STYLE! Yes, only Tennessee can lay claim to this unique style of beer, where the taxes are raised to an almost unbelievable level of $37.00 per barrel. Other areas of the country can claim unique styles of beer, but only in TN are beer taxes taken to this level. We should be so proud!” [source]
If you aren’t going to the 12 South Winter Warmer, Hall says there will be keg tappings of the beer across Tennessee in the weeks to come. Plus, a second batch of the beer will be brewed at Yazoo and bottled in 750 ml bottles “for distribution wherever the light needs to shine in Tennessee.”
Hall is president of the board of directors for the newly-formed Tennessee Craft Brewers Guild, which is working to help change the beer laws in the Volunteer State.
More details about the Craft Brewers Guild’s efforts are expected to be announced soon. Stay tuned.
Tags: 17% beer wholesale tax, beer laws, Calfkiller Brewing Company, Linus Hall, taxes, Tennessee Craft Brewer's Guild, The Beacon, Yazoo Brewing Company
City Council approves law allowing beer tastings in Memphis grocery stores
November 21, 2012 By: mike Category: Craft beer, Government, Memphis
You’ll soon be able to sip on a sample of craft beer in the aisles of Memphis grocery stores, thanks to a law passed on Tuesday.
Exactly how the law will be implemented remains to be seen.
The Memphis City Council unanimously approved an ordinance that allows for limited beer tastings at grocery stores and other retailers with city-issued licenses to sell beer for off-premise consumption. The tastings will be allowed for “promotional and educational purposes.”
“This is a just an ordinance that allows the growing industry of microbrews and people to enjoy a tasting and sample a product. It’s based on a law that is in effect in Nashville … and I think it goes to the public good,” said councilman Shea Flinn, sponsor of the ordinance.
New language added to the law in response to concerns about a lack of specifics calls for the Memphis Alcohol Commission to “promulgate rules for conducting beer tastings.”
“It’s just making sure that we weren’t opening a loophole that would allow for convenience stores … to become ‘beer halls,’ for lack of a better word,” Flinn said. “We think we’ve got the appropriate safeguards and we think we have the appropriate flexibility, giving the Alcohol Commission the ability to create rules for this effect to deal with any issues that might present themselves, although they’re not expected.”
The proposal was sparked after a local Whole Foods store could not host a Yazoo Brewing Company beer tasting. It follows other recent changes in local beer laws, including the elimination of the requirement to sell food at breweries with tasting rooms as well as zoning changes that make it easier to open a brewery in the Memphis area.
Memphis beer tasting ordinance
Tags: beer laws, Memphis City Council, Shea Flinn, tasting, Yazoo Brewing Company
Memphis City Council set to vote today on ordinance to allow beer tastings at grocery stores
A proposed law that would allow limited beer tastings at Memphis grocery stores is up for a final vote today by the City Council.
The proposal, which is an ordinance that will be heard on third and final reading, would allow on-site beer tastings at grocery stores and other retailers with city-issued licenses to sell beer for off-premise consumption. The tastings would be allowed for “promotional and educational purposes.”
We first mentioned this proposal back in September when it was endorsed by a council committee. Since then, the ordinance has been delayed amid concerns over its lack of specifics, according to a story in the Memphis Flyer.
According to Rich Foge, president of the Tennessee Malt Beverage Association, the ordinance lacked clear rules and regulations about which licensed stores could hold beer tastings, when and how often tastings could be held, and what size samples could be distributed. [source]
The latest version of the ordinance, which you can read below, calls for the Memphis Alcohol Commission to “promulgate rules for conducting beer tastings.”
The proposal was sparked after a local Whole Foods store could not host a Yazoo Brewing Company beer tasting. Yazoo’s Ivan Chester tweeted his support for the measure last week.
Support Memphis’s amendment to allow beer samples in grocery stores, just like u can in Nashville & Chattanooga!! ow.ly/fjF4Q
— Ivan Chester (@Yazoocellarman) November 18, 2012
Memphis City Councilman Shea Flinn is sponsoring the proposal.
The state legislature recently passed a law allowing Tennessee liquor stores to hold tastings, and “Memphis retailers selling beer for off-premise consumption should enjoy the same privilege,” Flinn’s proposal says.
It also notes that “craft, locally manufactured, and specialty beers have become extremely popular and sales of these products take over a larger share of the market each year; holders of licenses to sell beer for off-premise consumption would like to be able to conduct product tastings in their stores, providing free, small samples of products sold to customers for promotional and educational purposes, which is not permitted under the current Code of Ordinances.”
If approved, the measure would follow other recent changes in local beer laws, including the elimination of the requirement to sell food at breweries with tasting rooms as well as zoning changes that make it easier to open a brewery in the Memphis area.
The City Council meets today at 3:30 p.m., in the council chambers of City Hall, 125 N. Main.
Proposed Memphis beer tasting ordinance
Ordinance would allow beer tastings at Memphis grocery stores
September 06, 2012 By: mike Category: Craft beer, Government, Memphis
Memphis grocery stores would be allowed to host free beer tastings under a proposed ordinance being considered by the Memphis City Council.
The proposal, endorsed this week by a committee, would allow on-site beer tastings at grocery stores and other retailers with city-issued licenses to sell beer for off-premise consumption. The tastings would be allowed for “sales, education and promotional purposes.”
The proposal was sparked after a local Whole Foods store could not host a Yazoo Brewing Company beer tasting, according to council officials.
Memphis City Councilman Shea Flinn is sponsoring the measure.
The ordinance must be approved on three readings, with the first set for Sept. 18. The final vote could happen as soon as Oct. 16.
This measure follows other changes in local beer laws, including the elimination of the requirement to sell food at breweries with tasting rooms as well as zoning changes that make it easier to open a brewery in the Memphis area.
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Medal of Honor: Allied Assault - Spearhead Crack/Patch
This Expansion Pack for Medal of Honor Allied Assault features nine expansive single-player levels ranging from behind enemy lines in Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge and the fall of Berlin. Over 12 new multiplayer levels including the Arnhem Bridge and the streets of Berlin. New multi-player modes emphasizing more robust team multi-player and team objective-based gameplay. New weapons including the British Enfield Mark 1 rifle, the Sten submachine gun, smoke grenades, and the Soviet PPSh-41 submachine gun. Work with squads of American, British and Soviet troops to complete single-player objectives. New soldier models, skins and voices including British and Soviet troops. [Electronic Arts]
Download Medal of Honor: Allied Assault - Spearhead Crack/Patch
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Medal of Honor: Allied Assault - Spearhead reviews ( 2 )
7thsanctum, Nov 5, 2017
I first played this when I picked up the Medal of Honor: Allied Assault Deluxe Edition and it was part of the package. The Spearhead expansion consists of three new perspectives. Working with the British in Normandy to assassinate a Colonel, surviving in the Battle of the Bulge with the Americans and eventually storming Berlin with the Russians. The game weirdly goes to great pains to make sure you are playing the same character across all three of these arcs which seems unnecessary. Personally the first mission where you are air-dropped into Normandy and meet up with the British I thought was great (albeit I might be showing some bias as someone from the UK). I always find the British struggle a bit more interesting than some of the usual American viewpoints. This expansion is worth it for the first mission alone. The Battle of the Bulge has some interesting elements but has one particularly horrendous mission where you are in a half track operating the turret. At this point you are effectively on rails and have to shoot various attacking vehicles and enemies. However, you have no way to dodge, no way to slow down and no way to heal. On top of all these you are still vulnerable to small arms fire. This is one of the few times in a game where I had to use console commands to heal myself as I was stuck for a long time getting randomly killed by various enemies. The Russian mission has a nice section where you get to drive a T34 and hold off a counter attack. On top of all this, all the new weapons in this pack including Lee Enfield and Mosin-Nagant rifles are fun to use. The main story mode is very short, probably only 2 hours or so long depending on how long you spend on the half-track. However, most of the original appeal was likely new skins and weapons for multiplayer. Sadly in 2017 with game spy this is moderately useless. Oh on top of all this, Gary Oldman features as your main characters voice in the end-credits unexpectedly.
MoosesM., Sep 11, 2007
I loved Allied Assault, and when Spearhead came out many years ago I got to the store as fast as I could and bought it up. I was quickly disappointed. An annoying Battle of the Bulge level where if a single German even touched the trench you lost; disappointing weaponry; and gameplay that I completed in two and a half hours gave a very poor gaming experience. I did not enjoy this game, which says something from someone who loved Allied Assault.
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← Don Smith
June 2012 Fogelquist and the Unitarian Church, Open Houses →
Hunt Club, Riding Academies
Posted on May 21, 2012 by GHHP
Paul Easton with trotter horse Miss Dean at the Portland Hunt Club
Buggy races at the Hunt Club
The Portland Hunt Club, Portland Riding Academy, Nicol Riding Academy and Aaron Frank’s stables were all within touching distance of each other, so they will be covered together. So you can tell who the ‘interviewees’ are, so to speak, Don Kerron is son of the owner of Portland Riding Academy, and Gorham Nicol is grandson of the Nicol Riding Academy (because Harry Kerron was quite a bit older when he had children, their ages are apparently not too far apart.) Trish Palmer Helmer’s parents rode at the Nicol Riding Academy, and Jane Wilson Ehrman was very active there, as well as marrying Alick Wilson. Andy Dignan and her husband Pat have lived on Hunt Club Lane 35 years and are the third owners (they bought Harry Kerron’s house). They boarded their daughter’s horses in the Kerron boarding stables.
Two riding academies and one hunt club were located just north of the Aaron Frank property, all on land east of what is now Nicol Road, north of Hunt Club Road and west of what is now Oleson Road. It’s interesting to see how the riding academies were intertwined, yet separate, with friendly rivalries. According to Trish Helmer, academies boarded horses and gave riding lessons to people of all ages. These horses were called a “school string” – with different levels of trained horses for beginner, intermediate and advanced riders. People would use these horses in all riding activities around the area, paying a fee and going with the trainer/owner and other riders. A lot of people couldn’t afford the upkeep of a horse of their own.
I was told that riding schools were also favored because there were few recreation facilities in those days, which made it a popular activity. There were competitions between riding academies, and there were often good-sized galleries watching the events, but the big horse shows were held at the “P.I.” – Pacific International – with people from the borders of Canada to Mexico attending. The Hunt Club was a ‘member’ type of facility and was a place to gather for social activities. Horses could be boarded at the academies, but there were no quarters for doing so at the Hunt Club.
Until 1902, the Portland Riding Academy centered their activities in a stable located at 19th and Northrup. That year they moved the entire establishment to quarters on Johnson Street between 21st and 22nd. This academy belonged to James Nicol … and both areas were considered the outskirts of the city in those days. Jim Nicol’s grandson reported that his grandfather would rent horses for buggies, delivery vehicles and riders. Articles sent by Trish Helmer zeroed in on the school itself and the riders from the academy who enjoyed the many trails and the wilderness leading into hills. Often these riders would journey east to the Willamette river by way of the old Albina ferry to the Irvington race track, where many of the city’s first paper chases and competitive events were held.
It was in 1906 when Mr. Nicol decided to retire from the downtown Portland Riding Academy and move to a hop farm in Garden Home. He sold the Portland Riding Academy to Harry Kerron, who continued to supply all the horses for delivery wagons and the Rose Parade, and who would patiently place rubber shoes on horses for those owners taking them over the cobblestone parade route.
There was a program listing a Portland Hunt Club event at the Irvington Race Track in 1901, but it wasn’t until 1906 that some members of the Portland Riding Academy apparently decided to incorporate. A few of the most active members drew up a set of by-laws for “the improvement of horses, the encouragement of riding and the promotion of amateur sports, to hold horse shows and to hold amateur race meets.” They bought property in Garden Home, built a clubhouse and track, and moved into quarters there in 1911. Some members built summer homes, and according to Andy Dignan, they were large, old square homes with big kitchens, large dining rooms and lots of bedrooms. She also said that even though none of the original owners or descendants lives in them now, the homes remain and all are occupied.
Historic 1910 pillars at the entry to the Hunt Club. Courtesy Pat and Andy Dignan. See post.
F.A. Martin home on Hunt Club Lane. Courtesy Pat and Andy Dignan. See post.
1911 F.A. Martin home under construction. Courtesy Pat and Andy Dignan. See post.
Hunt Club from NW (Portland Golf Club in foreground)
The Hunt Club insignia is inscribed in one stone as you enter the Hunt Club area, and names of the original homeowners who occupied these homes is on the other:
J. Freck F. F. Bernard F.A. Martin A.M. Cronin P.A. Gilmore H. M. Kerron.
Many exhibitions and competitive events were held at the Club – such as the high jump, steeplechase, mile trot, foot race and hunter trials. Fox hunting, which was a seasonal sport, usually occurred from late August/early September to October (it depended a bit on the weather), with the scent of a fox put into a gunnysack. June was the annual Race Meet and August was their Civic Horse Show.
The Hunt Club also offered junior events for youngsters in the summer – some exclusively for riders 18 years of age or under. In clippings Trish sent, I found out that judging and trophies were important parts of the horse scene, but some of their proceeds went to such causes as the Oregon Volunteer-Soldier’s Monument fund and the Babies Home. Roundup parties, dances, straw hat contests and barbecues were evidence that members of this club had a lot of fun!
One event was described so well that I thought you might be interested in it – it was Portland Hunt Club’s first Hunter Pace Event,the first of this kind to be held in Oregon (year not noted), and there were nine teams:
“Time for the 4½-mile course was pre-established at 30 minutes flat, and teams were started at three minute intervals from the Judges’ stand on the track. From there the trail (laid all the way with chopped paper so no one would get lost) led up the lane to the Nicol orchards and woods where a number of jumps were encountered, then around the Alick Wilson farm and along the right-of-way next to the golf course. Down across the south fork of Fanno Creek and continuing along the trail to the Roland Pinger pastures. Here we cut across to the A.C. Dockrell estate where the map called for a timed check of horse and rider, and where a very hospitable committee composed of the Alick Wilsons and the Bill Bishops dispensed a tasty fizz to the adult riders and lemonade for the juniors. Off again across the fields and back to the Nicol Stables via the lane, kitty-corner across the Nicol race track, then turning right through the woods and finishing back at the Hunt Club.”
In 1914 and 1920, James Nicol sold a total of 135 acres in Garden Home to form most of the Portland Golf Club. His grandson said the railroad went along a right of way. He also said a portion of property was sold to Aaron Frank and another segment to Harry Kerron.
Harry’s son said the city was spreading in the early 1900s, so his father moved the academy from the Johnson Street location to property he bought in Garden Home in 1923, adjacent to the Hunt Club. When Aaron Frank moved next door, the Kerrons had an indoor ring and track (where the racquet club later was) and a 60-stall upper barn where the staff did all the feeding, care and stall cleaning for those who paid for that boarding service. There was also a lower barn used for boarding which had approximately 15 stalls and were for those who provided their own feed, mucked the stalls, and did all the exercising and currying (grooming) of their own horses…and Mr. Kerron would get after any owner who did not exercise their horses! At the far back was a wonderful old room filled with ancient harnesses and tack. Just north of the lower barn was the quarter-mile track, with wooden grandstands on the south side and an elevated platform where the announcers and judges sat. One of the most popular events was the Sulky race, which was a small cart generally pulled by a Standard Breed.
About 1925, and with a little more than thirty acres left, Mr. Nicols was convinced by friends that another riding school was needed. Beginning with a barn, he set up a riding school called the Nicol Riding Academy and sent to Scotland for Alick Wilson to run it. Gorham Nicol said the facility consisted of the family home, three barns, clubhouse, a couple of small houses for the people who worked there, a ring, tack rooms off the barn, a lot of hay storage and sixty horses. Harry Kerron sent to Scotland for Alick’s brother Bill to come and teach for the Portland Riding Academy … and you can see why the friendly rivalry continued.
Gorham described the Paper Chases as competitions to see who could follow the trail of paper to the final destination in the shortest amount of time. There were false trails to contend with, so there was quite a bit of doubling back.
Both owners reportedly took horses to Gearhart; James Nicols took them for the summer by riding them over trails, then by train. It sounded like Harry Kerron took riders and they rode two days to get to Gearhart. Don said they would congregate at the Gearhart Hotel and party for two days, take the horses on to Astoria and then would barge them back to Portland. The Kerrons had several hundred acres in Hillsboro, so the horses could be rested a couple months of the year and then Harry would “drive’ them into Portland.
James Nicol died in 1933, but his daughter kept and ran the riding academy with Aleck Wilson. Eventually the Oregon Episcopal School bought the Nicol’s remaining thirty-two acres in 1964. Jane Ehrman noted that many fond memories and marriages came out of the Nicol Riding Academy.
The Kerron’s arena burned about 1970. After his dad moved, Don Kerron moved the riding academy and boarding area out to the Scholls area and he and his wife are now showing their horses from Bend. The Hunt Club clubhouse was sold about 1970 and converted into a private residence.
Many thanks to Andy Dignan, Trish Palmer Helmer, Jane Wilson Ehrman, Gorham Nicol and Don Kerron for the histories of the riding academies and Hunt Club.
Written by Sharon Wilcox, 2001. Reviewed by Elaine Shreve, May 2012.
This entry was posted in Early History, Homes and tagged Easton, Frank, Golf, horses, Hunt Club, SW Oleson Rd, Wilcox. Bookmark the permalink.
5 Responses to Hunt Club, Riding Academies
Patti Waitman-Ingebretsen says:
Teen aged girls love horses and we young girls of Maplewood were no different. It was in the mid to late 1950’s and a parent would drive us to the Hunt Club where we would meet a crusty old fellow with heavy Scottish accent. His name might have been Bill. As I was often tallest of the girls, I was always assigned to “Airway” as he was a big horse. We rode English style around and around in a large indoor riding arena. Bill would shout out instructions as we circled the ring putting our horses through their paces. On one occasion, I decided to switch my little stick/crop from my right to left hand and immediately got stick and reins tangled. Airway took off and we raced around the area, occasionally leaping over little fences not for our level of riding skill. As I rounded the gallery area, my father shouted instructions which I could not understand. Airway and I were making good time as we raced around the arena and by now everyone was shouting instructions. Finally, Bill shouted, “just drop everything” which I did and Airway and I stopped our wild race and all was calm. What I had failed to realize as I was tangled in reins and stick was the other end of the stick was in poor Airway’s ear! Bill was grumpy as I thanked him for his good advice. I later began to feel quite smug as I regaled others with the story of my racing and horse jumping experience atop Airway. Someone else quickly pointed out that I was darn lucky not to have been thrown.
Patti (Ransom) Waitman-Ingebretsen
Pingback: The Hunt Club, “Memories of Horsing Around Years” | Garden Home History Project
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Gay Vancouver
Theatre Archives
Review: tick, tick…BOOM!
Published: April 8, 200911:10 pm
Author Mark Robins
Before there was the phenom that was Rent, Jonathan Larson wrote tick,tick… BOOM! in response to the failure of another of his works, Superbia. While tick,tick… BOOM! received a couple of workshop productions, ironically much like Superbia, the show was quickly eclipsed when Rent opened off-Broadway in 1996 and to Broadway itself that same year.
Autobiographical in nature, tick,tick… BOOM! follows Jonathan (Brandyn Eddy) in the week leading up to his 30th birthday and the workshop performance of Superbia. Along for the ride are his girlfriend Susan (Ashley Siddals) and his best friend Michael (Jeremy Lowe). Siddals and Lowe also play a variety of minor roles throughout the piece including both taking hilarious turns as Jonathan’s agent.
The parallels between tick,tick… BOOM! and Rent are understandably present and while not a complete surprise it did bring a smile as Larson talked about the keys being thrown from the window because the buzzer doesn’t work and the telephone calls with his parents. Even the music, to some degree, elicited images of Rent although the lyrics fell well short of its more famous cousin.
And that is where the biggest problem with tick,tick… BOOM! lies – in the lyrics and the story. One couldn’t help but feel Larson was being completely self-indulgent in this slice-of-life piece and while I don’t have any issues with this type of very narrow focus it did seem to come across as little more than a cathartic response to Larson’s failure, with nothing of real substance to say to its audience.
With few exceptions there are really no songs that standout, especially when compared to what Larson was able to accomplish with Rent a few years later. And while musically the show has some merit, the lyrics, much like the story itself, tended to be sophomoric.
Interestingly, tick,tick… BOOM! was written by Larson as a one-man show and its current version didn’t materialize until several years later and adapted into this 80 minute, three-person version. And this re-write is probably a good thing given the show was at its best in the numbers featuring all three cast members.
Brandyn Eddy does a decent job as Jonathan although the chemistry between both Siddals’ Susan and Lowe’s Michael is simply not felt by the audience. Lowe’s larger-than-life acting style simply didn’t work in this smaller venue and tended towards distraction. We were also slightly disappointed in Eddy’s inability to actually play the keyboards in the show.
The cast is accompanied on stage (on scaffolding) by a five piece band. At times you could see Musical Director Melissa Braun (or was that Sarah Jaysmith) madly trying to keep the band together and in tempo. Rock musicals like this really must get the sound right; unfortunately it was a problem last night with the cast being overpowered by the band on a number of occasions.
In the end, while tick,tick… BOOM! is a self-indulgent and inferior musical, it does give us a glimpse into the development of the characters and ideas that was eventually to became Rent which, probably not coincidentally, Fighting Chance Productions is mounting in August.
tick,tick… BOOM! continues at the Jericho Arts Centre through April 22nd (Mondays to Wednesdays ) only. Tickets are available at the door or by emailing ticktickboomtickets@gmail.com or contact Fighting Chance Productions through their Facebook page.
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Isotonix Essentials® Women's Health - Single Box (30 Packets)
by: Market America
As jetsetters and go-getters, women are constantly on the move. There’s a lot to think about all the time, so maintaining a healthy lifestyle can get pushed to the back burner. However, your health should take precedence. Cardiovascular health, skin and bone health are extremely important concerns. Want to take charge of your wellness, but need something to keep up with the super woman lifestyle you’re leading?*Look and feel vibrant with Isotonix Essentials® Women’s Health custom blend formula. More than a multivitamin, Women’s Health supports a healthy complexion, helps support healthy bones, teeth, joints and skin, and provides antioxidant protection for your entire body. Women will benefit from receiving the foundation of nutrients that deliver vibrancy, while supporting cardiovascular and cognitive health and helping to maintain healthy collagen production.* So while you’re managing life like a champ, let Women’s Health be there to back you up!*
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Prime Time Female Libido Formula - Single Bottle (30 Servings)
Isotonix OPC-3® Beauty Blend - Single Bottle (45 Servings)
Prime Feminene® Female Support Formula - Single Bottle (30 Servings)
Supports a healthy complexion
Promotes healthy functioning of the skin at a cellular level, which results in health, vibrant-looking skin
Helps maintain normal cell health
Helps maintain healthy collagen production
Provides antioxidant protection for the entire body
Protects the body from free radicals
Helps support health bones, teeth, joints and skin
Helps maintain normal muscle and nerve function
Supports a healthy immune system
Promotes cognitive health
Contains no gluten, wheat, soy, yeast, artificial flavor, salt, preservatives or milk
No Detectable GMOs
Isotonic-Capable Drinkable Supplements
As jetsetters and go-getters, women are constantly on the move. There’s a lot to think about all the time, so maintaining a healthy lifestyle can get pushed to the back burner. However, your health should take precedence. Cardiovascular health, skin and bone health are extremely important concerns. Want to take charge of your wellness, but need something to keep up with the super woman lifestyle you’re leading?*
Look and feel vibrant with Isotonix Essentials® Women’s Health custom blend formula. More than a multivitamin, Women’s Health supports a healthy complexion, helps support healthy bones, teeth, joints and skin, and provides antioxidant protection for your entire body. Women will benefit from receiving the foundation of nutrients that deliver vibrancy, while supporting cardiovascular and cognitive health and helping to maintain healthy collagen production.*
So while you’re managing life like a champ, let Women’s Health be there to back you up!*
Isotonix Essentials®
1. Pour contents of packet into a cup.
2. Add 8 fl. oz. of water into the cup and stir.
As a dietary supplement, take once daily or as directed by your healthcare provider. Maximum absorption occurs when taken on an empty stomach. This product is isotonic only if the specified amounts of water and powder are used.
What does Isotonix® mean?
Isotonix® dietary supplements are delivered in an isotonic liquid solution. This means that the body has less work to do in obtaining maximum absorption. The isotonic state of the suspension allows nutrients to pass efficiently into the small intestine and be rapidly delivered into the bloodstream. With Isotonix® products, little nutritive value is lost, making the absorption of nutrients highly efficient while delivering maximum results.*
Who should use Isotonix Essentials® Women’s Health?
Females 18 years of age and older who want to support healthy skin and body, specific to women’s needs.*
How do I take Isotonix Essentials® Women’s Health?
Pour contents of packet into a cup. Add 8 fl. oz of water into the cup and stir.
How often should I use Isotonix Essentials® Women’s Health?
As a dietary supplement, take once daily or as directed by your healthcare provider.
What ingredients make this supplement beneficial to women?
Magnesium (Glycinate) makes Women’s Health bioavailable and supports cognitive health*
Nutrients in Women’s Health help support collagen production, strong hair and nails*
How is Isotonix Essentials® Women’s Health different from other similar supplement products on the market?
Many women’s health supplements focus on botanicals or herbs that have a complex mechanism of action. More than many other products on the market, Isotonix Essentials® Women's Health meets a diversity of female needs.*
Are there any contraindications or warnings for this product?
If you are currently using any prescription drugs, have an ongoing medical condition or are pregnant or breastfeeding, you should consult your healthcare provider before using this product.
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product(s) is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Calcium (Lactate, Sulfate): 557 mg
Calcium is found in milk, cheese, yogurt, corn tortillas, napa (Chinese cabbage), kale and broccoli. Calcium is an essential mineral with a wide range of biological roles. Calcium exists in bone, primarily in the form of hydroxyapatite (Ca10 (PO4)6 (OH)2). Hydroxyapatite comprises approximately 40 percent of the weight of bone. The skeleton has an obvious structural requisite for calcium. The skeleton also acts as a storehouse for calcium. Apart from being a major constituent of bones and teeth, calcium supports normal muscle contraction and nerve conduction, supports normal heartbeat, blood coagulation and glandular secretion, promotes the production of energy and helps maintain normal immune function.*
Calcium is essential for healthy bones and teeth. A sufficient daily calcium intake is necessary for maintaining bone density. Calcium has been shown to reduce symptoms of PMS in women.* Calcium also may play a role in promoting cardiovascular health.
Magnesium (Citrate, Glycinate, Carbonate): 450 mg
A women’s body has unique needs based on her age, weight and physical fitness. While some women experience the effects of premenstrual syndrome, others need help as it relates to menopause, while every woman could use more energy. Isotonix Essentials™ Women’s Health offers magnesium in a glycinate form, which helps support cognitive health.*
Magnesium is a component of the mineralized part of bone and supports the normal metabolism of potassium and calcium in adults. It helps maintain normal levels of potassium, phosphorus, calcium, adrenaline and insulin. It also promotes the normal mobilization of calcium, transporting it inside the cell for further utilization. It supports normal muscle function and nerve tissue. Magnesium promotes the normal synthesis of proteins, nucleic acids, nucleotides, cyclic adenosine monophosphate, lipids and carbohydrates.*
Magnesium works together with calcium to help maintain normal blood pressure. Importantly, magnesium also supports the body’s ability to build healthy bones and teeth, and promotes proper muscle development. It works together with calcium and vitamin D to help keep bones strong. Magnesium also promotes cardiovascular health by supporting normal platelet activity and helping to maintain normal cholesterol levels.*
Magnesium supports the normal release of energy from food during metabolism, regulation of body temperature and proper nerve function. Importantly, magnesium also promotes healthy bones, teeth and normal muscle development. It works together with calcium and vitamin D to promote strong bones. *
Foods rich in magnesium include unpolished grains, nuts and green vegetables. Green, leafy vegetables are potent sources of magnesium because of their chlorophyll content. Meats, starches, milk, refined and processed foods contain low amounts of magnesium. Recent research shows that many American diets are magnesium deficient.*
Potassium (Bicarbonate): 320 mg
Potassium is an electrolyte stored in the muscles. Foods rich in potassium include bananas, oranges, cantaloupe, avocado, raw spinach, cabbage and celery. Potassium is an essential macromineral that helps maintain fluid balance in the body. It also supports a wide variety of biochemical and physiological processes. Among other things, potassium promotes the transmission of nerve impulses, the contraction of cardiac, skeletal and smooth muscle, the production of energy, the synthesis of nucleic acids and the maintenance of normal blood pressure.*
In 1928, it was first suggested that high potassium intake could help maintain cardiovascular health. Potassium promotes normal muscle relaxation and helps maintain normal insulin release. It also promotes glycogen and protein synthesis. Potassium is an electrolyte that promotes normal heartbeat. Potassium promotes the normal release of energy from protein, fat and carbohydrates during metabolism. Potassium helps maintain normal water balance, supports recovery from exercise and the elimination of wastes. Sodium and potassium are two of the most important ions in maintaining the homeostatic equilibrium of the body fluids.*
Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid): 109 mg
Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is a water-soluble vitamin that has a number of biological functions. Vitamin C is found in peppers (sweet, green, red, hot red and green chili), citrus fruits and brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, collards, mustard greens, broccoli, spinach, guava, kiwi fruit, currants and strawberries. Nuts and grains contain small amounts of vitamin C. It is important to note that cooking destroys vitamin C activity.
Vitamin C supports normal tissue repair, healing and dopamine production. Vitamin C is integral in supporting a healthy immune system, promoting cardiovascular health, helping to maintain healthy cholesterol levels and providing an antioxidant defense. The body does not manufacture vitamin C on its own, nor does it store it. Therefore, Vitamin C must be acquired through diet and supplementation.*
Vitamin E Acetate (d-Alpha-Tocopheryl-Acetate): 53 mg
The most valuable sources of dietary vitamin E include vegetable oils, margarine, nuts, seeds, avocados and wheat germ. Safflower oil contains large amounts of vitamin E (about two thirds of the RDA in ¼ cup), and smaller amounts are found in corn oil and soybean oil. Vitamin E is actually a family of related compounds called tocopherols and tocotrienols.
Vitamin E was discovered in the early 1930s. It is available in a natural or synthetic form. In most cases, the natural and synthetic form of vitamins and minerals are identical. However, the natural form of Vitamin E is superior, in terms of absorption and retention in the body.
The natural form of alpha-tocopherol, known as d-alpha tocopherol, is contained in Isotonix Essentials® Women’s Blend. The synthetic form is the most common form found in dietary supplements. It is in the consumer's best interest to choose a product that contains the superior (and more expensive) natural form. For those individuals watching their dietary fat consumption, which is relatively common in the world of dieting, vitamin E intake is likely to be low, due to a reduced intake of foods with a higher fat content.*
The health benefits of supplemental vitamin E are derived from its support of immune health and antioxidant activity. Vitamin E protects cell membranes from free radicals. It is also helpful in promoting normal healing and is known to help maintain a healthy cardiovascular system. Vitamin E is one of the most powerful fat-soluble antioxidants in the body. High servings of vitamin E have been shown to promote normal platelet activity.*
Niacinamide (Vitamin B3): 30 mg NE
Niacin supports the proper functioning of the digestive system, skin and nerves. It works with vitamins B1 and B2 to promote the conversion of food to energy. Niacin is found in dairy products, poultry, fish, lean meats, nuts, eggs, legumes, and enriched breads and cereals.*
D-Calcium Pantothenate (Vitamin B5): 25 mg
Pantothenic acid (B5) promotes proper neurotransmitter activity in the brain. Pantothenic acid is also known as the anti-stress vitamin, and supports the normal secretion of hormones essential for optimal health.*
Pine Bark Extract (Pycnogenol®): 20 mg
Pycnogenol® is a natural plant extract from the bark of the maritime pine tree, which grows exclusively along the coast of southwest France in Les Landes de Gascogne. This unspoiled and natural forest environment is the unique source of pine bark. Pycnogenol® is one of the most researched ingredients in the natural product marketplace. Published findings have demonstrated Pycnogenol’s® wide array of beneficial effects on the body. Pine bark extract is a combination of procyanidins, bioflavonoids and organic acids.
The extract has three basic properties — it is a powerful antioxidant, selectively binds to collagen and elastin, and promotes the normal production of endothelial nitric oxide, which promotes the normal dilation of blood vessels.*
As one of the most powerful scavengers of free radicals, Pycnogenol® combats many free radicals. It helps support healthy blood platelet activity, helps maintain healthy blood glucose levels, reduces mild menstrual cramping and abdominal pain, helps maintain joint flexibility, promotes cardiovascular health, promotes healthy sperm quality, helps maintain healthy cholesterol levels and supports a healthy complexion.*
Pycnogenol® is the registered trademark of Horphag Research, Ltd., and is protected by U.S. patent numbers 4,698,360; 5,720,956; and 6,372,266.
Grape Seed Extract: 12.5 mg
Grape seed extract is typically extracted from the seeds of red grapes (instead of white), which have a high content of compounds known as oligomeric proanthocyanidins (OPCs). Grape seed extract is extremely rich in polyphenols, compounds with high antioxidant activity. Grape seed extract has been found to help maintain healthy cholesterol levels.*
Red Wine Extract: 12.5 mg
Red wine extract is a powerful antioxidant. It is found in grape vines, roots, seeds and stalks, with the highest concentration in the skins. The antioxidant properties of red wine extract contribute to maintaining healthy circulation by strengthening capillaries, arteries and veins, and promoting overall cardiovascular health.*
In the late 1990s, scientists took note of a phenomenon among the French. There were very low rates of cardiovascular problems in the provinces where residents consistently ate high fat foods and drank red wine. Scientists concluded that the protective properties of red wine have helped the French maintain cardiovascular health for years and subsequent scientific studies have further shown that the OPCs found in red wine are particularly beneficial for protecting the heart and blood vessels.*
Bilberry Extract: 12.5 mg
Bilberry extract is derived from the leaves and berry-like fruit of a common European shrub closely related to the blueberry. Extracts of the ripe berry are known to contain flavonoid pigments known as anthocyanins, which are powerful antioxidants. Scientific studies confirm that bilberry extract supports healthy vision and venous circulation. Bilberry extract helps maintain healthy circulation by strengthening capillaries, arteries and veins.*
Citrus Extract (Bioflavonoids): 12.5 mg
Bioflavonoids are antioxidants found in certain plants that act as light filters, which protect delicate DNA chains and other important macromolecules by absorbing ultraviolet radiation. They have been found to promote cardiovascular health, help maintain healthy circulation by strengthening capillaries, arteries and veins, and demonstrate anti-inflammatory activity.*
Iron (Pyrophosphate, SunActive® Fe): 10 mg
Iron is mainly found in citrus fruits, tomatoes, beans, peas, fortified bread and grain products such as cereal (non-heme iron sources). Beef, liver, organ meats and poultry comprise the heme iron sources. The heme iron sources are more absorbable than the non-heme type of iron. Iron is an essential mineral. It is a component of hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in the blood, and myoglobin, another protein that carries oxygen in muscle tissue. Iron promotes normal red blood cell formation.*
Iron supports many imperative biochemical pathways and enzyme systems including those involved with energy metabolism, neurotransmitter production (serotonin and dopamine), collagen formation and immune system function. Young children, adult men and elderly women are less likely to require supplemental iron in their diets and should consult their physician before taking iron supplements (due to the risk of excessive iron). Iron has been found to promote normal oxygen transport, thus improving exercise capacity, stimulate the immune system, increase energy levels and promote normal production of neurotransmitters and collagen.*
SunActive Fe® is a registered trademark of Taiyo International, Inc.
Vitamin B6 (Pyrodoxine HCl, Pyridoxal-5-Phosphate): 8 mg
Poultry, fish, whole grains and bananas are the main dietary sources of vitamin B6. B6 supports normal protein and amino acid metabolism, and helps maintain proper fluid balance. It also assists in the maintenance of healthy red and white blood cells, which is important for overall health. Vitamin B6 promotes normal hemoglobin synthesis (hemoglobin is the protein portion of red blood cells which carries oxygen throughout the body). Because vitamin B6 is involved in the synthesis of neurotransmitters in the brain and nerve cells, it has been recommended as a nutrient to support mental function, specifically mood. Athletic supplements often include vitamin B6 because it promotes the conversion of glycogen to glucose for energy in muscle tissue. Vitamin B6, when taken with folic acid, has been shown to help maintain normal plasma levels of homocysteine, which promotes optimal cardiovascular health. Vitamin B6 should be taken as a part of a complex of other B vitamins for best results.*
Hyaluronic Acid (Sodium Hyaluronate): 7.5 mg
Hyaluronic acid or hyaluronate is a glycosaminoglycan distributed widely throughout connective, epithelial and neural tissues, and is commonly used in skin care products. It is one of the main constituents of the extracellular matrix and it promotes healthy cell proliferation and migration. Plentiful in extracellular matrices, hyaluronic acid supports healthy tissue hydrodynamics, movement and production of cells, and promotes a number of cell surface receptor interactions. Because hylauronic acid is found mostly in the skin and cartilage, it supports joint health. It has also been suggested that hyaluronic acid promotes healthy cartilage cells.*
Hyaluronic acid may also support normal healing.*
Riboflavin (Vitamin B2): 4.5 mg
Vitamin B2 is a water-soluble vitamin that promotes the normal processing of amino acids and fats, activation of vitamin B6 and folic acid, and supports the conversion of carbohydrates into the fuel the body runs on, adenosine triphosphate (ATP). It also promotes healthy red blood cell formation, supports the nervous system, respiration, antibody production and normal human growth.*
Thiamin HCl (Vitamin B1): 3.5 mg
Thiamin promotes normal carbohydrate metabolism and nerve function. Thiamin is required for a healthy nervous system, and supports the production of certain neurotransmitters which have an important role in muscle function. It supports the digestive process, increases energy and helps promote mental clarity.*
Zinc (Lactate): 3.75 mg
Zinc is an essential mineral that is a component of more than 300 enzymes that support normal healing, fertility in adults and growth in children, protein synthesis, cell reproduction, vision, immune function, and protection against free radicals, among other functions.*
Folate [as (6S)-5-methyltetrahydrofolic acid, glucosamine salt, Quatrefolic®]: 837 mcg
Folic acid is mainly found in fruits and vegetables. Dark, leafy greens, oranges, orange juice, beans, peas and Brewer’s yeast are the best sources. Folic acid plays a key role by boosting the benefits of B12 supplementation. These two B vitamins join forces and work together to help maintain normal red blood cells. Folic acid assists in the normal utilization of amino acids and proteins, as well as supporting the construction of the material for DNA and RNA synthesis, which is necessary for all bodily functions. Scientific studies have found that when working in tandem with folic acid, B12 is capable of promoting normal homocysteine levels. This works toward supporting a healthy cardiovascular and nervous system.*
Folic acid (folate) must go through a series of chemical conversions before it becomes metabolically active to be properly utilized. Folinic acid is the highly bioavailable, metabolically active derivative of folic acid. It does not require the action of the enzyme dihydrofolinate reductase to become active, so it's not affected by substances and herbs that inhibit this enzyme. Some people have a genetic variation (in the MTHRF gene) that reduces the amount of activated folic acid in the body. Folinic acid, unlike folic acid, is not negatively impacted by this genetic variation.*
Quatrefolic® is the glucosamine salt of (6S)-5-methyltetrahydrofolate, the most active form of folate, as it is structurally analogous to the reduced and active form of folic acid. Because this form is naturally present in the body, it is much more bioavailable for its biological action without having to be metabolized in the body.*
Quatrefolic® is the registered trademark of Gnosis S.p.A. and is protected by U.S. Patent No. 7,947,662.
Vitamin A (20% beta-carotene): 600 mcg RAE
Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin. Sources of vitamin A include organ meats (such as liver and kidney), egg yolks, butter, carrot juice, squash, sweet potatoes, spinach, peaches, fortified dairy products and cod liver oil. Vitamin A is also part of a family of compounds including retinol, retinal and beta-carotene. Beta-carotene, also known as pro-vitamin A, can be converted into vitamin A when additional levels are required. All of the body’s tissues need Vitamin A to support normal growth and repair. Vitamin A helps to promote healthy vision and normal bone growth and supports an antioxidant defense and a healthy immune system.*
Taking beta-carotene by mouth along with vitamin C, vitamin E, and zinc daily, seems to support eye health. *
Biotin: 525 mcg
Biotin is a part of the B-vitamin family. The B-vitamins are important co-factors, which promote the normal metabolism of fats, carbohydrates and protein. Natural food sources of biotin include egg yolk, peanuts, beef liver, milk (10 mcg/cup), cereals, almonds and Brewer's yeast. Biotin operates as an important part of several enzymes, acting as a co-enzyme implicated in energy metabolism (such as pyruvate carboxylase). In the intestines, bacteria makes a negligible amount of biotin that may be assimilated and used by the body. The main roles of Biotin include promoting strong hair and nails, increasing energy levels, helping maintain normal cholesterol levels and helping to maintain healthy blood sugar levels.*
Methylcobalamin (Vitamin B12): 126 mcg
Vitamin B12 (cobalamin) is a bacterial product naturally found in animal products, especially organ meats, such as liver, with small amounts derived from peanuts and fermented soy products, such as miso and tempeh. It is essential that vegetarians consume a vitamin B12 supplement to maintain optimal health. Vitamin B12, when ingested, is stored in the liver and other tissues for later use. It supports the normal maintenance of cells, especially those of the nervous system, bone marrow and intestinal tract. Vitamin B12 supports normal homocysteine metabolism (homocysteine is an amino acid that is formed within the body). Normal homocysteine levels are important for maintaining cardiovascular health. Deficiencies of the vitamins folic acid, pyridoxine (B6) or cobalamin (B12) can result in elevated levels of homocysteine. Folate and B12, in their active coenzyme form help to maintain healthy blood levels of homocysteine.*
Methylcobalamin is one of the naturally-occurring forms of vitamin B12 found in the human body. The liver must convert cyanocobalamin, the form of B12 most commonly used in supplements, into methylcobalamin, before it can be properly utilized by the body; methylcobalamin is more effective than non-active forms of vitamin B12. Methylcobalamin also assists in the formation of SAMe (S-adenosylmethionine), a nutrient that has powerful mood-elevating properties.*
Iodine (Potassium Iodide): 75 mcg
Iodine is found in most seafood and in iodized salt. The trace element supports more than a hundred enzyme systems such as energy production, nerve function and hair and skin growth. One of iodine's main functions includes supporting the thyroid gland in producing thyroid hormones thyroxin and tri-iodothyronine, which help regulate and maintain a properly functioning metabolism.*
Vitamin D3 (Cholecalciferol): 25 mcg (1000 IU)
Regular sunlight exposure is the main way that most humans obtain vitamin D. Food sources of vitamin D include vitamin D-fortified milk (100 IU per cup), cod liver oil, fatty fish (such as salmon) and small amounts are found in egg yolks and liver.*
Vitamin D promotes the absorption of calcium and phosphorus and supports the production of several proteins involved in calcium absorption and storage. Vitamin D works with calcium to promote bone strength. It promotes the normal transport of calcium out of the osteoblasts into the extra-cellular fluid and in the kidneys. It promotes calcium and phosphate re-uptake by renal tubules. Vitamin D also promotes the absorption of dietary calcium and phosphate uptake by the intestinal epithelium. It supports the normal growth of skin cells.*
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This complete vitamin pack really packs a punch. It is so much more than a multi-vitamin. With quality trademarked ingredients like Quatrafolic, SunActive and Pycnogelol, it provides me with energy and focus when I just have too much going on. I also love the added hyaluronic acid, so not only do I feel good when I'm running around like crazy, but I look good doing it!
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All posts tagged "Security"
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Home » Investigators » Nancy Burke, PhD
Nancy Burke, PhD
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Health literacy systems in the safety net: Lessons from complex care management NIH National Institute of Nursing Research United States Access or Barriers to Care, Health Systems Strengthening 9/26/14 7/31/19
Buong Puso: Linking Filipinas with Breast Cancer to Care and Support Resources Mount Zion Health Fund United States Cancer/Oncology 1/1/13 12/31/13
Communicating about Clinical Trials: Bringing the Cancer Information Service (CIS) to the Underserved [I] NIH National Cancer Institute United States Cancer/Oncology 7/1/08 6/30/14
Communicating about Clinical Trials: Bringing the Cancer Information Service (CIS) to the Underserved [II] NIH National Cancer Institute United States Cancer/Oncology, Patient and Peer Education 7/1/09 6/30/11
UCSF-Cuba Research Programme in Health Diplomacy and Medical Education Atlantic Philanthropies Cuba Training and Capacity Building, Training International Scholars and Clinicians 3/1/08 2/28/12
Sinag Tala (Bright Star): Pilipina Breast Cancer Support Group Outreach University of California Davis United States Cancer/Oncology 9/28/06 3/31/08
Addressing Oral Health Literacy among Mexican Immigrants NIH National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research United States Oral Health, Immigration and Migration 6/20/14 5/31/17
Filipina Breast Cancer Support: Which Model is Meaningful? [2] California Breast Cancer Research Program United States Cancer/Oncology 7/1/06 6/30/07
Filipina Breast Cancer Support: What Model is Meaningful? [1] Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation United States Cancer/Oncology 11/1/07 11/1/11
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7- “Casper” #52PickUp
February 21, 2016 February 26, 2016 / GuyOnAWire
My first “family-friendly” installment of #52PickUp isn’t as beloved as some of my other films on this list… but there were some things in it that resonated with me. What are they? Here we go–
Casper is a 1995 film based on the classic Harvey Comics Casper the Friendly Ghost series and the “Noveltoons” (beginning in 1945), but actually his inception dates back as far as the 1930s.
In the first feature-length adaptation (and only in my mind), Casper lives in his childhood home with his three mischievous ghost uncles: Stretch, Stinky, and Fatso. The house? Whipstaff Manor in Friendship, Maine.
“Heard of it?”
Well, an evil bitch of a person, Carrigan Crittenden inherits the haunted house, and makes every attempt to cleanse the tired property.
“Who You Gonna Call? …Someone else.”
When none of that works, Casper, who’s looking to make a friend (he is friendly after all) helps to get Carrigan to hire Dr. James Harvey (played by Bill Pullman, NOT Paxton), psychiatrist to the spiritual world. Dr. Harvey travels the country “freeing” spirits from their Earthly unfinished business, but forcing his daughter Kat to be “chained” to his misadventures.
Be still my 10-year old heart.
That is if they actually found any ghosts so far, and the only one Dr. Harvey really cares about is his long-gone wife.
Once he’s hired at Whipstaff, they immediately make contact: Friends with Casper, uncomfortable roommates with the Ghostly Trio.
Biggest Dick Move Ever
Kat has a hard time fitting in at school. So when the gym is unavailable for the Halloween dance, someone else offers up her house (see: asshole kid), and she reluctantly accepts.
The film takes a turn when Casper remembers his past life, and The Lazarus Machine, an invention his father created to bring Casper back to life.
Carrigan gets wind of this and steals the elixir, the Lazarus’ fuel, and ends up dying to steal the treasure in the vault. Once she does, Kat and Casper trick her into exclaiming that she has no unfinished business and she explodes to the other side.
Meanwhile, Dr. James Harvey accidentally dies falling down a construction site. When Kat is about to revive Casper, her Ghost Dad (Not Bill Cosby) flies in, and Casper sacrifices his one chance at life to save Dr. Harvey.
Soon after, Kat must deal with her party guests. She rushes up to join the party. And Casper gets a visit from Kat’s Mom (Amy Brenneman). She grants him about five minutes of life, and visits her former husband. Thanks, Judging Amy.
But oh how she was beautiful…
And then coupled with the score, as a kid my heart melted. I was sad, then after the song “Remember Me This Way” by Jordan Hill kicked in–
My first crush materialized.
The film was followed by a resurgence of Casper-related material. First was an animated series called The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper which ran for four seasons.
Then four more films were produced: Casper: A Spirited Beginning in 1997, and Casper Meets Wendy in 1998, Casper’s Haunted Christmas in 2000, and finally Casper’s Scare School in 2006; all of which were direct-to-video.
I believe I first watched Casper when it came to video cassette in 1996. Up until this point in time, I didn’t watch a lot of movies in the theaters. My first theater experience was in 1992 (but more on that later).
We would go to Paradis Shop and Save every week for groceries with our Dad and every time we’d go by the movie rentals we’d shake him down for at least a few rentals. But… Sometimes there were new movie releases in a small metal stand near the rentable films. And in it one week was Casper. We may not have seen many trailers then, but we certainly kept notes while watching home video commercials on TV.
So after some light begging, the big soft-shell Casper cassette was ours.
“We have a home.“
Casper is a silly kids’ movie. It’s not meant to be anything more than that. Now, trying to be impartial and not let my nostalgia take over… That’s a whole other story.
I did note a minor issue that I had with the film. Great scripts typically set-up their elements ahead of time, so that the audience can say (to themselves), “Oh yeah, I remember that!” Aside from the set-up of Casper not knowing a lick of his past life, it’s largely void of any lead in for the Lazarus machine. And if I’m not mistaken, that talk about his past life is only thirty or forty minutes into the film. The lazarus machine is introduced at the halfway mark.
I get that they couldn’t introduce his inventor father any earlier, so the screenwriters had to do what they could.
The special effects are surprisingly strong for a movie from 1995. The ghostly effect of opacity around the fringes of the ghosts figures held up well. It does help (and I’ll say this time and time again), when they supplement the special effects with practical effects. No unnecessary CGI here.
Look! They used real food! …I think.
Let me sum up the majority of the reasons as to why Casper is a part of the #52PickUp:
Christina Ricci was my absolute first movie crush. Movies became so much more when I could relate with the characters’ plights and root for them to win. And boy did I want her and Devon Sawa (human Casper) to get together at the end of the movie.
Casper wasn’t the only the aforementioned adoration, it was so much more. I wouldn’t say it was “funny” as a kid, certainly amusing. But I never laughed out loud. I did love the Ghostbusters and Father crossovers, not to mention the cameos from Clint Eastwood, the Cryptkeeper and Mel Gibson.
Also FUN FACT: My former foster mother named one of her daughters Carrigan after the main villain!
Casper came into my life at the beginning of my movie obsession.
There was a reason why I thought Christina Ricci was pretty then, because she’s gorgeous now.
If she ever comes across this, I’m going to look like a terrible perv.
Bonus– Stretch can speak Spanish!
Check out Casper on CanIStream.It?
#52Pick-Up, #52PickUp, Crossovers, Hollywood, Movies, My POV, NOTDLM, Personal Info, Uncategorized
Amy Brenneman, Bill Paxton, Bill Pullman, Carrigan, Casper, Casper Meets Wendy, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Cathy Moriarty, Christina Ricci, Clint Eastwood, Devon Sawa, Don Novello, Father Guido Sarducci, Fatso, film, First Crush, Friendship, Ghostbusters, GuyOnAWire, Harvey Comics, Haunted Christmas, Hillary Duff, Jamie Gagnon, Judging Amy, Kat, Lazarus, Maine, Mel Gibson, Movie Crush, Movies, Noveltoons, Paradis Shop N Save, Scare School, Spirited Beginning, Spooktacular, Stinkie, Stretch, The Cryptkeeper, VHS, Whipstaff Manor
← Local Interest: Fun Fact Challenge
Local Interest: Super Barrel Rollers →
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17- “Evolution” #52PickUp
April 29, 2016 December 31, 2016 / GuyOnAWire
As a big fan of Ghostbusters, I was excited to watch the 2001 comedy (directed by the same director, Ivan Reitman) titled:
Evolution could easily be mistaken for a spiritual successor to the aforementioned Ghostbusters as it features four unlikely heroes (three of which scientists) as they fend off an attack from some other-worldy creatures.
Side Note: You can probably find similarities in almost any two movies. Seriously, try it.
Starring David Duchovny, Julianne Moore, Orlando Jones, and Sean William Scott as the four unlikely heroes. Two community college professors (Duchovny and Jones) come across a meteor discovered by a dimwitted, local wannabe firefighter (Scott). It’s here that they make a massive discovery regarding a primordial ooze that emanates from the rock (“it bleeds”).
The ooze contains nitrogen-based single-celled organisms that rapidly evolve into multi-celled organisms and beyond, exponentially. The government naturally gets involved and seizes all of their findings as well as putting the cave whiched housed the meteor on lockdown.
Eventually, the whole town gets overrun by the ever-evolving creatures as they continue to adapt, allowing them the ability to breathe oxygen.
When the government shuts out our heroes and plans to napalm the shit out of these creatures (fire acts as a catalyst, so that’s bad), the heroes step up with the help of Michael Bower and Ethan Suplee, fill a fire truck with head and shoulders, and take down the now giant single-celled organism.
Have I mentioned that the plot is pretty silly?
Whaa?!
I first watched this movie in the theaters as it released in 2001; one of my busiest movie-going stretches. I think I watched a movie at the theater every weekend. How many is that? Oh weird, fifty-two.
Evolution is pretty cheesy. It wears its premise on its Star Trek costumed sleeve and has fun with it. It’s not meant to be a clever sci-fi outing, but it is meant to be fun, and for the most part that notion holds up well.
The humor is somewhat dated, but what isn’t in the afterglow of comedic evolution– pun NOT intended! Plus, that’s barely even a pun.
The most archaic thing in this film is its special effects. The aliens look terrible… when they are CGI. When they use practical effects, they seem to work well. Especially the “dog” in the closet; that looked cool. At least with that scene they were able to blend the two effectively.
This is the era where CGI had its “awkward years,” like most of my high school!
All in all, after re-watching it was more nostalgia than funny. Ghostbusters will always hold up but Evolution loses some of its staying power as the years go on.
Evolution truly does feel like a spiritual successor to Ghostbusters, but it’s not in a way that screams “Copycat!” It definitely made itself different in more ways than one.
I liked the cast a lot. Duchovny had a great chemistry with both Jones and Moore. Sean William Scott was funny as well with his dumb persona.
It’s also funny to note he did the same bird call/taunt as he did in The Rundown. Ca-Caw! Ca-Caw! Tookie tookie!
The supporting cast is also amazing– Ted Levine, Ty Burrell (in his first role), and Dan Aykroyd to name a few.
Lessons Learned?
CGI from 1995-2005 doesn’t hold up.
Aliens are different than us.
Orlando Jones has vanished, when he should have flourished.
Check out Evolution on CanIStream.It?
#52Pick-Up, #52PickUp, Hollywood, Movies, NOTDLM
#52Pick-Up, #52PickUp, 2001, Aliens, CGI, Comedy, Dan Aykroyd, David Duchovny, Ethan Suplee, GuyOnAWire, Ivan Reitman, Jamie Gagnon, Julianne Moore, Meteor, Michael Bower, Michael Ray Bower, Movies, Orlando Jones, Plourde Century Theatre, Sean William Scott, Ted Levine, Ty Burrell
← “Midnight Special” #ConTENders
The Glossary of an Adult →
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Home » Steam and Narrow Gauge Railway DVDs » Ffestiniog History DVD
Product Code: FRH dvd
This double feature DVD combines two earlier programmes, Letter from Ffestiniog (1998) and Ffestiniog Gala 40 Years (1995) to give a complete history of this most famous of narrow gauge lines.
About "Ffestiniog History"
In 1887 at the height of the Victorian era, the proud owners of the Ffestiniog Railway recorded the wonders of their line for posterity. In 1998 this unforgettable video was made when the fact became clear that so many of the shots in photographer R.H. Bleasdale's unique record were perfectly recognisable today. You will see the transistion from from the black and white of 100 years ago to colour on the screen.
The Ffestiniog Railway really is a preserved line with unique items of original equipment still giving service after a century. This video takes you up the line and gives viewpoints from the distant past, complete with equipment still at work today - ther's nothing else like it anywhere!
The second programme contains come vintage colour footage along with a record of the historic Gala of 1995, where the original equipment was gathered to work rare services as they were long ago. The celebration had a wartime theme as it was the 40th anniversay of VE Day and thus many special things happened that will never be repeated as they have passed into history.
Running Time - approx 105 minutes.
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Israel Elbit Speeds Up Race to Fly Military Drones in Civil Airspace
Elbit Speeds Up Race to Fly Military Drones in Civil Airspace
Thursday, July 12, 2018 at 3:14 am | כ"ט תמוז תשע"ח
RECHOVOT (Reuters) -
An employee stands next to an Elbit Systems Ltd. Hermes 900 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at the company’s drone factory in Rechovot. (Reuters/Orel Cohen)
Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems on Thursday unveiled a 1.6-tonne unmanned aircraft vehicle (UAV) designed to fly in airspace currently reserved for piloted civilian planes as a race heats up to deploy military drones outside combat zones.
The move came hours after a U.S. rival staged a landmark transatlantic demonstration flight, as arms firms vie to develop drones with flexibility to be used in civilian-controlled airspace – a drive that could spawn future technology for unmanned airliners.
Changing security concerns following the dismantling of Islamic State and rising geopolitical tensions have caused European countries to shift defense efforts from far-away conflicts to homeland security, resulting in demand for drones that can be safely integrated into civilian airspace to, for example, monitor border crossings, Elbit officials said.
A version of Elbit’s Hermes 900 StarLiner is being assembled for the Swiss armed forces and is scheduled to be delivered in 2019 in a deal worth $200 million.
“We are getting a lot of interest from other customers for the same configuration … from all over the world,” Elad Aharonson, general manager of Elbit’s ISTAR division, told Reuters.
The StarLiner, being launched ahead of next week’s Farnborough Airshow, is derived from the Hermes 900 operated by Brazil for surveillance in 2014. That operation required closing off airspace to civilian aircraft, something the StarLiner, with technology to detect aircraft and avoid collisions, will not require, Elbit said.
The drone is compliant with NATO criteria, qualifying it to be integrated into civilian airspace, Elbit said. It will still need approval of the various civil aviation authorities.
The StarLiner has been flying in civilian airspace in Israel over the past year.
California-based General Atomics’ MQ-9B SkyGuardian – a version of the widely used Predator family – completed its Atlantic crossing on Wednesday ahead of the world’s largest military airshow at RAF Fairford in western England.
Elbit expects to receive approval from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) for its own product in the coming months.
EASA was not available for comment.
Israel’s drone exports in 2005-2012 totaled $4.6 billion, according to consultancy Frost & Sullivan. They reached $525 million in 2016, accounting for 7 percent of Israel’s defense exports, Defense Ministry data show.
Drones are a major source of revenue for Elbit and state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries. The United States and Israel dominate the industry but face growing competition from cheaper Chinese drones.
U.S. military drone makers are vying for a larger share of the global market, which market researcher the Teal Group forecasts will rise from $2.8 billion in 2016 to $9.4 billion in 2025.
Flying alongside airliners would expand the horizons of drones originally developed for military surveillance. But it would also call for advanced sensors and software that could eventually filter back into commercial use as developers look at single-pilot and ultimately pilotless cargo or passenger jets.
The StarLiner can reach 30,000 feet – the altitude of some commercial jets – and photograph a 31 square mile area, Elbit said.
“Some customers would like to use the system to gather intelligence,” Elbit CEO Betzalel Machlis said. “Another example can be for homeland security applications, to fly above an area and make sure it is monitored against terrorist activities.”
The drone can be equipped with radar, cameras to take video and still pictures, and signals intelligence to analyze electronic signals.
“This is a major step towards unmanned civilian planes,” Aharonson said, adding the main barrier to such aircraft would be psychological rather than technical.
Israel’s Elbit on Hunt for More Takeovers
Israel Aerospace Industries, Hankuk Carbon, to Make Drones
Drones Grounded After Malfunction
Ben Gurion Airport Edgy Over Drones
Using Drones Without Eye Contact Gets Okay
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Jenny From the Block
Produced by Trackmasters, Troy Oliver & Cory Rooney
Album This is Me... Then
Jenny From the Block Lyrics
[Intro: Sample]
Children grow and women producing
Men go working, some go stealing
Everyone's got to make a living
BX, uh (Southside Bronx)
(Southside Bronx)
Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got
I'm still, I'm still Jenny from the block
Used to have a little, now I have a lot
No matter where I go I know where I came from (From the Bronx)
Dont be fooled by the rocks that I got
No matter where I go I know where I came from (Southside Bronx, from the Bronx)
From In Living Color to movie scripts
To On the 6 to J. Lo to this
Headline clips
I stay grounded as the amounts roll in
I'm real I thought I told ya (I'm real)
I'm really been on Oprah (I'm real)
That's just me
Nothing phony, don't hate on me
What you get is what you see, oh (Southside Bronx)
I'm down to earth like this
Rocking this business
I've grown up so much
I'm in control and loving it
Rumors got me laughing kid
I love my life and my public
Put God first and can't forget to stay real (Real)
To me it's like breathing, yeah (Southside Bronx)
No matter where I go I know where I came from
[Bridge: Sample]
South Bronx, oh, the Southside Bronx
F-F-F-Flip it
Boricua
Now that's what happened
South Bronx, the Southside Bronx
Boricua's in the house
Alright, now bring it back
Used to have a little, now I have a lot (Southside Bronx)
A Guide To Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Lyrical Tweets & Musical Moments
Remembering Jennifer Lopez’s N-Word Controversy, 15 Years Later
About “Jenny From the Block”
“Jenny From the Block” was the lead single from Jennifer Lopez’s third album This Is Me… Then. The sample-heavy hip-hop track produced by Trackmasters pays tribute to Lopez childhood growing up in the Bronx.
The single reached the Top 10 of pop charts in numerous countries (#2 in Canada, #3 in the US x 3 weeks), and with that, “Jenny From the Block” has since become yet another affectionate nickname Lopez answers to.
What certifications did this single receive?
“Jenny From the Block” was not certified by the RIAA, but did receive certifications in various countries. The single went silver in the U.K., platinum in Australia, and gold in Belgium.
"Jenny From the Block" Track Info
Written By MrDEYO
Background Vocals Natasha Ramos
Keyboard Programming Troy Oliver
Vocal Producer MrDEYO & Jonathan Curri
Recording Engineer Guillermo Edghill Jr., Jon Kaplan, Bruce Swedien & 1 more
Scratches B-Money
Mixing Engineer Jon Kaplan, Bruce Swedien & Jean-Marie Horvat
Drums Programming Troy Oliver
Recorded At The Hit Factory, NYC
Sampled In
Becky From The Block by Becky G
Hi-Jack by Enoch Light
Remix Of
Jenny From the Block (Rap Version) by Jennifer Lopez (Ft. The LOX)
Remixed By
Jenny From the Block (Seismic Crew’s Latin Disco Trip) by Jennifer Lopez
This is Me... Then Jennifer Lopez
1. Still
2. Loving You
3. I’m Glad
4. The One
5. Dear Ben
6. All I Have
7. Jenny From the Block (Rap Version)
8. Again
9. You Belong to Me
10. I’ve Been Thinkin’
11. Baby I Love U!
12. The One (Version 2)
13. I’m Gonna Be Alright (Remix)
14. Jenny From the Block
15. Jenny From the Block (Seismic Crew’s Latin Disco Trip)
16. All I Have (Ignorants Mix)
17. I’m Glad (Paul Oakenfold Perfecto Mix)
18. The One (Bastone & Burnz Club Mix)
19. Baby I Love U! (R. Kelly Remix)
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Posts by Mary Jo
GenSync 2017 booklist
By Mary Jo | March 16, 2017 | 0
I’m often talking with older workers about their value and values. The shift we’re all experiencing as a result of better health and increased longevity can be confusing. I’ve enclosed four books (all 2016) that opened my eyes to the fact we’re living in a most unusual time. These are my top picks today out…
Incremental progress, always
By Mary Jo | February 14, 2017 | 0
For a year, I’ve worked full-time immersing myself in all things workforce development. Major takeaways: Ageism remains an acceptable prejudice. Talent is key. Resources for older workers to maintain, improve their talent are invisible. Employers and educators have disparate goals and metrics for success. Where to start? Learn, from dozens of coffees, lunches and phone…
Workforce training pays off for Pratt & Whitney shareholders
By Mary Jo | August 18, 2016 | 0
Training was part of all my first jobs. I was hired to do the job but my employer (rightly) assumed I’d do my best work if they invested in training me. As a result, workforce training enhanced my productivity leading to my efforts enhancing shareholder value. Thirty years ago, MN employers prided themselves on extensive…
Workers in MN’s tight labor market
I just read the most-recent TRENDS workforce report from DEED. Great news for workers, sort of. It shows the Twin Cities’ annual unemployment rate at 3.3% in 2015, the lowest our region has seen since 2000. The report: https://mn.gov/deed/assets/Metro_tcm1045-249846.pdf In our booming metro economy, over 1.1 million workers are between the ages of 25 and…
Working through Retirement
By Mary Jo | July 15, 2016 | 0
Working through retirement, as featured by Richard Heisenberg, NextAvenue Money & Work Editor, in his article, “A Sneak Peek Into the Future of Work and Retirement“; I liked these points very much: Not everyone can work in Retirement Health challenges (physical and cognitive) prevent some from working. Physical health issues are especially problematic for older…
Postpone Death—Continue Working
By Mary Jo | July 8, 2016 | 0
Want to share an excellent article: Retiring Retirement It’s long but very thorough. This paragraph caught me: After controlling for confounding factors such as demographics and poor health, the researchers made a startling find: People who worked at least a year past retirement age had an 11 percent lower risk of dying during the study period.…
The Death of Early Retirement?
By Mary Jo | June 22, 2016 | 0
Just read about someone bemoaning the loss of early retirement—and the reason is that few workers have prepared for it or want it. Is this a problem? Retiring at age 60 is a relatively-new social construct—developed when life expectancy was 65. Living until 85 presents opportunity—and challenges. I’ve been surprised to realize how much I…
Congress Proposing a Cut in Senior Training Program
As I’ve explored the community resources available for mature workers a program titled SCSEP (Senior Community Service Employment Program) has been pointed to as an example of the Federal Commitment to older workers. Funded by the Older Americans Act, SCSEP provides subsidized, service-based training for low-income persons aged 55+ who are unemployed and have poor…
The Big Idea in 4 Minutes—Coming of Age in Aging America
Just learned of Coming of Age in an Aging America, a public media project aimed at creating conversation and action to productively shape America as an aging society. Sloan Center on Aging and Stanford Center on Longevity are among the partners providing contact, research and discussion. I know of no other program in the media…
Workforce Training and Readiness
By Mary Jo | May 13, 2016 | 0
Today, MPR News broadcast a conversation with Chris Farrell and Twanna Black (Northside Funders Group) about barriers to employment in the face of a growing workforce shortage. MN employers complain about the lack of skilled, trained employees for a wide range of positions. From the opposite perspective, prospective employees report a variety of hurdles to…
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Elopements in the North Carolina Mountains
Romantic Lodging in Mystic, CT
Where to Stay in Julian, California
Romantic Hot Tub Suites in Pennsylvania
Bed & Breakfast Inns in Hocking Hills, Ohio
Luxury Lodging Near Yosemite
Romantic Hotel Stays in Toledo, Ohio
Just one hour east of the sandy shores of San Diego, the mountain town of Julian, California, provides visitors with culinary treats like wine tasting excursions at nearby wineries and, during the fall, bountiful apple crops. Many of the accommodations scattered throughout the former gold mining town are less than 10 minutes from the city center and its old-fashioned Main Street dotted with antique shops and cafes.
Housed inside a building from the 1890s, Julian Gold Rush Hotel (julianhotel.com) has just 16 guest rooms. Styled in Victorian decor, the rooms include a variety of features including canopied beds, quilts, cast-iron fireplaces, private verandas and claw-foot bathtubs. The bed and breakfast serves a full two-course meal each morning and provides a free tea complete with scones and cookies each afternoon. You can enjoy these light snacks on the hotel’s front porch or in the backyard garden.
Built in 1885, Julian Lodge Bed & Breakfast (julianlodge.signonsandiego.com) provides an old-fashioned setting, including the Washington Room common area with its fireplace, antique piano and family songbook that encourages sing-alongs. Outfitted with antique furnishings and photos, the rooms have an Old West theme. Room rates increase on Fridays, Saturdays and holidays.
Two Blocks or Less From Main Street
Two blocks north of Main Street, Orchard Hill Country Inn (orchardhill.com) is an ornate Craftsman home with 22 guest rooms, including private cottages with decks, gas fireplaces and whirlpool tubs. Room rates include a full breakfast and afternoon snacks. If you stay for two nights, you receive a four-course dinner for two.
Eaglenest Bed and Breakfast (eaglenestbnb.com) is just one block north of Main Street. All of the guest rooms include DVD and CD players, while some also have fireplaces, patios with views and private entrances. In addition to a full country breakfast each morning, you have access to a common pantry filled with popcorn, drinks, movies and games.
Five Minutes From City Center
Covering three acres of hilltop property, Butterfield Bed & Breakfast (butterfieldbandb.com) has just five guest rooms, all of which include DVD players. Some of the rooms have wood-burning fireplaces, ceiling fans and four-poster beds. A common pantry provides treats like fruit, popcorn and hot beverages. During the summer breakfast is served in the rose garden’s gazebo.
The family-owned Julian Meadow View Inn (julianmeadowviewinn.com) is on 53 acres of land. Climb to the property’s highest point for sweeping vistas of the surrounding mountains and ocean or explore the inn’s grounds further with a guided horseback ride. Some guest rooms include garden views, fireplaces and whirlpool bathtubs. The hotel also provides military discounts.
On the Outskirts of Julian
Less than 10 minutes from the city center, Tucker Peak Lodge (tuckerpeaklodge.com) is perched on five acres of wooded hillside property. All of the suites include two-person whirlpool tubs and fireplaces. Speak to the staff about preparing the room for special romantic occasions, such as an anniversary or Valentine’s Day, by adding flowers, wine and rose petals to your accommodations.
Built in 1912, Pine Hills Lodge (pinehillslodge.com) is 10 minutes outside Julian’s city center. The lodge has more than 15 cabins, some of which include claw-foot bathtubs, fireplaces and down comforters. The lodge’s Rustic Pub provides an indoor dining room with a fireplace, full bar and games, as well as outdoor deck seating nestled amid the trees.
Julian Chamber of Commerce: About Julian
Julian Gold Rush Hotel
Julian Gold Rush Hotel: Services
Julian Lodge Bed & Breakfast
Julian Lodge Bed & Breakfast: Rooms and Rates
Orchard Hill Country Inn: Rooms
Eaglenest Bed and Breakfast: Accommodations
Butterfield Bed & Breakfast
Julian Meadow View Inn
Julian Meadow View Inn: About Us
Julian Meadow View Inn: Gardens & Grounds
Julian Meadow View Inn: Rooms
Julian Meadow View Inn: Specials and Packages
Tucker Peak Lodge
Pine Hills Lodge: Our Unique History
Pine Hills Lodge: Bluebird 1
Pine Hills Lodge: Gray Squirrel 4
Pine Hills Lodge: Pub
Pine Hills Lodge: 5 Cedar Deck
Big Bear Honeymoon Cabins
Where to Stay in Red River, New Mexico
Romantic Attractions in Louisville, KY
Places to Stay in Clarkesville, GA
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Debt Relief Scam Network Hit With Racketeering RICO Lawsuit
I’m researching a question a reader asked me and came across this RICO complaint that I wanted to post. The complaint is long but contains the elaborate scheme of how people who are in financial trouble can be sucked into an idea and lose a lot of money by believing in the validity of such approaches.
I’ll be referencing this suit in an upcoming article, but for now, here is the suit.
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA
CASE NO.: 7:09-CV-
Chris W. TAYLOR, for himself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs
RICO CLASS COMPLAINT
Lee W. BETTIS, Jr., Esq.;
Pat Leigh PITTMAN, Esq.;
Joanne K. PARTIN, Esq.;
Robert L. EMANUEL, Esq.;
Stephen A. DUNN, Esq.;
Raymond E. DUNN, Jr., Esq.;
EMANUEL & DUNN, PLLC, a North Carolina professional limited liability company and 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4) association-in-fact;
BETTIS DUNN & DUNN, a North Carolina general partnership and 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4) association-in-fact;
CCDN, LLC, a Nevada limited liability company and ) 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4) association-in-fact;
LEGAL DEBT CURE, LLC, a Nevada limited liability company and 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4) association-in-fact;
R.K. LOCK & ASSOCIATES, an Illinois sole proprietorship and 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4) association-in-fact doing business as CCDN or the Credit Collections Defense Network;
Jen DEVINE;
Robert K. LOCK, Jr., Esq.;
Colleen Tomasino LOCK;
Philip M. MANGER, Esq.;
S. John HAGENSTEIN;
THE CREDIT CARD SOLUTION, a Texas sole proprietorship and 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4) association-in-fact;
and, Robert Mitchell LINDSEY,
Defendants.
JURY TRIAL DEMANDED
COME NOW Plaintiffs by and through the undersigned, and seek relief against Defendants as follows:
1. Defendants are engaged, with no end in sight and no significant interference from law enforcement (except as to Mr. Lindsey and TCCS, who have been sued by the State of Texas), in a pattern of continuing racketeering activity, to wit: wire, mail, and bank fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, and 1344 in furtherance of a nationwide debt elimination and credit repair scam, and laundering of tens of millions of dollars obtained from Plaintiffs in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956 and 1957, which Plaintiffs’ property Defendants converted to their own use, entitling Plaintiffs to actual and punitive damages for conversion and unjust enrichment; treble damages plus costs and attorney fees under each of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Acts, Title 18 U.S.C. Chapter 96 and NCGS Chapter 75D; piercing the LLC veil to correct inequities and redress fraud; and imposition of a constructive trust, among other remedies.
2. Plaintiffs have concurrently notified North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper in writing per NCGS § 75D-8(c).
JURISDICTION AND VENUE
3. Plaintiffs seek damages in excess of $75,000 exclusive of costs and fees, on grounds that Defendants admitted in their marketing materials to having 6,000 customers, who paid Defendants an average of more than $4,000 each, for a total intake of at least $24,000,000, and to inducing nonpayment of $150,000,000 in credit card debt, totaling $174,000,000 in actual damages, which sum is tripled per RICO to $522,000,000; and since NCRICO is cumulative to all other theories of relief, Defendants owe an additional measure of triple damages, aggregating not less than $1,044,000,000 (one billion forty-four million dollars) owed to Plaintiffs regardless of Defendants’ ability to pay, in addition to punitive damages, if Defendants have the ability to pay any.
4. This Court has subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ claims arising under United States law per 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1332(a)(1) and (d)(2)(A).
5. This Court has pendent jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ claims arising under state and common law per 28 U.S.C. § 1367.
6. A substantial part of the events and omissions giving rise to the claim occurred, and at least eight Defendants may be found, in the Eastern District of North Carolina, laying venue here per 18 U.S.C. § 1965(a) and 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b)(2) and (3).
7. Regardless of the presence or absence of minimum contacts with North Carolina, this Court has nationwide jurisdiction over Defendants’ persons per 18 U.S.C. § 1965.
8. At least eight Defendants reside, many of the records and at least one key nonparty witness are located, related state and federal proceedings are pending, and the only lawyer willing to take this case contingent resides, in the Eastern District of North Carolina, such that the ends of justice require nationwide service of process by the marshal of any district in which any Defendant may be found, per 18 U.S.C. § 1965(b).
9. In the cases of Cathy Hunt, Sheryl Lucas, and Bill Harrison infra, personal jurisdiction existed over all Defendants because: they were engaged in substantial activity in North Carolina, to wit, servicing at least twelve customers (all of them Class Members here) and recruiting more customers at the time service of process was made on them in September 2008, per NCGS § 1-75.4(1)a; solicitation or services activity was carried on within North Carolina by each Defendant or on each Defendant’s behalf (being all conspirators in fraud and crime, and therefore without the protection of any limited liability entity), to wit, servicing at least twelve customers (all of them Class Members in the instant action) and soliciting more customers at or about the time of injury to Ms. Hunt, Ms. Lucas, and Mr. Harrison; and all of Defendants’actions related to things of value (money or monetary instruments) shipped from North Carolina by Ms. Hunt, Ms. Lucas, and Mr. Harrison on Defendants’ order or direction.
10. In addition, Robert K. Lock, Jr., Esq. personally signed in the name of disregarded entity CCDNLLC a contract to be performed in North Carolina, and as owner of RKLA/CCDN conspired with all other Defendants and directed all other Defendants’ actions relating to it; Colleen Tomasino Lock dispatched at least 20 emails to North Carolina to promote and carry on CCDN’s business as to at least twelve customers in North Carolina; Philip M. Manger, Esq. solicited on his own initiative at least one North Carolina lawyer to service CCDN customers in North Carolina, and telephoned Ms. Hunt and other CCDN customers in North Carolina to solicit their business and service their accounts; Tracy Webster sent to Ms. Hunt and Mr. Harrison in North Carolina legal templates and forms intended for them to sign and file in North Carolina courts, and exchanged many emails with them on Defendants’ business over several months; all of their actions were on behalf of disregarded or veil-pierced entities RKLA/CCDN or CCDNLLC, which did not insulate any Defendant from, but rather connected them directly to, North Carolina; David M. Kramer in the name of disregarded and pierced entities Debt Jurisprudence Division (later Debt Jurisprudence, Inc.) of Aegis Corporation sent one or more emails to North Carolina directing Mr. Harrison to send money from North Carolina to Missouri, and did so on behalf of his wife and conspirator Marcia M. Murphy, who was and is also an officer of Aegis Corporation and Debt Jurisprudence, Inc.; and other actions more than sufficient to establish minimum contacts with North Carolina and empower North Carolina state courts to protect North Carolina citizens from fraud and crime perpetrated across state lines.
11. Named Plaintiff Chris W. Taylor is an adult citizen of Pennsylvania with the capacity to sue or be sued for his own account or in a representative capacity on behalf of others.
12. The Class is a nationwide group of consumers against whom Defendants have committed similar violations of law.
13. The Class includes, but is not limited to, all named plaintiffs and putative class members (and Named Plaintiff is among them) whose rightful relief Defendants have wrongfully denied or delayed by sham litigation in Bladen County file numbers 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885, and U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina case number 7:09cv81-F, formerly Bladen County file number 09 CVS 19.
14. Cathy Horton Hunt, Linda Sheryl Lucas, William G. Harrison, Sr., and Sharon Southwood are not parties to the instant case, but are Class Members whose dealings with Defendants are recited herein to show the widespread, consistent, and persistent nature of Defendants’continuing racketeering activities, and also a substantial part of the activities affecting their cases occurred in the Eastern District of North Carolina.
15. http://www.attorneydebthelp.net/land01.asp
http://attorneydebtsupport.com/
http://legallyresolvedebt.com/
http://www.thecreditcardsolution.com/
all claimed that Defendants have “Helped [actually defrauded] over 6,000 families nationwide since 2000!”which means that at least 6,000 persons are in the Class, and the same pages claim to have “Invalidated over $150,000,000 of credit card debt!” which really means that Defendants induced consumers not to pay back that amount of debt, and
http://www.attorneydebthelp.net/land01.asp
http://www.legallyerasedebt.com/land01.asp
still claim that Defendants have “Helped thousands of families nationwide!”and “Reconciled millions in credit card debt!” and “Assisted clients in restoring their credit scores!”
16. Mr. Lock admitted in supplemental interrogatories in Greene v. Consumer Advocate Foundation Service, ILND 1:08cv6165, DE59-2 at 4, that as of 13 October 2009, CCDN has taken in a bare minimum of 2,219 customers nationwide.
17. Herein, “Plaintiffs” refers to Named Plaintiffand the Class together.
18. “Counsel” refers to undersigned Plaintiffs’ counsel, a nonparty.
Defendants In General
19. All Defendants have the capacity to sue and be sued for their own accounts or in a representative capacity on behalf of others.
20. All Defendants have used instrumentalities of interstate commerce, including but not limited to the U.S. Postal Service, private delivery services, interstate wires, federally chartered national banking associations, federally insured banks and financial institutions, interstate highways, and common carriers to transmit information in furtherance of their scheme to defraud Plaintiffs, and to transfer Plaintiffs’ money and other property among themselves and to third parties in interstate commerce and across state lines.
21. All Entity Defendants, whether or not formally organized or incorporated and whether or not otherwise legitimate businesses, are RICO Enterprises, i.e., racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations per 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4) and NCGS § 75D-3(a).
22. All Entity Defendants, even those formally organized as corporations or limited liability companies, are alter egos of other Defendants which those Defendants dominate and control in order to perpetrate fraud, crime, and inequity, and must be disregarded for purposes of attempting to limit any other person’sliability for any claim herein.
23. All Defendants are “credit repair organizations” for purposes of 15 U.S.C. § 1679a(3) because they all use the interstate wires and U.S. Mail to represent that they can improve any consumer’s credit record, credit history, or credit rating in return for the payment of money.
Lawyer Defendants
24. Defendant Lee W. Bettis, Jr., Esq. is a member of the North Carolina State Bar; a conspirator with all other Defendants; counsel of record in 7:09cv81-F for Defendants TCCS, CCDNLLC, RKLA/CCDN, Lock, Lock, Manger, and Lindsey; an employee or agent of Emanuel & Dunn at its New Bern office; a general partner of the North Carolina general partnership and RICO association-in-fact of Bettis Dunn & Dunn; and has received proceeds of unlawful activity (Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants obtained by wire, mail, and bank fraud) directly and/or through Emanuel & Dunn salary or bonuses or other distributions, and is keeping Plaintiffs’ property away from them.
25. Defendant Pat Leigh Pittman, Esq. is a member of the North Carolina State Bar; a member/manager of Emanuel & Dunn with at least a 1/6 share; a conspirator with all other Defendants; and has received proceeds of unlawful activity (Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants obtained by wire, mail, and bank fraud) directly and/or through Emanuel & Dunn salary, profits, dividends, bonuses or other distributions, and is keeping Plaintiffs’ property away from them.
26. Defendant Joanne K. Partin, Esq. is a member of the North Carolina State Bar; a member/manager of Emanuel & Dunn with at least a 1/6 share; a conspirator with all other Defendants; and has received proceeds of unlawful activity (Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants obtained by wire, mail, and bank fraud) directly and/or through Emanuel & Dunn salary, profits, dividends, bonuses or other distributions, and is keeping Plaintiffs’ property away from them.
27. Whether or not they are in Mr. Bettis’s formal chain of command, Ms. Pittman and Ms. Partin cannot plausibly deny actual knowledge of his behavior, since they work in the same not-very-large office as Mr. Bettis and are owners and managers of Emanuel & Dunn with authority to direct and control their employees, and they are responsible for everything in or relating to their firm, and have a duty to see that their personnel do not harm innocent third parties, including Plaintiffs; but instead, Ms. Pittman and Ms. Partin chose to allow and ratify, and on information and belief ordered and directed and encouraged, Mr. Bettis to act the way he does; and certainly have profited handsomely from Mr. Bettis’s bringing in Plaintiffs’ property, which they still wrongfully retain.
28. Defendant Robert L. Emanuel, Esq. is a member of the North Carolina State Bar; a member/manager of Emanuel & Dunn with at least a 1/6 share; a conspirator with all other Defendants; and has received proceeds of unlawful activity (Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants obtained by wire, mail, and bank fraud) directly and/or through Emanuel & Dunn salary, profits, dividends, bonuses or other distributions, and is keeping Plaintiffs’ property away from them.
29. Defendant Stephen A. Dunn, Esq. is a member of the North Carolina State Bar; a conspirator with all other Defendants; counsel for Defendants TCCS, CCDNLLC, RKLA/CCDN, Lock, Lock, Manger, and Lindsey; a member/manager of Emanuel & Dunn with at least a 1/6 share; a general partner of the North Carolina general partnership and RICO association-in-fact of Bettis Dunn & Dunn; and has received proceeds of unlawful activity (Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants obtained by wire, mail, and bank fraud) directly and/or through Emanuel & Dunn salary, profits, dividends, bonuses or other distributions, and is keeping Plaintiffs’ property away from them.
30. Defendant Raymond E. Dunn, Jr., Esq. is a member of the North Carolina State Bar; a member/manager of Emanuel & Dunn with at least a 1/6 share; a conspirator with all other Defendants; a general partner of the North Carolina general partnership and RICO association-in-fact of Bettis Dunn & Dunn; and has received proceeds of unlawful activity (Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants obtained by wire, mail, and bank fraud) directly and/or through Emanuel & Dunn salary, profits, dividends, bonuses or other distributions, and is keeping Plaintiffs’ property away from them.
31. Raymond Dunn is also Mr. Bettis’s supervisor in the New Bern office and tells Mr. Bettis what to do and how to do it, and received actual notice of Mr. Bettis’s actions in writing in April 2009, but has at least ratified them by doing nothing of substance to change Mr. Bettis’s behavior, and on information and belief ordered him to act that way in the first place.
32. As is well known in the legal community, corporate associates such as Mr. Bettis either follow orders exactly, or are fired, and since Mr. Bettis still works at Emanuel & Dunn, he must be following orders exactly.
33. Plaintiffs reserve the right to amend this Complaint to include additional Emanuel & Dunn personnel whom discovery reveals to be responsible for wrongdoing.
34. Defendant Emanuel & Dunn, PLLC (E&D) is a limited liability company organized under North Carolina law, SOSID 0496669, principal business address 3230 Country Club Road, PO Drawer 1389, New Bern NC 28562, registered agent Raymond E. Dunn, Jr. at the same address; is a conspirator with all other Defendants; and has received proceeds of unlawful activity (Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants obtained by wire, mail, and bank fraud) directly and/or through Emanuel & Dunn agents or employees, and has kept some of it away from Plaintiffs by distributing it as salary, profits, dividends, bonuses or other distributions, and is still keeping the rest of Plaintiffs’
property away from them.
35. Defendant Bettis Dunn & Dunn (BDD) is an association of two or more people doing business together, and by operation of law is a North Carolina general partnership, and an unincorporated association-in-fact enterprise per 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4) and NCGS § 75D-3(a), organized and run by general partners Mr. Bettis, Steve Dunn, and Raymond Dunn for the common purposes of laundering criminally derived money; threatening Counsel’s safety to try to obtain advantage; and perpetrating sham litigation against Plaintiffs by maliciously attacking and defaming Counsel personally, advancing frivolous defenses, and willfully and knowingly misrepresenting facts, thus wrongfully delaying or denying relief in order to allow their clients to perpetuate and expand their scam, defraud hundreds more Plaintiffs and waste, hide, transfer, and expatriate Plaintiffs’ property, and accepting Plaintiffs’ property from other Defendants as payment for illegally keeping Plaintiffs’ property away from Plaintiffs.
CCDN Defendants
36. Defendant CCDN, LLC (CCDNLLC) is a limited liability company organized under Nevada law, entity number E0717642006-2, principal address 7144 North Harlem Avenue Suite 323, Chicago IL 60631, registered agent Eastbiz.com, Inc., 5348 Vegas Drive, Las Vegas NV 89106; has the capacity to sue or be sued for its own account or in a representative capacity; also does business as “R.K. Lock & Associates,” “CCDN,” “The CCDN,” and “The Credit Collections Defense Network”; and is primarily in the business of obtaining advance payments of $2,500 to $8,000 by promising to restore credit, reduce debt to zero, and obtain damages from debt collectors, but then after obtaining the fee, does not restore credit, reduce debt, or obtain net damages from debt collectors; is a conspirator with all other Defendants; and has received proceeds of unlawful activity (Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants obtained by wire, mail,and bank fraud) directly or from other Defendants and has transferred it to other Defendants in the form of salary, profits, dividends, bonuses or other distributions, and is keeping the rest of Plaintiffs’ property away from them.
37. Defendant Legal Debt Cure, LLC (LDC) is a limited liability company organized under Nevada law on or about 14 May 2009, entity number E0259342009-4, owned and managed by Mr. and Ms. Lock, Mr. Manger, and his son Charles Manger, who all list their addresses as 7144 N. Harlem Ave Ste 323, Chicago IL 60631 (which is in fact a UPS Store mail drop); is an alter ego for other Defendants, especially RKLA/CCDN; has received proceeds of unlawful activity (Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants obtained by wire, mail, and bank fraud) directly or from other Defendants and has given some of it to other Defendants through salary, profits, dividends, bonuses or other distributions, and is keeping Plaintiffs’ property away from them; and is a conspirator with all other Defendants.
38. Defendant R.K. Lock & Associates, which also does business as “CCDN,” “CCDN, LLC,” “The CCDN,” and “The Credit Collections Defense Network,” (RKLA/CCDN, as it calls itself in contracts), is a sole proprietorship of Robert K. Lock, Jr., Esq. with the capacity to sue or be sued for its own account or in a representative capacity, through which Robert K. Lock does business, principal address 7144 N. Harlem Avenue Suite 323, Chicago IL 60631-1005 (which is in fact a UPS Store mail drop); is a conspirator with all other Defendants; has received proceeds of unlawful activity (Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants obtained by wire, mail, and bank fraud) directly or from other Defendants, and has given it to other Defendants in the form of salary, profits, dividends, bonuses or other distributions, and is keeping Plaintiffs’ property away from them; and is primarily in the business of obtaining advance payments of $2,500 to $8,000 by promising to restore credit, reduce debt to zero, and obtain damages from debt collectors, but then after obtaining the fee, does not restore credit, reduce debt, or obtain net damages from debt collectors, and then refuses to return Plaintiffs’ property.
39. RKLA/CCDN or “Credit Collections Defense Network” is or has been a defendant in at least three federal actions for similar misdeeds as in the instant action: Olson v. Aegis Corp., 08cv1076 in the District of Minnesota, settled and dismissed with prejudice 05 Sep 2008; Capital One Bank (USA), N.A. v. Carefree Debt, Inc., 0:08cv2274-JFA in the District of South Carolina, still pending; and Greene v. Consumer Advocate Foundation Service, 08cv6165 in the Northern District of Illinois, still pending.
40. Hereinafter, if it is not clear to Plaintiffs which entity–The Credit Card Solution, Legal Debt Cure, R.K. Lock & Associates, CCDNLLC, or Credit Collections Defense Network–is responsible for an act or series or pattern of acts, all are collectively referred to as “CCDN” and shall be deemed jointly and severally responsible as joint tortfeasors for all acts or series or patterns of acts by one or more entities.
41. Defendant Jen Devine is an employee or agent of RKLA/CCDN at its Brick, NJ office; holds herself out as CCDN’s “Lead Paralegal” but has no known paralegal training or certification; conducts or participates, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of the RICO Enterprises’ affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity; is a conspirator with all other Defendants; has received proceeds of unlawful activity (Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants obtained by wire, mail, and bank fraud) directly and/or through salary, profits, dividends, bonuses or other distributions, and is keeping Plaintiffs’ property away from them; conducts or participates, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of the RICO Enterprises’ affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity; and since at least 2004 has participated in and operated CCDN and similar scams, knowingly and willfully deceiving and defrauding Plaintiffs, falsely assuring them that everything will turn out well even though she knows otherwise, and refusing to give refunds even though she knows that payment of money to CCDN results in victims ending up far deeper in debt than before they ever heard of CCDN.
42. Defendant Robert K. Lock, Jr., Esq. is married to Defendant Colleen Lock; is admitted to the practice of law in Illinois, bar number 905393375, record address R.K. Lock & Associates, 7144 North Harlem Avenue Suite 323, Chicago IL 60631-1005; is an owner and manager of CCDNLLC, RKLA/CCDN, and LDC; is a conspirator with all other Defendants; has received proceeds of unlawful activity (Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants obtained by wire, mail, and bank fraud) directly and/or through salary, profits, dividends, bonuses, gifts from Mrs. Lock, or other distributions, and is keeping Plaintiffs’ property away from them;and conducts or participates, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of the RICO Enterprises’ affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity.
43. Defendant Colleen Tomasino Lock is married to Defendant Robert K. Lock, Jr., Esq., is an owner of LDC and CCDNLLC, works as a so-called paralegal there although like Ms. Devine does not help Plaintiffs in the least but rather leaves them deeper in debt; is a conspirator with all other Defendants; has received proceeds of unlawful activity (Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants obtained by wire, mail, and bank fraud) directly and/or through salary, profits, dividends, bonuses, gifts from Mr. Lock, or other distributions, and is keeping Plaintiffs’ property away from them; and conducts or participates, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of the RICO Enterprises’ affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity.
44. Defendant Philip M. Manger, Esq. is admitted to the practice of law in New York, registration number 1452010, record address The CCDN, 7144 North Harlem Avenue Suite 323, Chicago IL 60631, alternate address 19 Taunton Hill Road, Newtown CT 06470; is an owner and manager of CCDN, RKLA/CCDN, CCDNLLC, and Credit Collections Defense Network; is a conspirator with all other Defendants; has received proceeds of unlawful activity (Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants obtained by wire, mail, and bank fraud) directly and/or through salary, profits, dividends, bonuses or other distributions, and is keeping Plaintiffs’ property away from them; and conducts or participates, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of the Enterprises’ affairs through a
pattern of racketeering activity.
45. Defendant S. John Hagenstein is the Marketing Director or Marketing Manager of CCDN, LDC, and CCDNLLC; personally records marketing and sales speeches and conference calls; personally denied a refund to Named Plaintiff for knowingly false reasons; is a conspirator with all other Defendants; has received proceeds of unlawful activity (Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants obtained by wire, mail, and bank fraud) directly and/or through salary, profits, dividends, bonuses or other distributions, and is keeping Plaintiffs’ property away from them;and conducts or participates, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of the RICO Enterprises’ affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity.
TCCS Defendants
46. Defendant The Credit Card Solution (TCCS) is a sole proprietorship of Defendant Robert Mitchell Lindsey, principal address 333 North Sam Houston Parkway East, Suite 1190, Houston TX 77060, managing partner or sole proprietor Bob M. Lindsey at the same address; conspired with all other Defendants; converted Plaintiffs’ property by receiving it (sometimes in the name of Bob Lindsey) and not giving it back; and was (until TXAG shut it down on or about 08 July 2009) primarily in the business of obtaining advance payments of $2,500 to $8,000 by promising to restore credit, reduce debt to zero, and obtain damages from debt collectors, but then after obtaining the fee, does not restore credit, reduce debt, or obtain net damages from debt collectors.
47. Defendant Robert Mitchell “Bob” Lindsey is an adult with the capacity to sue or be sued on his own account or in a representative capacity on behalf of others, was the managing partner of now defunct The Credit Card Solution (TCCS); is a conspirator with all other Defendants; has (sometimes in the name of TCCS or CCDN, and then stealing or diverting at least $469,035 for his own wrongful benefit and use) received proceeds of unlawful activity (Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants obtained by wire, mail, and bank fraud) directly and/or through salary, profits, dividends, bonuses or other distributions, and is keeping Plaintiffs’ property away from them; has transferred some of Plaintiffs’ property to other Defendants by instrumentalities of interstate commerce; is still running debt elimination scams despite direct court orders not to do so; and conducted or participated, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of the Enterprises’ affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity.
48. In the purchase agreement that Mr. Lindsey and Named Plaintiff executed, Mr. Lindsey refers to TCCS and CCDN as the single entity “TCCS/CCDN,” meaning that Mr. Lindsey conspired with CCDN Defendants to defraud Plaintiffs.
The Credit Collections Defense Network–“Our Founders”
49. Robert Kenneth Lock, Jr. of Chicago and Philip M. Manger of Newtown, Connecticut are licensed to practice law in Illinois and New York respectively.
50. Sometime in or before 2004, Mr. Lock, his wife Colleen Lock, and Mr. Manger formed an organization known as the Credit Collections Defense Network (CCDN), which they still own, operate, and manage with no end in sight and no substantial interference from law enforcement or Bar authorities.
51. CCDN has at various times taken at least the following names and forms: the doing-business-as name of Mr. Lock’s sole proprietorship R.K. Lock & Associates; CCDN, LLC, or CCDNLLC, a Nevada limited liability company, entity number E0717642006-2, organized by Mr. Lock and Mr. Manger; the Credit Collections Reconciliations Network; CCRN; Legal Debt Cure; Legal Debt Cure, LLC, a Nevada limited liability company, entity number E0259342009-4, organized by Mr. and Mrs. Lock, Mr. Manger, and Mr. Manger’s son Charles; and the URLs of over 30 different landing and marketing pages of either CCDN or its many different marketing partners.
52. CCDN’s principal address, and Mr. Lock’s and Mr. Manger’s Bar address of record, and the record address of CCDN, LLC and Legal Debt Cure, LLC, is 7144 North Harlem Avenue, Suite 323, Chicago IL 60631-1005.
53. In fact, this is a UPS Store mail drop that Defendants use to evade service of process and other means of holding them responsible to Plaintiffs.
54. CCDN uses the photographs, credentials, biographies, and recorded speeches of Mr. Lock and Mr. Manger, lawyers with 50 years’ experience between them, to sell CCDN’sprograms and services, assuring Plaintiffs that everything CCDN does is in full compliance with federal law.
55. http://consumersolutions101.com/The%20CCDN%20System.htm posts a recorded conference call wherein CCDN Marketing Director John Hagenstein sells the program and answers questions from two callers, and to assure caller Alicia in response to her concerns that CCDN might be a scam, states at about 32:41 in the recording: “Our two founders are attorneys. They have legitimate Bar licenses. You can check them out if you go to our website and look at their names, do a search in Illinois, or in New York or Connecticut where the two founders are located and they have Bar licenses.” At about 34:40 in the recording: “We’re an ethical organization. We’re lawyers. We won’t risk our livelihood, I’m not a lawyer by the way, I’m a marketing director, but our two
founders are lawyers. They will not risk their legal livelihood and get disbarred over this scam. Plus we have over 250 network attorneys that are in our program working for us around the country, and they’re not going to risk their reputations to be affiliated with a company that scams people.”
How CCDN Claims to Work
56. http://www.ccdnlaw.com/index.php?D=28 sets forth the basics of CCDN’s purported three-phase program.
57. “Phase One” or “Credit Reconciliation” claims, without saying how: “Our experience has been that numerous negatives will be removed from a typical customers credit reports within the first 3 to 4 months of the process.”
58. “Phase Two” or “Validation and Reconciliation” consists of “a series of proprietary letters” to creditors and debt collectors, failure to respond to which will result in CCDN’s “demand that they zero out our customer’ account and mark it ‘paid as agreed.’”
59. “Phase Three—Federal Lawsuit” is when “our paralegals conduct a compliance audit of each account of each customer” followed by a CCDN attorney filing a lawsuit.
60. http://www.ccdnlaw.com/index.php?D=20 is a long list of FAQs, the answers to which are sometimes vague; but on first reading, a reasonable consumer or even a reasonable consumer lawyer would not see anything grossly amiss, absent specialized prior knowledge of how debt elimination scams work and how to spot them.
61. Nowhere does www.ccdnlaw.com disclose that CCDN’s vaunted “nationwide network of attorneys”is virtually nonexistent and that CCDN can refer very few customers to lawyers, or that CCDN has been known to give Plaintiffs names of lawyers who, upon a Plaintiff contacting them, are quite startled to learn that CCDN, of whom
they have never heard, claims them as part of their “nationwide network,” when in fact CCDN most likely picked them at random from published lists of consumer attorneys.
62. Neither does www.ccdnlaw.com disclose that CCDN through its agents, marketing sites, and later materials: advocates the thoroughly discredited “vapor money” theory, which holds bank loans to be imaginary and unnecessary to repay; gives out frivolous and ineffective dispute letters that creditors and collectors may lawfully ignore and that have no effect on the validity of legitimate debt; claims to be able to remove true and correct negative items from credit reports, and then does not do so; claims to “restore credit” to what it was before the customer got into financial trouble, and then does not do so; claims to be able to reduce debt to zero, and then does not do so; tells consumers to deliberately stop paying their debts; tells consumers to encourage and allow debt collectors to abuse them in hopes of increasing damages awards, without disclosing that maximum damages under such laws are very low; claims that damages and settlements will be so large as to offset debts and cause creditors to remove true negative information from credit reports; demands 75% of the gross receipts from any judgments or settlements of consumer protection lawsuits; and charges or allows to be charged an advance fee of $2,500 to over $8,000 before doing any work.
63. http://consumersolutions101.com/The%20CCDN%20System.htm posts a recorded conference call wherein CCDN Marketing Director John Hagenstein explains in more detail, and at about 12:10 of the recording, that Defendants expressly want Plaintiffs to provoke debt collectors and allow themselves to be severely abused: Our responses are meant to aggressively challenge what they’re doing and aggravating them even further, and they become more and more aggressive. As they do this, we want you to continue communicating with these people. In some cases, we want you to fill out phone logs. In some cases, we want you to fill out what we call a phone statement, which is an individual call that you’ve had with a debt collector, and in some cases, where applicable, we may even ask you to do some recording of conversations where the law allows, in certain states. But the majority of the information we gather is you personally talking with these debt collectors, listening to them challenge and violate your federal rights. So once we’ve accumulated this information, we perform what is called a
compliance audit, and this is the last part of the Phase II process.
64. Mr. Hagenstein answers questions from two callers, including Alicia, assuring her at about 24:27 of the recording that “they’ll always do violations. It’s just a matter of how often, how soon, and how many. So it’s just a matter of time.”
65. Caller Jack has “a few foreclosures” and some unpaid credit cards, but not to worry, says Mr. Hagenstein, beginning at about 27:44 of the recording:
HAGENSTEIN: Jack, we can repair your credit with the credit restoration program, and we use a sister company called The Fulfillment Center. They are fantastic for repairing people’s credit.Like I said, they stay with you through the 24 months, working with you to write letters to the three reporting agencies, challenging the validity of the debt and asking them to prove that these debts, these derogatories that is, these negative marks are valid, and they can’t, because these banks don’t keep the information. All they do is send credit card statements or, y’know, they send a letter to the bank and the bank says yes it’s legitimate, but yet they don’t provide any validation, so we use the FCRA and the FCBA, the Fair Credit Reporting and Billing Act laws, primarily section 609 and 611, to ask them to validate or remove. Once they remove these debts, if they can’t be validated, they can never put them back on your reports again. And that leads to a very consistent time-managed process, your credit scores will be restored.
JACK: But like I say, if it’s only credit card debt, I don’t understand that.
HAGENSTEIN: Jack, I didn’t, I didn’t say credit card. We restore your credit scores, which means that everything that affects your credit scores will be dealt with in whatever fashion we need to. If they can’t validate the actual derogatory, the negative mark, they have to remove it. That goes for judgments, bankruptcies, it goes for foreclosures, it goes for unsecured credit card debt, loans, goes for anything. If they can’t validate it, they have to
remove it, and if they remove it, it can’t go back on, and if it doesn’t go back on, your credit scores go up.
66. Later, Jack had the following exchange with Mr. Hagenstein:
JACK: So, um, yeah, you said that, um, you have to answer the phone calls that they call you, trying to collect. Like, what if I didn’t answer the phone, you know, I owe numbers of credit cards, and they been calling, and I can’t pay them, so I didn’t answer, answer back, and so they send me the debt collector, and it’s, I think it’s over 30 or even 60 days, so what do we do here?
HAGENSTEIN: Yeah, well, basically you have to talk to these people, Jack. It’s unfortunate, it’s not a fun job, but you, if you right now, if you hired an attorney, for example, to defend yourself in this situation, to represent you, they wouldn’t call you. They’d have to talk to the attorney. And they wouldn’t violate any laws. So the idea is that you, representing yourself in this process, cause we’re not your attorney, we’re an education company that advises you. That’s why you gotta do this yourself, because if they know you’re represented by an attorney or working with an attorney, they’re obligated by federal law to talk to that attorney rather than you.
JACK: Mmm-hmm.
HAGENSTEIN: You need to be the one that talks to them because they think that you’re just representing yourself, you’re an uneducated consumer, and they’ll try all the tactics that are available to them to try to get you to agree to pay them some money.
67. CCDN has contracted with at least 30 different individuals and businesses, which CCDN calls “affiliates,”to sell its program on a commission basis.
68. Despite Mr. Lock’s and Mr. Manger’s duty to exercise reasonable care in the people they hire, CCDN regularly contracts or associates with disreputable people who have verifiable histories of fraudulent conduct and deceptive trade practices, including but not limited to John Gliha, Richard Russ, Greg Britt, Brad Daley, Mark Cella, John Hagenstein, and (about whom more shortly) Robert Mitchell Lindsey.
69. Some of them, including Mr. Lindsey, have simply pocketed Plaintiffs’ money instead of remitting it to CCDN less commission.
70. http://legaldebtcureaffiliateprogram.433554.free-press-release.com/ is one of many sites where CCDN, especially its Legal Debt Cure alter ego, is rapidly building an affiliate program of amateur marketers and “plans on a very aggressive commission structure averaging $1500 per sale to its affiliate salespeople” without anylegal or debt relief training other than CCDN’s worse-than-useless program, thus enticing many more consumers not just to become victims themselves, but also to participate in victimizing new people.
71. Defendants have promoted their scheme and solicited business through at least the following websites, many of which are still operational:
http://www.ccdnlaw.com/ (main page)
http://ccdn-law.com/index.html
http://www.ccdn.us/
http://www.ccdn.cc/
http://www.ccdndemo.com/
http://credit-collections-defense-network.org/
http://credit-collections-defense-network.com/
http://www.ablewise.com/ads/view/383555/
http://www.active-debt.com/
http://www.americancreditauditors.com/aboutus.asp
http://attorneydebtassist.com/
http://bankruptcyproctection.com/The_CCDN_System.php
http://www.berniesfinancialadvice.com/
http://www.billsaregone.com/
http://biz.prlog.org/LegalDebtCure/
http://cdrcenter.info/
http://consumersolutions101.com/
http://www.creditcardrightscoalition.com/
http://www.creditcardsaregone.com/
http://www.debtattorneyprovider.com/
http://www.debteliminatedlegally.com/
http://www.debtoraid.net/
http://www.debtorinc.com/
http://www.debtsrgone.com/helpwithdebt/
http://www.deletedebtlegally.com/
http://dscreationnewagedebtsolu.homestead.com/
http://eugene.craigslist.org/lgs/1257331458.html
http://www.ezdebtsolutions.net/
http://www.financialsolutions.cc/faq.php
http://www.fixcredits.com/id60.html
http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200905/1241479689.html
http://www.fsei.cc/
http://www.gogetoutofdebt.net/
http://inflationary.blogspot.com/2008/06/ccdn-progam.html
http://www.legaldebtcure.com/
http://www.legallyerasedebt.com/
http://legallyriddebtwithoutbankruptcy.com/
http://libertasgroup.cc/debt/
http://www.nomoredebt.cc/audiox.asp (Bob Lock audio FAQ)
http://paulcohenisaliar.com/
http://project-omega.com/services/fsi.htm
http://quantumdebtrelief.com/faq.php
http://www.resolveyourdebttoday.com/
http://www.sfveritas.org/page14.html
http://www.settledebtforever.com/fs_faq.htm
http://www.thecreditcardsalvation.com/
http://www.thecreditcardsolution.net/
Tweets by LegalDebtCure
http://www.uofmoney.com/services/fsi.htm
http://wipeoutdebtlegally.com/
http://www.wipeoutcreditdebt.com/land01.asp
http://www.zeromydebtnow.com/
Bob Lindsey and The Credit Card Solution
72. One of the most successful CCDN pitchmen was Robert Mitchell “Bob” Lindsey, proprietor of now-defunct The Credit Card Solution.
73. Mr. Lindsey is a career confidence man who in 1994, file number 09-063950 in Harris County, 133d Judicial District, agreed with the Texas Attorney General, without admitting responsibility or liability, to cease and desist operating his fraudulent business Child Support Collection Agency of America, Inc. dba Child Support Enforcement
Services, Inc.–ironically enough, a purported collection agency.
74. Mr. and Mrs. Lock and Mr. Manger knew or should have known of Mr. Lindsey’s checkered past, but hired him anyway because Mr. Lindsey is a superb salesman with a smooth, reassuring manner on camera, on the phone, and in person.
75. On or about 07 February 2007, Mr. Lindsey contracted with RK Lock & Associates to sell CCDN’s program and remit a$2,800 fee to RKLA/CCDN for each new customer at the time of the customer’s admission to the CCDN program.
76. Between then and early 2009, Mr. Lindsey made over 40 videos promoting CCDN’s program and posted them at TCCS’s sites and many other online outlets such as Yahoo Video, Google Video, YouTube, Dailymotion, Spike TV, MySpace, Sevenload, Revver, and Metacafe, where thousands of people have seen them.
77. In most of these videos, including the ones where he tells people to beware of so called Christian debt counselors, Mr. Lindsey wears a very shiny Christian cross pendant.
78. Mr. Lindsey’s presentations mix enough truth with the overall deception, and are sufficiently complex, that only a consumer protection lawyer with prior specialized knowledge of debt elimination scams would be likely to spot the illegality of his advice.
79. Some of Mr. Lindsey’s videos are transcribed below, and it is best to let him
explain CCDN’s program in his own words.
80. http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1875368/6154311 is Mr. Lindsey’s video “A Debt
Relief Program That Works–Intro (#1 of 6),” originally posted 29 January 2008 at
YouTube, transcription verified 11 August 2009:
In the short videos on this page, I want to explain to you in detail our program, to explain how we can do exactly what we say we can do in the next 12 to 18 months. Number one, reduce your debt to zero. This is not a debt consolidation or debt settlement type of program. We are literally looking to make your debt go away. Number two is restore your credit score, so again, when the process is over, you will have an excellent credit rating. And number three, even recover some money for you, because we sue these debt collectors that end up with these debts. They do things that violate federal law and violate your rights. We hold them accountable. We take them into federal court, we sue them, we collect money from them, and you share in that process. And I’m going to explain all this in detail. But understand this: Everything we do in this process is based on federal law, and there are laws in place that are designed to protect you.
The truth is, is that the credit card companies, the credit reporting agencies, and especially the debt collectors either do things that violate federal law or are out of compliance with portions of these federal laws. It is their noncompliance, it is their violations, that we are able to utilize to accompany the three things that I outlined. I’m going to explain the process in detail to you, step by step.
81. This video is deceptive in at least the following ways: CCDN’s program cannot
reduce credit card debt to zero; cannot restore anyone’s credit score; cannot give an excellent credit rating; is unlikely to result in a net recovery; does not file suits in federal court; is not based in federal law but rather is in gross violation of federal law; cannot gain sufficient leverage through collectors’ and creditors’ violations of consumer protection law to eliminate debt except a few small accounts; has gotten rid of very little consumer debt; and literally fails every time.
82. http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1875382 is Mr. Lindsey’s video “Restoring Your Credit With This Debt Plan (#2 of 6),” originally posted 29 January 2008 atYouTube, transcription verified on 11 August 2009:
The process works like this: If you decide to get into this program, you would cease paying your credit cards, and we’ll go to work in the three areas that I outlined. We’re going to start off with restoring your credit score. We’re going to pull your credit bureaus, all three, and we’re going to begin a process of disputing anything on there that’s negative. I mean, anything that is negative now, and anything that appears negative in the course of this process. The nature of the dispute that we have with the credit bureaus is very different, though, than you might imagine, is very different from anyone who does, quote, credit repair. A lot of people claim to do credit repair. A lot of what’s out there is junk. What we do is entirely different. We dispute with the credit bureau based on the fact that they are out of compliance with reporting law. They are governed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and in the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Section 609, there’s a requirement that they maintain a hardcopy of supporting documents, verification documents, documents that verify that any account they’re reporting negative about you is indeed your account. This was inserted in the law because studies have shown that seventy to ninety percent of
all credit reports contain errors.
So the law simply requires the credit reporting agency, if they’re going to report something negative, to have on hand a document verifying that that is indeed your account. We’re talking something about, along the lines of a copy of your original credit card agreement with your signature, something like that. But the credit reporting agencies absolutely do not do this. It’s not that the documents aren’t available; the documents are readily available. Your creditor has the documents, but your creditor, the credit bureau, are different entities, and the credit bureau does not have the required documents. Again, they could get them, but they simply don’t.
We have a series of letters that we send to the credit reporting agency where we challenge them on the fact that they do not have the verification document. We ask them where is the required verification document that the law requires you to have. Either produce the document or remove the negative reporting, or be sued, and that’s what the provision of the law is.
In the nine years that we have been doing this part of the process, we have worked with over 48,000 families, and not one single time, not one single time, have the credit bureaus produced the required verification document. They don’t have them and they’re simply not going to get them. We’re incredibly effective at getting anything negative knocked off your credit report. In the next video I’m going to explain to you how we deal with the debt itself.
83. The foregoing is deceptive in at least the following ways: ceasing payment of consumer debt is the surest way to destroy instead of restore credit; CCDN’s program is not significantly different from any other fraudulent credit repair scheme; credit reporting agencies are not required to keep original signed credit agreements on file; and CCDN’s program is completely ineffective at getting any correct negative information off of anyone’s credit report.
84. http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1875763 is Mr. Lindsey’s video titled “How We Challenge Your Creditors and Win (#3 of 6),” originally posted29 January 2008, transcription verified on 11 August 2009:
We deal with the debt itself in two ways. We go after both the original creditor that issued the debt, and we deal with the debt collector. We go after the debt collector that ends up with the debt. In this video we’re going to talk about the original creditor.
We have a proprietary letter that we send your original creditor where we challenge them on the validity of the debt. We challenge them to prove that a valid debt ever existed. We challenge them to prove they ever lent you any money, using generally accepted accounting principles. Now they absolutely cannot do that.
Now I know that sounds odd, because you know you got the credit card, and you know you spent the money. But it has to do with how banks work. Banks work very differently than people understand. The bank works very differently than the bank itself represents, in terms of what it actually does. You see, banks don’t lend the money. Banks create money. It’s an entirely different kind of process.
In this country, under the Federal Reserve System, we operate with what’s known as a fractional reserve lending system. It works like this: Let’s say you have a thousand-dollar CD in a bank. Right now the bank would pay you about five percent. Well, most people think the bank takes my thousand dollars, turns around and loans it to somebody else, at maybe ten, twelve, fifteen percent, whatever the bank can get, and the bank makes money, or the bank’s profit, is in the spread, the difference between what it pays for the money, what it can lend the
money out for.
And that’s absolutely not how it works. Under this fractional reserve lending system, a bank is allowed to lend ten times its reserves. So here’s what they do: They take your thousand dollars, they reclassify it as a reserve. That now allows them to make ten thousand dollars in loans on your thousand dollars, to literally create nine thousand dollars of brand-new money. The money that you borrow from the bank doesn’t even exist until the moment you borrowed it. It ceases to exist when you’ve paid it off. But while it’s in existence, they’re charging you all kinds of interest and fees.
Now you begin to get a picture of why banks are highly profitable, why they’re literally building a bank on every corner. If you and I could do what banks do, we could become rich. But if you and I attempt to do what banks do, they’re going to lock us up, because it’s called fraud. You can’t lend something you don’t have—unless you’re a bank. But the banks certainly don’t disclose all this to you, and it’s not that this is not public information. What I’m telling you is very public information. It is simply not common knowledge. And the banks don’t want you to really understand this process, because banks know, if people understood how this actually works, they would be outraged at banks charging people 30 or 35 or even 40 percent interest on money that was literally created out of nowhere. So we challenge the bank, we challenge the bank under the Truth In Lending Act and the Fair Credit Billing Act. Now sometimes—sometimes—when the bank gets our letter, they will zero your debt out, and that’s the end of it, but that’s notnormally how it works.
That’s not what we expect to happen. We send the letter for two reasons. We’re establishing some legal ground that’s going to benefit us later. Secondly, we are looking to hasten a natural process.
What we expect the bank to do is simply get rid of your debt. Now they’re going to do that anyway. When you cease paying a bank, and you haven’t paid them for six months, by law they have to write your debt off. They gotta charge it off, they’ve got to take it off their books, as a performing loan. Now when that happens, the bank suffers no financial detriment. You see, the bank has insurance on your debt. You have paid the premium for that insurance in your annual fee. The bank even makes a little money. It gets a very generous tax credit for the bad debt, and then it turns around and sells the collection rights for the debt off to a debt collector, a collection agency, collection attorney, for a few pennies on the dollar. So the bank is made whole, and they’re out of the picture, and in comes the debt collector, and that’s what I’m going to talk about in the next video.
85. The foregoing is deceptive in at least the following ways: CCDN’s dispute letters do not raise any lawful dispute; GAAP is irrelevant to the validity and enforceability of consumer debt as between debtor and creditor; banks are not literally building branches on every corner; bank lending and expectation of repayment at interest is not fraud; money lent does not come out of nowhere, and must be repaid; banks never zero debt out in response to TCCS’s letters; banks do suffer financial detriment when debtors default; not every consumer account is insured against default (and even if they were, the insurer would then lose real money); banks get only tax deductions and not tax credits when debts go bad (and even if they did get tax credits, the taxpayers would then lose real money); banks do not always sell defaulted accounts but sometimes keep them and collect them; and banks are not made whole after default by taking tax deductions and selling bad debts for pennies on the dollar.
86. http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1880047/6176377 is Mr. Lindsey’s video titled
“Dealing with Debt Collector Harassment (#4 of 6),” originally posted on YouTube 30
January 2008, transcription verified on 11 August 2009:
When the debt collector enters the picture, there’s another federal law that comes into play. It’s called the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. It’s a law designed to prevent abuses in the collection industry, but it’s a law the collectors ignore. They ignore it because they know you don’t know the law. Or maybe if you know a little bit about the law, you have no means to enforce the law.
And frankly they ignore it because there’s just a lot of money in debt collection. Debt collection is a highly profitable business. You see, they buy your debt for two to five, maybe ten cents or so on the dollar, but they come to you looking to collect not even a hundred percent of what the debt used to be, because they’re going to add their own interest, fees, and penalties. And they’re going to want to collect 120, 150, maybe 200 percent or more of the original debt, and when you pay a debt collector, you’re not paying your creditor.
Your creditor is already out of the picture. You’re simply putting profit in the hands of the debt collector. And that’s why they’re so aggressive. That’s why they will literally lie, cheat, steal, they will use fear, harassment, intimidation. They’ll do whatever they can do to get you to pay because it goes in their pockets. But when they do the things that they do, they violate this federal law, this Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and they can be held accountable, and they all violate the law.
There’s no such thing as a debt collector that does not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. For instance, one thing they all do—let’s say one of your accounts is with Bank of America. Well, you quit paying Bank of America, Bank of America writes your debt off, they sell the collection rights to the debt collector, and the debt collector calls you and says “Mr. Jones, I’m calling you about this money you owe Bank of America.” Well right there, he’s lying to you. He’s violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act because the truth is, you no longer owe Bank of America anything. You see, Bank of America has gotten paid, because we talked about that. They got their insurance money, they got their tax credit, and they’ve sold the collection rights to the debt collector. On their books, your account will now show a zero balance. In fact, if you were to call Bank of America at this point and say “Oh, I’ve just won the lottery. I’d love to pay off my credit card debt,” they would tell you they could not take your money. They would refer you back to the debt collector. And that’s because you don’t owe them anything.
Well, the debt collector doesn’t want you to know that. Nor does he want you to know that he bought your ten thousand dollar credit card debt for three or five hundred dollars, because he’s going to come to you and say, “Well Mr. Jones, it was ten thousand, but now it’s twelve or thirteen or fourteen or fifteen because of interest, fees, and penalties,” whatever number they come up with. “But I tell you what, if you can come up with some money in the next few days, we can go ahead and settle this for nine or ten or eleven,” again, whatever number they come up with. Well obviously, if you could buy something for three or five hundred dollars, and sell it for nine or ten or eleven thousand, wouldn’t that be a pretty decent profit margin?
Well, that’s exactly how the debt collector operates. But the debt collectors’ standard method of operation is in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. In the next video, I’m going to talk specifically about additional violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and how we hold them accountable.
87. The foregoing is deceptive in at least the following ways: not every debt collector violates FDCPA as to every account; not every debt collector has purchased the debt; some debt collectors are acting as agents for banks and other creditors; banks do not get insurance payments and tax credits when they write off debt (and even if they did, the loss would not disappear but would transfer to insurers and taxpayers); and CCDN does not hold debt collectors accountable for violating FDCPA.
88. http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1880063/6175311 is Mr. Lindsey’s video titled “Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (#5 of 6),” originally posted on YouTube 30 January 2008, transcription verified on 11 August 2009: When the debt collector lies to you, when he misrepresents who he’s collecting for, he misrepresents he’s collecting for the bank as opposed to collecting for himself, he violates the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and there are so many other things that he does that are in violation of this law.
When he calls you multiple times a day, making your phone ring to the point of harassment, every single one of those calls could be violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. When he calls you too early in the morning, too late at night, when he calls you at work when you’ve asked him not to, when he calls your friends and neighbors, having them bring little notes to you, those can be violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
The debt collector becomes abusive on the phone. He’ll start off being nice, but you don’t pay, they’ll turn ugly. Abusive language is a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. When the debt collector threatens you with something he is not legally empowered to do, he may threaten you with wage garnishment, or putting, taking your house from you, or getting you fired, or all kinds of things they may come up with. Well, until he’s legally empowered to do so, it’s a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to threaten you with
something he’s not yet legally empowered to do.
If he threatens to put you in jail, well rest assured that he can’t do that. There are no debtor’s prisons in this country. It’s not against the law to [sic] pay your credit card debt, but a lot of times debt collectors will threaten you with things like that, because it’s effective, it scares people. Well, that’s not only a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, that’s against criminal law.
It’s actually a criminal, a crime to threaten you with criminal prosecution for a civil offense in many states.
There’s so many other things that the debt collector does, and we help them along. We send out little dispute letters, for instance, and when they get our dispute letters, our requests for validation of the debt, and they don’t properly respond, those are violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. When the debt collector continues to try to call you and collect from you, after getting our validation letter and not properly validating your debt, those are additional violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
And every single time the collector violates the law, every single time, no matter how small, how technical, it’s worth a minimum of a thousand dollars, plus attorney’s fees, plus actual damages. And that’s just on the federal level. There are corresponding state laws in most states where we can sue the debt collector on the state level as well.
So here’s what we do: We document the things the debt collector is not supposed to do that he does. Now obviously you have to participate in this process. You’ve got to fax to us any correspondence you get from the debt collector. We want you to talk to the debt collector. Now we’re going to tell you exactly what to say, how to handle the phone call, but every time you talk to the debt collector, he will violate the law. You can either record the phone calls or simply take notes.
We’re going to build a violations file that we will then turn over to an attorney who’s a member of our network that’s in your area, who will file a federal lawsuit against the debt collector, who will file what’s known as a federal complaint. We will sue the debt collector in federal court, and perhaps in state
court as well.
When that happens, when we file the lawsuit in federal court, well, the tables have now been turned on the debt collector, and the debt collector is calling us, wanting to know how he can settle this. These debt collectors are highly motivated to get rid of these federal complaints. Now remember, he buys your debt for a few pennies on the dollar. He’s bought lots of debt on lots of people.
He’s looking to collect from as many people as he can, as cheaply as he can. Well, when we’ve taken your case to federal court, we’ve sued him. All of a sudden, your case becomes very expensive, very complex. Plus, he can’t defend it, he’s broken the law, he knows he’s broken the law.
So he’s calling us and wanting to know how he can settle it. You see, these federal complaints also negatively impact the debt collector’s state licensing requirements and other aspects of his business, so he wants this to go away. He wants to know how he can settle it. In fact, these things normally settle within 30 to 60 days of the filing of the federal complaint. Well, when the debt collector calls us wanting to know how it can be settled, we can settle it, but here’s how it’s settled.
Number one, the client’s debt, your debt, is reduced to zero. Number two, the client, you, are marked paid as agreed at the credit bureau. Number three, there are no tax consequences, so there’s no 1099s issued. And number four, we’re going to collect some money. We’re going to get some damages from the debt collector, based on the documented violations of the law.
We normally collect somewhere around four to seven thousand dollars per account. Sometimes it’s a lot more, depending on what they’ve done. This is over and above the reduction of your debt to zero. Now whatever we get, 75% stays with our attorneys, that’s where our guys get to make a little money, but 25% of it comes back to you.
So by the time this process is over, again roughly 12 to 18 months, your debt is gone, you’ve got an excellent credit rating again, and you’ve recovered some money, maybe got your fees back, put a little money in your pocket, but the main thing is, you’ve got your financial life back. In the very next video, I’m going to talk about what the next step for you to take is.
89. The foregoing is deceptive in at least the following ways: debt collectors are often not lying when they claim to be collecting on behalf of the original creditor; wage garnishment is legal in many states; debt collectors may lawfully ignore cease communication and validation demands from nonlawyer third parties such as CCDN; the $1,000 statutory damages under FDCPA is a maximum not a minimum; most courts have ruled FDCPA’s $1,000 statutory damage maximum to apply only once per lawsuit per defendant, not once per violation; engaging debt collectors in phone conversation is extremely stressful and upsetting and may result in the collector convincing the consumer to make unnecessary payments; CCDN has very few lawyers in its network (and those it does manage to recruit will soon realize that CCDN is the problem and will advise clients to sue CCDN); FDCPA lawsuits do not always settle and may take far longer than 60 days if they do settle; FDCPA lawsuits do not normally result in elimination of the underlying debt; forgiveness of debt can cause adverse tax consequences; FDCPA lawsuits need not be brought in federal court but can be brought in state court, and allowing the consumer to keep only 25% of any recovery is in most cases a clearly excessive contingent fee.
90. http://video.yahoo.com/watch/2792925/8102562 is Mr. Lindsey’s video “So called Christian Debt Counseling,” transcription verifiedon 11 August 2009: Perhaps you’ve seen websites that advertise Christian debt counseling or nonprofit debt counseling. Be careful. A name can be deceiving. Number one, only people can be Christians, not companies, not corporations, and the fact that someone claims to be nonprofit doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re so. A lot of times what we find is that many of these organizations are wolves in sheep’s clothing, clothing themselves in these terms, Christian, nonprofit, as a means of fleecing the flock. [Note: Mr. Lindsey is wearing a shiny Christian cross pendant this whole time.] Be very careful. I’m a believer, I’m a follower of Jesus, but do business with me because what I say makes sense. Now I’ll be happy to pray with you and minister to you in any way I can. But do business with me because I can help get you out of debt. We’ve got a process that actually works. That’s what makes the difference. It’s like if you had brain cancer and I have a surgeon to operate on you. It might be important that he be a Christian, yes, but probably what’s more important is that he knows what he’s doing and he’s the best surgeon available. Wouldn’t you agree, that’s the case here.
91. The foregoing is deceptive in at least the following ways: regardless of his or their private and sincerely held religious beliefs, Mr. Lindsey and CCDN are themselves as deceptive and fraudulent as any alleged debt relief organization can be; the program he is selling does not actually work but in fact gets its customers into far more debt and misery than before; and, Mr. Lindsey cannot possibly be available to pray with and minister to the 48,000 families that he claims to have helped.
92. Mr. Lindsey has made more than 30 other videos selling CCDN’s program, transcripts of which constitute Exhibits A and 19 in NCED 7:09cv81-F.
Fraudulent “Debt Relief” By Many Names
93. Though its main approach is instructing its customers to dispute their debts on frivolous theories, cease paying all debts, and provoke debt collectors into committing enough violations to offset their debts and generate leverage to force creditors to delete negative information, CCDN is in fact directly or indirectly selling virtually every variation of fraudulent “debt relief” known to man, often expressly disavowing a technique as bogus on one site, and then offering it for sale on another site, or even on different pages of the same site.
“Debt Elimination”
94. http://www.ccdnlaw.com/index.php?D=20, CCDN’s official FAQ page, answers the question “How do you eliminate my debt?” with the assurance: “Please understand that this is not a ‘Debt Elimination’ process.”
95. http://nomoredebt.cc/american_faq.asp then mentions “each credit card account in the Debt Elimination program,” andhttp://nomoredebt.cc/audiox.asp enables download of several audio files, including an FSEI conference call in which Mr. Lock participates, which claims that FSEI is “the only debt elimination company out there that has actually used MBNA’s arbitrating company,” and the introductory audio pronounces near the end
that “We are in the full service debt elimination arena here.”
96. Also, http://bankruptcyproctection.com/The_CCDN_System.php claims: “The core of the CCDN is a set of legal document templates that have been developed over the past 10 years. These templates, backed by a nationwide database of federal and state statutes, rules and case law citations, present a solid defense to any unsecured credit complaint.”
“Ultra Vires” and “UCC Redemption”
97. http://www.ccdnlaw.com/index.php?D=20 continues: “We have seen all of the processes out there, from UCC Redemption to Ultra Vires … While some may work for a time, they all ultimately suffer the same fate–Failure–and in more and more cases, Sanctions.”
98. http://www.8882684397.com/, however, posts a speech by Mr. Lock in which he claims: “I filed a motion for summary judgment, and in that motion, I said that this case should be thrown out and judgment should be entered on behalf of my client because the bank acted ultra vires to their corporate charter because they don’t even have the authority to issue credit cards, and therefore they can’t come in and claim a contract on a credit card.”
99. http://nomoredebt.cc/audiox.asp also sells UCC redemption and records Mr. Lock saying himself in the conference call: “I base all of my objections on age-old precedents in contract law and in the Uniform Commercial Code.” In the introductory audio, Mr. Lock’s agent Eugene refers to the “Uniform Commercial Code, Section 1-201(24), and again, Section 3-104.” Admitted nonlawyer Eugene further assures in the same recording: “Next one is Merchants Bank versus Biard (sp?), a national bank cannot lend its credit to another by becoming surety, endorser, or guarantor for him, such an act being, key word, ultra vires.”
“Mortgage Elimination” and “Loan Modification”
100. http://www.ccdnlaw.com/index.php?D=20 answers FAQ 37, “Does this work on secured home mortgages or auto loans?” with: “No, this process is restricted to unsecured credit accounts.”
101. But http://www.fixcredits.com/debt.html, the “Debt Eliminator” page of this CCDN marketing site, promises: “Eliminate all of your debt including your mortgage.”
102. http://www.gogetoutofdebt.net/programs/modification.asp says: “Loan Modification is a solution for individuals or families with steady income, but find themselves having trouble making mortgage payments.” “Credit Repair” and “Credit Reconciliation”
103. http://www.ccdnlaw.com/index.php?D=20 answers FAQ 44, “Is credit repair the same as credit reconciliation?” with: “No. We only offer credit reconciliation. We do not offer or provide credit repair as part of the CCDN process.”
104. http://www.legallyresolvedebt.com/credit_repair.htm, however, offers “Attorney Facilitated Credit Repair.”
105. http://consumersolutions101.com/The%20CCDN%20System.htm posts a “Legal Debt Cure Audio Overview”recording that almost immediately claims: “CCDN stands for Credit Collections Defense Network and was formed by attorneys Robert Lock, Jr. and Philip Manger to provide the best in expert debt reconciliation and credit repair.” “Debt Reconciliation” and “Debt Settlement”
106. http://www.attorneydebthelp.net/debt_resolution.htm says: “Debt Resolution is not to be mistaken for Bankruptcy, Settlement, Debt Elimination or Debt Consolidation as those utilize different laws and are often not as beneficial to the consumer.”
107. http://www.gogetoutofdebt.net/programs/settlement.asp, however, assures: “Debt settlement is a legitimate way of solving your problem without the need for bankruptcy.”
“Commercial Debt Relief”
108. http://www.ccdnlaw.com/index.php?D=20 answers FAQ 37, “Can I place Business cards into the program?” with: “In addition, this process only works on consumer debt and can not work on accounts that are associated in any way with a business or accounts that were not primarily used for personal purchases.”
109. http://www.gogetoutofdebt.net/programs/commercial.asp, however, promises: “Commercial Debt Relief is for companies that need help managing business debt obligations.”
“Reduce or Remove Student Loans”
110. http://www.ccdnlaw.com/index.php?D=20 answers FAQ 37, “Does your process deal with student loans?” with: “We do not currently have a process in place to deal with these loans.”
111. http://consumersolutions101.com/The%20CCDN%20System.htm, titled “The Legal Debt Cure with The Credit Collections Defense Network (CCDN),”however, promises to “Reduce or Remove Unsecured Debt”of 12 types including student loans.
112. Also, http://bankruptcyproctection.com/The_CCDN_System.php claims, without excluding student loans: “The core of theCCDN is a set of legal document templates that have been developed over the past 10 years. These templates, backed by a nationwide database of federal and state statutes, rules and case law citations, present a solid defense to any unsecured credit complaint.”
“Don’t Appeal Default Judgments–Call Us Instead”
113. http://www.ccdnlaw.com/index.php?D=20 answers FAQ 40, “Can you assist with a default judgment?” with: “The critical time for dealing with default judgments is within 30 days of the entry of judgment. After that, the threshold for vacating default judgments can rise substantially.”
114. http://nomoredebt.cc/audiox.asp, however, records a telephone call from Melanie, a Florida consumer, who had a money judgment in favor of Citibank entered against her almost a month ago, so Mr. Lock should have advised her of the immediate need to file a notice of appeal before the 30-day jurisdictional deadline, but instead, Mr. Lock launched into a long and completely erroneous speech claiming that Citibank’s affidavits are always defective, therefore the Florida court had “no basis on which to issue a judgment, and that judgment is void of its own weight,” even though heknew that judgments are only void if the court had no jurisdiction to enter them, and failure to contest affidavits is not a jurisdictional defect, thus dissuading Melanie from doing the only thing that would have actually helped her, and instead letting his colleague Art tell Melanie that all she needed to do was send in her information to CCDN marketer FSEI (doubtless along with CCDN’s customary $4,500 advance fee), and all would be well.
“Novation” or “Assignment”
115. http://consumersolutions101.com/debt_resolution.html posts “Debt Relief Audio Overviews” explaining the following scheme, commonly known as “assignment” or “novation,”to trick creditors into giving up their rights to timely and full repayment of principal and interest, which will not work because most creditors write provisions in their credit agreements forbidding such chicanery, and also this approach would count as an unfair and deceptive trade practice and no court would approve of it, and in all cases provides no debt relief and leaves its victims far worse off than before (and also tells Plaintiffs not to talk to debt collectors, contrary to Defendants’instructions elsewhere to provoke and endure as much debt collection abuse as possible to rack up damages):
Hello, and welcome to the audio overview for the debt resolution process. We are excited to offer you assistance in what we believe is the safest and most effective consumer debt relief process available today. This process has been used over the last seven years to help people offset thousands of accounts to the tune of millions of dollars. And just to make things clear, we work for you. We do not work for your creditors, your bank, or your credit card company. This is not debt consolidation, debt settlement, debt reduction, mortgage refinancing, bankruptcy, or some other payment plan that can drag on and on. Other processes can easily last up to seven to ten years. If you know that you need help dealing with your debt, we encourage you to consider this option. You’ll find it hard to discover anything else that helps you keep this much money in your pocket while easing the burden of your debt.
What we do is quite simple, yet very effective. We actually work with you and become a part of the picture through assignment of your debt to us. This doesn’t mean that the debt is no longer yours; it means that we’re involved with you, and our name is now on the dotted line along with yours. We then apply the principles of consumer protection law and basic contract law to make the agreement or contract with the creditor more favorable for you. Most types of unsecured debt can go into the process. Major credit cards, signature loans, store cards or gas cards, business or personal, and several types of student loans.
When you pay for your enrollment fee and submit your paperwork, you also provide us with enough money to make one more minimum payment on each account with the original creditor, plus an additional $43 per account with the original creditor as well. These are one-time payments. If you’re current on your payments, you just provide us with the minimum payment you would have sent to your creditor plus the $43. If a minimum payment is less than $50, you need to bump it up to 50 so you can show a substantial payment, but if you’re behind on payments and the creditor is asking for double or triple the normal minimum, you don’t have to provide the whole thing. Ask your agent for details. So for an example, if you have a balance of $10,000 on an account, your monthly minimum is probably going to be around $250 to $300, so you’d provide that amount plus an additional 43. Again, this is a one-time payment.
We use the payments to offer a new payment on the account and use the $43 as consideration. These minimum payments will be sent to us at the same time that you fill out your paperwork and send the enrollment fee to get started. If an account is with a collection agency and no longer with the original creditor, you don’t need to provide the minimum payment or the $43 per account. We will still work on the account to offset the debt, but we use slightly different methods that don’t require those payments.
We focus mainly on the principles of contract law. Here’s how it happens. You’re probably aware that in the contract you have with your credit cards, there’s a clause that says they can basically change the terms and conditions whenever they want to, right? Well, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. What we do is become involved through a notice of assignment, with their acknowledgement, and change the terms and conditions so they’re better for us rather than being only good for the creditor.
When you’re filling out the paperwork to get started with us, get out your credit card statements as well. Let’s say you have one from XYZ bank. What you need to do is take out any ads but leave in the entire statement unmarked along with the return payment envelope. Slip that back into the original letter envelope they sent to you, and put the whole thing in a bigger envelope along with the other forms that are required, and send it to us.
When we receive your statements along with your payment, we will deposit your check made out to us. We use one of our own checks made out to XYZ Bank for the minimum payments. When we send it to them, we also include an offer of new terms and conditions so they can agree to the new contract.
We’ve done this for years with literally thousands of accounts. We have never had a national or regional bank reject the contract.
Here’s another way to understand this. I’m sure at one time or another, you’ve gotten a check in the mail, probably out of the blue, for 10, 20, $50, that on the back where you endorse it, there’s fine print that says, if you cash this check, then you’re agreeing to thisor that, whatever their service is. This is basically the same idea, except we’re doing it to them instead of them doing it to us. Once they cash the check, they’ve accepted the consideration and are agreed to the new terms and conditions. Those terms and conditions, that new contract are what help us resolve and/or offset the debt.
We’ll also fill out an official form that’s notarized and signed by both parties that says you’re assigning the debt to us, so you have something in your hand, but, the new contract is what actually assigns the debt to us, because it’s something that the creditor actually agreed to. The statements will start coming to us as well. The contract now says they are not allowed to charge any interest rate.
It says that the minimum monthly payment is now $10 a month. It says that they are not allowed to charge any late fees, they’re not allowed to put any negatives on your credit report, and if they ever have put any negatives on your credit report, they have to take them off. So there is term after term that’s now in our favor rather than theirs.
The new contract also says that if they break any of the terms, they agree to a financial penalty of anywhere from 500 to $2,500 per occurrence. You know how right now if you send in a payment late to your credit card company, then they’ll charge you a late fee? You’re paying a financial penalty because you broke the terms of the contract. Now again, this is exactly the same thing, except they’re getting a taste of their own medicine, and we do it because they agreed to the new contract.
The main goal of this procedure is to offset the debt, because even though they accept the new contract and perform on it, they’ll probably act as if they’re still under the old contract, and even though they accept the new contract by cashing the check, when the next statement comes out, it’s probably going to show that they’re asking for more than the $10 minimum payment, and they’ve charged a late fee, and they’re asking for more than 0% interest. According to the new contract, they just broke the new terms three times on that one statement, so we’re able to apply three penalty fees.
For the next several months, we’ll be able to use that $43 you provided to send them payments of 10 to $15 per month, and based on past experience, every time they send out a new statement, there are likely three or four term violations on there, so those penalty fees are applied over and over. Please understand when we take on the account, you are simply paying to act on the debt for you by assigning it to us. We will continue to make payments as long as necessary or there’s a balance to offset, and in the end, the credit card company has agreed to that, but they simply don’t follow the contract. When we take on the account, even though it may have a balance of $10,000, after four to six months, because they keep on breaking the terms of the new contract, they’ll end up owing us several thousand dollars to go after them for that amount, so who knows, in the
future we may, but for now we don’t. That isn’t the point.
READ I'm Enrolled With CCDN and Freedom From Debt Alliance. Are They a Scam? - Curtis
The point is to get rid of the debt by offsetting that amount, and we can use the money they owe us for the leverage to retire the account. Realize that contract law boils down to the very basics. There are four parts to contract law: the offer, the terms, the acceptance, and the performance. We’ve made an offer of a new contract. The terms and conditions are spelled out right in front of them, and the acceptance is when they cash the check. From that point on, every time they send a statement to us and every time they accept a payment from us, they are showing performance on the new contract. We also show performance every time we send those minimum payments of 10 to $15 a month.
So now we have a contract that’s spelled out, both parties have accepted it, and the parties have been performing on it for months now. Go ask any judge or lawyer and almost any one will tell you it’s pretty cut-and-dried at that point. It’s a valid contract and it’s too late for one of the parties to come back and say wait, I didn’t really want to have that term in there.
Now the way we used to do this was provide the contract with all the letters and forms, and the client would change their own terms and conditions and so forth, with our help and support. What we found was with about 5 to 10% of the accounts, the credit card company was bringing a lawsuit against the client.
They didn’t really have a legal leg to stand on. It was pure intimidation, but even though we would walk someone through what to do, most people didn’t want to deal with fighting a lawsuit, even though they were in the right, and they could expect to win. That’s why we switched to handling everything for the client and taking on the debt with you.
Now, if the credit card company tries its intimidating tactics and serves a lawsuit, we can normally prevent that from happening. On the rare occasions where a lawsuit happens, you actually have legal grounds for defense, and we can help you there also. The contract now shows that they are the ones that are in violation of the contract, not you. If they sue in that situation, the leverage is on your side, not theirs. The creditors are starting to realize this, so a lawsuit is simply not something you should have to deal with or fear being faced with.
You should probably allow six to eight months for the debt to be offset. If the account is with a collection agency, we use consumer protection law. We dispute the debt, which means that they are then required to give proof that they are entitled to the money. They aren’t. They bought the right to collect on the debt, but that does not mean you have a legal obligation to pay them anything.
You’ve never had a contract with the collection agency. They’ve never provided you with any goods or services, and they can’t show any consideration toward establishing a contract, so with a collection agency, the method is different. We aren’t actually taking on or assuming the debt, but the end result is typically the same. The debt goes away.
There are two things that you should be aware of. First, you’ll get collection calls. That’s just part of the process. Remember, we usually will send the first minimum payment intentionally late to get everything started. If collectors start calling, most people just ignore the calls because they have caller ID. But if you want to minimize the calls, pick up the phone and tell them I don’t handle financial matters over the phone, send it to me in writing, and then hang up on them even if they’re still talking.
We recommend you do not talk to the collector. You don’t have to talk to them and there’s little good that could come from it. They’re just there to intimidate you, to scare you, and to try to trip you up and try to get you to say something they can use against you later, so we recommend that you do not talk to the collectors. Telling them that statement and sending them the form we provide usually does the trick. It’s unusual to still get many calls after that. Now if you do, drop us a line and let us know. We can actually get the calls to stop if they continue.
When you get something in the mail about one of your accounts, whether it’s a statement from the creditor or a letter from a collector, just put it in an envelope and send it to us immediately so we can address it. And again get the address on the account switched over to us, and you generally won’t get much written communication after the first couple of months. Remember that even though we can offset the debt, that doesn’t mean the creditors don’t want your money, it just means they no longer have a legal right to the money.
You also may get calls when the bank sells the account to a collection agency down the road. Again, this is normal. Our process won’t stop accounts from going into collections. However, on the accounts that we get involved for a new contract, we can show that legally, there is no debt to pay. Just send the collection agency the same statement. I don’t handle financial matters over the phone, send it to me in writing, and hang up even if they’re still talking. They are required whenever they take an account to send a collection letter to you within ten days. When you get it, just forward it over to us and we contact them directly. Within a couple of weeks, you shouldn’t hear from them again. So again, your role is simple, but very important. Send us anything you get in the mail– statements, letters, anything–immediately.
Now the second thing is, expect negatives on your credit report. Now remember that putting negatives on your credit report is against the terms of the contract, but also remember that one of the main reasons we are successful in the first place is because they don’t follow the new contract. They will usually still act as if they are still under the original contract, and we let them do so until the penalties have offset the original debt. That means that they are incorrectly reporting that penalties are racking up and you are behind on payments, when under the new contract, that is actually not the case.
So after you send us all your statements with your payment, go forward on your calendar about ten months and put an X there. When that day comes, pull a simple credit report on yourself from all three of the agencies and send them to us. From there, we can determine whether the accounts are offset, and apply the rest of the penalty fees to the creditor.
As for the negatives on your credit report, if you can show that something on your credit report is a mistake, then it’s against the law for the credit reporting agencies to leave it there. It has to be removed. We can give you the documentation and the instructions that you’ll need to show the credit bureau, or we may assist you or refer you to another company that can help you. So allow about ten months from when you get started for the debt to be offset, and you can begin to work on strengthening your credit.
That’s pretty much it. Thanks for taking the time to listen and explain your options for resolving your debt. We wish you good luck in whatever choices you make. We encourage you to get back to the agent that referred you to this conference call. They’ll be able to tell you the enrollment fee for your situation and answer any questions you have. Thank you.
“We’re Christians Too, and the Bible Says …”
116. http://www.fsei.cc/ on its “About Us” page claims: “Financial Solutions Educational Institute is a non profit [IRC Section] 508(c)(1)(A) educational church ministry, our prayer at FSEI is that you will take some time to patiently & thoughtfully explore this site as we attempt to share what we have learned from hundreds of hours of
study of both the Bible (God’s revealed word) and the moral issues surrounding the FSEI Debt Relief Program.”
117. http://www.nomoredebt.cc/audiox.asp posts an audio titled “The Moral Issue,” which attempts to deceive evangelical Christians by misrepresenting the nature of the banking system (especially begging the question that if the bank always allegedly sells the cardholder’s deposit slip,then why does the new owner never try to collect for himself but just lets the bank collect twice?) and then misrepresenting the Bible to endorse refusal to repay debt, transcribed as follows:
Hi, my name is Rod Seeger (sp?) and I’m so glad you made this call today. Back in July 2002, my son was over $40,000 in credit card debt. My first response was, there’s only one way out, and that’s bankruptcy. Then I remembered an email that I had received from someone a year earlier, saying that I could ethically and lawfully eliminate credit card debt. At the time I thought, you have got to be kidding me, right? Fortunately, I saved the email. I called the person and started doing my research. It all seemed to make sense, but there was
one problem.
Being a Christian, and the pastor of a Christian church, I was deeply concerned with the moral implications of eliminating the debt. After all, you received goods and services, so how could you just walk away from the debt? If you receive something, then you’re obligated to pay. If you don’t pay, then someone’s going to be hurt. This was the issuethat was confronting me.
However, as I researched further, I realized that the bank was the one with the real moral problem, because every time I signed that credit card slip, the bank stamps the back of it “pay to the order of” and deposits it into a transaction account in my name, and then sells than note and funds the cost of the proceeds. In other words, they pay the merchant from the proceeds of the sale of my asset. That is not a loan. That’s an exchange. They exchanged your promissory note, the card slip, for payment to the merchant. The bank loaned me none of their own assets, and none of their deposits are money. Therefore the bank was not at risk for anything and it did not cost the bank anything.
Now, through the card agreement, they extort from us a monthly payment, plus exorbitant interest, and ridiculous late payment penalties for an alleged loan, which is already settled from the proceeds of the sale of the card slip. Now let me ask you this: Would you enter into the card agreement if these material facts were disclosed to you? Let me put it this way. If you came to me for a loan of five thousand and I said sure, give me a check for five thousand, and then I took that check and deposited it, withdrew the cash and gave it back to you, and then said to you, now you owe me every month plus interest, would you accept that as a loan? You have to be crazy to do that. You would not accept that, because you were the one that provided the asset in the $5,000 check, and that’s exactly how credit card loans work.
Let me put it another way. Let’s say you bought goods from me for $5,000. You owe me $5,000. Instead of giving me cash, you gave me a card as an asset, and told me to sell it for 5,000. I then sold the card as an asset, but then you came back and said to you, you owe me 5,000, and you have to pay me every month at interest. Would you accept that? I think not. That would be fraud. Well, your signature on the credit card slip is just as much an asset as the card that was sold to pay the debt. So the debt was settled the moment the bank sold your asset, in other words, your signature. What most people struggle to grasp is that their signature on the credit card slip is the asset that they provided, and the bank accepted it as an asset by depositing it into an account in your name. Any deposit that a bank receives is recorded as an asset. Anything that can be sold for cash is an asset. They sold your signature asset and paid the merchant. That means you provided the funding of the card, just like you did in my 5,000 check example, that you would not enter into because you are not crazy.
Now, none of this information was disclosed to me in the card agreement. It was purposely concealed from me. That’s contractual fraud. According to the law, there has been a concealment of material facts that would have affected whether or not you would have entered into the contract, and the contract is null and void. That means it never did exist as a legal and binding contract. It’s a fraud. Therefore it is not immoral for me to refuse to perform under such a contract. I can lawfully and morally walk away and refuse to pay another dime.
Now from a legal point of view, I felt it was okay to walk away from this alleged debt, but I needed something more. As a Christian, I need to base my life and behavior on the Bible as God’s standard. Since something may be legal from a secular standpoint, yet not necessarily be lawful or moral as far as God’s law is concerned, I needed caselaw from the Bible that confirmed to me that I could have relief from a fraudulent contract or to have debt cancelled. Here is what I found.
In the book of Exodus, chapter 16 and verse 2 through verse 3, then again in verse 35 through verse 36, God actually arranged a loan for the Israelites from their Egyptian neighbors. Moses had gone to Pharaoh as God’s representative, requested that the Israelites be allowed to leave Egypt after 430 years of slavery.
After a series of ten plagues, Pharaoh finally agreed. Pharaoh and God through Moses had a contract, an agreement. God then told them to go and borrow gold and silver from their Egyptian neighbors, to which the Egyptians duly consented.
Now since this was a God-arranged loan, God was duty bound to repay it. Scripture says that God is no man’s debtor. In Proverbs chapter 19 and verse 17 it says “Whoever gives to the poor gives to God, and God will repay him.” So, you know, God always pays his debts.
But the next morning, Pharaoh changed his mind and said, I will go after them and recover the spoil and the gold, which was the gold and the silver. Well, you know the rest of story. God drowned the Egyptian army in the Red Sea. The Israelites crossed over into the wilderness and built a tabernacle in which they worshiped God with the very gold and silver that they had borrowed from the Egyptians. Now here’s the thing. There is no record anywhere that they ever paid back that loan. You say why? Well, Pharaoh was in breach of contract.
Therefore, God was not duty bound to repay the loan. Pharaoh had broken contract.
In another scripture, Deuteronomy chapter 25 and verse 13 through verse 16, God declared that it was an abomination to God to conduct commerce with unjust weights and measurements. You were not allowed to use deceptive means in commerce. Folks, I have to tell you that based on the concealment in the card agreement that credit card loan is deceptive commerce, and it is an abomination to God. The scripture also said in Leviticus 19 and verse 11 through 13 that you are not to deal falsely with your neighbor. You are not to cheat or rob him. A credit card agreement is all of these things.
So based on these situations, I believe therefore that it is perfectly moral and lawful to seek relief from your credit card debt. And by the way, seven months after my son entered this program, he received nine binding arbitration awards against the banks and credit card companies for over $40,000. Now I trust that this satisfies your conscience, and if it does and you’re ready to move forward, then get back to the person that sent you to this call. God bless you and congratulations on taking your first steps to becoming debt free.
118. In fact, NoMoreDebt sponsor FSEI is yet another CCDN front personally endorsed by Robert Lock, who seems quite willing to use false religious claims (such as Mr. Lindsey’s cross-draped presence in about 40 videos) to sell his program, and the only Bible verses that accurately describe FSEI are those along the lines of: “They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.” Mark 12:40, Luke 20:47 (NIV).
119. Defendants do not themselves believe a word of what they tell Plaintiffs, and do not even try to use their own program to reduce their own debt or improve their own credit.
120. MBNA America Bank on 20 June 2006 in Cook County case number 2005-M1- 108580, microfilm MD000761323, obtained judgment, document number 0620510134 recorded 24 July 2006 with the Cook County Recorder of Deeds, on a defaulted credit card against Defendants Robert K. Lock, Jr. (even though he was counsel of record and should have won on his own theories) and Colleen Tomasino Lock for $29,464.21, which remains unsatisfied, and appeal therefrom was dismissed 01 May 2007.
121. Even Mr. Hagenstein, after several minutes of attempting to convince Alicia on the conference call that CCDN is legitimate, ends up admitting at about 35:56 of the recording that “this program probably sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?”
How CCDN Really Works
122. CCDN requires advance payment of thousands of dollars from each Plaintiff to enroll in its process, usually $4,500, but ranges from $2,500 to over $8,000.
123. After receiving the money by instrumentalities of interstate commerce, CCDN requires each Plaintiff to execute a form similar to this one for each account:
Limited Power of Attorney
Know all Men by These Presents:
I, [name], of [address], hereinafter referred to as Principal, in the county of [county] state of [state], do appoint the Credit Collection Defense Network (CCDN) as my true and lawful Attorney in Fact.
In principal’s name, and for principal’s use and benefit, CCDN is authorized hereby to prepare and sign all documents written with the intent of researching, challenging, negotiating, and otherwise corresponding with creditors, debt buyers, debt collectors, lw firms, credit reporting bureaus, and government agencies with respect to the following matters.
[account number and description]
The authority granted shall include all incidental acts as are reasonably required or necessary to carry out and perform the specific authorities and duties stated or contemplated herein, including, but not limited to, the authority to: demand validation and verification of any alleged unsecured debt or obligation, engage certified paralegals and attorneys on principal’s behalf, perform legal compliance audits and consumer claims identification, and refer any valid claims to qualified legal counsel for negotiation and litigation purposes related to the matters set forth herein.
Giving and granting to the CCDN full power and authority to do all and every act and thing whatsoever requisite and necessary to be done relative to any of the foregoing as fully to all intents and purposes as principal might or could do if personally present.
All that the CCDN shall lawfully do or cause to be done under the authority of this power of attorney is expressly approved.
[date] [signature] [notary jurat]
124. CCDN then dispatches or causes to be dispatched through the U.S. Mail or interstate delivery service a letter substantially similar to the following (although Sharon Southwood got a different form letter, transcribed infra) to each creditor:
NOTICE AND DEMAND FOR VALIDATION AND ADEQUATE ASSURANCE OF PERFORMANCE—
Dear Sir/Madame:
I recently received your recent unsigned communication. Please regard this letter as a formal written Notice and Demand to ORIGINAL CREDITOR for validation and adequate assurance of performance with respect to the above listed account.
In preparation for this Notice and Demand, I have conducted a full and complete investigation into this mater, and I am of the opinion that ORIGINAL CREDITOR may be in breach of the terms and conditions of the Credit Card Agreement, by its failure to provide either adequate and valuable consideration, or full disclosure of the material terms and conditions of the alleged original agreement, including the nature and extent of any finance charges assessed on the above account. In addition, I have reason to believe that your company has failed to properly credit me for all revenues received by you related to this account. In the event that the application or other evidence of this account was monetized, securitized and/or sold, please provide me with certified copies of all underlying documentation regarding said transactions.
This Notice and Demand should not be perceived as a refusal to pay any valid debt. However, I have questions regarding the validity of the debt you are alleging in the attached billing statement, and in order to determine the validity of your presentment, and continue payment on the above-listed account, I will require certain information to confirm your claim in this matter. To that end, please forward the attached affidavit to the appropriate person in your organization for review and execution. Upon receipt of the signed, sworn affidavit, I will arrange for payments to resume on the above noted account. In the event that you are unable or unwilling to provide me adequate assurance of performance on this account, please send me a billing statement or other communication indicating a zero balance due on the account.
Please restrict all communication with me regarding this matter to writing, and understand that all communications, acts or omissions may be used in litigation, including the filing of grievances and the initiation of investigations at the Federal Trade Commission and other government bodies regarding your non-compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act of 2003, and other state and federal consumer protection laws. Your failure to respond to this Notice and Demand within thirty (30) days will be construed as a waiver of any and all claims regarding the above-listed account, and will act as a confirmation that no further action will be taken on your part with respect to the subject account. Please also take notice that during the pendency of this dispute, no further payments will be made on the account, and the account cannot be sold, assigned, forwarded or otherwise transferred for purposes of the collection of a debt.
125. Accompanying the foregoing letter is a CCDN-drafted affidavit reading substantially as follows:
The undersigned Affiant, being duly sworn on oath, and under penalties of perjury, deposes, states and certifies that he/she is authorized to collect the alleged ORIGINAL CREDITOR account [insert account number] (hereinafter “alleged account”), and has the requisite knowledge of the facts related to the alleged ORIGINAL CREDITOR promissory note/credit card agreement.
I hereby give assurance that the original creditor and financial institution involved with the alleged extension of credit or loan to the alleged customer [CLIENT NAME] (hereinafter “alleged customer”), followed Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”), as required by law and as indicated by ORIGINAL CREDITOR Certified Public Accountant (“CPA”) audit reports, as well as regulatory compliance reports under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
I give further assurance that the original lender/financial institution involved with the alleged loan or funding of charges in the amount of the Promissory Note/Credit Card Agreement did not accept, receive or deposit any money, money equivalent, note, credit or capital from the alleged customer to fund a note, check or similar instrument that was used to originate, finance or fund the charges on the alleged credit card account or Promissory Note.
I give further assurance that all material facts regarding the alleged account have been disclosed in the original alleged Credit Card Agreement or Promissory Note.
I give further assurance that the original Credit Card Agreement or Promissory Note was not altered or forged in any way.
I give further assurance that proper identification processes were followed with respect to the alleged account according to the requirements of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, and I am able to furnish certified copies of all identification documentation from the alleged customer with respect to the alleged account.
I have personal knowledge of the facts and information in this affidavit, WHEREFORE I hereby declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the state of [state] that this affidavit is true, correct and complete and if any statements are willfully false, I am subject to penalty.
[signature] [notary jurat]
126. CCDN sends these letters to the original creditor even if the account was long ago sold to a third party holder in due course, in which event no dispute letter of any form would be of any use whatsoever because the original creditor has no rights to the debt.
127. CCDN and its partners, employees, contractors, and agents thereby commit mail fraud, punishable by up to 20 years in prison per 18 U.S.C. § 1341.
128. CCDN and its partners, employees, contractors, and agents directly address many of their “notice and demand” letters to federally insured financial institutions.
129. CCDN and its partners, employees, contractors, and agents thereby commit bank fraud, punishable by up to 30 years in prison and fines up to $1,000,000 per 18 U.S.C. § 1344.
130. CCDN and its partners, employees, contractors, and agents’ pattern of criminal wrongdoing has occurred many thousands of times since 2004 and is still happening every business day with no significant law enforcement interference and no end in sight.
131. Plaintiffs, that is, CCDN customers, aka clients, subscribers, members, or victims, are innocent and not subject to the defenses of in pari delicto or unclean hands, because Mr. Lock and Mr. Manger hold themselves out, and require their sales agents to hold them out, as attorneys to be absolutely relied on, with specialized knowledge of complex areas such as banking, consumer debt, and credit reporting (indeed, as virtually the only attorneys in America who understand “how banks really work”), and their advice is sufficiently complex that Plaintiffs are unable to ascertain the illegality of following it.
132. These documents produce no benefit whatsoever to Plaintiffs and will not invalidate any lawful debt regardless of the creditor’s response or lack of it.
133. Upon receipt of such letters, creditors will either ignore them, or correctly respond that the creditor is in compliance with the law, or in lieu of response cancel the consumer’s credit account on grounds that the consumer does not intend to repay any further loans or extensions of credit.
134. No reasonable creditor will extinguish or zero-out any Plaintiff’sdebt in response to CCDN’s documents.
135. CCDN, however, falsely assures Plaintiffs that they may legally stop repaying debts at this point.
136. This manifestly incorrect legal advice results in severe actual damage to Plaintiffs, and constitutes gross and willful legal malpractice in any jurisdiction.
137. When creditors then send statements requesting repayment, CCDN dispatches or causes to be dispatched through the U.S. Mail or interstate delivery service substantially the following letter:
[creditor]
[address]
NOTICE OF DISPUTE
Re: [creditor] [account number]
I am in receipt of your letter demanding payment on the above referenced account I dispute this debt and refuse to pay it.
138. The normal result is that the creditor closes the account, adversely reports the account to the consumer credit bureaus, begins collection efforts, and if unsuccessful, retains a third party collection agency or law firm to collect the debt.
139. However, since most Plaintiffs were in deep debt to start with, and then have paid CCDN or its agents, partners, contractors, or employees nearly all the money they had, or even borrowed the money to pay CCDN, Plaintiffs usually have no money left to repay their rightful creditors.
140. Many creditors sell the defaulted loan to a secondary debt buyer for about a penny on the dollar, i.e., lose 99 percent of their money.
141. Most Plaintiffs who stop paying their debts at CCDN’s direction are sued by one or more creditors or debt buyers.
142. Instead of the promised help from licensed attorneys, CCDN provides boilerplate templates for consumers to write their own documents while falsely assuring Plaintiffs that an attorney will take the case soon, or is looking at it, or several are looking at it.
143. CCDN “paralegals” will sometimes answer questions by email, but such answers are frequently wrong and also amount to the unlicensed practice of law in many jurisdictions, including North Carolina.
144. Though http://bankruptcyproctection.com/The_CCDN_System.php claims that CCDN’s templates “present a solid defense to any unsecured credit complaint,” Plaintiffs lose most such lawsuits and have judgment entered against them.
145. Instead of seeing their debts vanish and their credit scores raised to new heights, Plaintiffs are infinitely worse off than before they encountered CCDN, with ruined credit, difficulty finding new jobs, family and marital stress, collection calls, lawsuits, judgments, and sheriffs’ levies and sales, and are often left with bankruptcy as their only relief, on top of the humiliation and mental anguish of eventually admitting to themselves and others that they have been scammed out of thousands of dollars, very often the last money they had to their names, and on information and belief, one or more Plaintiffs have attempted or committed suicide.
146. As noted, CCDN and its partners will sell any bogus “debt relief” scheme to anybody who can pay for it, but regardless of the particular variation, whether vapor money, ultra vires, TILA, FCBA, novation, assignment, FDCPA offset, arbitration, or foreign mail drops, the end result for its victims is always the same: disaster.
147. CCDN’s pattern of criminal wrongdoing has persisted since at least 2004 and continues every day, with no interference from law enforcement, and no end in sight.
Cathy Hunt’s Dealings with CCDN/TCCS/Manger/Lindsey
148. Cathy Horton Hunt is a successful bank manager and had few financial difficulties until marrying Robert Hunt.
149. Mr. Hunt manipulated and deceived Ms. Hunt until he was able to defraud her of over $300,000 by means of misappropriation of funds and unauthorized credit card charges.
150. Mr. Hunt now stands convicted of felony charges related to his fraudulent scheme.
151. Ms. Hunt was left with more than $50,000 of credit card debt she could not pay.
152. Ms. Hunt learned of Lawgistix LLC, a Florida company who claimed that they could eliminate her debt on theories similar to CCDN’s scheme.
153. Ms. Hunt paid Lawgistix $3,000 to eliminate her debt.
154. Lawgistix never did anything for her, so she looked for another debt relief program and found CCDN online.
155. While in North Carolina, Ms. Hunt talked by phone with Phil Manger, who knew she was in North Carolina on or about 06 February 2007, and falsely expressed sympathy for her ill-treatment by Lawgistix and encouraged her to enroll in CCDN’sprogram.
156. At Mr. Manger’s direction, Ms. Hunt emailed Bob M. Lindsey of TCCS/CCDN, who emailed Ms. Hunt on or about 07 February 2007 with substantially the following message:
Glad you talked with Phil [Manger]. He is very knowledgeable and has a weatlh [sic] of experience in this area of law.
Obviously you want to get this process going as quickly as possible. Looks like you have around 82k in debt and 7 accounts. The total price for the program for that amount of debt and number of cards is $5495.00 I can get you started with $3000 down and let you pay the balance over 90 to 120 days. Will that work for you? Let me know and I’ll send the basic agreement for you to review.
Don’t respond to any letters at this time. Should you get a summons, let me know and I’ll give you the proper response. Don’t think you will, though. Not just yet.
You will avoid bankruptcy and arbitration through this process. I cannot guarantee that you won’t get sued though. However, it won’t matter. Should that happen, we will file a suit in Federal Court that will supersede any state court action. We’ll also provide you appropriate documents to file with the state court.
We will then resolve any state court action in Federal Court (no appearance required on your part). We’ll be filing Federal- Court [sic] actions anyway based upon clear violations of the law that have already occurred in your case and [sic] well as other violations we’ll discovery and document. You will not have any negative consequences from a state court action providing you get going with the program ASAP.
Any questions or concerns, call or email.
Bob Lindsey
157. Defendants knew the foregoing statements to be false, but intended that Ms. Hunt rely on them so that she would give Defendants money.
158. In reasonable reliance upon the above statements, Ms. Hunt obtained a $2,500 cashier’s check drawn on First National Bank made out to “Bob Lindsey” and mailed it to Mr. Lindsey in return for CCDN’s eliminating her credit card debt as promised.
159. Defendants thus violated 15 U.S.C. § 1679b(b) by collecting a fee in advance of credit repair work performed.
160. Defendants thus completed the offenses of obtaining property by false pretenses, a Class H felony per NCGS § 14-100, and wire fraud, punishable by up to 20 years in prison per 18 U.S.C. § 1343.
161. Mr. Lindsey’s receipt, transmission, and deposit of Ms. Hunt’s $2,500 check, which he obtained by committing the felonies of mail and wire and bank fraud and false pretenses, and which he in part converted to his own use and in part remitted to CCDN, all for the promotion of his and CCDN’s carrying on of mail and wire and bank fraud and false pretenses, constitute the offense of laundering of monetary instruments, punishable by a prison term of 20 years and a $500,000 fine per 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(A) and (a)(3)(A).
162. Since this was part of Mr. Lindsey’s scheme to use the instrumentalities of interstate commerce such as the U.S. Postal Service to engage and attempt to engage in a monetary transaction in criminally derived property of a value greater than $10,000 that was derived from specified unlawful activity, including mail, wire, and bank fraud, Mr. Lindsey is guilty of at least one count of money laundering per 18 U.S.C. § 1957(a).
163. CCDN provided a number of papers and directions to Ms. Hunt, including a document entitled Itinerary, which read in pertinent part: “When you stop paying the creditors, they will begin their collection efforts. These efforts include phone calls and letters. You will have to keep a log of the calls and fax any collection item you receive in the mail ASAP so we can send you the proper response. The same applies to ALL third party collectors as well. The creditors and especially third party collectors typically violate several laws designed to protect the consumer.”
164. This is deceptive and unfair in violation of NCGS § 75-1.1 because CCDN’s process consists of ceasing to pay valid debts even if the consumer is able to pay them, and then hoping to provoke creditors and collectors into violating fair debt collection law, which even if it works will not in most cases entitle consumers to enough damages to offset what they owe.
165. The Itinerary further reads in pertinent part: “[O]ur paralegals conduct a compliance audit of each account of each customer. They then use their completed audits to compose a solid Federal Complaint, which is then sent on to one of our CCDN attorneys for filing in Federal Court.”
166. This is deceptive and unfair in violation of NCGS § 75-1.1 because the draft complaints read “Northern District of North Carolina” even though there is no federal Northern District in North Carolina, and the legal theories therein are so utterly frivolous that any attorney unwise enough to sign and file them would likely be personally sanctioned and also referred to the State Bar for noncompliance with the Rules of Professional Conduct, in addition to losing the case, doing the client no good whatsoever, and wasting the time of all concerned.
167. CCDN in or around March 2007 dispatched or caused to be dispatched the “Notice and Demand” and “I dispute this debt and refuse to pay it” communications described above to one or more of Ms. Hunt’s creditors.
168. At CCDN’s direction, Ms. Hunt did not resume paying one or more of her credit cards.
169. Ms. Hunt’s creditors began trying to collect on their debts and also hired outside collection agencies and law firms to collect from her.
170. Contrary to CCDN’s and its marketers’ claims that creditors and collectors always commit enough FDCPA violations to offset any debt enrolled in the CCDN program, Ms. Hunt’s creditors and collectors did not.
171. CCDN directed Ms. Hunt try to arrange a payment plan, contrary to their claim of being able to eliminate credit card debt.
172. Tracy Webster then advised Ms. Hunt how to answer the complaints and how to answer creditors’ propounded discovery, and advised Ms. Hunton what discovery she should propound.
173. Tracy Webster drafted legal documents for Ms. Hunt intended for filing in North Carolina courts and for responses to discovery that could foreseeably be filed in court as part of motions to compel or for summary judgment.
174. CCDN’s false and misleading legal advice, transmitted over the interstate wires, was a furtherance of its scheme or artifice to defraud Ms. Hunt in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343 and NCGS § 14-100.
175. These activities, together with the advising of Ms. Hunt as to her supposed legal rights not to repay debt, constitute the practice of law in North Carolina per NCGS § 84- 2.1.
176. No one at CCDN is licensed to practice law in North Carolina per NCGS § 84-4 or admitted to limited practice per § 84-4.1.
177. Unauthorized practice of law is a Class 1 misdemeanor per NCGS § 84-8.
178. Ms. Hunt was forced to retain counsel to try to extract herself from the predicament CCDN placed her in, and owes counsel reasonable attorney fees.
179. CCDN’s misrepresentations and malpractice have cost Ms. Hunt $2,500 she paid to CCDN plus the amount for which she is now liable under the contracts that CCDN induced her to breach, including but not limited to principal, interest, penalties, liquidated damages, attorney fees, court costs, and service fees.
180. http://shelby-northcarolina.olx.com/debt-resolution-company-100-satisfaction-iid- 1684231 adds insult and defamation to injury: One or more Defendants on or about 07 May 2009 posted an ad at said URL for a “Debt Resolution Company 100% Satisfaction,” touting “the Credit Collections Defense Network, this is a Nationwide Network of Attorneys … This is a Debt Resolution Company not to be compared with Consolidation or Bankruptcy … Your unsecured debt will be zero, your credit score will be 700-800. … CALL NOW…… Miss C.H.H., Representative for Debt Resolution and
The Credit Collections Defense Network of Attorneys” and giving out Ms. (Cathy Horton) Hunt’s phone number; all of which was, needless to say, without notice to, or consent from, Ms. Hunt.
Linda Sheryl Lucas’s Dealings with CCDN/FDRS
181. Ms. Lucas’s common-law husband contracted amyotropic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also called Lou Gehrig’s disease, which makes him increasingly unable to care for himself and for which medicine knows no cure.
182. Ms. Lucas faced the choice of keeping her life partner alive longer, or paying credit card debts.
183. Ms. Lucas searched online for a debt reduction strategy and found www.fdrs.com, one of FDRS’s websites.
184. The word “Federal” in FDRS’s name is deceptive and unfair in violation of NCGS § 75-1.1 because it makes people think that FDRS is somehow associated with the federal government or is authorized by federal law.
185. Mark Cella, a career fraudster who frequently relocates his numerous illegal businesses, and lists false addresses for them, to try to avoid service of process and law enforcement, is the principal of FDRS, but even though Mr. and Mrs. Lock and Mr. Manger knew or should have known all this, they still hired Mr. Cella to sell their program.
186. FDRS may have worked some accounts solely for itself, but was a marketing contractor or partner with CCDN at the time Ms. Lucas encountered them.
187. FDRS’s material emphasizes popular (but thoroughly discredited) conspiracy speculation claiming that the federal government is really a puppet of international bankers, invoking supposed threats to freedom and the American way of life such as the Trilateral Commission and the Committee on Foreign Relations, backed up by quotes (of dubious provenance or just plain fabricated) critical of the banking system alleged to be from beloved American historical figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Albert Einstein, and insisting that the Federal Reserve is leading the nation into slavery and needs to be abolished.
188. The page http://www.fdrs.org/faq.html as of 04 August 2008 summed up the FDRS philosophy of unsecured debt to banks thus: “The bank stole your promissory note (asset) from you and then deposited it to fund your account. Therefore, you funded your own loan, and the creditors owe you back the stolen amount which is the credit limit.
Once you have learned about the fraudulent banking system, the moral thing to do is stop participating in their illegal system altogether. The banks require uninformed participation from people who have not discovered the truth.”
189. This statement violates NCGS § 75-1.1 because it calls for consumers to refuse to repay valid and lawful debts, and so doing will cause consumers to be sued and otherwise subjected to collection efforts, and will also cause severe damage to their credit, and many such consumers end up with no alternative to seeking bankruptcy protection.
190. The page continues: “Can I be sued by a creditor? Yes. But, not lawfully or likely.”
191. This statement violates NCGS § 75-1.1 because it is very likely that banks and other unsecured lenders will sue people who refuse to pay back large amounts of money, and such suits are perfectly lawful.
192. Each false statement on FDRS’s website constitutes a separate violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1679b(3) and (4).
193. In reliance upon the above statements, Plaintiff paid FDRS at least $8,000 to eliminate her debt.
194. Some or all of this money went to CCDN and benefited the owners thereof.
195. FDRS thus violated 15 U.S.C. § 1679b(b) by collecting a fee in advance of credit repair work performed.
196. FDRS thus completed the offenses of obtaining property by false pretenses, a Class H felony per NCGS § 14-100, and wire fraud, punishable by up to 20 years in prison per 18 U.S.C. § 1343.
197. FDRS’s receipt, transmission, and deposit of Ms. Lucas’s check(s), which FDRS obtained by committing the felonies of mail and wire and bank fraud and false pretenses, and which they in part converted to their own use and in part remitted to CCDN, all for the promotion of their and CCDN’s carrying on of mail and wire and bank fraud and false pretenses, constitute the offense of laundering of monetary instruments, punishable by a prison term of 20 years and a $500,000 fine per 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(A) and (a)(3)(A).
198. CCDN and FDRS have conspired to defraud Capital One Bank (USA), N.A. through at least 37 other Plaintiffs in the past four years, and Capital One has sued CCDN and FDRS for tortious interference and trademark infringement in case number 0:08-cv- 02274-JFA in U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.
199. Contrary to CCDN’s and its marketers’ claims that creditors and collectors always commit enough FDCPA violations to offset any debt enrolled in the CCDN program, Ms. Lucas’s creditors and collectors did not.
200. At least one alleged creditor commenced an action for money owed against Ms. Lucas and caused her to be served with the summons and complaint.
201. FDRS or CCDN then advised Ms. Lucas how to answer the complaint.
202. FDRS or CCDN drafted legal documents for Ms. Lucas intended for filing in North Carolina courts.
203. FDRS’s or CCDN’s false and misleading legal advice, transmitted over the interstate wires, was a furtherance of CCDN’s scheme or artifice to defraud Ms. Lucas in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343 and NCGS § 14-100.
204. These activities, together with the advising of Ms. Lucas as to her supposed legal rights not to repay debt, constitute the practice of law in North Carolina per NCGS § 84- 2.1.
205. No one at CCDN or FDRS is licensed to practice law in North Carolina per NCGS § 84-4 or admitted to limited practice per § 84-4.1.
207. Ms. Lucas was forced to retain counsel to try to extract herself from the predicament Defendants placed her in, and owes counsel reasonable attorney fees.
208. CCDN’s misrepresentations and malpractice have cost Ms. Lucas over $8,000 paid for worthless services, plus the amount for which she is now liable or has already repaid under the contracts that CCDN induced her to breach, including but not limited to principal, interest, penalties, liquidated damages, attorney fees, court costs, and service fees.
209. True to form, Mr. Cella has now taken down FDRS’s websites and disappeared.
William Harrison’s Dealings with CCDN/Aegis
210. William G. Harrison, Sr. resides in Columbus County, part of the federal Eastern District of North Carolina.
211. As of early 2007, Mr. Harrison was indebted on four credit cards and current on all of them but was beginning to encounter financial difficulties.
212. Mr. Harrison is retired from the North Carolina Department of Transportation, has only his pension and Social Security for income, has no significant assets or savings, and is in poor health and incapable of working an extra job.
213. Mr. Harrison searched online for a debt reduction strategy and found www.debtjurisprudence.org.
214. The .org domain name is deceptive and unfair in violation of NCGS § 75-1.1 because it makes people think that Debt Jurisprudence is a not-for-profit organization instead of the for-profit business that it is.
215. www.goaegis.com is the homepage of Aegis Corporation, which sells laser pointers, radiation shields, and other useful items, but through what was then its Debt Jurisprudence Division, now its subsidiary Debt Jurisprudence, Inc., sold CCDN’s fraudulent program.
216. M. David Kramer is the president and his wife Marcia M. Murphy is the secretary of both Aegis Corporation and Debt Jurisprudence, Inc., all at 614 Dartmouth Terrace Court, Wildwood MO 63011.
217. From 02 October 2006 to 10 October 2007, Aegis/DJ, Mr. Kramer, and Ms. Murphy sold CCDN’s program through a contract with RK Lock & Associates, similar to the contract between RKLA/CCDN and Mr. Lindsey dba The Credit Card Solution, and called CCDN’s program the “Debt Jurisprudence process.”
218. Aegis Corporation and/or Debt Jurisprudence still sells what it calls its “Debt Jurisprudence process,” a fraudulent debt elimination scheme similar to CCDN’s.
219. Aegis/Debt Jurisprudence’s site misrepresented, among many other things: “The Debt Jurisprudence™ process legally and ethically gets you out of debt and restores your credit by using the Federal laws which were created to protect you. It is supported by a nationwide network of licensed attorneys and certified paralegals whose success rate is 100%.”
220. Mr. Kramer directed Mr. Harrison in an email on or shortly before 18 July 2007 to send money from North Carolina to him, through his disregarded and pierced entities
Debt Jurisprudence Division of Aegis Corporation.
221. In reasonable reliance upon the representations on Aegis Corporation’s website in the days immediately before 18 July 2007, and following Mr. Kramer’s instructions,Mr. Harrison wrote check number 8246 made payable to Aegis Corporation in the amount of $4,200 and dispatched by U.S. Priority Mail on or about 0845 EDT 18 July 2007 to Aegis Corporation, Debt Jurisprudence Division, P.O. Box 464, Grover MO 63040-0464, in return for eliminating his credit card debt as promised.
222. Ms. Murphy, an officer of Aegis Corporation, received part of the proceeds therefrom, knowing that such proceeds were the product of unlawful activity.
223. Aegis Corporation, Debt Jurisprudence, Inc., Mr. Kramer, and Ms. Murphy thus violated 15 U.S.C. § 1679b(b) by collecting a fee in advance of credit repair work performed.
224. Aegis Corporation, Debt Jurisprudence, Inc., Mr. Kramer, and Ms. Murphy thus completed the offenses of obtaining property by false pretenses, a Class H felony per NCGS § 14-100, and mail and wire fraud, punishable by up to 20 years in prison per 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1343.
225. Mr. Kramer, Ms. Murphy, and Aegis Corporation’s receipt, transmission, and deposit of Mr. Harrison’s $4,200 check, which they obtained by committing the felonies of mail and wire and bank fraud and false pretenses, and which they in part converted to their own use and in part remitted to CCDN, all for the promotion of their and CCDN’s carrying on of mail and wire and bank fraud and false pretenses, constitute the offense of laundering of monetary instruments, punishable by a prison term of 20 years and a $500,000 fine per 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(A) and (a)(3)(A).
226. David Kramer has personally dealt with Mr. Harrison on several occasions, including but not limited to an email of 20 July 2007 noting that “an integral part of the Debt Jurisprudence process is to accelerate the transfer of accounts you include in the process to a debt collector,” meaning to stop paying those accounts so that they would be referred or sold to collection agencies.
227. Aegis Corporation, Debt Jurisprudence, Inc., Mr. Kramer, and Ms. Murphy have committed similar acts of wire fraud and money laundering against Paul and Elena Olson of Roseau, Minnesota within the four years before the filing of this Complaint.
228. Based on those facts, the Olsons sued Aegis, CCDN, and Mr. Kramer for relief under CROA and Minnesota state law, case number 2008-CV-1076 in U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, which has since settled and been dismissed with prejudice.
229. David Kramer in the name of Aegis Corporation, Debt Jurisprudence Division, personally dealt with the Olsons in substantially the same way as he dealt with Mr. Harrison and committed the same offenses against them, meaning that Mr. Kramer is unlawfully conducting those enterprises affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity.
230. CCDN provided a number of papers and directions to Mr. Harrison, including a document entitled Itinerary, which read in pertinent part: “When you stop paying the creditors, they will begin their collection efforts. These efforts include phone calls and letters. You will have to keep a log of the calls and fax any collection item you receive in the mail ASAP so we can send you the proper response. The same applies to ALL third party collectors as well. The creditors and especially third party collectors typically violate several laws designed to protect the consumer.”
231. This is deceptive and unfair in violation of NCGS § 75-1.1 because CCDN’s process involves ceasing to pay valid debts even if Plaintiffs are able to pay them, and then telling Plaintiffs to provoke and endure as much abuse as possible in the false hope of piling up enough statutory damages to offset debts.
233. This is deceptive and unfair in violation of NCGS § 75-1.1 because the draft complaints read “Northern District of North Carolina” even though there is no federal Northern District in North Carolina, and nobody at CCDN was qualified to evaluate Mr. Harrison’s case and advise him accurately as to his legal rights.
234. CCDN then dispatched or caused to be dispatched in Mr. Harrison’sname the “Notice and Demand” letter and affidavit to at least four of his creditors, followed by the “I dispute this debt and refuse to pay it” letter to each of those creditors.
235. At CCDN’s direction, Mr. Harrison ceased paying back his credit card debts, including at least one card issued by a federally insured national banking association.
236. Mr. Harrison’s creditors then attempted to collect debt from him by means of dunning letters, collection calls, and lawsuits.
237. Contrary to CCDN’s and its marketers’ claims that debt collectors always commit enough FDCPA violations to offset any debt enrolled in the CCDN program, Mr. Harrison’s creditors and collectors did not.
238. CCDN and Tracy Webster directed Mr. Harrison to try to arrange a payment plan for at least one account, contrary to their claim of being able to eliminate credit card debt.
239. FIA Card Services, N.A. commenced an action for money owed, Columbus County file number 08 CVD 758, against Mr. Harrison and caused him to be served with the summons and complaint.
240. CCDN and Tracy Webster then advised Mr. Harrison how to answer the complaint and how to answer FIA’s propounded discovery, and advised Mr. Harrison on what discovery he should propound.
241. CCDN and Tracy Webster drafted legal documents for Mr. Harrison intended for filing in North Carolina courts and for responses to discovery that could foreseeably be filed in court as part of motions to compel or for summary judgment.
242. Tracy Webster on or about 13 May 2008 personally provided templates intended for filing in North Carolina courts; on or about 19 June 2008 advised Mr. Harrison how to answer requests for admission; in response to Mr. Harrison’s urgent legal questions, on or about 20 June 2008 wrote “You shouldn’t use the same answer for all of their request [sic] sir, try to be creative”; and on other occasions wrote or spoke legal advice to Mr.
Harrison.
243. Tracy Webster’s false and misleading legal advice, dispatched by the interstate wires, was a furtherance of CCDN’s scheme or artifice to defraud Mr. Harrison in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343 and NCGS § 14-100.
244. These activities, together with the advising of Mr. Harrison as to his supposed legal rights not to repay debt, amount to the practice of law per NCGS § 84-2.1.
247. Mr. Harrison was forced to retain counsel to try to extract himself from the predicament CCDN placed him in, and owes counsel reasonable attorney fees for this.
248. CCDN’s misrepresentations and malpractice have cost Mr. Harrison $4,200 he paid to Aegis Corporation plus the amount for which he is now liable under the contracts that CCDN induced him to breach, including but not limited to principal, interest, penalties, liquidated damages, attorney fees, court costs, and service fees.
249. Aegis Corporation’s receipt, transmission, and deposit of $4,200, obtained by committing the felonies of mail and wire and bank fraud and false pretenses, and which Aegis, Mr. Kramer, and Ms. Murphy in part converted to their own use and in part remitted to CCDN, all for the promotion of their and CCDN’s carrying on of mail and wire and bank fraud and false pretenses, constitute the offenses of laundering of monetary instruments, punishable by a prison term of 20 years and a $500,000 fine per 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(A) and (a)(3)(A).
250. Since Mr. and Mrs. Lock and Mr. Manger received part of Mr. Harrison’s property, knowing that it was the proceeds of unlawful activity and in fact it was derived from specified unlawful activity, they are all also guilty of money laundering.
Sharon Southwood’s Dealings With CCDN/TCCS/Lindsey
251. In or around December 2007, Sharon Southwood had seven unpaid credit cards, all of which had dates of last activity more than three years old.
252. An entity calling itself “Unifund CCR Partners” claimed that it had bought one of the old accounts, an AT&T-branded card from Universal Bank, N.A.
253. A well-known high-volume collection law firm on behalf of “Unifund CCR Partners” commenced an action against Ms. Southwood, file number 07 CVD 1941 in Lincoln County District Court, seeking to recover the alleged debt.
254. No lawyer in Lincoln County was immediately willing to take her case, so Ms. Southwood had to look up for herself how to defend the case, propound discovery, and answer “Unifund CCR Partners’” discovery.
255. Mr. Lindsey on or about 18 June 2008 electronically signed and emailed to Ms. Southwood a document titled “The Credit Card Solution Purchase Agreement.” 256. This document began: “This Agreement is entered into by Sharon H. Southwood (hereinafter individually or collectively “Member”), Bob Lindsey d/b/a The Credit Card Solution (hereinafter “TCCS”) as Authorized Agent (hereinafter “AA”) for the Credit Collections Defense Network (hereinafter referred to as “CCDN”).”
257. The agreement promised in paragraph 2: “Member will be provided with a Federally licensed attorney when the situation warrants at NO additional attorney fee cost to Member.”
258. The situation warranted an attorney immediately, in that a collection law firm was assertively prosecuting a lawsuit against her.
259. TCCS/CCDN did not provide, and never intended to provide, an attorney to defend this case at no additional cost to her.
260. Paragraph 3 read: “AA Representation. AA represents and warrants that, prior to Member’s purchase of the Product, AA has fully presented and represented the Product to Member in accordance with all TCCS/CCDN policies, procedures, rules, and regulations.”
261. This was deceitful and unfair because TCCS/CCDN policy, whether written or not, is to fraudulently and illegally misrepresent the legality and effectiveness of their theories and programs.
262. Paragraph 7 required Ms. Southwood to supply to TCCS and CCDN “any and all documents, statements and other evidence requested by TCCS and CCDN representing existing debt which Member desires to eliminate as part of Member’s participation in the Credit Restoration and Debt Invalidation program” within 60 days.
263. This was deceitful and unfair because TCCS/CCDN knew that they could not restore credit or eliminate debt.
264. Again, “existing debt which Member desires to eliminate” discredits TCCS/CCDN’s denials of running a “debt elimination” program.
265. In reasonable reliance on this document’s representations,which TCCS/CCDN intended for her to rely on so she would give them money, Ms. Southwood on or about 12 July 2008 used instrumentalities of interstate commerce to deliver $5,600 (five thousand six hundred dollars) across state lines to Mr. Lindsey by means of two certified checks made out to Mr. Lindsey and drawn on a federally insured bank.
266. Mr. Lindsey deposited these two checks in a bank account in either his name or the name of one of his controlled businesses, kept part of it for himself, and transmitted the rest across state lines to CCDN.
267. CCDN provided Ms. Southwood with the following letter with which to dispute the “Unifund CCR Partners” account:
RE NOTICE OF ERRONEOUS PRESENTMENT AND DEMAND FOR FULL
DISCLOSURE—SHARON H. SOUTHWOOD, ACCOUNT #[redacted]
I recently received your unsigned presentment regarding the above listed account. Please regard this letter as a formal Notice and Demand to Universal Bank, N.A. that your presentment is being returned without dishonor as erroneous and incomplete per UCC 3-501(b)(3), and demand is hereby made for full disclosure with respect to the above listed account per UCC 3-501(b)(2).
You are hereby noticed that Universal Bank, N.A. has failed to provide either adequate and valuable consideration, or full disclosure of the material terms and conditions of the alleged agreement, particularly with respect to the circumstances surrounding the original issuance of the credit involved in this matter and the nature and extent of any finance charges assessed on the above account.
This Notice and Demand should not be perceived as a refusal to pay any valid debt. However, based upon your conduct and the erroneous and incomplete nature of your presentment, I have questions regarding the validity of the debt you are alleging is due and owing. This letter is not a request for “verification” or “validation”, but a demand for proof of claim, such as may be proven by a certified copy of an original agreement, with my signature, specifically naming your company as a person entitled to enforce a commercial claim against me.
In order to determine the validity of your presentment, and pursuant to UCC 3- 501(b), at a minimum I will require certified copies of the following:
1. Your proof of claim related to the above listed account,
2. any and all instruments in your possession that support your claim that bear my signature per UCC 3-401(a)(1),
3. any and all account and general ledger statements per FAS 95 & FAS 140,
4. any and all 1099 A & 1099 OID forms issued and filed with respect to the above listed account.
Until such time as you are able to provide the demanded information and resolve my concerns please consider this as a formal dispute regarding all charges, finance charges, penalties and other fees related to the above noted account. In the event that you are unable or unwilling to properly respond to this notice and demand, please send me a billing statement or other communication indicating a zero balance due on the account. Your failure to do so will constitute a fault per UCC 1-201(b)(17), and will require my filing 1099 A & 1099 OID forms with the Internal Revenue Service as appropriate.
Please understand that all communications, acts or omissions on your part may be used in litigation regarding your non-compliance with state and federal tax and consumer protection laws. Your failure to respond to this Notice and Demand within ten (10) days will be construed as a waiver of any and all claims regarding the above-listed account, and will act as a confirmation that no further action may be taken on your part with respect to the subject account.
[signed]
Sharon Southwood
268. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, a U.S. agency, insures Universal Bank’s deposits, certificate number 32897.
269. No Defendant disclosed to Ms. Southwood that Defendants were committing and conspiring to commit bank fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1344, and their advice (from lawyers Mr. Manger and Mr. Lock, who claim to know how the banking system really works) was sufficiently complex that she was unable to ascertain the illegality of following it.
270. At TCCS/CCDN/Mr. Lindsey’s direction, Ms. Southwood dispatched this letter on or about 17 July 2008 to Universal Bank, N.A. (AT&T), PO Box 6013, Sioux Falls SD 57117, and it arrived there at or about 0634 local time on 21 July 2008.
271. This letter is absolutely worthless in general, for at least the following reasons: the cited provisions of the Uniform Commercial Code apply to negotiable instruments such as checks and promissory notes, not to open accounts or consumer credit cards; FAS 95, Statement of Cash Flows, and FAS 140, Accounting for Transfers and Servicing of Financial Assets and Extinguishments of Liabilities, are financial accounting standards that only govern reporting of results on financial statements and have no effect on debtor creditor relationships; IRS Form 1099-A has nothing whatsoever to do with unsecured credit card debt, but applies only when a borrower abandons property that secures a debt, and even then, the lender, not the taxpayer, must file the form; IRS Form 1099-OID has nothing whatsoever to do with unsecured credit card debt, but reports annualized interest income that a taxpayer must recognize while holding a bond that the issuer sold at a discount to face value, and even then, the bond issuer, not the taxpayer, files Form 1099- OID; and, failure to respond to Defendants’ letter within 10 days is not a defense to liability on a credit card debt, in whole or in part.
272. This letter was specifically worthless to Ms. Southwood because it was addressed to the alleged original creditor, not to “Unifund CCR Partners,” the alleged holder in due course of the obligation.
273. CCDN supplied Ms. Southwood with templates and legal advice as to her pending case in state court.
274. Mr. Manger, upon Ms. Southwood’s asking for legal assistance, said he would refer her to a lawyer, but that she would have to pay the lawyer’s fee herself.
275. This breached Paragraph 2 of the Purchase Agreement: “Member will be provided with a Federally licensed attorney when the situation warrants at NO additional attorney fee cost to the Member.”
276. The lawyer to whom Ms. Southwood was referred filed a dispositive motion on grounds that her alleged debt was time-barred, and that no such entity as “Unifund CCR Partners” is admitted to do business in North Carolina and also has not provided required information to the Register of Deeds in the counties where it tries to collect debt.
277. Seeing that they were beaten, “Unifund CCR Partners” voluntarily dismissed the case against Ms. Southwood on or about 03 November 2008 without prejudice, which was not refiled within a year, and by operation of law may not ever be refiled now.
278. This was done completely without use of CCDN’s frivolous debt elimination theories.
279. Ms. Southwood had to pay counsel $1,000 for valuable services.
280. No Defendant ever reimbursed Ms. Southwood for this.
281. TCCS/CCDN’s false and misleading legal advice and unsuitable templates intended for signing and filing in North Carolina courts, transmitted over the interstate wires and through the U.S. Mail, were in furtherance of TCCS/CCDN’s scheme or artifice to defraud Ms. Southwood of $5,600 in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1343 and NCGS § 14-100.
282. These activities, together with the advising of Ms. Southwood as to her supposed legal rights not to repay debt, constitute the practice of law in North Carolina per NCGS § 84-2.1.
283. No CCDN agent or employee is licensed to practice law in North Carolina per NCGS § 84-4 or admitted to limited practice per § 84-4.1.
285. Mr. Lindsey’s receipt, transmission, and deposit of two checks totaling $5,600, which he obtained by committing the felonies of mail and wire and bank fraud and false pretenses, and which he in part converted to his own use and in part remitted to CCDN, all for the promotion of his and CCDN’s carrying on of mail and wire and bank fraud and false pretenses, constitute two separate offenses of laundering of monetary instruments, each punishable by a prison term of 20 years and a $500,000 fine per 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(A) and (a)(3)(A).
Named Plaintiff’s Experience with Defendants
286. As of 04 June 2008, Named Plaintiff Chris W. Taylor owed about $5,292.48 to Discover Card, $26,824.39 to American Express, and $2,977.32 to Arrow Financial, a third party debt buyer who purchased Named Plaintiff’s former HSBC credit card.
287. Named Plaintiff had been unable to pay any of these accounts in full and on time and was in default on all three.
288. In the few days before 04 June 2008, Named Plaintiff looked online for a way to deal with this debt.
289. Named Plaintiff found www.thecreditcardsolution.com and contacted TCCS for information.
290. On 05 June 2008, TCCS agent Linda Self emailed Named Plaintiff with a worksheet to fill out and promised to “draft a Purchase Agreement & E-mail it to you. As soon as we get that back with your initial payment, you’ll be started in our process.”
291. This request for advance payment violated 15 U.S.C. § 1679b(b).
292. Named Plaintiff filled out the worksheet and returned it.
293. Defendant Robert Mitchell Lindsey emailed Named Plaintiff on 23 June 2008, requesting advance payment and attaching a TCCS Purchase Agreement that Mr. Lindsey had electronically signed on or about 12 June 2008.
294. This document was titled “THE CREDIT CARD SOLUTION PURCHASE AGREEMENT” and began:
This Agreement is entered into by Chris Taylor (hereinafter individually or collectively “Member”), Bob Lindsey d/b/a The Credit Card Solution (hereinafter “TCCS”) as Authorized Agent (hereinafter “AA”) for the Credit Collections Defense Network (hereinafter referred to as “CCDN”).
295. This shows CCDN Defendants and TCCS Defendants to have been working in concert.
296. Paragraph 1 of the Agreement read:
Purchase of Product. The Member hereby purchases from TCCS and CCDN the Credit Restoration Debt Invalidation Educational program and services (hereinafter referred to as “Product and Services”).
297. This was deceptive because Defendants knew they could not restore credit or invalidate debt, and constituted the offense of wire fraud per 18 U.S.C. § 1343.
298. Paragraph 2 of the Agreement read in pertinent part: Member will be provided with a Federally licensed attorney when the situation warrants at NO additional attorney fee cost to the Member. Member will be provided with legal and financial advice and Federal representation through his/her affiliation with TCCS and CCDN.
299. This was deceptive because Defendants never intended to provide a lawyer for Named Plaintiff and knew that they had no lawyer to refer him to.
300. Paragraph 2 continued in pertinent part:
In the event legal action is pursued against Banks and/or Debt Collectors and Member receives a monetary judgment and or award from such action; Member acknowledges that the provided attorneys will have represented him/her on a contingency fee performance basis and will retain 75% of any monetary award received with 25% paid to Member.
301. Paying 75% of even maximum damages to Defendants would mean that Named Plaintiff would not have nearly enough left over to offset debts, and also 75% is a clearly excessive contingent fee under the circumstances.
302. Paragraph 2 continued in pertinent part: Package and service ordered:
Credit Restoration and Debt Invalidation Package
$4500 (3) cards or less
Payment to be made as follows:
$4500.00 due with execution of Agreement.
303. Since Mr. Lindsey and Named Plaintiff were in different states at the time Mr. Lindsey sent the Agreement, Defendants committed the offense of laundering of monetary instruments per 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(A)(i).
AA Representation. AA represents and warrants that, prior to Member’s purchase of the Product, AA has fully presented and represented the Product to Member in accordance with all TCCS/CCDN policies, procedures, rules and regulations.
305. Defendants thus committed wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1343, because Defendants’ policy and procedure is to sell illegal and ineffective products and services.
306. In reasonable reliance on the representations therein, which Defendants knew to be utterly false but which they communicated to Named Plaintiff and intended that he rely thereon, Named Plaintiff executed the agreement on 24 June 2009.
307. Pursuant to the Agreement, Named Plaintiff on 25 June 2008 dispatched over the interstate wires an electronic draft from his account at Huntington Bank, payable to “The Credit Card Solution”in the amount of $4,500.00 (four thousand five hundred dollars exactly), memo “Program Fees,” which The Credit Card Solution endorsed by manual or facsimile signature, and deposited 25 June 2009.
308. Since The Credit Card Solution and Named Plaintiff were in different states at the time Named Plaintiff transmitted the money, Defendants thus committed the offense of laundering of monetary instruments per 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(A).
309. On 25 June 2008, Mr. Lindsey sent an email to Named Plaintiff that read in full:
Hi Chris!
Got your payment and Agreement. Welcome aboard!
Attached is the TCCS Welcome and Instruction letter. Read that before completing the enrollment documents.
Complete the CCDN Enrollment Manual according to the instructions.
Questions or concerns, call me or email me.
310. Named Plaintiff received said CCDN Debt Reconciliation Program Enrollment Manual.
311. The very title “Debt Reconciliation” is deceptive because Defendants knew they could not reconcile debt.
312. Page 3, labeled “The CCDN Philosophy,” claims “to provide a strong and effective defense for the average consumer from the abusive tactics being practiced by these third party debt collectors.”
313. This statement, over the names “CCDN Founders Robert K. Lock, Jr. Philip M. Manger”, is deceptive because Defendants cannot defend Plaintiffs from debt collectors.
314. Page 4 of the Manual, from CCDN Support Group, 23 S. Franklin Street, Cattaraugus NY 14719, may be summarized as requiring Named Plaintiff to do exactly as CCDN told him, and if he did, paralegals and attorneys “will get the ball rolling towards your financial freedom.”
315. This page was entirely fraudulent, because following CCDN’s program will lead to increased debt and ruined credit, not financial freedom, and was only in the Manual to give Defendants the false excuse that CCDN’s program was not working for Named Plaintiff because he had not been following orders.
316. Pages 5 and 6 of the Manual summarized the three-phase “CCDN Debt Reconciliation Program,” ending with: “The outcome being your credit scores will dramatically improve and your debt resolved. … By getting off to a good, clean start, we can make this a smooth and successful process and begin getting you back on the road to financial freedom.”
317. These pages were fraudulent because Defendants knew that the “Debt Reconciliation Program” reconciled nothing, did not improve credit scores, did not resolve debt, and did not result in financial freedom.
318. Page 6 of the Manual stated in the fine print: “As CCDN does not work in the State court level, only the Federal level, the client will use these documents to protect themselves from these unlawful attacks.”
319. This contradicted the promise of legal help in Paragraph 2 of the TCCS Purchase Agreement, “a Federally licensed attorney when the situation warrants at NO additional attorney fee cost to Member,” which does not limit help to federal cases only.
320. Pages 9-10 of the Manual contained a number of statements, each of which Named Plaintiff was required to initial, that were either false, e.g., 5: “The CCDN will use all means at its disposal within the law to conduct these services,” or contradicted Defendants’ advertising, e.g., 4: “The CCDN does not guarantee improvement of Client’s past history or Fico score as many factors beyond our control affect these items.”
321. Named Plaintiff initialed Item 10 on page 10 certifying that he had “viewed and read all pages on our web site,” meaning that Defendants intended for Named Plaintiff to rely on the misrepresentations and omissions therein.
322. Page 11 of the Manual required Named Plaintiff to give CCDN a limited power of attorney for each account, even though this was useless because CCDN could not reduce, eliminate, reconcile, or otherwise relieve Named Plaintiff’s debt.
323. Page 15 of the Manual, referring to delivery of documents from Named Plaintiff to Defendants’ Cattaraugus office,such as the completed application package referenced on page 38, read: “You may use U.S. POSTAL SERVICE, FED-EX, UPS or DHL.”
324. Defendants thus committed mail fraud per 18 U.S.C. § 1341.
325. Defendants provided their standard dispute letter form to Named Plaintiff and
directed him to mail it to “HSBC Nevada Bank, N.A., PO Box 5244, Carol Stream IL
60197-5244,”which read substantially as follows:
CHRIS TAYLOR, ACCOUNT #[redacted]
I recently received your recent unsigned communication. Please regard this letter as a formal written Notice and Demand to HSBC Nevada Bank, N.A. for validation and adequate assurance of performance with respect to the above listed account.
In preparation for this Notice and Demand, I have conducted a full and complete investigation into this mater, and I am of the opinion that HSBC Nevada Bank, N.A. may be in breach of the terms and conditions of the Credit Card Agreement, by its failure to provide either adequate and valuable consideration, or full disclosure of the material terms and conditions of the alleged original agreement, including the nature and extent of any finance charges assessed on the above account. In addition, I have reason to believe that your company has failed to properly credit me for all revenues received by you related to this account. In the event that the application or other evidence of this account was monetized, securitized and/or sold, please provide me with certified copies of all underlying documentation regarding said transactions.
Please restrict all communication with me regarding this matter to writing, and understand that all communications, acts or omissions may be used in litigation, including the filing of grievances and the initiation of investigations at the Federal Trade Commission and other government bodies regarding your non-compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act of 2003, and other state and federal consumer protection laws. Your failure to respond to this Notice and Demand within thirty (30) days will be construed as a waiver of any and all claims regarding the above-listed account, and will act as a confirmation that no further action will be taken on your part with respect to the subject account. Please also take notice that during the pendency of this dispute, no further payments will be made on the account, and the account cannot be sold, assigned, forwarded or otherwise transferred for purposes of the collection of a
326. The letter was dispatched on or about 02 July 2008 by U.S. Certified Mail, item
number 7006 2760 0004 3351 1168.
327. At Defendants’ direction, Named Plaintiff on or about 02 July 2008 dispatched similar letters by U.S. Certified Mail to Discover Financial Services, PO Box 30943, Salt Lake City UT 84130-0943, item 7006 2760 0004 3351 0765, and American Express, PO Box 981540, El Paso TX 79998-1540, item 7006 2760 0004 3351 0796.
328. Defendants intended this letter to assure Named Plaintiff that he no longer had to repay his debt to HSBC Bank Nevada, American Express, or Discover.
329. HSBC Bank Nevada, N.A. is federally insured, FDIC certificate #33863. 330. Defendants thus committed mail and bank fraud, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1344.
331. Defendants instructed Named Plaintiff to cease repayment of all three debts.
332. Both personally and through other Defendants, Mr. Lock and Mr. Manger hold themselves out (on the web pages they required Named Plaintiff to read, and elsewhere), and require their sales agents to hold them out, as attorneys to be absolutely relied on, with specialized knowledge of complex areas such as banking, consumer debt, and credit reporting (indeed, as virtually the only attorneys in America who understand “how banks really work”), and their advicewas sufficiently complex that Named Plaintiff was unable to ascertain the illegality of following it.
READ I'm Another Victim of the CCDN Scam and It's Left Us In Trouble. - Kimberly
333. However, even though he filled out all paperwork per Defendants’ directions, and did just as Defendants told him, Named Plaintiff’s credit score did not improve, his debt did not shrink or disappear, and Defendants did nothing of any value for him.
334. In January 2009, Named Plaintiff ran online searches of CCDN and TCCS and its personnel, and discovered many consumer comments about CCDN that had appeared in the months since he gave Defendants money, most of them to the effect that CCDN had taken money for no value and was just a scam that left people in far more debt and with far worse credit than ever before.
335. Named Plaintiff wrote to Mr. Lindsey, U.S. Certified Mail item 7007 0220 0003 7701 3355 received in Houston at 1122 on 30 January 2009, to say that he had gotten no benefit from the $4,500 that he had scraped together with considerable difficulty and bestowed upon CCDN, and asking how to get out of the program with a refund of all fees paid.
336. No Defendant refunded any of Named Plaintiff’s money.
337. Mr. Lindsey telephoned Named Plaintiff and, with smooth reassuring manner, misrepresented to him that everything was working fine and he should not worry, which placated Named Plaintiff for the time being.
338. Named Plaintiff emailed CCDN Support on 03 August 2009 to let them know he had changed his address, and CCDN’s response of 05 August was to the effect that Named Plaintiff should be sure to notify all debt collectors of his new contact information so that they could abuse him as much as possible.
339. Named Plaintiff emailed CCDN Support later on 05 August and noted that the CCDN process was taking longer than he had been told, with no effect whatsoever, and asked for the next step.
340. CCDN Support emailed back the same day and claimed that he had “a good violation” as to the American Express account, but that the statute of limitations would run on 02 September (they probably meant 22 September), and since there were not enough violations on the HSBC and Discover accounts, Named Plaintiff should answer collectors’ calls and keep saying “I don’t have the money to pay right now”to drive them “crazy” and inspire them to abuse him as much as possible.
341. Since the American Express balance exceeded $26,000, and Defendants knew that maximum FDCPA statutory damages are $1,000 no matter how much illegal abuse was heaped on Named Plaintiff, Defendants’ misadvice was not just useless, but downright sadistic.
342. CCDN did nothing for Named Plaintiff, so he emailed Jen Devine on 21 September 2009 to see what he needed to do.
343. Jen Devine emailed back to say: “I do not need anything. It is with an attorney now waiting to see if he will accept.”
344. This was false and fraudulent, because no Defendant ever sent Named Plaintiff’s cases to any attorney.
345. Named Plaintiff emailed again on 21 September: “Gosh … it’s stressful waiting. Tomorrow is our last day. That’s got me all stressed.”
346. Jen Devine emailed back: “Attorney placement is working on it today.”
348. Named Plaintiff emailed on 22 September 2009: “Jen, What’s the word? Did we make it in time?”
349. Jen Devine responded later that day: “Four attorneys have turned the case down. I am waiting to hear from one last one.”
350. This too was false and fraudulent, because no Defendant ever sent Named Plaintiff’s cases to any attorney.
351. Named Plaintiff emailed on 23 September 2009: “Jen, It’s too late, correct?”
352. Jen Devine responded: “Correct.”
353. This email, as did all her others, ended with the ironic sig line: “Every client should be treated with Truth, Fairness, Dignity and Respect.”
354. Unaware that CCDN had turned Mr. Lindsey in to the Texas Attorney General and that his assets were frozen and that TCCS was out of business, Named Plaintiff emailed Mr. Lindsey on 24 September 2009 because “it turns out that the way my account has been handled has forced me to again….request a refund. CCDN and the Credit Card Solution have done absolutely NOTHING to help my situation except to tell me I should look into settling with the credit card companies.”
355. Mr. Lindsey emailed back, claiming in pertinent part: “You signed up last year and we paid the CCDN in full for you. At the time we believed the CCDN to be providing a needed and effective service to people. Unfortunately, that turned out to not be the case.”
356. This statement was false because Mr. Lindsey knew exactly what the CCDN program was, and made over 20 videos promoting it, and Named Plaintiff’s money may have been among the funds that Mr. Lindsey diverted from CCDN.
357. Mr. Lindsey claimed “the CCDN filed a false complaint with the Texas Attorney General’s office” and “With our bank accounts frozen, we are unable to issue any refunds.”
358. On 25 September 2009, Named Plaintiff emailed Phil Manger outlining his disappointment with the useless CCDN program and requested a full refund.
359. Mr. Manger responded in 15 minutes: “Chris, I have just read your email and was sorry to hear of your disappointment in our program. I will respond to your request after we have conducted a thorough review of your account.”
360. Named Plaintiff received no further communication from Mr. Manger.
361. Named Plaintiff wrote Mr. Manger at the UPS Store address by U.S. Certified Mail, item number 7007 0220 0003 7701 3706, received in Chicago at 0918 on 03 October 2009, reminding Defendants that he had done everything they wanted, demanding a refund, and stating: “It took everything I had to come up with $4500.00 for
a program that has done absolutely nothing for my situation.”
362. Defendant S. John Hagenstein emailed a lengthy missive on 07 October 2009, blaming Named Plaintiff for not letting himself be sufficiently abused, claiming that Defendants had done all they were supposed to, and telling him to go ask Bob Lindsey for a refund, but noting that Mr. Lindsey could not do so because his assets were frozen.
363. Named Plaintiff emailed Mr. Hagenstein on 08 October 2009, correctly noting that “your organization is a scam and unfair to the consumer…. Again, I am demanding a refund of all monies paid to your company.”
364. Mr. Hagenstein responded the same day, again blaming Named Plaintiff for not letting debt collectors abuse him enough, and again telling Named Plaintiff to wait for Mr. Lindsey’s assets to be released.
365. Named Plaintiff emailed Mr. Hagenstein on 13 October 2009: “I’d surely appreciate a response to my last email I sent you containing proof that it had taken me multiple tries to get anything done with my accounts.”
366. Mr. Hagenstein responded the same day, claiming he would ask “our Paralegal Team” about it “and get back to you.”
367. Mr. Hagenstein did nothing, so Named Plaintiff emailed on 15 October 2009 to say that he had been in contact with a lawyer and was quite prepared to litigate.
368. Mr. Hagenstein responded the same day, again blaming Named Plaintiff for the failure of Defendant’s unworkable, fraudulent, ineffective, and illegal program, and again telling Named Plaintiff that only Mr. Lindsey’s assets were available for refund.
369. If true, this means that Mr. Hagenstein admitted to never receiving Named Plaintiff’s money and letting it be stolen by CCDN Defendants’ negligent hiring and retention of Mr. Lindsey to sell their program and receive money from Plaintiffs.
370. Named Plaintiff emailed later on 15 October 2009: “John, My issue is with CCDN and the performance of your company. I’m still waiting on your response from the email I had sent you earlier. The massive amounts of wasted time that your company has created….not my fault. Please reply. Thank you.”
371. Named Plaintiff heard nothing more from any Defendant. Mr. Harrison, Ms. Lucas, and Ms. Hunt Take Action
372. Defendants used the instrumentalities of interstate commerce such as the U.S. Postal Service to engage and attempt to engage in a monetary transaction in criminally derived property of a value greater than $10,000 that was derived from specified unlawful activity, including mail, wire, and bank fraud on Mr. Harrison, Ms. Lucas, Ms. Hunt, Ms. Southwood, and Named Plaintiff, and therefore Defendants are engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity, to wit, money laundering per 18 U.S.C. § 1957(a) in addition to all other predicate RICO offenses, with no end in sight and no interference from law enforcement or Bar authorities.
373. Before about June 2008, very few complaints about Defendants had been posted online, and some of those were obviously the product of a disgruntled former associate of Defendants that a prudent person would need independent confirmation to believe (although they did turn out to be materially true), and consequently a reasonable consumer or even consumer lawyer was not on notice before June 2008 of the widespread nature of Defendants’ fraud and racketeering activities.
374. But eventually, Mr. Harrison, Ms. Hunt, Ms. Lucas, and Ms. Southwood realized that their money was gone for good, and retained undersigned counsel (“Counsel”)on a contingent basis to try to recover some measure of justice from CCDN, Mr. and Mrs. Lock, Mr. Manger, Mr. Webster, Mr. Lindsey, and the various contractors and marketers that CCDN used to defraud them.
375. Mr. Harrison and Ms. Southwood gladly agreed to represent nationwide and statewide classes of CCDN victims.
376. Even though all of his clients’ contracts were with “CCDN” and not any corporation, LLC, or other limited liability entity, there are occasional references to “CCDN, LLC” in CCDN’s materials, so Counsel searched the corporate records of the secretaries of state of Illinois and New York, where CCDN had offices, and Delaware, where many businesses organize, and North Carolina, where CCDN does business and is required to gain admittance if it is a corporation or LLC, and found no entity named CCDN, LLC.
377. Counsel commenced Hunt v. R.K. Lock & Associates, 08 CVD 883, Lucas v. R.K. Lock & Associates, 08 CVD 884, and Harrison v. Aegis Corp., 08 CVD 885 in Bladen County District Court on or about 12 September 2008.
378. Process was served on all defendants by U.S. Certified Mail, 1st class postage prepaid, return receipt requested.
379. Returns of service, signed before a notary under penalty of perjury, are in the court files of all three cases as to all defendants.
380. Federal Debt Relief System and Mark Cella settled confidentially with Ms. Lucas and were dismissed with prejudice.
381. Lawgistix was dismissed without prejudice.
382. All other defendants failed or refused to answer or otherwise respond within the time after service allowed by law.
383. The Clerk of Bladen County Superior Court entered her default against all of them.
384. On 23 October 2009, Mr. Harrison served requests for admission on all 08 CVD 885 defendants except Mr. Webster.
385. All such defendants actually received these requests for admission.
386. No such defendant ever answered them or moved for relief from admissions.
387. Among other things, CCDN, Mr. and Mrs. Lock, and Mr. Manger admitted to valid service of process, jurisdiction over their persons, and liability of $522,000,000 (five hundred twenty-two million dollars) to a 6,000-person nationwide class for violating RICO, CROA, NCUDTPA, and NCRICO.
388. Mr. Harrison filed a motion for class certification, to which no one responded.
389. Mr. Harrison filed a motion for default judgment, which the court set for hearing on 23 January 2009.
390. Mr. Harrison filed motions for receivership of all entity defendants and for arrest and bail per NCGS § 1-410(4) and -411 of Mr. Lock, Mr. Manger, and Mr. Kramer, to which no one responded.
391. Bladen County District Court, Hon. Napoleon B. Barefoot, Jr. presiding, erroneously denied the receivership motion on grounds that District Court had no jurisdiction to appoint receivers, despite binding North Carolina Supreme Court case law that expressly holds the opposite.
392. Mr. Harrison timely served notice of hearing on his motion for arrest and bail for 23 November 2008, which no defendant attended.
393. Judge Aldridge listened to argument and reviewed the 08 CVD 885 case file including sworn affidavits in support of arrest and bail, and at the conclusion of the hearing, granted Mr. Harrison’s motions.
394. On or about 08 December 2008, Bladen County District Court, Hon. Thomas V. Aldridge presiding, entered orders for the arrest in lieu of $250,000 bail each of Mr. Lock, Mr. Manger, and Mr. Kramer.
395. These orders expressly found and concluded that service of process had been sufficient and that the court had personal jurisdiction over Mr. Lock, Mr. Manger, and Mr. Kramer.
396. To this day, Aegis Corporation, Debt Jurisprudence Inc., David Kramer, and Marcia Murphy have never appeared in or defended against Mr. Harrison’s action. Lawyer Defendants Begin Laundering Money and Assisting CCDN
397. In or around late November 2008, CCDN Defendants in file numbers 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885 retained Defendants by paying them a fee or retainer from the money they criminally derived from Plaintiffs.
398. Defendants Pittman, Partin, Emanuel, Steve Dunn, and Raymond Dunn, by virtue of their positions as owners and managers of Emanuel & Dunn, PLLC and as supervisors of their employee and agent Defendant Bettis, knew that their clients’ sole business and sole source of revenue, proceeds, profits, and earnings was and is a combination of wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud, obtaining property by false pretenses, and money laundering, and that it was wrong and illegal to accept money so derived.
399. Lawyer Defendants therefore knew that any money that Robert K. Lock, Jr., Colleen Lock, Philip Manger, John Hagenstein, Richard Russ, Greg Britt, Tracy Webster, CCDN, LLC, R.K. Lock & Associates, the Credit Collections Defense Network, or any of its contractors or marketers, including Robert Mitchell Lindsey and The Credit Card Solution, was criminally derived property that rightfully belongs to Plaintiffs.
400. Lawyer Defendants are thereby engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity by laundering of monetary instruments, punishable by a prison term of 20 years and a $500,000 fine per 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(A) and (a)(3)(A), and an additional count of the same each time they receive another payment from their clients.
401. Lawyer Defendants received in interstate commerce at least three such transmissions of criminally derived property in the form of monetary instruments or wire transfers totaling more than $10,000 as part of a unified continuous scheme to deprive Plaintiffs of their property and promote the carrying on of mail, wire, and bank fraud, beginning no later than late November 2008 and continuing to this day, with no interference from law enforcement or Bar authorities.
402. Lawyer Defendants are thereby engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity by engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified activity per 18 U.S.C. § 1957(a), punishable by up to ten years in prison and a fine of double the amount of the criminally derived property involved in the transaction per § 1957(b).
403. Lawyer Defendants then distributed Plaintiffs’ property among themselves,for their own use and benefit, often by Emanuel & Dunn PLLC first receiving Plaintiffs’ property in the form of monetary instruments, including wire transfers, payable to it, and then distributing Plaintiffs’ property to other Lawyer Defendantsin the form of salary, benefits, profits, dividends, bonuses, equity, and payment of business expenses, and to conceal and disguise the source and ownership of Plaintiffs’ property.
404. Lawyer Defendants thus are repeatedly violating 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956(a)(3)(B) and 1957(a), which pattern of racketeering activity continues to this day with no end in sight and no significant interference from law enforcement or Bar authorities.
405. Defendants’ inequitable conduct has unjustly enriched them at Plaintiffs’ expense, and therefore Lawyer Defendants are constructive trustees of Plaintiffs’ property and must turn it back over to them, intact and in full. Lawyer Defendants Declare War On Plaintiffs and Counsel
406. Instead of confining themselves to lawful and ethical defense of a client for alleged past deeds, Raymond Dunn and Mr. Bettis conspired with each other and with Mr. and Mrs. Lock, Mr. Manger, and Tracy Webster to keep CCDN’s fraudulent scheme alive, to continue violating the Credit Repair Organizations Act, NCUDTPA, RICO, and NCRICO, to expand CCDN’s business as much as possible,to prevent recovery of Plaintiffs’ property from CCDN or anyone else, and to pay Lawyer Defendants with property criminally defrauded from Plaintiffs.
407. Raymond Dunn, Mr. Bettis’s boss, then either instructed Mr. Bettis to use, or ratified Mr. Bettis’s decision to use, all means, legal or illegal, fair or foul, to win CCDN’s unwinnable cases, deprive CCDN’s victimsof all relief, and help CCDN to continue and expand its business in North Carolina, beginning with a sustained campaign of malicious personal attacks against Counsel and threats to his safety.
408. Raymond Dunn and Mr. Bettis thus formed a partnership and association-in-fact between them, that is, the predecessor entity to BDD and whose liability BDD inherited.
409. Lawyer Defendants thus conspired among themselves and with their clients to do illegal acts and to do legal acts (defense of civil claims) in an illegal way (misrepresent facts and law, argue frivolous legal theories, personally attack and intimidate Plaintiffs and Counsel, and file motions and papers only for delay, all paid for with the money that their clients criminally defrauded from Plaintiffs), rendering them entirely liable for all of each other’s and their clients’acts against Plaintiffs.
410. The law does not absolve civil conspirators of liability if two or more of them have an attorney-client relationship, and any attorney-client privilege is subject to breaking under the crime-fraud exception.
411. A key strategy for Mr. Bettis is to say or write things that are not true, over and over, in hopes of making them true by sheer repetition, e.g., he has constantly misrepresented to anyone who will listen that “There’s been no service of process in these cases!” despite the judicially noticeable fact that affidavits of service on all of his clients are right there in the 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885 court files.
412. On 03 December 2008, Ms. Lucas and Ms. Hunt served notice by fax to all their defendants, including the Locks, Mr. Manger, and RKLA/CCDN of hearing on default judgment in their cases on 08 December 2008.
413. Later on 03 December, Defendant Lee W. Bettis, Jr. telephoned Counsel to announce that he would represent the CCDN defendants in Ms. Hunt’s case.
414. Mr. Bettis holds himself out as some sort of RICO specialist and claims to have represented John Gotti and other extremely dangerous underworld figures.
415. Counsel lodged a report on the evening of 04 December 2008 with the Bladen County Sheriff’s Office to the effect thatwhile Counsel was driving through northern Bladen County, Mr. Bettis had telephoned him and communicated threats to him that reasonably could be interpreted (especially given Mr. Bettis’s claim to bean expert in representing racketeers) as credible threats of bodily harm if Counsel did not dismiss with prejudice (without his clients’ permission) all complaints against Mr. Bettis’s clients,to wit, twice shouted at Counsel: “We’re coming after you!” referring to Mr. Bettis’s clients, who are ruthless and very wealthy, and will stop at nothing to get away with their extremely profitable crimes and frauds.
416. Mr. Bettis communicated these threats over interstate wires to attempt to deprive, by wrongful use of fear, Plaintiffs and Counsel of their rights to recover for Defendants’ clients’ wrongdoing andthus committed Hobbs Act extortion, 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a), and extortion per NCGS § 14-118.4, both serious felonies.
417. On the afternoon of 05 December, Counsel was in the Bladen County Courthouse clerk’s office when Mr. Bettis telephoned yet again and revealed, for the first time, that CCDN, LLC was organized in Nevada, and falsely claimed that since CCDN, LLC had not been sued, that a necessary defendant was missing and all the cases would have to be dismissed, and CCDN would collect Rule 11 fees.
418. Mr. Bettis knew this was legally frivolous because according to settled North Carolina law, individuals are liable for their own torts even if they happen to be corporate officers or employees or owners, and CCDN, LLC was a RICO enterprise and therefore not even a possible, much less necessary, federal RICO defendant.
419. Counsel’s testimony is not necessary to prove what Mr. Bettis said in these phone calls or any other communications, because Mr. Bettis is obligated to testify truthfully as to what he said, and if he invokes his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, the same raises the presumption that Mr. Bettis is civilly liable for what he said.
420. At the hearing on 08 December 2008, Mr. Bettis served motions to dismiss Ms. Hunt’s and Ms. Lucas’s cases, frivolously arguing, in writing, lack of personal jurisdiction (without specifically contradicting any of the facts constituting minimum contacts) and that default should be set aside on grounds that (1) CCDN and its personnel themselves determined that they are liable for nothing, and (2) Counsel is a bad lawyer and need not be taken seriously, and therefore they did not answer.
421. Under no stretch of North Carolina law does this constitute good cause for setting aside default, and Mr. Bettis had no reasonable expectation of a favorable ruling.
422. Mr. Bettis wrote a number of personal attacks on Counsel into at least one of the motions to dismiss, such as: “chaotically drafted, unsigned, and unprofessional Judge Boyle had previously dismissed, Livingston’s alleged [sic] complaint as non-sense [sic], and Livingston’s actions as unprofessional and not to be taken seriously.”
423. Also on 08 December 2008, Counsel hand-served Mr. Bettis with file-stamped copies of the orders for arrest and bail of Mr. Lock, Mr. Manger, and Mr. Kramer in 08 CVD 885, which Mr. Bettis seemed not to care about.
424. No one ever appealed these orders or moved for rehearing of them.
425. More than one Bladen County lawyer or deputy sheriff can testify that beginning with his first appearance in Bladen County, Mr. Bettis has been heard and observed about the courthouse obtaining and spreading untrue gossip regarding Counsel, e.g., that Counsel was fired from his former position as deputy sheriff, in order to embarrass him and harm his reputation in his home county, safe in the knowledge that judicial privilege absolutely protects false statements designed to defame opposing counsel in a case.
426. By stipulation of all parties, all pending motions in Ms. Lucas’s and Ms. Hunt’s cases were continued to 13 February 2009.
427. Mr. Bettis continued to demand that Counsel dismiss all complaints and replead to include CCDN, LLC as a defendant, even offering to help Counsel draft valid complaints against Mr. Bettis’s own clients, which any reasonable lawyer in Counsel’s position would recognize as a transparent attempt to trick Counsel into throwing away the entries of default against Mr. Bettis’s clients.
428. A few days after the 08 December hearing, Mr. Bettis submitted proposed orders to Judge Barefoot that would have dismissed Ms. Hunt’s and Ms. Lucas’s complaints without prejudice, misrepresenting that Counsel had agreed to such relief and that Judge Barefoot had ruled to that effect.
429. Judge Barefoot did not sign or enter these orders.
Sharon Southwood Takes Action
430. On or about 07 January 2009 Ms. Southwood commenced Southwood v. The Credit Card Solution, 09 CVS 19 in Bladen County Superior Court, by means of a verified complaint seeking relief for a nationwide class against TCCS, CCDN, Mr. and Mrs. Lock, Mr. Manger, Mr. Lindsey, and CCDN, LLC.
431. Ms. Southwood set a hearing for 20 January 2009 on motions to appoint receivers for all entity defendants and for Mr. Lindsey’s arrest in lieu of bail.
432. Mr. Lindsey and TCCS received service of process by certified mail on or before 14 January 2009.
433. Mr. Lindsey immediately retained Mr. Bettis to represent him and TCCS.
434. Mr. Lindsey or CCDN or both paid Lawyer Defendants a retainer out of the criminally derived property that they defrauded from Plaintiffs, possibly from one or more of the following accounts, identified by the last four digits of the account number: Amegy Bank of Texas 1258, 5353, 2023, 2927; Westbound Bank 5173, 5165, 3297.
435. Lawyer Defendants all actually knew that their clients’ business consisted entirely of wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud, obtaining property by false pretenses, and money laundering, and that Mr. Lindsey did not even have the cover of a pretended law practice, and that the only way their clients could have obtained their fee was by unlawful means and probably specified unlawful activity, but nonetheless freely accepted the money and agreed to help their clients stay in business and continue to defraud Plaintiffs, again violating 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956(a)(2)(A) and (a)(3)(A) and 1957(a).
436. Mr. Bettis telephoned Counsel on 14 January 2009 and demanded that the receivership and arrest and bail hearings set for 20 January 2009 be continued.
437. On grounds that the urgency of the situation would admit no delay, Counsel declined to consent to such continuance.
438. Mr. Bettis shouted “Nobody’s gonna give you money for your crazy-a** f***ing complaints, ya nut!” and hung up.
439. On the evening of 19 January 2009, a rare significant snowfall occurred in Bladen County, and Superior Court caused notice to be published on the websites of local media that court would be closed 20 January 2009 due to snow.
440. Even though he was on constructive notice of court closure, Mr. Bettis appeared at the Bladen County Courthouse on the morning of 20 January 2009 on behalf of all Southwood defendants, and the court granted him a continuance for all Southwood defendants without consulting Ms. Southwood, although later that morning, the court cancelled all Bladen County civil sessions of Superior Court for that week due to snow.
441. Per NCGS § 1-75.7, this constituted a general appearance and consent to personal jurisdiction of Bladen County Superior Court, waiver of service of process, and waiver of any defect in process, for all defendants in Ms. Southwood’s case.
442. Later on 20 January 2009, Mr. Bettis faxed the 13th Judicial District Trial Court Coordinator falsely alleging that Counsel was a necessary witness and requesting the court to notify him if it sua sponte reached the same conclusion.
443. Per NCGS § 1-75.7, this constituted a general appearance and consent to personal jurisdiction of Bladen County Superior Court, waiver of service of process, and waiver of any defect in process, for all defendants in Ms. Southwood’s case. Mr. Bettis Skips $522,000,000 Default Judgment Hearing
444. In Mr. Harrison’s case, 08 CVD 885, Mr. Bettis entered no appearance and filed no motions.
445. Mr. Harrison served notice on or about 22 December 2008 upon Mr. Bettis of the 23 January 2009 hearing on default judgment and class certification.
446. In response to this, Mr. Bettis did not ask the District Court for a continuance, or enter an appearance, or answer or defend in any way.
447. Mr. Bettis instead faxed Counsel demanding a continuance on grounds that Mr. Bettis allegedly had a Superior Court appearance in Craven County on 23 January 2009.
448. Counsel faxed back to say that such relief might receive favorable consideration if Mr. Bettis would enter a written appearance in 08 CVD 885, provide proof of the alleged Superior Court date, and explain why none of the other lawyers at Emanuel & Dunn could cover Mr. Harrison’s hearing.
449. Mr. Bettis never responded to this fax.
450. At the 23 January 2009 District Court hearing on default judgment and class certification in Mr. Harrison’s case, 08 CVD 885, Counsel and Mr. Harrison were present in court when the case was called.
451. Even though Mr. Bettis had driven to Bladen County in the snow three days earlier on very little notice, and even though Mr. Bettis had 30 days’ actual notice of the 23 January 2009 hearing, neither Mr. Bettis nor any of the defendants in Mr. Harrison’s case appeared or defended in any way, nor did any of them notify District Court or the Clerk’s officethat they would be late or had a schedule conflict.
452. The law entitled Mr. Harrison and the Class he represented to default judgment and class certification, as prayed in the complaint and established by the requests for admission that Mr. Harrison’s defendants failed to deny, leaving the District Court no discretion to rule otherwise and no just reason for delay.
453. Nonetheless, District Court, Hon. Napoleon B. Barefoot, Jr., presiding, asked if Counsel had heard anything from Defendants, whereupon Counsel produced the fax that Mr. Bettis had sent to him, and the fax that he had sent to Mr. Bettis.
454. Judge Barefoot, even though Mr. Harrison was entitled to default judgment and grant of all motions then and there, and even though Mr. Bettis had not moved the court for relief, unreasonably took Mr. Bettis’s side andsua sponte continued the hearings until 13 February 2009, contrary to law and over Mr. Harrison’s objection.
455. This would not have happened absent Mr. Bettis’s fax.
Bob Lindsey Diverts Money from CCDN
456. At or about this time over in Houston, Mr. Lindsey, instead of remitting TCCS/CCDN customer payments less his contract commission, began keeping most or all of the money that customers sent him for enrollment, in part by falsely telling CCDN that these customers were on time payment plans when they had really paid in full, and eventually accumulated $469,035, more or less, that was not his.
457. On reasonable inference, information and belief, the motivation for Mr. Lindsey’s defalcation, or for the increased amount and frequency of it, was that he realized that Ms. Southwood’s lawsuit signified the beginning of the end of TCCS/CCDN.
458. Since Defendants were representing both TCCS/Mr. Lindsey and CCDN’s personnel, this established an irreconcilable and unwaivable conflict of interest between clients.
459. At or shortly after this time, Lawyer Defendants learned of this conflict of interest, but declined to resign from 08 CVD 883, 884, or 885, or from 7:09cv81-F nee 09 CVS 19, because they were making a lot of money.
Mr. Bettis Wrongfully Separates Counsel from Plaintiffs
460. At the 13 February 2009 hearing on Mr. Harrison’s, Ms. Hunt’s, and Ms. Lucas’s motions for default judgment to which they were legally entitled on that date, Mr. Bettis appeared and did not explain his absence from the 23 January hearing.
461. In order to help his clients escape justice for past crimes and torts and to help his clients commit more crimes and torts, Mr. Bettis on or before this date filed affidavits from 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885 defendants containing numerous material falsehoods, e.g., invoked the name “CCDN, LLC” even though neither Mr. Harrison, Ms. Lucas, nor Ms. Hunt ever had any contact, contracts, or dealings with CCDNLLC; that CCDNLLC was completely separate from R.K. Lock & Associates or any individual, when in fact CCDN LLC is only used for fraud and crime and is therefore a disregarded and pierced entity; that Counsel was aware before 04 December 2009 that CCDN LLC was organized in Nevada; that initial process in 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885 had not been served; that no defendant in those files had any contacts with North Carolina even though they all had such contacts; that R.K. Lock & Associates was a “Non-Entity” or “Non-Existent Entity” when all Defendants knew that R.K. Lock & Associates was capable of contract and suit, and had in fact contracted with Aegis Corporation, R&G Marketing, and Bob Lindsey dba The Credit Card Solution, and on 16 February 2009 admitted in Greene v. Consumer
Advocate Foundation Service, ILND 1:08-cv-6165, DE 30-2, Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(a) disclosures, item I.B., that it was “R.K. Lock & Associates, an artificial person,” and has not in its answers in that action or in Capital One Bank (USA), N.A. v. Carefree Debt, Inc., case number 0:08cv2274 in U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, raised any defense of lack of capacity to be sued.
462. In order to help his clients escape justice for past crimes and torts and to help his clients commit more crimes and torts, Mr. Bettis maliciously misrepresented numerous facts and law to the District Court, primarily that RKLA/CCDN did not exist; CCDN, LLC was a necessary defendant; and that CCDN was Counsel’s employer.
463. Mr. Bettis produced no W-4 form signed by Counsel, no W-2 form issued to Counsel, no paycheck stubs or evidence of direct deposit, no employment agreement, no office location where Counsel was assigned to work, or any other incident of employment, and knew that Counsel was never CCDN’s employee; and also knew that even if Counsel had been CCDN’s employee, no fiduciary or confidential relationship arises from mere employment.
464. CCDN marketing materials also make it clear that they do not employ attorneys, but at most, contract with referral associates who work only for CCDN customers, receive no pay from CCDN, and do not advise CCDN or serve as counsel to CCDN, especially since CCDN already claims to have all the legal answers to consumer debt and neither needs nor wants to hear any different.
465. Nonetheless, Mr. Bettis persisted in his fraudulent and malicious misrepresentations until he wrongfully and unfairly prejudiced Judge Barefoot against Counsel and Plaintiffs, whereupon the judge removed Counsel from Mr. Harrison’s, Ms. Hunt’s, and Ms. Lucas’s cases on the spot.
466. In open Court, and after he had already achieved everything he had asked for, Mr. Bettis presented District Court with a copy of an order from the Disciplinary Hearing Commission of the North Carolina State Bar for the sole purpose of embarrassing and harassing Counsel, and also did not serve a copy on Counsel.
467. In the presence of Mr. Harrison and Ms. Hunt in the courtroom when the judge was not present, Mr. Bettis made a number of empty threats upon Counsel, including “This could mean your law license” and (as corporate defense lawyers almost always do) promised that Counsel and his clients would have to pay Mr. Bettis’s fees, which Mr. Bettis represented to be over $14,000, for bringing a “frivolous” action.
468. Lawyer Defendants knew full well that their clients’ only source of income was and is to separate Plaintiffs from their money by means of mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, obtaining property by false pretenses, and money laundering, and thus Mr. Bettis admitted on their behalf that they chose to engage in one or more monetary transactions in property of a value greater than $10,000 that Lawyer Defendants knew to be criminally
derived, and are guilty of money laundering per 18 U.S.C. § 1957(a).
469. The District Court set the next date for Mr. Harrison, Ms. Hunt, and Ms. Lucas on 06 April 2009.
470. Upon Counsel’s prompt request for ruling, accompanied by a written memorandum of law, Nichole McLaughlin, staff counsel of the North Carolina State Bar, informed Counsel by telephone on or about 18 February 2009 that CCDN and its personnel were not Counsel’s clients andthat Counsel had no conflict of interest in suing them, and also that CCDN and its personnel were engaged in UPL.
No Other Lawyer Wants These Cases
471. Though Counsel and his clients searched diligently and talked with several candidates, no other lawyer wanted to take over the case from Counsel, for various reasons such as complexity, time required, unfamiliarity with relevant law, and most of all the necessity of a contingent fee because nobody could afford to pay hourly fees.
472. Defendants knew full well this was what would happen, and that was their aim in maliciously misrepresenting facts and law–to wrongfully and tortiously interfere with Plaintiffs’ recovery from those who defrauded them, and to separate Counsel, literally the only lawyer in the world who was ready, willing, and able to take on CCDN contingent, from Plaintiffs and leave them helpless.
473. As evidenced by his unprofessional and gratuitously belligerent words and deeds, Mr. Bettis’s motivation was personal malice and ill-will toward Counsel and Plaintiffs.
474. Counsel and his clients found able local counsel to appear for the limited purpose of rehearing Counsel’s disqualification.
475. On or about 23 February 2009, Mr. Bettis filed a motion in Superior Court on behalf of all his clients to disqualify Counsel from Ms. Southwood’s case, constituting another general appearance and waiver of all objections to personal jurisdiction, sufficiency of process, sufficiency of service of process, and venue.
476. On 23 February 2009 when Mr. Bettis was in the Bladen County Courthouse, Counsel hand-served discovery upon Mr. Bettis directed to each defendant in Ms. Southwood’scase, to wit, The Credit Card Solution, RKLA/CCDN, CCDNLLC, Mr. and Mrs. Lock, Mr. Manger, and Mr. Lindsey, including requests for admission that, among other things, a class of plaintiffs should be certified and that all Southwood defendants were jointly and severally liable to that class for damages totaling $522,000,000.
477. On 26 February 2009, Mr. Bettis filed an answer on behalf of all defendants in Ms. Southwood’s case, without raising any defenses of lack of personal jurisdiction, insufficiency of process, insufficiency of service of process, or improper venue, thereby again entering a general appearance.
478. But only Mr. Lindsey answered Ms. Southwood’s discovery and denied her requests for admission.
479. Through their own or Lawyer Defendants’ negligence and inattention, Mr. and Mrs. Lock, Mr. Manger, RKLA/CCDN, CCDNLLC, and The Credit Card Solution all failed or refused to deny, and thereby admitted to, joint and several liability to a nationwide class for $522,000,000 (five hundred twenty-two million dollars), just as some of them had done in Mr. Harrison’s case.
480. One of Mr. Bettis’s persistent misrepresentations is that R.K. Lock& Associates, the firm Mr. Lock listed with IARDC as where he worked, doing business as the Credit Collections Defense Network or RKLA/CCDN, was a nonexistent entity incapable of being sued.
481. As Mr. Bettis knew full well, RKLA/CCDN very much exists and is capable of being sued, and what is more, Mr. Bettis knew, and Counsel subsequently discovered, that on 07 February 2007, Bob Lindsey executed a “Referral Agreement” between himself as sole proprietor of The Credit Card Solution, and “RK Lock & Associates (hereinafter ‘RKLA/CCDN’), an Illinois legal services provider, the Credit Collections Defense Network,” so RKLA/CCDN exists and is capable of contract and therefore suit,.
482. On 06 April 2009 in the grand jury room of the Bladen County Courthouse where civil District Court was being held, and in the presence of Mr. Harrison and a visiting lawyer on another case to be heard that day, Counsel presented Mr. Bettis with a copy of RKLA/CCDN’s aforementioned Rule 26(a) disclosures in ILND 1:08cv6165 to show that Mr. Bettis was not correct in his representations that RKLA/CCDN did not exist.
483. Mr. Bettis snarled “Listen, dipsh*t” and haughtily shoved the paper back at Counsel, saying he did not need it, and further questioned aloud how it was that Counsel still had a law license.
484. The District Court continued all three cases until 27 April 2009.
Plaintiffs’ Attempts to Restore Order
485. During the course of 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885, Mr. Bettis sent a number of intemperately phrased faxes and letters to Counsel, falsely threatening that Mr. Bettis and his clients would sue Counsel personally, and irrationally demanding that Counsel drop all cases against Lawyer Defendants’clients.
486. On or about 14 April 2009, Mr. Bettis faxed yet another imperious missive, again falsely claiming that Counsel was CCDN’s lawyer, falsely promising that Counsel would be called as a witness (even though Counsel was and is an unnecessary witness, and if subpoenaed, would cumulatively testify very harmfully to CCDN, so no sensible CCDN defense lawyer would call Counsel as a witness) and that CCDN, LLC’s answer to Ms. Southwood’s Verified Complaint would containfrivolous third party claims without basis in fact or law against Counsel for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, slander, libel, etc. (even though Mr. Bettis had already answered on 26 February 2009 without bringing any third party claims), all in bad faith and all for the purpose of harassing, oppressing, and wrongfully intimidating Counsel off the case to harm Plaintiffs.
487. Fed up with Mr. Bettis’sunprofessionalism and malicious misrepresentations, Counsel in sheer self-defense on or about 14 April 2009 dispatched a letter to Mr. Bettis, with copy to Defendants Steve Dunn, Raymond Dunn, and Mr. Emanuel, to make sure that Emanuel & Dunn management had actual knowledge of the unlawful way in which Mr. Bettis was defending his clients.
488. All recipients of that letter are on actual notice that their clients are engaged in nothing but the business of fraud; that Mr. Bettis was defaming and personally attacking Counsel in order to wrongfully gain advantage; that Emanuel & Dunn was likely to be liable for tortious interference if it did not change its ways; that Mr. Bettis had not answered discovery and requests for admission to most of his clients; that any attempt to sue Counsel personally would be a prohibitively expensive failure; and that Lawyer Defendants’ clientswere expected and required to cease their illegal activity.
489. The only result of this communication is that one or more other Lawyer Defendants told Mr. Bettis not to speak to Counsel without a third person present, which directive Mr. Bettis did not obey, and Mr. Bettis’s conduct has continued unabated to this day, resulting in great harm to Plaintiffs by delaying and reducing their rightful relief.
490. In particular, Mr. Bettis’s supervisor, Raymond Dunn, did nothing to alter Mr. Bettis’s behavior or to stop his clients’ nationwide continuing racketeering activity.
491. On 27 April 2009, the District Court heard substitute counsel’s argument on motion for rehearing of Counsel’s disqualification, and granted same, restoring Counsel to Mr. Harrison’s, Ms. Hunt’s, and Ms. Lucas’s cases.
492. Before the hearing, with neither Counsel nor substitute counsel present in the courtroom (actually the County Commissioners’ room that Bladen County often holds court in), Mr. Bettis without permission of Counsel or his substitute approached Mr. Harrison, falsely told him “you have no lawyer” to upset and intimidate him, and tried to settle the case with Mr. Harrison and the Class for unconscionably low terms.
493. At the 30 April 2009 hearing on the motion to dismiss Mr. Harrison’s, Ms. Hunt’s, and Ms. Lucas’s cases, Counsel hand-served memoranda of law in 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885 on Mr. Bettis in court.
494. A short time later, during a break in the proceedings when the judge was not looking, Mr. Bettis approached Counsel, disdainfully tossed the 884 and 885 memoranda onto plaintiffs’ tablein front of Counsel, and walked away.
495. Counsel noted this disposition on those documents and still has them.
496. Mr. Bettis again invoked his clients’ false affidavits, and fraudulently misrepresented to District Court that CCDN LLC was a necessary defendant and that North Carolina had no personal jurisdiction over any defendant.
497. District Court, Judge Barefoot presiding, thus misled and unfairly prejudiced against Plaintiffs and Counsel by Defendants’ fraud on the court, dismissed all three cases, and the orders for arrest and bail of Mr. Lock and Mr. Manger.
498. Mr. Harrison, Ms. Hunt, and Ms. Lucas timely filed motions for rehearing.
499. At the 30 April 2009 hearing in Superior Court for disqualification of Counsel from representing Ms. Southwood, Mr. Bettis in order to wrongfully harm Plaintiffs misrepresented in open Court that Counsel was a necessary witness, even though the court file contained far more than enough clear and convincing independent evidence to prove Ms. Southwood’s case without any need for Counsel testifying.
500. Mr. Bettis in order to wrongfully harm Plaintiffs misrepresented in open Court that Counsel had a conflict of interest with CCDN, even though Mr. Bettis knew that no person associated with CCDN was Counsel’s client and knew that neither Counsel nor Counsel’s real clients were misusing CCDN confidential information.
501. Mr. Bettis in order to wrongfully harm Plaintiffs misrepresented in open Court that CCDN was an “educational” organization that actually helped people reduce debts, when he knew for a fact that CCDN was and is a criminal organization selling frivolous and illegal debt elimination and credit repair theories, whose sole business is defrauding as many desperate debtors as possible of as much money as it can.
502. Mr. Bettis in order to wrongfully harm Plaintiffs misrepresented in open Court that Mr. Bettis’s clients or even Ms. Southwood were planning to sue Counsel personally, without ever specifying to whom Counsel was supposed to be liable on what facts and grounds for relief, because Mr. Bettis knew that Counsel had no possible liability and just wanted to get Counsel thrown off the case to deny, delay, or reduce Plaintiffs’ recovery.
503. Mr. Bettis said that Counsel was supposed to have been CCDN’s “feet on the ground” in North Carolina, which means that CCDN wanted Counsel to help them commit crimes and frauds.
504. Mr. Bettis called CCDN a “great company” that would continue to expand its operations in North Carolina.
505. This was Mr. Bettis’s admission on behalf of all other Defendants that they were not engaged in legitimate and ethical civil defense regarding alleged past conduct, but were actively conspiring to perpetrate sham litigation to help them continue and enlarge their racketeering activities with no end in sight.
506. Because Defendants unfairly prejudiced him against Counsel, Bladen County Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Douglas Sasser–without evidentiary support other than Mr. Bettis’s misrepresentations–ruled orally on 30 April 2009 that Counsel must be disqualified for being a necessary witness and a possible defendant (even though Counsel was in no way liable for CCDN’s activities and had done everything he could to get justice for all of CCDN’s victims), but expressly declined to rule on conflict of interest, and directed Mr. Bettis to prepare a written order reflecting those findings.
507. Mr. Bettis submitted a proposed order that dishonestly included as proposed Finding of Fact 7 that Counsel should be disqualified for conflict of interest.
508. Judge Sasser was not fooled, and returned the proposed order to Mr. Bettis for correction.
509. Mr. Bettis did so, and the court filed the signed order purporting to disqualify Counsel for allegedly being a necessary witness on or about 19 May 2009.
510. But this order was null and void, because on 15 May 2009 Mr. Bettis and Steve Dunn had already deprived Superior Court of subject matter jurisdiction over 09 CVS 19 by filing with Superior Court a Notice of Removal to U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, where it is now case number 7:09cv81-F.
Ms. Southwood’s Case Goes Federal
511. At no later than this time, Steve Dunn began accepting money that he knew was criminally derived property, and actively helping his clients keep Plaintiffs’ property away from them, by among other things composing a frivolous motion to dismiss Ms. Southwood’s case primarily for the purpose of delay, with the goal of keeping his clients in business and indefinitely continuing to defraud victims and launder money.
512. At no later than this time, the general partnership and association-in-fact of Bettis Dunn & Dunn was complete, and inherited the liabilities of the general partnership between Mr. Bettis and Raymond Dunn.
513. Even though Mr. Bettis knew that Counsel was still representing her, Mr. Bettis telephoned Ms. Southwood, without informing Counsel beforehand or obtaining Counsel’s permission, on or about 20 May 2009, falsely telling her “you have no lawyer” in order to upset, distress, and intimidate her, and aggressively tried to settle the case on unconscionably low terms that provided no relief for the Class.
514. Ms. Southwood declined, and immediately informed Counsel, who in turn immediately informed Steve Dunn and told him to rein in Mr. Bettis.
515. The other Lawyer Defendants were therefore on actual notice that Mr. Bettis was indulging in grossly unethical advocacy.
516. But other than telling him not to contact Counsel’s clients again, the other Lawyer Defendants did nothing to change Mr. Bettis’s behavior, thereby ratifying it.
CCDN Declares War on TCCS and Mr. Lindsey
517. On 29 May 2009, Colleen Lock on behalf of CCDN, LLC emailed a “CCDN Urgent Communication” to Plaintiffs who came to CCDN through TCCS, alerting these Plaintiffs that TCCS had kept all their money and not remitted CCDN its share.
518. At no later than this point, Lawyer Defendants were ethically obligated per Revised Rule of Professional Conduct 1.7 to resign from representing CCDN and TCCS and all their personnel, because the dispute between those two factions was essentially the same case as Plaintiffs’ cases.
519. Nestled among untruths in Ms. Lock’s email such as “vast nationwide network of attorneys” and “services that will lead you down the road to financial freedom” was a delicately phrased request: “Our review of your account shows that there is a balance due. If you wish to continue to receive services from us, we will require additional funds to move forward.” CCDN will keep helping “as long as your status remains current with the CCDN. However, these issues with TCCS may affect your status in the program.”
520. In other words, Ms. Lock was demanding that Plaintiffs repay CCDN for what Mr. Lindsey intercepted, or be disenrolled.
521. At about this time, CCDN complained to the Attorney General of Texas that Mr. Lindsey and TCCS had withheld some $469,035 from them, correctly accusing Mr. Lindsey of running a debt elimination scam, but leaving out the fact that Mr. Lindsey was no more than a salesman for CCDN’s scam, and misrepresenting to TXAG that the missing money was due for “debt relief services.”
522. TXAG credited CCDN’s misrepresentations that it was the victim of Mr. Lindsey’s defalcation, and immediately began an investigation in order to help CCDN recover “its” money, even though Plaintiffs are very much the real victims. Lawyer Defendants Continue to Represent Both TCCS and CCDN
523. Lawyer Defendants know how CCDN really works, and have no reasonable expectation of prevailing over Ms. Southwood, because she pleaded an insuperable case in excruciating detail, backed up with hundreds of pages of evidence and binding law.
524. Nonetheless, on 22 June 2009, all defendants in the Southwood case filed, over the digital signatures of both Mr. Bettis and Steve Dunn, a Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) motion and memorandum, 7:09cv81-F, DE10, containing several material misrepresentations.
525. Mr. Bettis and Steve Dunn on page 20 of their 12(b)(6) memo misrepresented: “Defendants sell information and strategies to consumers which are designed to educate the consumer on how to dispute debts and how to force debt collectors to comply with the Fair Debt Collections [sic] [Practices] Act.”
526. As they know, CCDN’s program demands of Plaintiffs the opposite, i.e., that Plaintiffs provoke and encourage as much collection abuse as possible in (false) hopes of racking up damages under FDCPA.
527. Mr. Bettis and Steve Dunn on page 7 falsely listed www.uofmoney.com as one of “other sources unaffiliated with Defendants.”
528. But http://www.uofmoney.com/services/fsi.htm reports that “FSEI and Attorney Robert Lock are collaborating in order to speed development of the CCDN, Credit Collections Defense Network.”
529. http://www.uofmoney.com/Cutting-Edge.htm lists Mr. Lock as one of its seminar speakers on the topic of debt relief, so it is not unaffiliated with him.
530. Mr. Bettis and Steve Dunn continued to misrepresent, 12(b)(6) memo at 20-21: “[CCDN’s] system: (1) requires debt collectors to substantiate that they are the true record holders of the debt and (2) demands that if the collectors cannot prove they are the record holder of the debt, that they cease and desist collections against CCDN clients.”
531. As Mr. Bettis and Steve Dunn know, CCDN’s “substantiation” consists only of legally frivolous form letters, transcribed supra, that cannot and do not invalidate any debt, and far from demanding that collectors cease communication (which requires only one cease-comm letter to each agency) of debt that the customer does not owe, CCDN’s program instead requires customers to stop paying debt that they do owe, and then to provoke collection agencies and debt buyers into committing as many FDCPA abuses and violations as possible in the (false) hope of racking up damages to offset debt.
Mr. Lindsey and TCCS Meet Their Doom
532. On or about 08 July 2009, the Texas AG filed Texas v. Jubilee Financial Services (one of the entities that Mr. Lindsey recently formed to try to hide assets and dodge liability), case number 2009-43253 in Harris County District Court, 215th Judicial District, and obtained a temporary restraining order, later extended as a preliminary injunction on 21 July 2009, requiring Mr. Lindsey to cease his violations of Texas unfair trade and business opportunity law, stopping all of his business operations, freezing all of his assets, and ordering him to turn over his and Plaintiffs’ records.
533. Ms. Southwood prominently mentioned this development in her response to Defendants’ 12(b)(6) motionon 13 July 2009, putting all Lawyer Defendants on notice of this insuperable and unwaivable conflict if they did not know before.
534. Lawyer Defendants nonetheless stayed on the case and filed a reply to this response on 07 August 2009, not mentioning how they proposed to deal with the conflict.
535. Trial is set for early February 2010, and the Texas AG has already had to obtain court orders for Mr. Lindsey to turn over the required business records and to stop running his new debt elimination scam known as Freedom From Debt Alliance.
536. The Texas court on 09 November 2009 granted TXAG’s motion for sanctions against Mr. Lindsey for disobedience of the court’s orders compelling discovery, and refusing to turn over a single document of all those he had been ordered to.
Mr. Bettis Again Attacks Counsel to Harm Plaintiffs
537. Defendants admitted in Rule 11 motions in 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885: “To date Manger and Lock have expended $27,743 in attorney fees defending this and the two companion cases filed in district court.”
538. Defendants thereby admitted yet again to a pattern of racketeering activity, to wit, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956(a)(2)(A), (a)(3)(A), and 1957(a) money laundering.
539. At rehearing on 18 September 2009, Mr. Bettis maliciously misrepresented to District Court, Hon. Sherry Dew Tyler presiding, that Counsel was CCDN’s employee; Superior Court had disqualified him for conflict of interest; and Counsel was in violation of his “ethical obligations,” and handed to the bench (without giving Counsel a copy) of the Superior Court disqualification order that proved Mr. Bettis wrong.
540. Upon Counsel’s pointing out that the Superior Court order had been entered after loss of subject matter jurisdiction to federal court and was of no effect, and that the order contained no finding of conflict of interest, and that Mr. Bettis had himself drafted the order and therefore knew exactly what was and was not in it, Mr. Bettis then falsely claimed to have been mistaken.
541. Mr. Bettis concealed from the court his own unwaivable conflict of interest in representing both CCDN and TCCS factions, which had long been at each other’s throats, and that neither he nor any other Lawyer Defendant had any business being there.
542. Nonetheless, Judge Tyler, misled by Judge Barefoot’s earlier findings, which Mr. Bettis had procured by fraud on the court, and by Mr. Bettis’s further misrepresentations of fact and law on 18 September 2009 made for the purpose of maliciously denying Plaintiffs the relief that the law entitled them to, and so Defendants could wrongfully retain Plaintiffs’ property that Defendants had obtained by crime and fraud, ruled that all motions for rehearing would be denied on grounds that CCDNLLC was a necessary defendant and that North Carolina lacked minimum contacts as to CCDN Defendants, and even as to Aegis Defendants in Mr. Harrison’s case.
543. Judge Tyler further erroneously granted Defendants’ Rule 11 motions, finding without evidence other than Defendants’ false affidavits that Counsel’s cases were without basis in fact and were filed for an improper purpose, though she never hinted at what such improper purpose was supposed to have been, and believed Mr. Bettis’s fee affidavits wholesale and ordered Counsel to pay personally $27,743 to Defendants, one third in each of 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885.
544. This was erroneous because Counsel has no ability to pay such outlandish sums, and if he did, would be financing a racketeer influenced and corrupt organization in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, 1344, 1956, 1957 and 2, which Art. VI Cl. 2 of the
Constitution forbids any state judge to do.
545. Defendants’ sham litigation so misled Judge Tyler and unfairly prejudiced her against Plaintiffs and Counsel that, contrary to law, she even dismissed 08 CVD 885 as to Aegis Corporation, Debt Jurisprudence, Inc., M. David Kramer, and Marcia M. Murphy, even though they had stood defaulted for eleven months, failed to deny requests for admission to damages of some $42,000,000 to a nationwide class, and did not answer or defend in any way, and even though Mr. Harrison had presented insuperable evidence of liability and damages, together with printed emails of Mr. Kramer in the name of Aegis Corporation and Debt Jurisprudence directing Mr. Harrison to send money to him, incontestably establishing personal jurisdiction.
546. Defendants’ sham litigation so unfairly prejudiced Judge Tyler that she improperly told Counsel that the cases had been brought “in the wrong court” and should have been brought in Superior Court or federal court, even though District Court has jurisdiction over the subject matter of 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885 and no judge of that court may refuse to hear those cases, but must decide them according to law, and therefore District Court is, by definition, the right court.
547. Mr. Harrison, Ms. Hunt, Ms. Lucas, and Counsel filed written notices of appeal on 09 November 2009 and have every reasonable expectation of reversal and remand from the Court of Appeals of North Carolina directing certification of a class and entry of judgment for over $522,000,000 in 08 CVD 885, reversal and remand for hearing on default judgment in 08 CVD 883 and 884, and vacatur of all sanctions against Counsel.
548. Defendants’malicious, fraudulent, and unlawful conduct in 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885 constitutes sham litigation that deprived the Bladen County District Court of legitimacy, and delayed Plaintiffs’recovery by wrongfully getting Counsel disqualified for a significant length of time, wrongfully obtaining dismissal contrary to law, wrongfully delaying entry of an appealable final order, and allowing Defendants more time to continue their fraud against innocent Americans and to launder and hide the proceeds, thus severely reducing Plaintiffs’ recovery.
549. Defendants are still defending Ms. Southwood’s case and will continue to do so through judgment and execution, which will take up to 20 years to litigate and collect on because of the large amount, and are still laundering Plaintiffs’ money that Defendants defrauded from Plaintiffs, constituting a serious threat of continuing racketeering activity until law enforcement stops them.
Mr. Lindsey Strikes Back Against CCDN
550. On 22 September 2009, Mr. Lindsey moved for leave to file a third party petition in the Texas case against RKLA/CCDN, Mr. Lock, Mr. Manger, and CCDNLLC, admitting that he had been acting in concert with them, blaming them for everything that he had done, and claiming that he had only been following their directions, and also claiming that they had most of the money, all of which Mr. Lindsey swore to under penalty of perjury.
551. The Texas court granted leave and considered the petition filed on 02 October.
552. Judge Tyler entered written orders on 29 October 2009 in 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885 substantially consistent with her in-court rulings of 18 September 2009.
553. The Texas court issued third party citations to RKLA/CCDN, Mr. Lock, Mr. Manger, and CCDNLLC on or about 03 November 2009. Law Enforcement Action Against Defendants
554. West Virginia Attorney General Darrell McGraw received a single complaint about CCDN and its Active-Debt.com alter ego and promptly served an administrative investigative request upon CCDN and Mr. Lock, who ignored it, so on 30 March 2009. Mr. McGraw obtained an injunction from Kanawha County Circuit Court prohibiting Mr. Lock and CCDN from debt adjusting in West Virginia until they cooperate with the investigation.
Law Enforcement Inaction Against Defendants
555. In all other jurisdictions besides West Virginia, CCDN, Mr. and Mrs. Lock, Mr. Manger, Mr. Webster, and all other people directly associated with CCDN seem to enjoy inexplicable protection from law enforcement and Bar discipline, despite numerous Plaintiffs’ written complaints andthe thousands of ruined lives and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage they have been causing since at least 2004.
556. The Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission received actual notice in December 2008 of Mr. Lock’s grossly unethical conductand grievous harm to the public, and has taken no action.
557. The Departmental Disciplinary Commission of the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department received actual notice in December 2008 of Mr. Manger’s grossly unethical conductand grievous harm to the public, and has taken no action.
558. The Illinois Attorney General has received actual notice, in the form of at least four written complaints, of CCDN’s racketeering activities, and has taken no action.
559. The Kansas Attorney General has received many complaints from consumers, but is only beginning an investigation and will not take action for months, if ever.
560. The Texas Attorney General has done nothing to CCDN, even though it is obviously the source of Mr. Lindsey’s debt elimination scam that TXAG denounced.
561. The North Carolina Attorney General received written notice in April 2009 of all of Plaintiffs’pending NCRICO cases against CCDN, and since all the hard work has been done and they have received Word files of Counsel’s writings ready to copy and paste, it would require no more than one working week for one assistant attorney general to draft a thorough and bulletproof complaint and motion for temporary restraining order, file the case and get summonses issued, obtain a temporary restraining order and appointment of receivers, and compose a press release.
562. On 09 September 2009, NCAG emailed to say they were just too busy and would not lift a finger to aid Plaintiffs, even though at least twelve Plaintiffs are North Carolinians who have suffered some $300,000 in damages at Defendants’ hands.
563. The Authorized Practice Committee of the North Carolina State Bar has actual knowledge of CCDN’s UPL in North Carolina, and has taken no action or even considered the matter at any of its meetings.
564. The 13th District Attorney received by hand delivery in September 2008 a request for investigation, injunction, and prosecution of UPL, but has taken no action even though NCGS § 84-7 requires him to.
565. The U.S. Secret Service, which has jurisdiction over crimes against federally insured banks, investigated CCDN and tried to get the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina to prosecute the case, but even though CCDN is committing the same types of crimes and frauds for which other USAOs have prosecuted other fraudsters and obtained convictions and lengthy active sentences, the Eastern District USAO claimed not to see a federal crime here, and declined to prosecute.
566. The Federal Trade Commission has likely received a number of complaints about CCDN, but since it has the Herculean if not Sisyphean task of protecting all consumers in the United States from all scams and frauds, FTC cannot be counted on to shut down any one particular scam, and to date FTC has taken no action against CCDN.
567. In Southwood v. The Credit Card Solution, NCED 7:09cv81-F, Ms. Southwood’s fully briefed motions for summary judgment and for appointment of receivers, supported by 69 exhibits (not one of which Defendants have denied, contradicted, or disproved) and a verified complaint conclusively proving her entitlement to relief, have been pending for weeks without any indication of a decision, despite Ms. Southwood’s repeated pleas in her case for immediate action on at least the receivership motion, and it is not uncommon for this Court to take six to twelve months to decide such matters.
NCGS § 1D-35 Aggravating Factors for Punitive Damages
568. Defendants’ conduct against Plaintiffs and Counsel is willful, wanton, and premeditated, and continues with no end in sight.
569. Defendants have defrauded the courts and deprived them of legitimacy, and wrongfully prevented Plaintiffs from recovering their property and damages by willfully misrepresenting facts and law and thereby achieving their desired results in the Bladen County Courthouse on 08 December 2008, 13 February 2009, 30 April 2009, and 18 September 2009, all to assist Defendants’escape from the consequences of their fraud against Plaintiffs and to perpetuate and expand their fraudulent debt elimination and credit repair scam on additional desperate people.
570. Defendants, especially Mr. Bettis, have displayed an attitude, pattern, policy, and practice of personal hostility and sheer malice against Plaintiffs and Counsel, evidenced by: Mr. Bettis’s threats to Counsel’s personal safety; obtaining (or concocting) and spreading untrue gossip concerning Counsel in his home courthouse; name-calling and use of profanity; threats of meritless lawsuits to harass and oppress Plaintiffs and Counsel; actual harassment and oppression by filing frivolous motions to dismiss and for sanctions; gratuitous and malicious embarrassment of Counsel by misrepresenting his Bar disciplinary record in open Court; dishonest attempts to get cases dismissed and Counsel disqualified by trickery; meritless threats to Counsel’s law license; attempted intimidation by misrepresenting that Counsel would be jailed for contempt of court in Ms. Southwood’s case; depriving Plaintiffs of Counsel’shonest services by means of frivolous and fraudulent disqualification motions; contacting two of Counsel’s clients without Counsel’s permission; falsely telling said clients “you have no lawyer” in order to upset and intimidate them into settling on unconscionably low terms; and generally vilifying Counsel and Plaintiffs for suing CCDN/TCCS and its personnel even though
Mr. Bettis knows as well as anyone else that his clients’ sole businessand source of revenue is fraud and crime, and Mr. Bettis also knows that Plaintiffs’claims against his clients are indefensible.
571. Defendants’ motives (to deprive Plaintiffs of their property, defraud banks and other lenders of rightful repayment, escape justice for fraud and crime, perpetuate and expand their wrongdoing) and Defendants’ conduct (use of illegal means including sham litigation and fraud on the court, motivated in large part by personal ill-will and malice toward Plaintiffs and Counsel) were and are reprehensible in the extreme, and aggravated by certain Defendants’ positions of trust and profitas members of the Bar and officers of the court.
572. Defendants’ conduct was, at the time, likely to cause and did cause serious harm to Plaintiffs, to wit, over $24,000,000 of money defrauded from Plaintiffs and some $150,000,000 in extra interest, fees, costs, and penalties from following Defendants’ directions, and Lawyer Defendants accepted Plaintiffs’ money in payment to keep their clients’ fraudulent scheme up and running for many additional months, ruining more lives every day all over the country, with no end in sight, and depriving Plaintiffs of their rightful recovery.
573. Defendants were perfectly aware of the consequences of their conduct, especially Mr. Lock, Mr. Manger, and Lawyer Defendants, all experienced lawyers who knew exactly what they were doing and who calculated their actions to gratuitously harm Plaintiffs by means well outside the bounds of Lawyer Defendants’ legitimate defense of their clients.
574. CCDN/TCCS Defendants’ conduct has been going on since 2004, and Lawyer Defendants’ conduct has been going on since at least November 2008, all of which continues with no end in sight and no significant interference from law enforcement; and Mr. Bettis personally represented on 30 April 2009 in open court that CCDN is a “great company” that will continue to expand its operations in North Carolina.
575. Plaintiffs’ actual damages are at a bare minimum the fees that Plaintiffs paid to Defendants, estimated at easily over $8,000,000 and probably over $24,000,000, and since Defendants are perpetuating a debt elimination and credit repair scam that by its own admission has induced its 6,000 victims not to pay back $150 million in credit card debt, Defendants are liable for that amount plus the many millions directly defrauded from Plaintiffs.
576. Defendants have attempted to conceal the facts and consequences of their conduct by among other things excessively fragmenting their enterprise into dozens of alter egos and aliases that no legitimate business needs, and by misrepresenting in court papers and oral argument that CCDN/TCCS is an “educational” organization that helps consumers reduce their debt, when Defendants know full well that CCDN/TCCS’sonly business is defrauding desperate people, laundering the money defrauded from them, and leaving them in even more debt.
577. Defendants have profited handsomely from their conduct, raking in at least $8,000,000 and probably over $24,000,000.
578. Defendants are either career confidence men who have made many millions off of Plaintiffs, or well-to-do corporate lawyers with considerable ability to pay punitive damages, and the latter also doubtless have insurance coverage for at least some of the occurrences that give rise to this action.
579. On 14 October 2009, Plaintiffs demanded their money back to the extent of Defendants’ ability to pay, but Defendants have not tendered any of it.
580. On 09 November 2009, Plaintiffs again demanded their money back, whereupon Mr. Bettis telephoned Counsel and claimed that CCDN/TCCS were legitimate businessmen, and that Counsel would be thrown in jail for contempt of court.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
581. COUNT I: CONSTRUCTIVE TRUST–The facts as pleaded above show that Defendants received Plaintiffs’ property by means of Defendants’defrauding it from Plaintiffs, or received Plaintiffs’ property from otherDefendants, unjustly enriching Defendants and entitling Plaintiffs to an order appointing Defendants constructive trustees of all money received from Plaintiffs, followed by an order requiring Defendants to transfer said money to Plaintiffs, the beneficiaries of said constructive trust.
582. COUNT II: UNJUST ENRICHMENT–The facts as pleaded above show that TCCS/CCDN Defendants’ sole source of income was to defraud Plaintiffs of their property, and the sole source of Lawyer Defendants’ fees for defending against Plaintiffs’ claims and keeping Plaintiffs’ property away from Plaintiffswas the money that Lawyer Defendants’ clients defrauded from Plaintiffs, thus unjustly enriching Defendants and entitling Plaintiffs to damages in that amount jointly and severally from all Defendants.
583. COUNT III: CONVERSION–The facts as pleaded above show that Defendants wrongfully deprived Plaintiffs of their property by means of mail and wire fraud and false pretenses, or by receiving it from other Defendants who so obtained it from Plaintiffs, and then willfully continued to wrongfully deprive Plaintiffs of their property by means including but not limited to willfully keeping Plaintiffs’ propertyfor their own use instead of giving it back to Plaintiffs, entitling Plaintiffs to actual damages plus the maximum punitive damages allowed by law.
584. COUNT IV: NORTH CAROLINA RACKETEER AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS ACT–The facts as pleaded above show that Individual Defendants unlawfully conducted the affairs of the RICO Enterprises through an unlawful pattern of racketeering activity per NCGS § 75D-3(c)(1)b, (c)(1)c, and (c)(2) that continues with no end in sight, to wit, two or more offenses of obtaining property by false pretenses in violation of NCGS § 14-100, and at least one act of extortion on or about 04 December 2008 by threatening Counsel with bodily harm to induce him to give up Plaintiffs’ right to recovery, violating 18 U.S.C. § 1951 and NCGS § 14-118.4, and two or more acts in violation of NCGS § 75D-3(c)(1)c and 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956 and/or 1957 of affecting interstate commerce by laundering money criminally derived from Plaintiffs by means of specified unlawful activity including mail, wire, and bank fraud per 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, and 1344, and conspired among themselves and with Entity Defendants to keep Plaintiffs’ property away from Plaintiffs andperpetuate their pattern of racketeering activity, and thereby caused actual economic loss to Plaintiffs in the amount of $24,000,000 directly defrauded and $150,000,000 in extra fees, penalties, costs, and interest from following Defendants’ instructions, totaling $174,000,000 (which is also the entire amount of damages owed to Plaintiffs in Bladen County file numbers 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885, and U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina case number 7:09cv81-F), thus violating NCGS § 75D-4 and entitling Plaintiffs to triple damages of $522,000,000, cumulatively per NCGS § 75D-10 with any other theory of relief including additional triple damages under federal RICO, together with a reasonable attorney’s fee and the costs of the action, jointly and severally from all Defendants, per
NCGS § 75D-8.
585. COUNT V: CREDIT REPAIR ORGANIZATIONS ACT–The facts as pleaded above show CCDN Defendants and TCCS Defendants accepted advance payment before doing work, and falsely promised credit repair or credit restoration, and that Lawyer Defendants agreed and conspired with their clients to use unlawful means of advocacy, including fraudulent denial that any other Defendant was a credit repair organization or had violated CROA, to enable their clients to continue violating CROA and prevent recovery of Plaintiffs’ property, rendering all Defendants liable for all of their clients’ acts in violation of CROA and entitling Plaintiffs to actual damages and punitive damages, together with a reasonable attorney’s fee and the costs of the action per 15 U.S.C. § 1679g.
586. COUNT VI: RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS ACT–The facts as pleaded above show that Individual Defendants unlawfully conducted the affairs of the RICO Enterprises through an unlawful pattern of racketeering activity that continues with no end in sight, including but not limited to use of the RICO Enterprises to commit at least one act of extortion on or about 04 December 2008 by threatening Counsel with bodily harm to induce him to give up Plaintiffs’ right to recovery, violating 18 U.S.C. § 1951 and NCGS § 14-118.4, and two or more acts of affecting interstate commerce by receiving across state lines property of greater value than $10,000 that their clients criminally derived from Plaintiffs by means of specified unlawful activity including mail, wire, and bank fraud per 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, and 1344, and laundering it in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956 and 1957, and thereby caused actual economic loss to Plaintiffs in the amount of $24,000,000 directly defrauded plus at least $150,000,000 of extra fees, costs, penalties, and interest resulting from Plaintiffs’ following Defendants’ instructions (also defined asthe entire damages owed to Plaintiffs in Bladen County file numbers 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885, and U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina case number 7:09cv81-F), thus violating 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c) and (d) and entitling Plaintiffs to triple damages of no less than $522,000,000 together with a reasonable attorney’s fee and the costs of the action, jointly and severally from all Individual Defendants per 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c).
587. COUNT VII: CIVIL CONSPIRACY–The facts as pleaded above show that Defendants conspired among themselves to commit, and each conspirator did commit in furtherance of said conspiracy, wrongful and unlawful acts upon Plaintiffs, injuring Plaintiffs by perpetuating and expanding their fraudulent racketeering enterprises and by violations of the Credit Reporting Organizations Act, and by sham litigation for the purpose of tortiously interfering with Plaintiffs’ rightful recovery, rendering each conspirator liable for all acts of each and every other conspirator as to all substantive counts, regardless of when any Defendant joined or left the conspiracy.
588. COUNT VIII: PIERCING THE CORPORATE/LLC VEIL–The facts as pleaded above show that Individual Defendants used Entity Defendants as a shield for illegal activity (mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, money laundering) and intentionally tortious conduct in violation of the declared public policy of the United States and of North Carolina, and also that Individual Defendants used Entity Defendants to carry out their scheme and inequitably prevent Plaintiffs from recovering their own property, and also failed to observe corporate formalities and excessively fragmented their enterprises not for any legitimate business need but for the purpose of evading responsibility for their wrongful acts, such that Individual Defendants are one and the same with their alter egos Entity Defendants and are personally liable for all acts of Entity Defendants.
589. COUNT IX: TORTIOUS INTERFERENCE WITH PROSPECTIVE BUSINESS ADVANTAGE–The facts as pleaded above show that Plaintiffs had a reasonable expectation of recovering damages to which they were legally entitled in Bladen County file numbers 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885, and U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina case number 7:09cv81-F, totaling not less than $522,000,000, but Defendants prevented, reduced, or delayed Plaintiffs’ recovery, not in the legitimate exercise of any Defendant’s own rights, but with design to injure Plaintiffs by means of sham litigation, willfully and maliciously misrepresenting facts and law to courts and opponents in order to win in the absence of reasonable expectation of a favorable ruling, and willfully and maliciously depriving Plaintiffs of Counsel’s services, as evidenced by Mr. Bettis’s demonstrated personal malice and hostility toward Plaintiffs and Counsel, when Defendants knew that there was no good faith defense to Plaintiffs’ claims, rendering Defendants liable for the entire amount of damages owed to Plaintiffs in Bladen County file numbers 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885, and U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina case number 7:09cv81-F, together with punitive damages sufficient to punish and deter similar malicious and willful misconduct.
590. COUNT X: GROSSLY AND WILLFULLY NEGLIGENT SUPERVISION AND RETENTION–The facts as pleaded above show that all Lawyer Defendants except Mr. Bettis negligently supervised him, despite all Lawyer Defendants’ knowledge of his misbehavior, and thereby allowed him to violate the Revised Rules of Professional Conduct, behave unprofessionally and abusively toward Counsel and Plaintiffs, fraudulently misrepresent material issues of fact and law to tribunals and opponents with the purpose and effect of depriving said tribunals of legitimacy and illegally and wrongfully delaying and denying relief to which Plaintiffs were legally and unquestionably entitled, and use means and methods of advocacy that had no purpose other than malicious embarrassment, harassment, and oppression of Plaintiffs and Counsel; and despite actual knowledge of the foregoing, all other Lawyer Defendants retained Mr. Bettis in their service and allowed, requested, or ordered him to keep on acting that way in order to keep on winning in the absence of reasonable expectation of a favorable ruling, thus entitling Plaintiffs to actual damages from all other Lawyer Defendants besides Mr. Bettis, including but not limited to the full amount due to Plaintiffs from Defendants’ clients in Bladen County file numbers 08 CVD 883, 884, and 885, and U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina case number 7:09cv81-F of $522,000,000, together with punitive damages to the extent that Defendants’ negligence was willful or wanton.
WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs pray judgment against Defendants for damages as pleaded above, totaling not less than $1,044,000,000 (one billion forty-four million dollars) plus such maximum punitive damages as are consistent with CROA, NCGS Chapter 1D, the common law, and constitutional due process, together with the costs of the action and a reasonable attorney fee, plus other and further relief as this Court finds lawful and just.
TRIAL BY JURY IS HEREBY DEMANDED OF ALL ISSUES SO TRIABLE.
/s/Christopher W. Livingston
Christopher W. Livingston
Counsel for Plaintiffs
2154 Dowd Dairy Road
White Oak NC 28399
Land line and fax 910 866 4948
NC State Bar No. 27282
LR 83.1 Counsel
aegis bettis dunn & dunn brad daley carefree debt ccdn colleen tomassino lock Credit Collections Defense Network david kramer debt jurisprudence emanuel & dunn fdrs Federal Debt Relief System freedom from debt alliance Greg Britt jen devine joanne k partin joanne partin John Gliha john hagenstein jubilee financial services Lawgistix lee bettis lee w bettis legal debt cure marcia murphy Mark Cella novation pat leigh pittman phillip m. manger r.k. lock & associates raymond dunn raymond e dunn Richard Russ rk lock & associates robert emanuel robert k lock robert l emanuel robert lock robert mitchell lindsey s. john hagenstein stephen a dunn stephen dunn tccs the credit card solution
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Kevin Summers says:
When you want to buy something you simply can’t afford what do you do? Charge it and let someone else pay for it? Don’t you think you are the responsible party to pay for that item or do you think it’s just free. you’re the reason interest rates are so high loser. You’re the loser who cant pay your bills and you blame the banks, get real idiot!
Colleenlock says:
These are all lies and have been posted by the real crooks that steal from anyone they can and in any way they can. All these suits were dropped because of a mentally unstable lawyer Livingston thought he could get some money from lawyers insurances. The courts through all these cases out of court!Get your facts straight
A word to the wise, John Gliha’s course or whatever he calls it is worthless. The man cannot even pay his own mortgage or his HOA fees where he lives. According to public record Gliha is currently in mortgage foreclosure himself. He is even being foreclosed on by the HOA where he resides. This is all public record available on the internet from the Orange County Florida clerk or courts. Please go look for yourself. On his website he claims to have made over 2 million dollars a year just by following his course. If this were true would you default on your mortgage if you made that much money? Buyer beware.
Ironbearjon says:
I did the same thing QL only I used a series of letters that I developed on my own. I got over 60k of debt charged off just by sending the banks letters and asking for validation and verification of the debt.. which they cannot do because they’re committing fraud. They don’t loan you anything (but they want you to think they do) because it’s ILLEGAL for a bank to loan it’s assets! So they make an entry in a computer and create money out of thin air.. call it a loan.. and then want YOU to pay it back to them. I second the motion.. wake up sheeples!! Turn off your TV! you’re being lied to and it’s WAY deeper than banks.
Qlperformance says:
This group zeroed out my debt years ago. What’s the fuss now? Banks paying off their whore cronies to shut down an enemy. The Federal Reserve and the whole banking system is disgusting.
Yea, like an army of attorneys that invalidated 1000’s of clients debts over the past 9 years are all of a sudden scammers. Please…
Wake up sheeple! Welcome to Fascism.
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Prices and Times
More to see in The Hague
Stories about crime and punishment
Stories about persecution and liberty
Stories about constitutional state and peace
Van Oldenbarnevelt
Sebastiaan Society
Verander taal naar:
The Stichting Haags Historisch Museum (The Historical Museum of The Hague Foundation) comprises the Historical Museum of the Hague and the Prison Gate Museum. The Historical Museum of The Hague is housed in the Sint Sebastiaansdoelen, which was built in 1636 for the Guild of Saint Sebastian, an archers' guild. Since the 13th century, the Prison Gate has been a gatehouse to the castle of the Counts of Holland. Both buildings are national monuments and iconic city landmarks in the area surrounding the Hofvijver pond.
Click here for more information about the Stichting Haags Historisch Museum.
info@gevangenpoort.nl
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Posts tagged "property"
By Linde Hyder
Breathtaking sunsets, twinkling city lights and a resort atmosphere provide a captivating backdrop for four condominium residences situated within Longboat Key’s Water Club. Stretching 12 miles along Florida’s Gulf Coast, Longboat Key boasts soft white sand beaches, championship golf, fine dining and an array of cultural activities. Complementing these enviable surroundings, the Water Club offers elevators leading to private entry foyers, soaring walls of glass in each residence, tennis, swimming, fitness center, a grand clubhouse and concierge services along with private beach access resulting in the finest Florida lifestyle imaginable. (more…)
By Alyssa Mammano
With humble origins of pineapple farms, today’s Boca Raton, known to more than 200,000 residents, has made great strides over the past millennium. The earliest cataloged history of Boca Raton, Florida noted its beginnings as a Tequesta Indian settlement. It wasn’t until the construction of the Florida East Coast Canal, which is today’s Intracoastal, as well as the Florida East Coast Railway in the 1890s, that Boca began to boom. The newly-developed accessibility brought pioneers to the area in the early 1900s who created a small agricultural community. Just a quarter of a century later, in 1925, the Town of Boca Raton was incorporated. This was during the pinnacle of Florida’s rush for land and expansion. (more…)
Each of our Top 5 Homes of the Week sprawl over 6,000-15,000 square feet for supremely grandiose living and entertaining. In a month that signifies change and growth, opportunity abounds in the luxury real estate market. All of the option curated below offer tremendous additions to any luxury real estate portfolio as vacation homes, family estates or an entertainer’s paradise. Watch below to find your next dream home.
Majestic mountains, vibrant city lights and lush green fairways combine to create a spectacular setting for this award-winning home in Scottsdale, Arizona. Enviably situated on the 17th hole of the exclusive DC Ranch Country Club, the 1.2-acre property offers a private, luxurious lifestyle within minutes to world-class entertainment, exciting nightlife, fine dining and shopping, as well as a variety of outdoor adventures. (more…)
Custom designed and built for multi-time supercross and motocross champion, Chad Reed, this home features luxurious finishes including a full gym, beach entry salt water pool, boat ramp, floating dock and boat lift. Tucked away at the end of a private, gated cul-de-sac on 3.12 acres, this home offers stunning views of Clear Lake and the neighboring hillside of San Antonio. (more…)
Rare is the opportunity to own a property that brings together the best of both worlds. Watch the sun rise over the sparkling waters of the Atlantic Ocean while enjoying morning coffee. Relax with a glass of wine while gazing at a technicolor sky as the sun sets over the Intracoastal. It’s all possible in Manalapan, a tranquil island community located just minutes to the Palm Beach International Airport. (more…)
Acres of lush rolling hills, a pleasant year-round climate and a vibrant equestrian community create the perfect setting for horse and nature enthusiasts alike in the Central Florida city of Ocala. Located halfway between Gainesville and Orlando, Ocala boasts Southern hospitality and small-town charm amid a landscape punctuated by stately Grandfather oaks draped in Spanish moss and green pastures filled with grazing horses. According to real estate broker Joan Pletcher, “it’s very magical here.” (more…)
Surrounded by stately Grandfather oaks, towering magnolia trees and rolling green lawns, lies Casa Di Vetro, a once-in-a-lifetime offering that defies comparison. White Trout Lake provides an enviable backdrop for this 8.38-acre compound punctuated by a sprawling 13,000-square-foot “House of Glass.” Thoughtfully crafted to incorporate Florida’s natural beauty and warm sunlight, the home features an abundance of seamless glass throughout interior spaces creating a setting that is as grand for entertaining as it is for comfortable family living. (more…)
Luxury has no limits! The Ritz-Carlton Residences managed by the 5-star staff of The Ritz-Carlton detail a distinctively refined world of waterfront elegance and striking sophistication. Strategically positioned in the heart of the city and on nearby Lido Beach, these residences offer panoramic views of shimmering Gulf and Bay waters, sparkling city lights, spectacular sunrises and epic sunsets. (more…)
One of the most significant residential estates ever created in Green Bay, Wisconsin is located ten minutes from Lambeau Field and the main interchange. It’s a magnificent new construction French chateau with 27,699 square feet under roof and a two-story walkout resting on approximately 10 acres of private woods. Nestled in a wooded sanctuary with deer and turkeys galore, this estate also boasts two ponds stocked full with Brown Trout, Croppies and Walleye. A luxuriant, private hunting and fishing haven for the avid wildlife enthusiast, this estate is located on a cul de sac featuring only three homes in the development. It has no equal. This seven-bedroom, eight-full-bath and three-half-bath Chateau is recognized as one of the most exquisite homes being built in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It’s currently 90% complete and is for purchase as is for $8,440,000. (more…)
duPont REGISTRY
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Search and browse through the world’s finest homes at the premier luxury real estate site at www.duPontREGISTRY.com. duPont REGISTRY™ is the gateway to a ton of renowned luxury homes, fine estates, and unique properties for sale from around the world. We showcase the world’s finest luxury real estate for sale from the beaches of the Fiji Island to the mountains of Colorado. From tropical island estates to lush country cottages, duPont REGISTRY™ brings a wealth of international luxury properties directly to the consumer in their home. Indulge yourself in our luxury home listings. Our extensive list of luxury homes for sale enables you to find the prestigious property for which you have been looking. duPont REGISTRY™ is the exclusive intermediary between ultra-affluent buyers and luxury-real-estate sellers.
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Big 12 College Football Featured Texas Longhorns Football
Defensive Preview: Kansas
With Sam Ehlinger back in the saddle, the Texas offense looks to capitalize against a frequently struggling Kansas defense
Jameson McCausland
Defensive tackle Daniel Wise may be the best player on the Kansas defense. Wise has 4 sacks and 9.5 tackles for loss on the season. Zach Shackelford, Patrick Vahe and Elijah Rodriguez held up very well against a tough Iowa State defensive line, so it’s hard to imagine Wise giving them too much trouble.
Whenever the Kansas defensive line is matched up against at least an average offensive line, they have played poorly. Oklahoma State, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Texas Tech imposed their will at the line of scrimmage. It would be surprising if Texas wasn’t able to do the same.
Senior linebackers Joe Dineen Jr. and Keith Loneker Jr. have combined for almost 200 tackles and are very active around the ball. Both players have been forced to make a lot of plays at the second level. An important thing to note when it comes to the Kansas run defense is when it rains, it pours. Whenever teams have success against the Jayhawks on the ground, it comes in bunches and the yards start to pile up quickly. Even an 80% healthy Tre Watson and Keaontay Ingram should be enough for Texas to get up around the 200-yard rushing mark.
No. 1 corner Shakial Taylor has had a very solid year, recording 2 interceptions and forcing a fumble. Where Texas will really have an advantage is the other side of the field, where freshman Corione Harris holds down the other corner position. Harris made headlines during his recruitment as being one of the first 4-star recruits to ever commit to Kansas. Teams tend to target Harris more than his senior counterpart, and that trend should continue on Friday afternoon. Hasan Defense and Mike Lee hold down the two safety positions. Both are solid players.
Regardless of who starts at quarterback for Texas, the Longhorns should have success moving the ball through the air. Lil’ Jordan Humphrey and Collin Johnson were freshmen when the Longhorns visited Lawrence in 2016, with neither recording a catch. Both receivers are now playing at a high level, and Texas will need to take advantage of the mismatches.
In this article:College Football, Defensive Preview, featured, kansas jayhawks, Texas Longhorns
Staff Predictions: Texas vs. Kansas
Commitment Spotlight: Jacoby Jones
Written By Jameson McCausland
Jameson McCausland is originally from Frisco, Texas, where he grew up a Longhorn fan. His two favorite sports are football and baseball, both of which he covers for HornSports. He enjoys spending time with family and friends in his spare time. Jameson is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.
Quick Thoughts on the Commitment of Lake McRee
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How I Survived the Mongol Derby: The World’s Longest, Toughest Horse Race
Riding 28 semi-wild horses through 620 miles of Mongolian wilderness is no pony trek
Liz Brown
The young teen with a feathered mustache shuffled over to me, his eyes slightly down cast as he tried to shove the lead rope in my hands. Reflexively, I sighed and waved him off. I’d already ridden more than 60 miles today and it was only 3 p.m. My grasp on reality—and good manners—had vanished many kilometers before, left somewhere out on the wide open steppe.
Mongolia. August, 2015. The sun was an angry burning orb in an endless blue sky, no clouds in sight to offer even a wisp of respite from the heat. Sweat ran in small rivers down my back and chest, drenching my long sleeved shirt intended to protect my skin from the vicious UV rays. The only thought I had was seeking shade in the nearby ger, where I could sip water and try to settle the dizziness and nausea that had been plaguing me since the early morning.
As I made a move toward the tent for a second time, the kid tugged at my sleeve and I felt his calloused hand close on top of mine. He said something to me, insistently in Mongolian, and jerked his head toward the horse at the end of the rope. I eyed his animal, a 13hh stocky flea bitten grey with a forelock that hid his eyes. The gelding didn’t look like much, especially after I’d just made good time on a lovely lithe chestnut athlete that was a mini version of the Thoroughbreds back home, but the boy looked excited at the prospect of me riding his pony and all I wanted was five minutes of peace. I raised a shaky hand and pointed to my saddle that had been tossed in some goat turds and gave the boy the thumbs up. He grinned and got to tacking the horse that would carry me over the next 25 miles of inhospitable Mongolian wilderness.
Celebrating completing the first 25 miles of the Mongol Derby. I had no idea what was to come.
Fifteen minutes later the boy and his father were working together, holding the grey’s head to prevent him from bolting while I tried to mount. In the span of a quarter of an hour, the animal I’d dismissed as a Thelwell pony had morphed into the Mongolian American Pharaoh. The herders knotted my reins in a tight loop and as I swung my leg over, they released the grey’s head and pointed vaguely in a northwestern direction. I had just a second to grab my reins before we were in a flat tack bolt across the marmot-hole riddled grasslands.
As the wind whipped my face and watery eyes blurred my vision, I glanced around for my riding companions—Irish jockey Paddy Woods and Swede Thomas Ellingsen. Paddy was right beside me, galloping on a little bay, yelling “just let him go!” as I battled the open-mouthed grey for control.
In the span of a quarter of an hour, the animal I’d dismissed as a Thelwell pony had morphed into the Mongolian American Pharaoh.
Thomas was on a bolter he couldn’t steer, galloping the opposite direction through a swampy wetland. I gritted my teeth in terror praying we wouldn’t hit a hole and cartwheel and Paddy cackled. “These horses are brilliant. Tough as nails I tell ya,” he whooped as we covered more than nine miles in just over 20 minutes. By that time Thomas had somehow steered his bolter in the same direction and we were all galloping together, three semi heat stroked maniacs headed towards horse station 14.
The predictable unpredictable
It was Day 4 of the Mongol Derby and as I finally relaxed aboard the grey and accepted I’d have to put my faith and fate in his surefooted hooves for the next hour and a half, I realized I still had no clue how to assess a Mongolian horse for speed or endurance. Horses with the sprung-ribbed greyhound look of an endurance athlete could turn out to be lazy duds that travelled at speeds of less than 10 kilometers an hour, while equines that looked like fat pony ride mounts—like the one I was currently strapped to—turned out to be stunning racers that left me simultaneously crying tears of joy and terror while I clutched their necks, my only thoughts centered on surviving the immediate few moments into the future.
When I was alone on Day 2, I had a wild dog chase me and my galloping mount…
So it was in the Derby, where the only predictable element was that everything was unpredictable. In the first four days, we suffered through record heat that hovered around 104 degrees Fahrenheit. The medical team put several riders on IV drips to combat dehydration, with repeat Derby rider Devan Horn—the field favorite to win—permanently knocked out of the race due to heat exhaustion and near kidney failure, who spent a night vomiting bile and urinating blood. Earlier that day, the same day I thought I might die on the bolting grey, Horn had collapsed off her horse, staggering to a nearby stream to cool off and finally deliriously knocking on the door of a ger, where a kind Mongolian family took her in until emergency help could arrive. Around the same time another rider, Sian Dyson, was evacuated back to Ulaanbaatar, also with heat exhaustion, after her condition couldn’t be stabilized out on the steppe.
Halfway through the race, I remember feeling crushed for these riders who had their adventure cut short, who’d both ponied up the $15,000 entry fee for the ride of a lifetime. But then, on Day 7, when the rains came and the temperature hovered around eight degrees and I battled a chest infection and fever through biting winds, in a fit of hypothermic delirium, I wished I could trade places with one of them, so I too could lie down and rest my shattered body.
This sort of irrational thinking haunted me throughout the 620-mile journey. When I was alone on Day 2 and had a wild dog chase me and my galloping mount for a good ten minutes, I started screaming “I DON’T HAVE MY RABIES SHOT” as the dog lunged and snapped with foaming fangs. And when I was safe five minutes later my deranged laughter at escaping death quickly turned to inconsolable weeping as I realized I’d dropped my GPS somewhere in the domain of the Mongolian Cujo.
My hero, who took me on the back of his motorcycle to search for my lost GPS.
Half an hour later I was giddy again as I bombed across flats and through rivers at 80 miles an hour on the back of a Soviet-era motorcycle, my Mongolian driver swooping down and picking up my
lost GPS on the path.
“Things become very primal out there,” offered Derby volunteer Erik Cooper two mornings after the race was all over and we were lingering over coffee at a Mongolian camp halfway between Ulaanbaatar and Lake Hovsgol.
I’d just confessed a meltdown I’d had on Day 6, when three fellow riders on speedier mounts had abandoned me in a valley in the middle of a thunderstorm. With lightning striking the ground all around and both my horse and I shaking in terror, I started wailing “why the F—K did I think I could do this?” and almost pressed the SOS button on the spot tracker race officials required all riders to wear. An SOS call meant immediate disqualification and my race would have ended right there. After a moment of collecting myself, I continued on, repeating a mantra I’d adopted after the dog chase: You wanted an adventure, THIS is an adventure.
For four nights I stayed outside of Derby-sanctioned camps, relying on the hospitality of Mongolian families who didn’t speak one word of English. I’d ride up at dusk and play a game of charades, miming that I’d like to sleep in their ger. They all graciously obliged, no matter what their economic situation. I stayed with families who slept on dirt floors because they couldn’t afford beds and families wealthy enough to afford solar panels and freezer chests inside their gers.
I continued on, repeating a mantra I’d adopted after the dog chase: You wanted an adventure? THIS is an adventure.
The common bond was their kindness to strangers and respect for the horse. Each family I stayed with would immediately take my horse from me, untack it, and lead it to water, then hobble it for the night to graze. In the morning before sunrise, as I readied myself to race yet again, they would rise with me and assist me in readying my mount—a gesture I was incredibly grateful for due to my lack of experience handling the local horses (twice I was kicked when I approached them from the side instead of their shoulder).
I finished the race in nine days, firmly in the middle of the pack. Aside from muscle strains, bruises and chafing in unmentionable areas, I escaped unscathed. I had my first and only fall on Day five when one of my horses tumbled in a marmot hole and luckily only landed on the fatty part of my thigh. The most noticeable impact was the psychological scarring as for days after the race ended, I’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming “I NEED TO GET TO THE NEXT HORSE STATION.”
All smiles in the beginning…©The Adventurists
My performance won’t go down in the annals of Derby history, but the experience was life altering. I rode almost 200 kilometers alone in the Mongolian wilderness on horses I barely knew. I worked cooperatively with riders from all parts of the globe to navigate from horse station to horse station. I crossed cultural barriers and made friends with people who live a life entirely alien to my own. And in the darkest times, when I was sick, heat stroked, hypothermic and injured, I drew on an inner strength I was never aware I possessed.
On Day 6, two time Derby rider Simon Pearse said to me “If you make it through this race, you truly realize ‘shit, I can do absolutely anything.’”
And with this newfound confidence, I’m searching for that next adventure.
File Under
endurance horse race Mongol Derby travel
More from Endurance
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You are at:Home»Festival»2014 Heartland Film Festival Announces Grand Prize Winners, Awards Over $115,000 to Independent Filmmakers
2014 Heartland Film Festival Announces Grand Prize Winners, Awards Over $115,000 to Independent Filmmakers
By heartlandfilm on October 18, 2014 Festival
“Siddharth” wins $45,000 Grand Prize for Best Narrative Feature, “Happiness” wins $45,000 Grand Prize for Best Documentary Feature, “Record” wins $5,000 Grand Prize for Best Narrative Short and “Showfolk” wins $5,000 Grand Prize for Best Documentary Short
This evening the 23rd annual Heartland Film Festival (Oct. 16-25, 2014) has announced its Grand Prize Award Winners at its Awards Ceremony at Old National Centre. The event was presented by The David and Betty Klapper Family Foundation.
This year, the Heartland Film Festival gives its moviegoers access to more than 140 visiting independent filmmakers from all over the world, right in the heart of the Midwest. Heartland showcases 135 entertaining movies that do more than just entertain over 10 days of red carpet premieres and events, parties and hundreds of film screenings across Indianapolis.
“It is extraordinary to see filmmakers return to the Heartland Film Festival, especially with such strong films,” said Tim Irwin, Heartland Film’s artistic director. ”This year it’s exciting to have Richie Mehta, director of ‘Siddharth’, back after he had his first feature film here in 2008. Thomas Balmès has previously received the Truly Moving Picture Award for ‘Babies’ in 2010, and his film ‘Happiness’ is another fantastic cinematic achievement.”
The Heartland Film Festival has earned the special designation of being a qualifying festival for the Annual Academy Awards® within the Short Films category. This means that the winner of the Grand Prize for Best Narrative Short Film (“Record,” directed by David Lyons) will qualify for consideration in the Short Films category of the Annual Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run, provided the film otherwise complies with the Academy rules.
Winners and nominees include:
$45,000 Grand Prize for Best Narrative Feature
WINNER: “Siddharth,” directed by Richie Mehta (India, Canada)
“Cicada,” directed by Dean Yamada (Japan)
“Drunktown’s Finest,” directed by Sydney Freeland (USA)
“The Referee,” directed by Paolo Zucca (Italy, Argentina)
“Uzumasa Limelight,” directed by Ken Ochiai (Japan)
$45,000 Grand Prize for Best Documentary Feature
WINNER: “Happiness,” directed by Thomas Balmès
“Gabor,” directed by Sebastián Alfie (Spain)
“Light Fly, Fly High,” directed by Beathe Hofseth, Susann Østigaard (Norway)
“Marmato,” directed by Mark Grieco (Columbia, USA)
“We Are the Giant,” directed by Greg Barker (Bahrain, Lybia, Syria, USA)
$5,000 Grand Prize for Best Narrative Short
Underwritten by Heartland Film Endowment’s Sparks Vision Award
WINNER: “Record,” directed by David Lyons (Australia)
“Grand Canal,” directed by Johnny Ma (China)
“Houses with Small Windows,” directed by Bülent Öztürk (Belgium)
“Keys of Heaven,” directed by Hamy Ramezan (Finland)
“Yearbook,” directed by Bernardo Britto (USA)
$5,000 Grand Prize for Best Documentary Short
WINNER: “Showfolk,” directed by Ned McNeilage (USA)
“German Shepherd,” directed by Nils Bergendal (Sweden)
“Our Curse,” directed by Tomasz Śliwiński (Poland)
“Ghosts on the Mountain,” directed by Jared Jakins, Carly Jakins (USA)
“White Earth,” directed by J. Christian Jensen (USA)
$2,000 prizes for the Jimmy Stewart Memorial Crystal Heart Awards
$2,500 Grand Prize Winner of the High School Film Competition
“Chris,” directed by Zachary Oschin (USA)
Visit www.heartlandfilmfestival.org for the full film lineup, schedule and tickets.
Volunteer Spotlight: How Has Heartland Film Impacted Your Life?
Heartland International Film Festival and Indy Shorts International Film Festival Open 2019 Call for Entries
Heartland International Film Festival Announces 2018 Jury Winners and Awards, Bestows More Than $80,000 in Cash Prizes
Heartland Film News
June 28, 2019 0 Heartland Film announces films to be shown at Indy Shorts International Film Festival
May 29, 2019 0 Heartland Film announces the Jenni Berebitsky Legacy Award ahead of Indy Shorts International Film Festival
April 12, 2019 0 Volunteer Spotlight: How Has Heartland Film Impacted Your Life?
February 25, 2019 0 From Indy to Oscar
January 31, 2019 0 Heartland Film Honors “Little Woods” with Truly Moving Picture Award
January 29, 2019 0 Heartland Film Signs Gender Parity Pledge and First Top-Level Partnership with Alliance of Women Directors
January 25, 2019 0 “That’s a Wrap!” Volunteer and Sponsor Appreciation Party
January 14, 2019 0 “The Kid Who Would Be King” Honored with Truly Moving Picture Award
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Top 10 Most Complained About Companies in November 2017
As with every month, Pissed Consumer handles incoming information from users to compare companies and to identify the most complained about products/services of the month. Of that list, we give you the 10 companies consumers complained about the most on pissedconsumer.com. Below are the ones that were mostly discussed about in November.
1. GearBest
Overall, the company has received some great reviews in the past. Most of the consumers that shared their experience with Gearbest said that they have been particularly pleased with the prices of the products, like a consumer who reported that he/she got his/her quadcopter at 30% lower price compared to other websites.
In general, there were also quite a few very favorable reviews about their customer service. So, it came as a surprise to realize that the company received an increasing amount of complaints regarding their customer service and quality of their products last month. You may check more Gearbest reviews on pissedconsumer.com.
A representative example of what most consumers were complaining about the previous month is this consumer's Gearbest review:
"they took my money send me a phone, I returned the phone since three months now no money back, no other phone, no answers to my questions no matter how many times, countless times without no help and no results. Chat doesn't work either, no phone numbers no real email addresses to remove problems quicker, no nothing..."
You can tell the frustration they feel in their review, and rightfully so. In many other cases, the purchased product was either faulty, discontinued or was not delivered at all and consumers did not receive any refund either. Given the general positive image of the company, could these issues be due to Black Friday and Cyber Monday high volumes and understaffing conditions?
2. Wish
The overwhelming majority of Wish reviews mentioned problems with reaching the company's customer service department to either ask for a refund or to cancel an order. What is more, the customer service number seems to be of no real use. Like this Wish review from a consumer that reports:
"My fiance andI have ordered many things,however had a terrible time trying to get help with items that need returning/ refunding! … To make matters worse, you give a customer service number that you can't talk with anyone you just r referred back to the web! We have now paid for three items that do not fit and No Customer Service!..."
There were also several Wish complaints about items that have not been delivered, as well as poor quality items, some of which were also violating trademark and copyright, orders partially cancelled by the company without giving a refund, as well as some issues with putting items on consumers' charge without permission.
3. Tophatter
Their most complained about products/services had to do with delivery issues and products that had been misrepresented, cheaply made or with misleading pictures and descriptions.
A consumer that signs off as Theresa Nelson mentions in her Tophatter online review:
"They put something in my cart and i told them i didnt order it, so i cancelled the order now they have barred me from using their site for a year. Its ridiculous its a rip off i ordered a bracelet and as soon as i opened it the turquoise stone fell out of it... Im sick of companies ripping us off, they take advantage of u with the low prices..."
There were also a lot of Tophatter reviews about problems with payment/refund. See, for example, what this consumer reported about an item they bought from Tophatter (total worth of $275):
"They were supposed to refund my purchase then they changed their mind and I was told that they were mailing back my item. After a few weeks and many lies out of Amy and Pia, I found out that they destroyed my property and offered me a 25.00 credit..."
4. AOL
The company gathered a lot of complaints last month about the bad quality of the Aol Gold Desktop Application. In detail, people talked about how slow it was on their machines, the fact that they now have to pay for it, the ineffective/rude customer service, and that it caused issues with their email list (most consumers reported that their list had been, somehow, deleted).
Here is one of the Aol complaints where a consumer appeared dissatisfied with the AOL Gold Desktop Application for the following reason:
"The new AOL Gold we have been forced to upgrade to is really crap. I have been a paying member for 25 + years and AOL Gold has taken us back to the dark ages. Repeatedly get messages that they are having problems loading my e-mail. I delete e-mails and they keep coming back. The service is slower than molasses..."
Other consumers were struggling to find solutions to problems that had been raised after the company forced all its members to switch over to Gold. In the next Aol review a consumer not only lost all his/her favorites but was facing payment issues too:
"...I lost all my favorites and no way to get them back. Before I was forced to switch over to Gold... Now I have a second problem: I'm locked out of AOL altogether. They say they can't bill my credit card, but I'm paid through Aug 2018. It's Nov 2017 now and I have no AOL."
Almost all consumers that had tried the upgraded Gold software admitted that this switch was deeply disappointing as a result. Even those that did receive customer support and had their computers taken over by the tech support team, admitted that they hadn’t been provided with a sound solution to their troubles with AOL Gold.
In fact, there were AOL complaints about the software having bugs, like in this consumer's case:
"Tech support took over my computer. Made some adjustments to AOL files. Same problem persists but now my AOL will not save my passwords on their software. The only thing the tech support suggested was to send a bug report to AOL support."
5. DIRECTV
Their most complained product/service was their overall customer service, while there also were reports about evasive billing practices and broken promises. In fact, if we compare companies that had made it to the top 10 most complained about list for November, DIRECTV had the most reports regarding their customer service department.
Consumers appeared deeply disappointed with the company’s response to their issues, like this consumer in their review about DIRECTV customer service:
"...Tech was suppose to call 1 hr prior to coming because we had to leave work to get home. They did call but got to house prior and waited 3 to 4 minutes and left. Not once but twice. Still without tv. So not happy, had to reschedule again for a third time. They could and should have called the tech as soon as i called them..."
Billing issues seem to also be high up on the list of complaints too. DIRECTV subscribers were billed early cancellation fees after moving to a new home where they could not have a dish, when the company’s tech stuff had reassured them they would waive the early termination fee. Others said they had received calls from collection agencies for unpaid bills, for accounts that had been closed long ago, while many people also mentioned how the company had missed their install date by several weeks (in some case, months), with no communication on behalf of the customer service or tech department to either apologize or inform of the exact install date.
Other DIRECTV complaints were related to:
Taking payment from consumers' account without their permission.
Falsely charging consumers for ordering products (i.e. NFL channel).
Not liking the new format and having picture problems.
It seems that what most consumers were complaining about Walmart's 2-day shipping policy, like this consumer who reported:
"I have ordered many items from Walmart and use their "2 day shipping"… since August nothing has been delivered within two days and they began charging more for some of the items being shipped. Calling it a “pickup discount” this is very deceptive advertising ... They should not be able to lie to consumers without consequences. This is unacceptable."
Again, customer service was a pain point for this company too, as consumers complained much about unprofessional behaviors and waiting too long to have somebody from customer service to hear them out about a problem they were facing with their order.
The number of Walmart complaints received in November concerning broken items, malfunctioning products, and order cancellations were pretty much the standard one can expect from a company like Walmart, where large volumes of goods and products are shipped daily.
Human error is always a factor that needs to be taken into account in every business. This consumer’s case highlights an issue with Walmart credit card:
"I applied a year and a half ago at walmart for a credit card and got granted $800 credit, shortly after about 3 months, they sent me a letter increasing my credit limit to $1500... I always payed it off right after the purchase so my balance statement is almost always zero... Today right before Thanksgiving and Black Friday, they reduced the amount at $100..."
7. Megabus
Most of Megabus reviews were about drivers being late (or buses leaving too early, leaving passengers behind) and, in some cases, even drivers who were rude to customers. For instance, this consumer says about Megabus:
"Me and my injured brother were getting off at Scarborough town station at 2:40 am. The driver refused to look for our bag and talk with so rudeness because our bags were in the different section of the bus. At the same time one white guy came and asked for his bag the driver gave his bag which was also in the different section but not ours. How is this fair..."
There are also mentions by consumers who had bought a ticket of being left without a seat (some had to wait in the cold for the next bus to come), as well as of payment problems, where consumers expected a refund for cancellations only to find out that they have been charged an extra amount of money for rescheduling their trip.
8. Roblox
Although Roblox is a company that received the largest amount of positive reviews (if we compare companies on this list today), they had also received a bulk of complaints about players being scammed and accounts being hacked or banned for no reason. Those who know the game, are aware that such instances are not uncommon and that you need to be very careful who you share your account details with when you trade.
However, it seems that there was an increase in complaints about issues with players’ accounts in November, and people losing money because their accounts were hacked, like this consumer, who reported about their daughter’s Roblox account:
"My daughter's Roblox account was hacked and had money stolen. I had just purchased over 150.00 worth of robux for her. She also had a balance stolen worth 7,000 robux total that was taken... We sent a complaint form to Roblox and they never responded. This other party changed my daughter's password too. We want our money back!..."
As highlighted in the consumer's report above, users also had a hard time reaching out to the company's customer support because the only communication channel available was email. So, you just needed to send them an email with your issue and to wait for a reply. Although replies were usually quite fast, there were times when you need to speak to a company representative urgently.
9. Lowes
Lowes complaints about customer care prevailed last month. Consumers appeared frustrated by the way their issues were handled, unprofessional (almost unethical) behaviour of the company when they send a subcontractor to finish their project, while others report about Lowes employees unwilling to help:
"...I went to buy a washer and dryer waited half hour for someone to help me... ask if I could pay for them and was told to take it up front because they were busy but all but One where laughing and talking with each other... she told me to go to check out line I explain that I wanted to pay for my washer and dryer and the lady said I’m busy take it to the check out line..."
There were also complaints by consumers who had purchased a product with installation from Lowes. They reported that their credit card had been charged the full amount before anybody contacted them to set up the installation and that it took them several weeks (and up to a couple of months) to have the installation scheduled.
10. Ezbuy
Missing items from their order, delayed shipping (plus additional shipping costs not mentioned before), products that have not been delivered at all, bad customer service, hidden costs, order processing issues, and items with wrong measurements were some of the most common Ezbuy complaints received last month.
From what it seems, many problems were detected around the company’s promo period, and this review about Ezbuy summed it up:
"Ordered 1 week before 11.11 to deliberately AVOID their promotion period. Was PROMISED it would be prioritized for order and shipment... Almost 1 month, still stuck in warehouse. Asked for a refund but was rejected. Reason: Your item is going to be shipped out, hence not able to refund you. Emailed them, called them, live chat them, online form sent, no help at all."
Important Clarification: When we compare companies on our website to come up with their rating, we always take а note of the companies' overall appearance as calculated by our elaborate mathematical algorithm, which parameters include the rating given by users, the number of resolved issues, and number of company responses, among others. However, when we compile the list with the top 10 most complained about products/services, we only consider the reports received during the corresponding month, in this case, November 2017.
Being an informed consumer saves you a lot of frustration, time and money. Although companies are run by humans, and it is only human to make mistakes, it is better to know whether a particular company just happened to have a bad month or if they have been receiving repeated complaints over a long period of time. Our monthly updates can help you greatly towards sorting these things out.
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Feb 19, 2019 10 Hot Companies in January 2019: Why Were CathyBuy, Wish, and Gearbest under the Consumers’ Radar? For some companies, the start of this year initiated a series of positive changes that contributed to far fewer customer... Jan 18, 2019 Top 10 Companies in December 2018: We Know What Happened with Wish, DoorDash, and RockAuto December is always a hectic month for companies that try to keep up with the increased number of orders due... Dec 18, 2018 Top 10 Companies Battle: Why Were Trendy Deal Store, Rockauto, and Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen Discussed? The top trending brands that waive from the list of the 10 most discussed companies in November show consumers’ concerns... Nov 19, 2018 Top 10 Companies Battle: Who Was Discussed the Most in October 2018? The top trending companies on our list for October have one thing in common – they have garnered quite a...
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Trip Report: June 2008 ISO C++ Standards Meeting
Herb Sutter C++ 2008-07-04 2008-07-10 7 Minutes
The ISO C++ committee met in Sophia Antipolis, France on June 6-14. You can find the minutes here (note that these cover only the whole-group sessions, not the breakout technical sessions where we spend most of the week).
Here’s a summary of what we did, with links to the relevant papers to read for more details, and information about upcoming meetings.
Highlights: Complete C++0x draft coming in September
The biggest goal entering this meeting was to make C++0x feature-complete and stay on track to publish a complete public draft of C++0x this September for international review and comment — in ISO-speak, an official Committee Draft or CD. We are going to achieve that, so the world will know the shape of C++0x in good detail this fall.
We’re also now planning to have two rounds of international comment review instead of just one, to give the world a good look at the standard and two opportunities for national bodies to give their comments, the first round starting after our September 2008 meeting and the second round probably a year later. However, the September 2008 CD is “it”, feature-complete C++0x. The only changes expected to be made between that CD and the final International Standard are bug fixes and clarifications. It’s helpful to think of a CD as a feature-complete beta.
Coming into the June meeting, we already had a nearly-complete C++0x internal working draft — most features that will be part of C++0x had already been “checked in.” Only a few were still waiting to become stable enough to vote in, including initializer lists, range-based for loops, and concepts.
Of these, concepts is the long-pole feature for C++0x, which isn’t surprising given that it’s the biggest new language feature we’re adding to Standard C++. A primary goal of the June meeting, therefore, was to make as much progress on concepts as possible, and to see if it would be possible to vote that feature into the C++0x working draft at this meeting. We almost did that, thanks to a lot of work not only in France but also at smaller meetings throughout the winter and spring: For the first time, we ended a meeting with no known issues or controversial points in the concepts standardese wording, and we expect to “check in” concepts into the working draft at the next meeting in September, which both cleared the way for us to publish a complete draft then and motivated the plan to do two rounds of public review rather than one, just to make sure the standard got enough “bake time” in its complete form.
Next, I’ll summarize some of the major features voted into the draft at the June meeting.
Initializer lists
C++0x initializer lists accomplish two main objectives:
Uniformity: They provide a uniform initialization syntax you can use consistently everywhere, which is especially helpful when you write templates.
Convenience: They provide a general-purpose way of using the C initializer syntax for all sorts of types, notably containers.
See N2215 for more on the motivation and original design, and N2672 and N2679 for the final standardese.
Example: Initializing aggregates vs. classes
It’s convenient that we can initialize aggregates like this:
struct Coordinate1 {
Coordinate1 c1 = { 1, 2 };
but the syntax is slightly different for classes with constructors:
class Coordinate2 {
Coordinate2( int i, int j );
Coordinate2 c2( 1, 2 );
In C++0x, you can still do all of the above, but initializer lists give us a regular way to initialize all kinds of types:
Coordinate2 c2 = { 1, 2 }; // legal in C++0x
Having a uniform initialization syntax is particularly helpful when writing template code, so that the template can easily work with a wide variety of types.
Example: Initializing arrays vs. containers
One place where the lack of uniform initialization has been particularly annoying — at least to me, when I write test harnesses to exercise the code I show in articles and talks — is when initializing a container with some default values. Don’t you hate it when you want to create a container initialized to some known values, and if it were an array you can just write:
string a[] = { “xyzzy”, “plugh”, “abracadabra” };
but if it’s a container like a vector, you have to default-construct the container and then push every entry onto it individually:
// Initialize by hand today
v.push_back( “xyzzy” );
v.push_back( “plugh” );
v.push_back( “abracadabra” );
or, even more embarrassingly, initialize an array first for convenience and then construct the vector as a copy of the array, using the vector constructor that takes a range as an iterator pair:
// Initialize via an array today
string a[] = { “xyzzy”, “plugh”, “abracadabra” }; // put it into an array first
vector<string> v( a, a+3 ); // then construct the vector as a copy
Arrays are weaker than containers in nearly every other way, so it’s annoying that they get this unique convenience just because of their having been built into the language since the early days of C.
The lack of convenient initialization has been even more irritating with maps:
map<string,string> phonebook;
phonebook[ “Bjarne Stroustrup (cell)” ] = “+1 (212) 555-1212”;
phonebook[ “Tom Petty (home)” ] = “+1 (858) 555-9734”;
phonebook[ “Amy Winehouse (agent)” ] = “+44 20 74851424”;
In C++0x, we can initialize any container with known values as conveniently as arrays:
// Can use initializer list in C++0x
vector<string> v = { “xyzzy”, “plugh”, “abracadabra” };
map<string,string> phonebook =
{ { “Bjarne Stroustrup (cell)”, “+1 (212) 555-1212” },
{ “Tom Petty (home)”, “+1 (858) 555-9734” },
{ “Amy Winehouse (agent)”, “+44 99 74855424” } };
As a bonus, a uniform initialization syntax even makes arrays easier to deal with. For example, the array initializer syntax didn’t support arrays that are dynamically allocated or class members arrays:
// Initialize dynamically allocated array by hand today
int* a = new int[3];
a[0] = 1;
a[2] = 99;
// Initialize member array by hand today
class X {
X() { a[0] = 1; a[1] = 2; a[2] = 99; }
In C++0x, the array initialization syntax is uniformly available in these cases too:
// C++0x
int* a = new int[3] { 1, 2, 99 };
X() : a{ 1, 2, 99 } {}
More concurrency support
Last October, we already voted in a state-of-the-art memory model, atomic operations, and a threading package. That covered the major things we wanted to see in this standard, but a few more were still in progress. Here are the major changes we made this time that relate to concurrency.
Thread-local storage (N2659): To declare a variable which will be instantiated once for each thread, use the thread_local storage class. For example:
class MyClass {
thread_local X tlsX;
void SomeFunc() {
thread_local Y tlsY;
Dynamic initialization and destruction with concurrency (N2660) handles two major cases:
Static and global variables can be concurrently initialized and destroyed if you try to access them on multiple threads before main() begins. If more than one thread could initialize (or use) the variable concurrency, however, it’s up to you to synchronize access.
Function-local static variables will have their initialization automatically protected; while one thread is initializing the variable, any other threads that enter the function and reach the variable’s declaration will wait for the initialization to complete before they continue on. Therefore you don’t need to guard initialization races or initialization-use races, and if the variable is immutable once constructed then you don’t need to do any synchronization at all to use it safely. If the variable can be written to after construction, you do still need to make sure you synchronize those post-initialization use-use races on the variable.
Thread safety guarantees for the standard library (N2669): The upshot is that the answer to questions like “what do I need to do to use a vector<T> v or a shared_ptr<U> sp thread-safely?” is now explicitly “same as any other object: if you know that an object like v or sp is shared, you must synchronize access to it.” Only a very few objects need to guarantee internal synchronization; the global allocator is one of those, though, and so it gets that stronger guarantee.
The “other features” section below also includes a few smaller concurrency-related items.
More STL algorithms (N2666)
We now have the following new STL algorithms. Some of them fill holes (e.g., “why isn’t there a copy_if or a counted version of algorithm X?”) and others provide handy extensions (e.g., “why isn’t there an all_of or any_of?”).
all_of( first, last, pred )
returns true iff all elements in the range satisfy pred
any_of( first, last, pred )
returns true iff any element in the range satisfies pred
copy_if( first, last result, pred)
the “why isn’t this in the standard?” poster child algorithm
copy_n( first, n result)
copy for a known number of n elements
find_if_not( first, last, pred )
returns an iterator to the first element that does not satisfy pred
iota( first, last, value )
for each element in the range, assigns value and increments value “as if by ++value”
is_partitioned( first, last, pred )
returns true iff the range is already partitioned by pred; that is, all elements that satisfy pred appear before those that don’t
none_of( first, last, pred )
returns true iff none of the elements in the range satisfies pred
partition_copy( first, last, out_true, out_false, pred )
copy the elements that satisfy pred to out_true, the others to out_false
partition_point( first, last, pred)
assuming the range is already partitioned by pred (see is_partitioned above), returns an iterator to the first element that doesn’t satisfy pred
uninitialized_copy_n( first, n, result )
uninitialized_copy for a known number of n elements
Other approved features
N2435 Explicit bool for smart pointers
N2514 Implicit conversion operators for atomics
N2657 Local and unnamed types as template arguments
N2658 Constness of lambda functions
N2667 Reserved namespaces for POSIX
N2670 Minimal support for garbage collection and reachability-based leak detection
N2661 Time and duration support
N2674 shared_ptr atomic access
N2678 Error handling specification for Chapter 30 (Threads)
N2680 Placement insert for standard containers
Although we just got back from France, the next meeting of the ISO C++ standards committee is already coming up fast:
September 14-20, 2008: San Francisco, California, USA
The meetings are public, and if you’re in the area please feel free to drop by.
Published 2008-07-04 2008-07-10
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28 thoughts on “Trip Report: June 2008 ISO C++ Standards Meeting”
Sullivan Web Development says:
Just starting to grasp C++, and I wish I was nearer to San Fran to check out the next meeting. Anyway, thanks for the info and links, I’ll be sure to cruise your site to see what else I can pick up.
Sullivan Web Development
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Marians says:
Yay! Interesting…
Boileavatte says:
Rodolfo Lima says:
GCC’s trunk got some commits regarding its implementation of initializer lists. Even libstdc++-related containers are getting initializer lists ctors, and other stuff. I presume that it’ll be in gcc-4.4.
Glen says:
Hey, thanks for the detailed explanation Korval, much appreciated. That response clearly shows why we need it. Now it’s just back to Herb to explain when we’re going to get it in VC10! ;)
Korval says:
On uniform initialization:
The reason uniform initialization uses {} rather than parenthesis is because it must be UNIFORM. And by “uniform”, I mean it must have the same look and behavior everywhere. C++ does not have a method of initialization that works 100% everywhere. That’s the purpose of the uniform initialization C++0x feature.
The problem with parenthesis is that they already have a very important meaning: grouping of expressions. It is possible to do the following:
ObjectType SomeFunction()
return {50, 32};
This will initialize an ObjectType instance with the parameters (or initializer list, depending on construction) given. C/C++ is very clear and specific on the meaning of:
return (50, 32);
It already means something, and it’s important that C++0x not needlessly make it mean something very different.
The expression (50, 32) is an expression containing 2 integers that are modified by the comma operator. The expression {50, 32} is an initializer list, which can be used to initialize object instances.
For the same reason, this:
ObjectType a({5, 3}); //#1
is different from this:
ObjectType a{5, 3}; //#2
And here’s now. Let’s say ObjectType looked like:
struct ObjectType
ObjectType(std::vector &&vec);
ObjectType(int first, int size);
These are two different constructors. Line #1 will call constructor 1 and line #2 will call constructor 2. And here’s why.
The parenthesis in line #1 specifically mean that you are constructing an ObjectType with 1 parameter. Because you are not using uniform initialization (parenthesis turn off the rules of uniform initilization), it defaults to regular initialization. So basically, you have a parameter list, and the one parameter is an initializer list. C++0x’s initializer list rules say that an initializer list can be used to create a temporary of an appropriate type if no overload takes an initializer list directly. That is the case, and std::vector will be constructable from an initializer list. Therefore, line #1 will call the first constructor with a newly minted std::vector temporary that contains an array of 2 values.
Line #2, because it uses {} notation, is a case of uniform initialization, so those rules apply. Those rules state (among other things) that if there is no explicit initializer list constructor on the type, the individual elements of the list are considered to be parameters. Therefore, it will call the second constructor; it will NOT convert the list into a std::vector.
BTW, uniform initialization lists can be heterogenous. If ObjectType is defined as such:
ObjectType(int theInt, std::string &&strString, float fValue);
We can create one with this:
ObjectType a{5, “Hi!”, 56.0f};
This list cannot be converted into an initalizer list, but it can be used as parameters to the ObjectType constructor. Standard overload resolution rules apply. Additionally:
ObjectType a{5, {‘H’, ‘i’, !}, 56.0f);
This will work just as well.
This is true because std::string will have an initializer list constructor that takes a list of characters. So either “Hi!” or {‘H’, ‘i’, !} will implicitly be converted into a std::string temporary.
Pretty cool, yes? I would suggest reading Strousup’s (PDF) paper on the subject. http://www.open-std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG21/docs/papers/2008/n2532.pdf
On usefulness:
No, there’s not much point to using something like:
int* a = new int[3]{ 1, 2, 99 };
That’s simply a thing you can do; it’s not necessarily a particularly useful case. One of the real powers of initializer lists and uniform initialization is this: less error.
You have a function defined as such:
ReturnType FuncName()
return ReturnType(5, 32);
Now, if you want to change the return type, you must track down every return statement and adjust it accordingly. With uniform initialization, you can do:
return {5, 32};
Which lets the C++ compiler determine what type to use based on the function declaration. So now, all you have to do is change it once (twice for a prototype) and everyone’s happy.
The same goes for function calls:
void SomeFunc(Type1 &&t, const Type2 &otherT);
SomeFunc({4, 2}, {5, 4});
This will automatically create the parameters ‘t’ and ‘otherT’ (as long as SomeFunc’s parameters are deducible. IE: not unspecified template parameters) for the function call. Now, SomeFunc’s parameter list can change without having to change the code, so long as the objects that are changed take the same constructors. So if Type1 were a std::vector and we decided to use a std::list, not much would change for a user who used initializer lists.
Aydin says:
I really didn’t understand why would I ever need something like:
int* a = new int[3]({ 1, 2, 99 });
After all, if I know the values in the compile time, I am not gonna be using dynamic creation with new. It’s just unnecessary run-time burden…
Maybe this example is just not explaining the real motivation and benefit !
“concepts” – This has always appeared to be a misnomer to me. The “concepts” that I’ve seen are all requirements on types, for example “assignable”. Are there any “concepts” that truly represent a concept that is not a requirement? If not, the name “concept” is too general, “requirement” would would fit better.
Muskie says:
thread_local X tlsX; ??
Herb, I hope you aren’t backtracking on Hungarian Notation now that you work for Microsoft. Say it aint so…
int19h says:
What about the BSI position on concepts (that they are not mature enough, and that the next standard has to have full library support for them as well)?
I very much agree with Tadeu that:
seems cleaner to me, but best we don’t give them any excuse to delay VC10 or C++0x any longer! :)
Tadeu says:
Will C++0x core language support something like Python generators (a very nice syntax), or something like C# enumerables and LINQ (possibly with an “yield return” statement)?
It is a fundamental feature for a 2010+ language and will merge very well with lambdas and STL algorithms! ;)
Also… about the new STL algorithms, they are very nice… but will they all also have Range versions?, i.e., instead of taking (begin, end), they could take only one generic Range concept, e.g:
all_of(range, pred);
for_each(range, pred);
The (begin, end) syntax seems deprecated with concepts, now that a native array can also be seem as a Range. A pair of pointers would be an exception, rather than the norm, but we could also have:
int a[5] = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4};
for_each(a, pred);
for_each(make_pair(&a[0], &a[5]), pred);
I don’t like the new int[3] { 1, 2, 99 } syntax. Wouldn’t it be better to have parenthesis, as in all initializations?, e.g.:
X() : a({ 1, 2, 99 }) {}
This seems better for humans to parse, and also removes the ugly {…}{…} syntax that seems like a double block or something like that…
If you re-read what I said in 10 above, you will see that I was not arguing or explaining what thread_local means. I was addressing your question about what applying static to a thread_local declaration might mean, i.e. the use of static in this context is to reduce the thread_local variables visibility (to file scope), and NOT about controling the objects lifetime or thread association, so in that context it still seems meaningful to me to be applicable. :)
Joe Gottman says:
No, thread_local would have to relate to lifetime. Every thread has its own copy of a thread_local variable. Therefore, a thread_local variable would have to be created after it’s associated thread is and destroyed before the thread is.
I would think that thread_local and static are allowed as in this context static would likely be relating to visibility not variable lifetime.
On a completely different topic, is the word “static” really necessary in declarations like the following?
thread_local static X tlsX;
It seems to me that “thread_local” and “static” are mutually exclusive. Static means that there is only one variable of that name ever, and “thread_local” means that there is one per thread. Therefore it makes more sense to just write
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“Optional GC” is very tricky phrase here: sounds catchy but can be very bad in practice. D author made a smart example on http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/cpp0x.html: “The problem with an optional garbage collector is that in order to write general purpose libraries, one must assume that there is no garbage collector”.
I will add here another case: let I reuse two libraries on my project, where one of them is GC aware and another GC agnostic. And my project will not use GC at all. Seeing this case, that “builtin turnable” GC has to be hell smart.
For me this GC chanting is wasting of time. Better to use it on something else, like simplifying some language constructs.
Btw. I bet you didn’t know that Python offer “optional GC” (http://docs.python.org/lib/module-gc.html), except no one is enough brave to mess with it ;)
PS: initializer lists are excelent (excluding containers, I found trick with operator, much more readable :P)
David Heffernan says:
GC if it’s ever in the standard will be optional. I believe that has been stated here. So you won’t be forced to hire a nanny!
Garbage collection removes one of the major things that I love about C++ that I can’t get in a lot of other languages – scoped destructors.
ObjC 2.0 came out with GC (as a compiler option) and it’s a very good thing to have, don’t get me wrong. However, the apps I write in ObjC 2.0 aren’t the same class of apps I write in C++. I still reserve C++ for the enterprise level, high performance class of apps. The last thing I’m willing to give up is deterministic control over the lifecycle of my resources (within the bounds of compiler optimization, that is). Going with a GC means giving up *a lot*. It’s not just about cleaning up after a sloppy programmer. In my mind that’s not at all what it’s about and never has been.
There are many different languages out there and most have a place in the world. C++ belongs at the core, powering other languages and operating systems, and doing the true heavy lifting of the computing world. But you won’t find me writing a web framework in it or a GUI. In those places, I’m overjoyed to have a GC.
So if it’s going to be done, ever, then it had better have a compiler switch with zero GC residue in the object code when it’s set to “off”.
So, Herb, just make sure the committee understands that, will ya? ;)
So Nanny the Garbage Collector isn’t going to come along and mop up after poor programmers? I reckon that’s a good thing, to be honest; nanny encourages them to remain poor. There are so many features in C++ that can be misused into serious errors that I fear “fixing” one will merely encourage poor programmers not to watch out for the others. After all, the ethos of C, inherited in C++, is that it gives you “enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot” (to quote Holub); GC, to my mind, simply doesn’t fit. I don’t want poor programmers to wallow in nanny’s flannel, I want them to improve.
I wouldn’t mind so much if such a feature had no impact on performance, but I’ve only ever seen Nanny the Garbage Collector strop like a fifty year old having a tantrum in a village pub. She interrupts everything. No, send her back to the script kiddies’ milk bar where her flannel and her tantrums fit a treat.
Brian,
Your question boils down to “what is wrong with doing something manually when the computer can do it transparently for me?”
Nobody forces you to use features. Just ‘cos they are in a language doesn’t mean you have to use them. Although many macho coders take the presence of an esoteric feature as an opportunity to preen.
And I think it’s funny that you regard C++ as a simple language. It’s many thinks, but simple ain’t one of them.
I really have to disagree about the garbage collection. What is so wrong about “registering” an object to be garbage collected? I’ll take a simpler language with add ons any day over some forced upon bloat. I’m not saying c++ is the greatest thing since sliced bread, just that I’m happy they aren’t forcing unnecessary features.
Sadly, we’ll have to wait till the next draft for garbage collection support. There are some c-libraries out there but nothing c++ that calls constructors and destructors. There are other gotchas as well. Garbage collection really needs to be a language feature and not just a library.
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Existing tools help users reduce PII breaches
Posted on July 31, 2014 July 4, 2017 By 1st Lt. Meredith Hein, 24th Air Force Public Affairs Category: News
JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas – Members of 24th Air Force are refurbishing an old email tool to help Air Force users reduce breaches of personally identifiable information, or PII.
The Digital Signature Enforcement Tool, or DSET, which currently prompts users to provide a digital signature when an email contains an active hyperlink or attachment, is being reconfigured to scan emails and attachments for PII. DSET was first introduced to Microsoft Outlook in 2009 by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center.
“DSET was originally designed to mitigate risk from socially-engineered email or phishing attacks. Now, it provides some protection of messages transmitting PII,” said Alonzo Pugh, a cyber business system analyst for 24th AF. “The tool provides awareness for users of risks before the email leaves the workstation, giving users the chance to correct the identified risk.”
PII includes items such as an individual’s social security number, driver’s license information and financial information. Breaches occur when this information is inadvertently released. User awareness is one of the biggest issues associated with PII breaches, Pugh said.
“When users release PII that is not protected, that puts information at risk for being intercepted by adversaries,” he said. “These adversaries can then use that information to target users to gain access the network. Air Force network users must do their due diligence when sending an e-mail containing PII. They need to make sure the information is protected.”
DSET capability should encourage users to be more involved in the process of preventing PII breaches, Pugh said. “The user is afforded the ability to take action in checking their emails to make sure they are not inadvertently releasing PII, and given the opportunity to protect it. DSET makes users more aware that they need to double check their emails and ensure that they are in accordance with policy; the responsibility for preventing breaches ultimately falls on them.”
The tool itself is straightforward to use, Pugh said, and will give users simple prompts to follow in sending emails. In addition, there is a function allowing information which was falsely identified as PII to still be sent.
“While our software solution will support the Air Force’s efforts to reduce PII breaches, it is still important for personnel to be aware and vigilant with their handling of documents containing PII,” said Col. Eric Oliver, the 24th Air Force director of cyber systems.
The tool’s new usage is still in its initial stage, focusing on social security numbers. Developers hope that DSET will ultimately be able to scan for a variety of PII to prevent future breaches.
“It is imperative that we protect one another as we move each Air Force mission forward,” said Maj. Gen. J. Kevin McLaughlin, the 24th Air Force commander. “Avoiding the release of PII is part of being a good wingman, but it is also part of protecting the network and accomplishing the Air Force mission.”
In preparation for the release of DSET, you can access training for the new tool using the following link:
https://afpki.lackland.af.mil/assets/files/OE-15-40-064_QRG-DSET_v0001.pdf
Additional training on how to encrypt Microsoft Office documents can be accessed at: http://www.24af.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-140701-064.pdf
Users have multiple tools at their disposal to protect PII if encrypting e-mail is not feasible, but if electronic transmission of sensitive PII is operationally required, users can leverage approved Department of Defense file exchange services at: https://safe.amrdec.army.mil/safe/.
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Home » Blogs » brad's blog » The utilitarian math overwhelming says we should be aggressive in robocar development. How do we do that?
The utilitarian math overwhelming says we should be aggressive in robocar development. How do we do that?
A frequent theme of mine has been my identification of "proving you have done it" as the greatest challenge in producing a safe robocar.
This accident was caused by a human driver. Like 12M others each year in the USA
Others have gone further, such as the Rand study which incorrectly claims you need to drive billions of miles to prove it.
Today I want to discuss a theoretical evaluation that most would not advocate, but which helps illustrate some of the issues, and discussions the social and philosophical angles of this new thing that the robocar is -- a major life-saving technology which involves risk in its deployment and testing, but which improves faster the more risk you take.
People often begin with purely "utilitarian" terms -- what provides the greatest good for the greatest number. The utilitarian value of robocars to safety can be simply measured in how they affect the total count of accidents, in particular fatalities. The insurance industry gives us a very utilitarian metric by turning the cost of accidents into a concrete dollar figure -- about 6 cents/mile. NHTSA calculated economic costs of $277B, with social costs bumping the number to $871B -- a more shocking 29 cents/mile, which is more than the cost of deprecation on the vehicle itself in most cases.
The TL;DR of the thesis is this: Given a few reasonable assumptions, from a strict standpoint of counting deaths and injuries, almost any delay to the deployment of high-safety robocars costs lots of lives. And not a minor number. Delay it by a year, and anywhere from 10,000-20,000 extra people will die in the USA, a 300,000 to a million around the world. Delay it by a day and you condemn 30-80 unknown future Americans and 1,000 others to death, and many thousands more to horrible injury. These people are probably strangers to you. They will not be killed directly by you, they will be killed by reckless human drivers in the future whose switch to a robocar was delayed. The fault for the accidents is on those drivers, but the fault for the fact those reckless people were driving in the first place will be on those who delayed the testing and subsequent deployment. This doesn't mean we should do absolutely anything to get these vehicles here sooner, but it does mean that proposals which risk delay should be examined with care. Normally we only ask people to justify risk. Here we must also ask to justify caution. And it opens up all sorts of complex moral problems.
This suggests a social strategy of encouraging what I will call "aggressive development/deployment with reasonable prudence."
Reducing fatalities
Let's just look at the total fatalities. The goal of every robocar team is to produce a vehicle which is safer than the average human driver -- it produces better numbers than those above. Eventually much safer, perhaps 8x as much, or even more. Broadly it is hoped fatalities will drop to zero one day.
This is so much the goal that most teams won't release their vehicle for production use until they hit that target. Rand and others argue that it's really hard to prove you have hit that target, since it takes a lot of data to prove a negative like "we will cause less than one fatality for every 100 million miles."
On the other hand, we let teen-agers out on the road even though they are clearly worse than that. They are among the most dangerous and reckless drivers among us, yet included in those totals. We let them out because it's the only way to turn them into safer adult drivers, and because they need mobility in our world.
On the other end, especially after Uber's fatality, some are arguing that testing robocars with safety drivers is reckless, not just the sloppy way Uber did it.
The Rand study cited above, which claims that since you can't have proper statistical certainty about a high safety level until you test for an untenable amount of miles, has made people speculate that deployment should be delayed until a way to prove this is figured out. Corporate boards, making decisions on deployment, most ponder how much liability they are setting the company up for if they deploy with uncertain safety levels.
A learning safety technology
Robocars are a safety technology. They promise to make road travel safer than human driving, and seriously cut the huge toll of deaths and injuries. Unlike many other life-saving technologies, though, they "learn" through experience. I don't mean that in the sense of machine learning, I mean it in the sense that every mistake made by a robocar gets corrected by its software team, and makes the system better and safer. Every mile in a place where surprise problems can happen -- which primarily means miles on public roads -- offers some risk but also makes the system better. In fact, in many cases, taking the risk and making mistakes is the only way to find and fix some of the problems.
We might call this class of technologies "risk-improved" technologies. Other technologies also improve, but not like this. Drugs don't get better but we learn how to administer them. Medical procedures get better as we learn how to improve them and avoid pitfalls. Crashes in cars taught us how to make them safer.
Software is different though. Software improves fast. Literally, one mistake, made by one car in one place will be known immediately to its team. They will understand it quickly and have a fix in some cases within hours. Deploying the fix immediately is risky so it may takes days or weeks, but it's not like other fields where changes take years. Since mistakes are, if they are serious, made in public, the lesson can often be learned by all developers, not just the one who had the event. (Software also notoriously breaks by surprise when you try to fix it, because it's so complex, but the ability to improve is still far greater than anything else.)
Likely assertions about the future path
I believe the following assumptions about the development and deployment of robocars are reasonable, though things can be argued about all of them.
At least in the early years, improvements in their safety level will come with time, but mostly they will come with miles on real world roads. The more miles, the more learned about what happens, the more problems fixed, the more data about what works is gathered.
Some of this learning can and should be done in simulators and test tracks. However, this is not as effective, and we are much less far along at making it approach the effectiveness of on-road testing, if we ever can.
Deployment will largely happen on a growth curve starting the day that the teams are ready, and will proceed along an exponential growth curve, slowing down as markets saturate. For example, if it starts at 0.25% of saturation and doubles every year, it will reach saturation in about 9-10 years from when the effort starts. If it starts 1 year later, it (roughly) reaches saturation 1 year later.
This deployment curve will also apply in other countries. Chances are if the most eager places (USA, China) are a year later, then the other places are also pushed back, though possibly not a full year.
Safety levels will also increase with time, though that slows down as increasing safety gets harder and harder due to diminishing returns. It is assumed the vehicles can get to at least 5x better than the average human, though not much more than 10x better.
In particular, the following steps take place:
Off-road testing, where no civilian is put at risk
On-road testing with safety drivers, which generally appears very safe if done properly, but has failed when not done properly
Early deployment with no safety drivers, at the chosen safety level (probably comparable to human drivers,) with the safety level increasing to be far superior to human drivers
Growth -- probably exponential like popular digital technologies, with improvement in safety tapering off as limits are reached
Saturation -- when growth tapers off, at least until some new technology attracts additional markets.
Later, we'll examine ways in which these assumptions are flawed. But they are closer to correct than the counter assumptions, such as the idea that safety improvement will go just as fast without road deployment, or that saturation will occur on the same date even if deployment begins a year later.
Taking them as given for the moment, this leads to the strong conclusion. Almost any delay will lead to vastly more deaths. If "reckless" deployment will speed up development and/or deployment, this leads to vastly fewer deaths. Even ridiculously reckless deployment, if it speeds up development and deployment, saves immense numbers of total lives.
The reason is simple -- the deaths resulting from risky deployment or development happen in the first years, when the number of miles driven is very low. It doesn't matter if your car is 80 times worse than humans and has one fatality every million miles, you're "only" going to kill 100 people in your first 100M miles of testing. But your eventual safer car, the one that goes 500M miles without a fatality, will be the one driving a trillion miles as it approaches saturation. And in replacing a trillion miles of human driving, 12,500 people who would have died in human caused crashes are replaced by 2,000 killed in robocar crashes. For every year that deployment got delayed.
The magnitude of the difference is worse. When I suggested 100 lives might be lost to 100M miles of testing, I gave very little credit to the developers. Waymo has driven 10M miles and caused only one minor accident. They are doing some runs with no safety drivers, indicting they think they've already reached the human level of safety. They did this on fairly well regulated roads, so there is much more to do, but it could well be the great future benefits come at no cost in injuries or deaths, at least as they have done it.
Uber has not done so well. They have had a fatality, and in not too much distance. They were reckless. Yet even their reckless path would still result in a massive net savings of lives and injuries. Massive. Immense. The reality seems to be that nobody is likely to get to 10s or 100s of millions of miles with a poor quality vehicle unless they are supremely incompetent, far less competent than Uber.
The dangerous car has to learn
As I wrote above, computer technology is adaptive technology. Each mistake made once is, in theory, a mistake never made again. Every time a human has killed somebody on the road, it has almost never taught other humans not to make that mistake. If it has, it did so very slowly, and mostly through new laws or changes in road engineering. It might even be argued that the rate of improvement in a robocar is fairly strongly linked with the amount of testing. The more it drives, the more it is improved. The early miles uncover all the obvious mistakes, and soon, they start coming less often. 100,000 miles might get it to a fairly competent level, but a million more might be needed for the next notch, and 10 million for the one after that. But that also means that it drives these larger numbers of miles with less risk. As mileage grows, the system is improved and risk per mile reduces. Total risk per year does not grow as quickly as miles, not nearly as quickly.
We are not pure utilitarians
If you simply look at the body count, there is a strong argument to follow the now maligned credo of "move fast and break things." But we don't look purely at the numbers, for both rational and emotional reasons.
The strongest factor is our moral codes which treat very differently harm caused by us and harm caused by others. We feel much worse about harm caused by ourselves than about harm caused by others, or by nature, even though the pain is the same. We feel much more strongly about harm caused by ourselves that we could have prevented.
We see this in medicine, where the numbers and logic are surprisingly similar. If we released new drugs without testing, many would die from those that are harmful. But far, far, far more would be saved by the ones that actually work. Numerical studies have gone into detail and shown that while the FDA approval process saves thousands, it leaves millions to death. We allow, and even insist on this horrible tragedy because those who are not saved are not killed directly by us, they are killed by the diseases which ail them.
All the transportation technologies killed many in their early days, but modern culture has grown far less tolerant of risk, especially mortal risk. It makes rare exceptions: Vaccines may seriously harm 1 in 10,000 (it varies by vaccine) but are recommended even so because they save so many. The makers are even given some immunity from liability for this.
In addition, whatever the math says, we are unlikely to tolerate true "recklessness," particularly if it is pointless. If there is a less risky path that is just as fast, but more expensive, we want people to take it. Sending cars out without safety drivers is very risky, and the cost of safety drivers is affordable to the well-funded companies. (Indeed, the safety drivers, by gathering data on mistakes, probably speed up development.)
It might seem this logic would encourage any risk that promises live saving. That we should sacrifice babies to demons if it would get us deployment and saturation a day sooner. But we don't think this way, which is why we're not pure utilitarians, and at least partly deontological (caring about the intrinsic right or wrong of our actions.) Different moral theories strike different balances between the two evils under debate -- namely putting the public at extra risk due to your actions, and leaving the public at higher risk due to your inaction.
Whatever non-utilitarian philosophy might be advocated, however, when the numbers are this large, it still has to answer the utilitarian challenge: Is the course advocated worthy of the huge numbers? We might well believe it is better to prevent 100 immediate deaths to save 40,000 future deaths -- but we should understand numerically that this is what we are doing.
There is of course tremendous irony in the fact that some of these questions about harm through action and inaction are at the core of the "trolley problem," a bogus version of which has become pernicious distraction in the robocar world. Indeed, since those who discuss this idiotic problem usually end up declaring that development should slow until it is answered, they find themselves choosing between avoiding the distraction or causing delay in development -- and the loss of many lives. The philosophy class trolley problem is present in these high level moral debates, not in the operation of a vehicle.
Public reaction has a big effect on the timeline
One of the largest factors altering this equation is that early mistakes don't just cause crashes. Those crashes, especially fatalities like Uber's, will cause public backlash which has a high chance of slowing down both development and deployment. Uber had to shut down all operations after their incident, and some wondered if they would ever come back. Other companies besides Uber felt the problem as well. There will be backlash from the public, and possibly from regulators.
The public can be harsh with its backlash. When Toyota had reports of accelerator pedals sticking, it caused them much pain, and while it still gets argued, and the Toyota software was pretty poor, the general final report was that there was not actually a problem. Toyota still took a hit.
On the other hand, even with multiple people killed while driving with Tesla Autopilot (without paying proper attention) and several investigations of that accident, there seems to be no slowdown in the sales of Teslas or Autopilot or the price of Tesla stock. This factor is very difficult to predict. This is in spite of the fact that many people mistakenly think the Tesla is a kind of robocar.
This effect can be wildly variable, depending on the nature of the incidents. Broadly, the worst case would be fatalities for a vulnerable road user (like a pedestrian) particularly a child. Many other factors will play in, including the apparent preventability and how identifiable the human story behind the tragedy is. Uber was "lucky," and Elaine Herzberg very unlucky, that their fatality involved a homeless woman crossing at a do-not-cross-here sign.
The public is disturbingly inure to car crashes and car fatalities, at least when caused by humans. They barely make the news. Even the 5,000 annual fatalities for vulnerable road users don't get a lot of attention.
Robocars are risk-improved, but have a counter flaw: They put non-participating members of the public at risk. Aircraft rarely kill people on the ground. Drugs don't kill people who don't take them. Cars (robotic and human driven) can kill bystanders, both in other cars, and vulnerable road users. This does not alter that overwhelming utilitarian math, but it does alter public perception. We are more tolerant of casualties who knowingly participated, and much, much less of 3rd party casualties.
Legal reaction
In addition to public reaction, the justice system has its own rules. It does not reward risk-taking. In the event of an accident, the people saved in the future are not before the jury. High risk taking can even result in punitive damages in rare cases, and certainly in higher product liability negligence claims.
Thinking beyond individual casualties to analysis of risk
Each car accident is an unintended event, each death a tragedy. The courts and insurance claims groups handle them in accord with law and policy. But policy isn't about individual events, but rather risk. If you, or your robot, hurt somebody, the courts act to make them whole as much as possible, at your expense. This will always be the case. If you show a pattern of high risk (such as a DUI) you may be banned from the road.
Public policy and our philosophy, however, mostly deal with risk rather than individual tragic events. Every driver who goes on the road puts him/herself at risk, and puts others at risk. For most people, this is the most risk they place others in. When a person or company deploys a robocar on the road they are also putting others at risk (and the passenger.) It's a similar situation. A mature robocar is putting those people at far less risk than the driver is, though it's never zero. A prototype robocar with good safety drivers appears to be also putting the public at less risk than an ordinary driver. A prototype robocar with a poor safety driver is putting the public at more risk.
Our instinct is to view the individual accident and death as the immoral and harmful act. We may be better served to ask if the act we judge the morality of is the degree to which we place others at risk. If you look at the original question, "Is it moral to kill a few additional people today to save hundreds of thousands in the future" you may say no. If the question is "Is it moral to very slightly increase the risk on the roads for a short time to massively decrease it in the future?" the answer may be different.
Aggressive Development with Reasonable Prudence
All this leaves us with a dilemma. If we were purely utilitarian, we would follow a rather cold philosophy: "Any strategy which hastens development and deployment is a huge win, as long as bad PR from incidents does not slow progress more." And yes, it's coldly about the PR of the deaths, not the deaths themselves, because the pure utilitarian only cares about the final number. The averted deaths from early deployment are just as tragic for those involved, after all, but not as public.
We must also consider that there is uncertainty in our assumptions. For example, if the problem is truly intractable, and we never make a robocar safer than human drivers, then any incidents in its development were all negative; the positive payback never came. The risk of this should be factored in to even the utilitarian analysis.
All of this points to a strategy of "aggressive development with reasonable prudence." To unpack this, it means:
Risk should be understood, but taken where it is likely it will lead to faster development. Being overly conservative is highly likely to have huge negative results later
If money can allow reduced risk while maintaining speed of development, that is prudent. However, restricting development only to large super-rich companies likely slows development overall.
Risks to external parties, especially vulnerable road users, should get special attention. However, it must be considered that many of those saved later will be such parties.
In combination of those factors, what can be done on test tracks and in simulation should be done there -- but what can't be done as quickly in those environments should be done on the public roads
Needless risk is to be discouraged, but worthwhile risk to be encouraged
The next level of reasonable prudence applies to deployment. While (outside of autopilots) nobody is considering commercial deployment of a vehicle less safe than human drivers, this math says that is would not be as outrageous a strategy as it sounds. Just as delay in development pushes back the date of deployment, delaying deployment pushes back saturation. For it is at saturation that the real savings of lives comes, when robocars are doing enough miles to put a serious dent in the death toll of human driving, by replacing a large fraction of it.
It should be noted that the early teams, such as Waymo, probably were not aggressive enough, while Uber was not prudent enough. Waymo appears to have reached a 10 million miles and a level of safety close to human levels, at least on simple roads, and is close to deployment. They did it with only a single minor at-fault accident. They did this by having a lot of money and being able to craft and follow a highly prudent safety driver strategy.
Uber on the other hand, has not reached those levels. They tried to save money on safety drivers and it came at great cost. While no team is immune from wanting to save money,
Since many will challenge this reasoning, they will challenge the numbers which suggest it. I do believe there are many open questions about the assumptions which can be examined, but that the numbers are so immense that this is not a priority unless the challenge suggests an assumption is wrong, not by just a little, but by a few orders of magnitude.
That this is doable at all
There is a core assumption that making a robocar that can drive much more safely than the average human is possible. If it's not possible, or very distant in the future, then these risks are indeed unjustified. However, there is a broad consensus of belief that it is possible.
We need road testing
Some question the need for the risk of on-road testing. With more work, we should find ways to test more things on test tracks and in simulators. This is probably true, but few believe it's completely true. In any event, none would doubt that doing this takes time, and thus delays development. So even if you can find a risk-free way to test and develop a decade from now, the math has caught up with you.
Delayed deployment is delayed saturation
It's possible, but seems unlikely, that if deployment is delayed, either due to slowing down development or waiting for a higher level of safety, that growth would happen even faster after the delay, and that penetration would "catch up" to where it would have been.
Of course, we've never gotten to do that experiment in history. We can't test, "What if smartphones had been launched 4 years later, would it have taken 4 more years for them to be everywhere?" We do know that the speed of penetration of technologies is going up and up. The TV took many decades to get in every home, while smartphones did this much faster, and software apps can do it in months. Car deployment is a very capital and work intensive thing, so we can't treat it like a software app, but the pace will increase. But not by an order of magnitude.
Penetration speed depends on many things -- market acceptance and regulations for starters. But they follow their own curve. The law tends to lag behind technology, not the other way around, so there is a strong argument that the tech has to get out there for the necessary social and regulatory steps to happen. They won't happen many times faster if the deployment is delayed.
Human drivers will get digital aid and perform better
Perhaps the largest modifier to the numbers is that human drivers will also be getting better as time goes on, because their cars will become equipped with robocar-related technologies from traditional ADAS and beyond. So far ADAS is helping, but less than we might expect, since fatalities have been on the rise the last 3 years. We can expect it to get better.
It is even possible that ADAS could produce autopilot systems which allow human driving but are almost crash-proof. This could seriously reduce the death toll for human driving. Most people are doubtful of this, because they fear that any really good autopilot engenders human complacency and devolves to producing a poor robocar rather than a great autopilot. But it's possible we could learn better how to do this, and learn it fast, so that the robocars are producing a much more modest safety improvement over the humans when they get to saturation.
It's unclear if society has faced a choice like this before. The closest analogs probably come from medicine, but in medicine, almost all risk is for the patient who wants to try the medicine. The numbers are absolutely staggering, because car accidents are one of the world's biggest killers.
This means that while normally it is risk which must be justified, here it is also caution that must be justified.
Teams, and governments, should follow the policy of aggressive development and reasonable prudence, examining risks, and embracing the risks that make sense rather than shying away from them. Government policy should also help teams do this, by clarifying the liability of various risk choices to make sure the teams are not too risk-averse.
That's quite a radical suggestion -- for governments to actually encourage risk-taking. Outside of wartime, they don't tend to think that way. Every failure because of that risk will still be a very wrong thing, and we are loathe to not have done everything we could to prevent it, and especially to do anything that might encourage it. We certainly still want an idea of what risks are reckless and which are justified. There is no zero risk option available. But we might decide to move the line.
In spite of this logic, it would be hard to advise a team to be aggressive today with risk. It might be good for society, and even be good for the company in that they can be a leader in a lucrative market, the public reaction and legal dangers can go against this.
We might also try to balance the risks as guided by our morals. Liability might be adjusted to be higher for harm to bystanders (especially vulnerable road users) and lower for willing participants.
We should not be afraid of low, vague risks. A vehicle that is "probably safe" but has not been proven so in a rigourous way should still be deployable, with liability taken by those who deploy it. There should not be a conservative formal definition of what safe is until we understand the problem much more. If some risk is to be forbidden, by law or by liability rules, there should be a solid analysis of why it should be forbidden and what it will save to forbid it, and what it will cost. We must shy away from worrying about what "might happen" if we are very unsure, because we are pretty sure about what will happen on the roads with human drivers if deployment is delayed, and that's lots and lots of death.
Is there any evidence that
Is there any evidence that releasing robocars earlier is actually going to cause them to be used by reckless drivers sooner?
No, it's a logical argument. Rather about the very slightly different question about releasing them later. Everything has an adoption curve from its time of release. Of course, some things are released too early and don't get their adoption until later (or after an improvement.) However, if a product is ready for release, then yes, releasing it later seems to be likely to push back adoption. The iPhone was released in 2007, and in 2012 it had a certain adoption rate X. If it had been released in 2009 instead, would it have reached rate X by 2012? It seems very unlikely. Would it have gotten the software ecosystem and everything else that happened around it by 2012?
Even with a product released too early, the early release teaches lessons which hasten the real release when it happens.
However, I do believe that many regions are now ready for robocars, at least for safe ones. It is not too early. Many people are chomping at the bit for when they can get one. People are paying $5,000 to get very basic functionality added to their Tesla.
not logic
It's a question of human choice, not logic. Robocars are a huge win if they replace the average driver. But maybe not if they only replace the average Uber driver. It's not at all clear that the initial robocars will be doing the former.
IMO they should be better than the average driver *who follows all the traffic laws* before they should be allowed on the road. We make humans sit in the passenger seat and observe for ~15-16 years before we let them get behind the wheel, even supervised.
Not be allowed on the road
So let's unpack that. At some point they will match the average human driver. Some other time, let's say 2 years later, they will match the best human drivers.
If deployment is delayed by those 2 years, it costs perhaps 3 or 4 lives because in the the early 2 years they won't drive more than a billion miles. If saturation is delayed by 2 years it costs 10,000 lives.
So are you saying they should not be allowed on the road until they can match those good drivers? At the cost of 10,000 minus 4 lives?
No, I'm not, because I think you are presenting a false dichotomy in addition to exaggerating the numbers and making guesses about the results.
And I think that's one of the problems with utilitarianism, which causes me to regard utilitarianism as evil.
You shouldn't be allowed to kill 4 *innocent* people just because you think that'll stop the deaths of 10,000 other people. Killing innocent people "for the greater good" is wrong. I *am* saying that.
And most people agree with that
However, the builders of the robocar are not attempting to kill any number of people, innocent or not. Their intent (which is a large part of what matters) is to make driving safer. Nobody goes out intending to kill, but we all go out knowing there is a chance of doing so. We know there is more chance when we speed. We know there is more chance when we drive in bad weather. We know there is more chance on some roads than others. But we do it. Are we all evil?
The robocar developers primary goal is to reduce that chance. Reduce it a lot. If it's moral to drive in bad weather just because you want to get to a party, even though that's a greater risk than these cars present, is it immoral to take risks to develop the cars to save millions of lives? Or is the party that good?
More of a chance of killing?
More of a chance of killing? I don't think so. The kinds of drivers I want to take out of the average when calculating how safe a robocar should be before it should be allowed on the streets are drivers that are those that commit serious crimes. Drunk drivers. Reckless drivers. They shouldn't be allowed on the roads, and the crashes they cause shouldn't be counted in the average.
Speeding a little bit, driving carefully in bad weather, these things don't significantly, if at all, contribute to the chances of *killing* someone.
And speeding is already illegal. If you drove a million miles while speeding you'd probably get pulled over enough times that you'd lose your license. I just want to hold robocar manufacturers to the same standard as everyone else. If the cars can drive as well as people who aren't breaking the law, then it should be allowed. If the cars can only drive as well as people who break the law, then the operator ought to be deemed to be breaking the law.
Contribute to the chance
I would be interested in statistics, if you can find them, of what fraction of different types of accidents, including fatalities, are caused by the reckless/drunk contingent, and what are caused by ordinary folk. I am sure that many accidents are committed by them -- alcohol has role in 40% of fatal accidents but "rule" can include that a passenger was drinking so I am not sure what the stat is for truly drunk drivers. In any event, I suspect half of the fatalities are from ordinary folk, but it's just a guess.
And yes, the ordinary folk do indeed take risks all the time that increase the chance of death for themselves and others. I know I do.
I speed. So does everybody else around here. I speed almost all the time. I have probably driven 300,000 miles speeding. I have never gotten a speeding ticket in the USA (I got a couple 30 years ago in Canada and 1 from speed cameras in Switzerland.) So no, you definitely don't get pulled over enough times to lose your licence.
Let's go with half. Or let's
Let's go with half. Or let's just take drunk driving. 30% of fatal crashes are caused by drunk driving, and probably around 1.5% of drivers at night on the weekends are drunk. So that alone seriously skews the numbers. And drunk driver's aren't likely to take a robotaxi. If they were, they'd take a regular taxi.
As far as speeding, if the car operators are willing to deal with the results of the speeding tickets, including loss of license to operate after a certain number of tickets (across all vehicles they operate), then I guess they can speed. If their speeding causes a death, they can face vehicular manslaughter charges. In any case, the kind of speeding that you did for 300,000 miles probably isn't the kind that significantly, *if at all*, increases the risk of a serious car crash. It wasn't really what I was talking about.
If it's half
So the cars have to get twice as good as the average driver. Or 3 times. I think you would find there are many who aim for that target.
No, when I speed, I am increasing my risk and the risk to others. Not a lot for just me, but some. 85% of the other people on the road are speeding with me. Together we are causing a more significant increase in risk for all.
Yeah, 1/3 to 1/2 of the number of major crashes should be low enough.
Percentage-wise the increased risk of driving at the same speed as most of the other drivers is little to nothing. It may even be safer in many cases.
It is probably true that if most people are going 75, joining them is better than trying to drive 65 among them. It is not true that this is safer than everybody driving 65, though. In any event, there are always the top 20 percentile drivers who are leading the pack, not going with the flow. I have been among them at times. We are taking more risk for ourselves and others than we could. The point is, driving is fully of risky activities, taken for trivial reasons in comparison to risk taken with the goal of making driving much, much safer in the long term.
If you're speeding more than
If you're speeding more than 80% of other drivers, and you kill someone, you should go to jail.
Let's unpack it
"At some point they will match the average human driver."
So, for instance, they drive normally most of the time, but at night on the weekends they drive like drunk drivers 1.5% of the time?
In what way do they "match the average human driver"? It's obviously unlikely that they'll match the average human driver across all statistics at the same time. So what exactly does that even mean?
"Some other time, let's say 2 years later, they will match the best human drivers."
That 2 years figure seems awfully arbitrary. This goes back to my first question. What exactly is the failure scenario that's causing them to be such bad drivers a significant portion of the time? Why can't we geofence around it? In what situations are they killing people? Why can't we slow them down in these situations?
In most environments the car is going to have to be extremely poorly designed to kill innocent people. I don't think it'll take anywhere near 2 years to get from the average human driver to the average human driver who follows the law. Though I'm still not sure what exactly "the average human driver" means. How do you calculate the average of 15 drunk drivers and 985 sober drivers? You can use statistics, but...see my first comment.
Is there somewhere in particular that you're getting that 2 years figure from?
"If deployment is delayed by those 2 years, it costs perhaps 3 or 4 lives"
Is this "net" lives? As in, for instance, it kills 100 innocent people, but prevents the death of 62 innocent people and 42 drunk drivers? Or is it just 3 or 4 innocent lives lost altogether? Can you remind me how to calculate this?
"If saturation is delayed by 2 years it costs 10,000 lives."
*Lots* of assumptions here. The two biggest flawed assumptions I can think of are that adoption follows the same curve regardless of when deployment starts and that adoption is evenly distributed among drivers. The latter is especially unlikely. Adoption is likely to initially be robotaxis, and will mostly replace taxi drivers (including uber/lyft drivers). And I haven't found any statistics, but I suspect that taxi drivers are less likely than the average driver to be involved in a serious car crash. At the least they're probably less likely to be drunk than the average driver on the road (and drunk driving alone accounts for around a third of all fatalities).
Moreover, and I guess this goes to the first point, I don't think the deployment of robotaxis will greatly affect the deployment of personally owned robocars (or personally owned pseudo-robocars a la Tesla "full self driving"). And those I think are going to be regulated differently. And while I don't agree with utilitarianism, it probably makes sense from a utilitarian standpoint to regulate personally owned robocars less than taxi-company-owned robotaxis. (The taxi drivers who are replaced by robotaxis are less likely to cause fatal car crashes than the non-taxi-drivers who are replaced by personally owned robocars.)
Match the human driver
What is typically meant is that the vehicles have rates of accidents that suggest their rate is similar to that of average human drivers. The statistics on humans are extremely well known -- an entire industry has rooms full of trained mathematicians who do nothing but study those all day. The stats on robots are less well known but not unknowable. Admittedly one statistic is hard to figure, namely fatalities. Except for Uber ignoring every reasonable standard other teams all worked out, there have not been any. They have not driven far enough to have one, even if they were at the level of the average American (80M miles.)
The 2 years is indeed a made up number. Name your own. It doesn't matter a lot what it is, except the longer it is, the more lives are lost.
No, I am saying if the deployed vehicle is worse than a human driver, then 2 more years of testing will, during those two years, kill a number you can count on one hand, if that. Unless it's a lot worse than a human driver.
I don't claim adoption follows the same curve regardless of when deployment starts, but I do claim that it is very hard to assert that adoption is vastly faster if it begins later. As in, if you start deployment in 2020 and would get to saturation (tapering off of grown) in 2030, I think it's a very hard argument to suggest that starting in 2023 would also get to saturation in 2030. But even if that's true, the earlier deployment is still a big win. But make the case that it's true.
Yes, rates of accidents. The thing is, not all accidents are equivalent. Even accidents of the same type (minor, major, fatality) aren't equivalent. And it's unlikely that a robocar will have accidents in the same proportions (by type) as human drivers. So then it becomes a question of how many major accidents that are non-fatalities are equivalent to one fatality? How many fatalities of jailwalkers are equivalent to how many fatalities of speeders are equivalent to how many fatalities of children playing in the street?
"The 2 years is indeed a made up number. Name your own."
0 years. I just don't see much, if any, time that the cars will be in-between. Either things are done right, and the cars should be better than humans (within the operational design domain), or things are done wrong (see Uber) and the cars are much worse than humans. But maybe I'm grossly misinformed on that.
"But make the case that it's true."
I think you have to separate robotaxis from personally-owned robocars (which I'll just call robocars from now on). In terms of robotaxis, once they're safer than human taxi drivers, I think they'll be adopted by taxi companies as quickly as they can be built. It's not going to be much of a curve.
In terms of personally-owned robocars, there will be much more of a curve. On the other hand, there's a lot of flexibility here for the manufacturers to work around the regulations on driverless vehicles by playing in the grey area between driverless vehicles and autopilot. I don't think a regulation against driverless vehicles will significantly affect the adoption of Tesla's "full self-driving" or something similar, if at all.
It's not zero time
As you get safer and safer, it gets harder and harder to improve. The gap between human level (every 80M miles) and some nice super-human level like 400M miles seems small but in other ways it is large. The way you get gains at that level is only, as far as we currently know, through experience on the road. Encountering more and more troublesome situations until you know there are fewer and fewer of them left. That doesn't take zero time.
It's like the 99% rule. The first 99% takes 99% of the time, and the last 1% takes the other 99% of the time. Except it's worse.
You're making assertions here that go against my intuition and are not backed up by any evidence. So I really don't have much of a response.
You say that gains at that level can only be derived through experience on the road. Well, depending what you mean by that, I either agree or don't understand why. If what you mean is just that literally the car has to be on the road, yes, I can see this. How humans will act in certain situations is not something that can be easily simulated. However, there's no reason that the car has to be in control of the driving in order to observe and record these things.
In any case, I'm not talking about the gap between human level and super-human level. I'm talking about the gap between average human level and average human level after subtracting the small percentage of humans who intentionally commit serious traffic infractions and cause more than half of the serious car crashes.
Well, you may think that
But essentially every single robocar expert in the world, including all those on all the teams of any significance, feel that on-road testing (with safety drivers) is essential to developing their car. Perhaps in the future an alternative will be presented and some will try it out, but for now, your intuition goes against the conclusion of literally everybody who has any skill or experience. Sorry to be so harsh, but that's the way it is for now.
Frankly, I think you're
Frankly, I think you're making that up. Maybe these experts think that testing with safety drivers is the *best* way (the cheapest way, the fastest way, etc.). If you want to argue that, you can (but know that it's a normative question, not a technical one). It's clearly not the *only* way, though.
Clearly not, since *that isn't how humans learn how to drive*.
Clearly not
The cars do not learn to drive the way humans do. It is not yet within our capabilities to make a machine that can learn in the way humans do.
When everybody says it is the only way, they mean it is the only way currently within our capabilities. We probably could work hard and find other ways. It would take a few years. During those few years, millions will die.
So, in other words, it's *not
So, in other words, it's *not* the only way. It's the fastest way. At least, you think/hope it's the fastest way. And you think that's justifiable. You think it's justifiable homicide. Literally.
Not literally
It is the only way at present, which makes it the fastest way. It is not yet known if there is a slower, safer way. Finding out whether there is costs lives.
Neither is justifiable homicide. For one thing, in a homicide a human has to kill another human. I don't think releasing a machine which has a risk of harming a human unintentionally would fit the definition of homicide. Nobody wants anybody to get hurt here, everybody wants to reduce that as much as possible. What is being discussed is arguably justifiable risk taking, not justifiable homicide.
Releasing a dangerous machine out onto the public streets there by accidentally killing someone is homicide. It may or may not be a criminal act, but when one human accidentally kills another human, it is a homicide.
You think it's justifiable, based on some measure of the number of lives lost in the alternative (although I'm not sure of the exact criteria).
I don't. In particular, I don't think it's justifiable to put one person's life at risk, without their permission, in order to prevent the death of someone else, or 10 or 20 or 100 someone elses.
And before you say that we do that all the time, maybe we do, but beyond a certain point of risk, it's illegal to do so. We can argue about the level of risk that should be illegal. Most roads that are 65 should probably be 75. But unless you think drunk driving should be legal, you shouldn't count drunk drivers in your statistics about what is a justifiable level of risk. (And the difference between 65 and 75, if it's measurable at all, which I still doubt, is tiny in comparison).
Doing it all the time
As you note, we do it all the time. To pretty high levels of risk. For example, truck drivers kill 4,000/year in the course of their jobs. So we can get more convenient shipping. (Rail is safer and cheaper but takes far longer.) This is far, far, far, far, far, far more than prototype robocars could ever kill. While no one individual driver may add that much many companies with all their driving create vast amounts of risk, again dwarfing the risk that Waymo or even Uber ATG are putting the public to. In fact, if you want to put the risk of Uber's human drivers on Uber, then Uber cab is putting the public at vastly more risk than Uber ATG self-driving project ever has or will.
So you can claim that nobody has the right to put the public at risk in this way, but it's simply not true. They do it all the time, and they "have the right" -- in the sense that they are not stopped a priori. Rather, if they cause harm, they are required to pay for it in court. That's the way our system works. It does not forbid risk, but it puts the cost of the risk on those who cause it as well as it can. Which is not perfect, but it's how it works, and of course it trades one cost (injury or death) with a financial cost, though it is hard to compare those. Yet compare them we do. Put dollar values on human life we do. Every day.
We do it because we don't want a world where we forbid risk. That would be far worse, for so many reasons. We only forbid the really clear and obvious and extreme risks and sometimes not even those. And of course we are not uniform about it. We sometimes forbid minor risks, we don't really have a consistent set of rules.
You're right that we do allow some risk. You're wrong that we allow "pretty high levels of risk." The risk that we allow is the risk inherent in a human driving *and following all the traffic laws*. That risk is very tiny, especially in terms of crashes involving deaths.
Uber's self-driving project exceeded that risk. The portion of Uber's self-driving project where they were driving with emergency braking disabled and with only one (overworked and underpaid) safety driver grossly exceeded that risk.
Also, what about Tesla? Isn't
Also, what about Tesla? Isn't the vast majority of their testing done through shadow driving and simulation? You can say that the driver acts like a "safety driver" for Tesla, but there's a key difference: The driver of a Tesla is not under any pressure to *not* take over.
Tesla is not working on a robocar with what they say and what they learn from driving is insignificant compared to what Waymo learns per mile. And yet we have seen several fatalities with autopilot on.
Tesla is working on a robocar
Tesla is working on a robocar.
Several fatalities over more than a billion miles is pretty damn good.
Tesla's record
I am curious as to the source of your number, but whatever the source, that number describes a human monitored semi-automated driving system, which while very nice for what it is, is not a robocar. Note that Tesla has another (good) factor altering their number, in that their cars have the highest crash safety ratings of any cars sold. If you crash in a Tesla you are less likely to die than in other cars. In the USA, the number is around 12 fatalities in a billion miles for average human drivers in average cars, with a large fraction of those fatalities being the driver or other occupants of the at-fault car. (the majority of fatalities are single car accidents.)
https://electrek.co/2018/11/28/tesla-autopilot-1-billion-miles/
A "human monitored semi-automated driving system" is what all the companies have right now, apart from the few who sometimes go completely driverless. Although, during most if not all of the fatalities (with Tesla, and the Uber one), the human wasn't actually doing that job.
Not quite
There is, in my view, a very large difference between a system that is designed to work only with human monitoring (which is what Tesla has) and a system which is designed to work without human monitoring, but is still in prototype phase, so is tested using human monitoring.
They are two very different things which look the same in a superficial analysis.
Kudos to Tesla
I think there *should* be a large difference between those two. But I also think that 1) Tesla is clearly building a system to work in certain environments without human monitoring - they're just not done, and regulations wouldn't allow them to release it right now even if they were done; and 2) Uber, by disabling (or not bothering to enable) emergency braking, clearly released a system that was *designed* to work only with human monitoring.
Of those two, I think Uber made a huge mistake, and hopefully has learned from it. Tesla, on the other hand, has found a way to get thousands of safety drivers to drive billions of miles for it for free (and without dealing with those pesky regulations). Kudos to Tesla.
To put it another way, Tesla is clearly building both. They're building a car meant to work with human monitoring, and they're also building a car a meant to work without human monitoring. They're building the former in large part in order to gather data to help them build the latter.
I think that's ideal. I think that's the way you get from zero to robocar in a way that's safest. I think that's much better than a naive form of "safety driving" where you throw a driver into a buggy robocar and have them figure out how to balance between the contradictory goals of being safe and intervening as little as possible.
Almost everybody outside the auto industry
Believes that approach is not a good one. You certainly can learn something by watching human drivers supervise an ADAS tool, but Tesla is not really watching us, not the way you want to. You need complete sensor logs of every anomaly.
And yes, I see the point that when Uber decided their system had too many false positives to emergency brake, you can argue it was "designed" to need human monitoring, but I don't agree with it. It's designed to not need it, but it is not yet fully functional. I ask what is the team trying to build, what will they ship. That is what they are designing for.
Telsa is designing for, and shipping, an ADAS autopilot. They say they also plan some day to ship full self drive, but the product they sell is not that nor designed to be that. But I still maintain there is a large difference, of kind, not of degree, between a prototype robocar and a shipping or prototype autopilot trying to be a robocar some day. As I said, they look similar which may be confusing, so the counter to my point is not to say they look similar.
I'd like to see a source for
I'd like to see a source for your assertion about what almost everybody outside the auto industry believes. Not that it matters, because appeal to popularity is fallcious reasoning.
When I say, "everybody outside the auto industry" I mean the people in the field outside the auto industry -- those at Waymo, Zoox, Uber, Lyft, and many other teams and startups in industry and academia -- those with expertise who are not at a big automaker. I include Cruise in this camp too even though it is at a big automaker.
The big automakers (mostly) came to this problem with an ADAS mindset -- we're good at ADAS so let's improve that until we get a robocar. The others did not and are not constrained by that thinking.
The source is me. I track the plans and activities of the teams, and the principle is nearly universal. With very few exceptions, belief in the incremental ADAS approach is strongly correlated with coming from the ADAS world.
Tesla is this interesting case in the middle. They are a car company, but with non-traditional origins. However, because they began their efforts using MobilEye (an ADAS product) that guided their path to be like other car companies, but more aggressive and a bit smarter about it.
I'd also like to see what your definition is of "robocar" and "ADAS," and if there's something in-between what it is. This would probably make a good post all to itself.
What Tesla is designing for is more, I think, than just an ADAS autopilot. I believe they want to take the *need* for human monitoring out of the equation as much as possible. They certainly have said as much. "Ultimately, you’ll be able to summon your car from anywhere ... the car can physically get to you." At the same time, I don't think they're designing for the exactly same type of "robocar" as the taxi companies. I think they're actually designing for something better - a robocar/ADAS hybrid, I guess, if you think that robocar and ADAS cover the full range of possibilities.
It's in the name
ADAS is driver assist. The human is responsible for the vehicle, working with technical controls. In robocar operations, the system is responsible for driving, the human making only strategic decisions, if that.
The big debate is whether there really is something in between them. There is the concept that NHTSA called level 3, which I call a standby robocar, but that's really a robocar that needs to exit its operating area at speed.
It is of course possible to have cars that work in different modes at the request of the driver or in different regions. That's obvious, but I don't consider it something "between" the two.
I don't see where the hard line is between the two. Whether or not a human is responsible for the vehicle or is only making strategic decisions is subjective when you have a really good advanced autopilot.
A robocar has to be 1,000 to 10,000 times better than a "really good advanced autopilot." The robocar has to go a million miles without making a mistake that could lead to any crash, and perhaps 200 million miles before making a mistake that would cause a fatal crash. An advanced autopilot would be seen as very, very good if it could go 1,000 miles without a mistake. Even 100 miles is pretty good. In fact, Anthony Levandowski just made headlines by getting his autopilot to go 3,000 miles across the USA without needing an intervention, being the first to do that, and he did it on a pre-selected route.
A difference of 10,000 times is not just a matter of degree. It's a difference of kind. And it causes a very different design philosophy.
Why does a robocar have to go a million miles without making a mistake that could lead to any crash, and perhaps 200 million miles before making a mistake that would cause a fatal crash? Is this by your definition of "robocar"? Doesn't this contradict what you said above in this very article?
Even assuming that this type of perfection is necessary to be, by definition, considered a robocar (I asked you above for your definition to avoid this moving target, but whatever), why exactly is it that an autopilot can't achieve this? The difference between going 1,000 miles without a mistake and going 1,000,000 miles without a mistake is a difference of degree, not of kind, unless you think there is something fundamental that can't achieve the latter standard. And I'm not even sure what that would mean. If you can achieve that level of perfection in a robocar, surely you can achieve it in an autopilot, as there's nothing in the definition of "an autopilot" that requires less perfection (is there?).
I go back to my original question, because apparently there's something in your definitions that is still unstated. What is the defining difference between ADAS and a robocar? I'll add what is the definition of autopilot, to see if there's something fundamental about the definition of "autopilot" that puts it in the ADAS category and not the robocar category.
If for some reason you don't want to get into the specifics (maybe you feel it's too proprietary), please just ignore my questions and just say that. I can accept if you believe that there's a difference of kind and that you just don't want to say what it is.
Why does it have to go that far?
I thought that was what you were demanding. Of course, since you keep using "Anonymous" rather than putting in a pseudonym, I don't know who is who.
Somebody was suggesting the cars be as good as good human drivers. Average human drivers have a police reported accident every 500K miles, so I took the proposed challenge to be a suggestion we might like the robocar to do 1 million miles. Likewise average human drivers go 80M miles before a fatality. Of course, the vast majority of human drivers never have a fatality!
So was it you who proposed this or somebody else? Please change the name field. Your browser will remember if you don't clear cookies.
I explained adas vs robocar in another post, perhaps with somebody else. Autopilot (Tesla) is very definitely an ADAS technology right now. I know, I have it. Autopilot is cool and all, but the reason people are impressed with it is they haven't seen what a real robocar is supposed to do.
Demands vs. definitions
I have some demands that I think that robocars *should* meet before they should be allowed on the roads without a safety driver. These demands are not the same as my definition of what a robocar is.
I'm not sure I even have a definition of robocar. That's one of the reasons I was asking you. My thought would be that Tesla Autopilot is both an ADAS technology and a level 2 robocar technology. I think with improvement (and regulatory approval, maybe) it could become a level 3 robocar technology (a human will be able to take "eyes off" the road until the system beeps because it needs assistance). The path from level 2 to level 3, at least on a simple operating domain like a controlled-access highway, is mostly a matter of fixing the bugs. I really don't see why Tesla can't improve autopilot to be able to handle controlled-access highways safer than a human. What is the scenario that they can't improve autopilot in order to handle? The path from level 3 to level 4 is less clear, in that there are a number of different ways to achieve it. Personally the one I'm most interested in would have a good map of the controlled-access highway system plus the ability to safely pull over to the side of the road if the human driver did not respond to a request to take over control when the exit is near. Being able to work or fall asleep on a long road trip is the number one feature I'd like in a car. In any case I expect the operating domain to be narrow at first, and gradually to be expanded.
This may or may not be the *best* way to build a robocar. But I can't see any reason why it's not possible.
You say "right now." Yes, right now Tesla's car needs a human monitoring it, even before it starts beeping at them. But right now Uber's car needs a human monitoring it too. And apparently at the time of their fatal crash they hadn't even implemented the part where it starts beeping at the human when a situation comes up that the car isn't programmed to handle.
There are no levels
I have several other essays on why the idea of levels is a dangerous misdirection. One particular confusion is that what they call level 3 is really an easier to implement variant of level 4, it has nothing to do with level 2. But research suggests it is a dangerous variant, and thus not that good a thing to work on, though indeed, in some constrained conditions like traffic jams and parking lots (ie. low speed) it can be worth building.
A number of teams (including Google) have considered doing highway first. It's certainly the easiest driving problem, though also the most dangerous, so it's a tough call. However, it's also the least interesting. A car that can drive on the highway gives rich people some time back in their lives. Sweet, but not the world-changing effect of an urban taxi.
Again, my point is what is the design goal? Uber wants to build a robocar. Tesla wants a fancy ADAS. Tesla needs a human because it is designed to need a human. Uber needs a human because it is designed to not need a human, but is still in development.
A proper robocar is capable of unmanned operation.
Tesla wants to build a robocar.
As far as levels, I understand that you reject them. But you haven't offered any alternative definitions.
I have, but it's been some time
Short summary. There is ADAS which is not that related to robocars, though it is interesting.
There is the full robocar, which is a vehicle safe to operate unmanned on some roads and conditions.
There is a robocar with standby driver, which needs to move from where it can operate to where it can't at speed, and thus needs a human on standby to take over before it gets to the boundary zone. This is similar to what they call level 3.
So really, there's a robocar, and if people make it (they perhaps should not because it's dangerous) there's the standby mode. Everything else is simply where and when it can operate.
Robocar?
A level 4 autonomous vehicle is a robocar, right? Tesla doesn't have one yet (most companies don't; maybe Waymo does), but they're building one. In fact, Musk claims they're trying to make a level 5 car.
Tesla projects
Tesla has indeed announced various claims. They have shown nothing to the public about their work on that, though, so it's hard to judge. All we see from Tesla is talk of autopilot and improving it. I would like to see them automate a supercharger station (so the cars automatically leave the supercharger and park in a regular spot after the guy who wants their spot unplugs the cable) first -- that would actually be useful. Though it is not clear if the car has proper close-in sensors to operate in a parking lot with pedestrians everywhere.
I'm not sure what you'd want them to show the public. In any case, I'm not asking you to judge them (I think it's pretty obvious you don't like them for some reason). I'm just asking you to recognize that some companies are working on the problem in a way that is significantly different from Uber and Waymo.
Don't like them
I don't have any particular "reason" to like or not like teams other than some are doing better and using better approaches. I am pleased with any approach that shows promise to work. I am less pleased with approaches that follow routes I think will be a waste, but I am also in favour of trying all the paths if people have the money and they can do so with reasonable safety.
This is also the approach of VCs. For example, George Hotz's comma.ai approach of all cameras in an open source box is one that I think less likely to succeed. It's not impossible, it's just a longshot bet. VCs try to invest in all the longshots since they win big if only one of them comes in. And so should the world, though it is tough for those who pour their life into a longshot that fails.
My main concern with Tesla has been that there is not enough clarity on the line between autopilot and robocar, and that a few people have lost their lives because of that confusion -- though not because Tesla doesn't explain that difference, it's more of a public attitude problem than theirs.
Oh, yeah, Anonymous
While I allow anonymous posting in the comments here, I would appreciate it if people filled in whatever consistent fake name they like so that when there is back and forth, readers can tell if it's one person or more who is posting anonymously.
"Admittedly one statistic is hard to figure, namely fatalities. Except for Uber ignoring every reasonable standard other teams all worked out, there have not been any."
I wonder how many there would have been if a safety driver hadn't taken over, though. For Uber, probably a bunch. For the other teams, I have no idea.
Well, not lots of fatalities, but lots of accidents. That's how safety driving works. The car is not yet safe enough and will have accidents on its own. Given supervision, it has a very low rate of accidents -- for Waymo, quite a bit lower than ordinary human driving. For Uber, not so much, but they hired a safety driver who watched TV while she was supposed to monitor a crappy driving system.
I mention this because it's two different standards. To be allowed on the road with a safety driver, a robocar plus safety driver combination should be at least as good as a human driver who doesn't break the law. To be allowed on the road without a safety driver, the robocar itself should be at least as good as a human driver who doesn't break the law.
In both cases it's a tough thing to measure, as you have to guess about performance beforehand. So, to be clear, I'm not saying this as a codified standard, but just as a basic principle that should guide us toward coming up with the actual rules.
And maybe that's where there's a disconnect where I don't think there's any significant gap in development between "driving like the average driver" and "driving like the average non-reckless driver." Because the cars aren't going to drive recklessly. (Any more? Uber's did by disabling emergency braking, IMO, but I think that lesson has been learned.) So the question is, what kinds of mistakes is the car making? If the car is making mistakes (or mistakes are otherwise foreseeable) that can cause a fatal or otherwise serious crash in a certain operating domain, this needs to be fixed or that operating domain needs to be eliminated.
That's not how it works
Every car, in it's early days out on the road (with safety drivers) was as bad as Uber's car in some sense. Not the specific flaws, but ones of similar scope. With safety drivers doing their job, Waymo and others have certainly attained the record you want of being as safe as a sober, competent, non-reckless driver, but they certainly don't do that well without the safety driver, at least for the first several million miles, it seems.
I'm not sure what you're
I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. Maybe it's that you think that what Uber dud is acceptable? But "other people did it too," even if it's true, doesn't provide evidence that it's okay.
Yes, it does
Nobody else has done what Uber did. However, lots of teams have followed a variety of better procedures, with a good safety record.
Doggydogworld
Tesla gets a free pass so far
Tesla gets a free pass so far because they've only killed their own drivers. As you say, "We are more tolerant of casualties who knowingly participated". Furthermore, Tesla customers blame these drivers for not paying attention (a line of thinking Tesla vigorously encourages). Customers feel no loss of control, remaining certain they are masters of their own destiny.
People attack Waymos in Phoenix and protest against them in the Bay Area, but nobody attacks or protests against Tesla. Why not? I think it gets back to the control issue, which Waymo confronts much more directly (and visibly).
The biggest legal problem is deep pockets. When a human driver kills or maims recovery is generally limited to the liability insurance limit (50-500k). Or zero if the driver is one of the millions of uninsured. Even if the driver was reckless, or drunk, or had lost his license due to prior incidents. But the ambulance chasers around here run "Hit by a company-owned car or truck?" TV ads because they know even a mild injury can trigger a huge payday when deep pockets are involved. No self-driving car company can afford to kill 100 people in the first 100 million miles. They'd be bankrupt after the first 10. That's one reason why Waymo is uber-cautious (or anti-uber cautious, haha).
This must be solved legislatively.
Russell de silva
Fixing bugs in neural networks
I think you are right, it's pretty clear given the assumptions that being risk averse is going to cost lives.
I think the biggest assumption, and you did mention this, is whether it is fundamentally possible.
A related assumption is that the nature of bugs are typical software bugs where a failure in a given scenario has a clear logical mapping to a code fault. If the fault is in a neural network then retraining is necessary. At what point does the neural network behave like whack-a-mole? Even if the NN doesn't behave like whack-a-mole, but fixes become increasingly time consuming as the NN becomes more optimised, how does that affect the analysis?
I think it would mean that road miles are less important than expected as there would simply come a point where you get saturated with problems.
On the other hand I guess throwing all new data into the training set at the same time may be the best way to fix NN bugs.
It's not whack-a-mole
Everybody does extensive regression testing. Each new retraining of the neural networks will be run over all previously tagged sensor data and through every simulator situation to assure that the changes have not broken something else. You can't be 100% sure of course, but you know you didn't cause some problem from the past to reappear. In general, in time your test suite should become very large and you get more confidence.
"We let [teenagers drive] because it's the only way to turn them into safer adult drivers, and because they need mobility in our world."
Mostly the latter. In fact, the former isn't true. We let teenagers drive because we respect their rights (and want to reduce the burdens on their parents), not because we're making a utilitarian decision based on driver safety. Teenagers will turn into safer adult drivers without driving at all - simply by growing up and learning not to make so many risky, stupid decisions. Not letting people drive until they're at least 24 would greatly reduce the number of car crashes and crash fatalities. Interestingly, once robocars are ubiquitous such a rule (substituting 21 for 24) might actually be politically feasible.
Partly true
Teens become less reckless as they age, agreed. However, there is also such a thing as driving experience, and you do get better at it the more driving you do. Until about age 70 when you start getting worse.
Why only partly?
You said that driving experience is "the only way to turn [teens] into safer adult drivers." I replied that it's not the *only* way.
Moreover, I think if you look at the types of serious crashes that teens get involved in, you'll find that carelessness or recklessness plays a much larger role in them than lack of driving experience.
Changing the driving age to 21 or 24 would save many lives. But it would do so by punishing non-reckless teens for the mistakes of their peers.
Mr Subjective
This point has been alluded to in the comments above, but basically, if we're looking at averages then would you say that robo-cars killing 99 'innocent' people (lets say, for example, law abiding people who would not have died if they had been driving themselves, or maybe pedestrians, or maybe children) , verses 100 'human-driven fatalities', would show then to be safer than human drivers, if the human drivers who had been driving were aggressive, serial speeders and were drunk and only killed themselves?
As I've said before robocars are an objective technology trying to enter a subjective world and it's going to be extremely difficult to mix the two without geofencing robocars or banning humans.....and either of these, especially the latter, is going to seriously impact on people's convenience and freedom.
Phillip Helbig
"The TL;DR of the thesis is this: Given a few reasonable assumptions, from a strict standpoint of counting deaths and injuries, almost any delay to the deployment of high-safety robocars costs lots of lives."
You've mentioned the meta trolley problem: however it is resolved, thinking about it causes more deaths than even a bad resolution. Probably similar logic applies here.
Somewhat related, and important in terms of fighting pollution and so on: most auto companies are offering huge SUVs which are fully electric, or are self-driving, or whatever. Only a small fraction can afford these. Much more benefit would be gained by implementing new features in low-cost models. Yes, it might be true that whoever pays 100,000 for a car can pay 120,000, so it is logical for new technologies to be adopted top-down. But perhaps this is a case where a subsidy would make sense.
Would a subsidy speed development or uptake?
It would be interesting to explore how a subsidy could advance the adoption or development of this technology.
Google/Waymo are looking to own a robo taxi fleet with ride share. Potentially purchasing transport as a service can replace private ownership will have major benefits in reducing the number of vehicles built and the size of those vehicles.
In this regard it seems quite different to electric vehicles.
Maybe city officials can speed the adoption by allowing robocars access to busways or even exemptions from congestion charges.
half of all drivers on the road today are below average
Clearly exactly half of all drivers on the road today are below average. That's a lot of people. If a goal is to get "bad" drivers off the road then Transportation as a Service (TaaS) will be a boon to our culture and to our economy.
Median vs. average
Half of all drivers are below the median. Probably around 95% are above average, as probably about 5% of the population causes 50% of the serious crashes.
I would be interested in your source as I have not seen histograms of what fraction of drivers cause what share of accidents. I have seen accident rates by age groups and other demographics, but not that.
Source would be great
I would too. But you seem to be missing the point, which is not whether the number is 95% or 90% or 80% but that the number is not 50%.
My point is
We don't know what the number is, it's just a guess. The number is both stronger than you suggest, but also misleading.
My own examinations suggest that 1/3rd of drivers never have an accident reportable to insurance in their lives. I am such a person. But it would be an error to judge that they are perfect, that their driving creates no risk. I am very aware of my own imperfection as a driver in spite of my 40 years of perfection. (I have had a parking ding.)
If one were to demand that robocars drive as well as this third of drivers, how could you do it? Perfection isn't possible, nor can it be measured. Waymo has about 15 human lifetimes worth of driving, and one at-fault fender bender. Where do you put it?
You can measure the accident rate of the top 50% of drivers, and get a number, but if you measure the rate of the top 30% you get zero so you no longer can do a comparison. The real goal is to say, "If we put this car on the road, are we creating more risk than putting a human driver on the road?" Yes, you can debate what class of human driver, but only to a point.
We don't know the exact numbers, but it's quite clear looking at the causes of fatal crashes that a small percentage of people are causing a disproportionate number of fatal crashes.
Assuming you mean Waymo as a robocar, and not as ADAS, I don't know where to "put it" because I don't know how many and what type of crashes would have occurred had there not been safety drivers.
Moreover, it's not something that is one dimensional. These cars are going to be good in some situations and less good in others. I don't know specifically what sort of situations Waymo has been tested in over those "15 human lifetimes worth of driving."
I think we should ask, if we put the robocar on the road, are we creating more risk than a human driver that we would be willing to hire to do the job. How exactly to measure that, depends on where the risks are. It depends on the specifics of the software. It depends on the specifics of the operating domain.
With Uber, it was pretty obvious where the risk was. In fact, an Uber employee says he warned Uber about exactly the scenario: A jaywalker at a time when the safety driver wasn't paying attention. I think that's obviously a huge risk, and it didn't take many miles of driving with only one safety driver and no emergency braking for that risk to turn into a fatality. (And as was pointed out, it could have just as easily been a child jaywalker instead of an adult. And I'm not sure it even had to have been a jaywalker. I would bet that there are legal crossing situations that are not detected by Uber's cars. Probably not along the limited one mile loop that they're currently running, but that goes to show you of what little use such a limited testing domain is).
So I think the threshold of when the to it is good enough is something that each operator has to ask for itself. In terms of regulation, I favor regulations similar to the regulations of human drivers. That is, not much before-the-fact, but mostly after-the-fact punishment, including criminal punishment when your actions were grossly negligent and you caused a death.
What Uber did was criminal, in my opinion. You've suggested before that all the companies are doing it, but I think that's just because we disagree with what Uber did. I don't have any evidence that any other company is doing something as egregious as what Uber did.
Crashes without safety drivers
I am not clear on the focus on the "type of crashes that would have happened without safety drivers." The answer is, "a ton in the early days, getting less and less until it gets good enough to be considered for release." The team of course looks hard at any "simulated contact" incidents because their goal is to get rid of them. It is probably tough to get the teams to publish that, though.
Waymo's testing has mostly been in easy driving situations, with some amount of more complex situations including complex urban and snow. Cruise touts that they have done much more complex urban. This is not secret.
And yes, the risk does indeed depend on what you ask it to do, and where.
No, not all the companies are doing what Uber did. All the companies are putting vehicles out which make errors, and they put two safety drivers in to stop that from turning into crashes. Uber used only one, and she was seriously negligent at the job she was given.
After all, consider the millions of people out there today driving on cruise control, ACC and Tesla Autopilot. Those systems are less capable than even Uber's car. Their drivers correct them. There is a paradox that the better a system gets, the more temptation their is for the person monitoring it (ordinary Tesla owner or professional safety driver) to slack off and thus not catch a mistake. When it can't handle things all the time (like regular cruise control which doesn't handle the car in front of you going slower than you or steering) there is no option but to be vigilant. The better it gets, the less vigil there is.
This is why the two safety drivers turn out to be important, and having them be serious professionals turns out to be important.
Interestingly
While trying to look up your definition of "robocar" I came across a previous statement of yours about safety: "Robocars don't get approved for the road until they can demonstrate a safety record a fair bit superior to human drivers, and in fact safer than sober, alert drivers." Perhaps you've changed your opinion since writing that, but this is essentially the same standard I would use.
Yes, I still feel it is likely that this is the sort of safety target many teams may decide upon. However, in this article here, I examine if that is too conservative a philosophy, if the right thing for society is that they release much sooner than that. It appears to be. Other than, as I point out, the risk to both the industry and to the team of backlash against early accidents, because the public doesn't look at the overwhelming math, it puts focus on individual tragic stories.
Which path is right or wrong depends on both emotion and your moral code. Large companies (especially car companies) tend to be conservative. Startups (and Google) tend to be more aggressive. The car companies have become much more aggressive after realizing that they might cease to exist if they stayed conservative, but there's a limit.
There's no such thing as "the right thing for society," in my opinion. There is no "overwhelming math," because comparing the deaths of one group of people to another group of people is not a math problem.
Or to put it another way, utilitarianism is evil.
That gets argued
But nobody actually believes either view strictly. If harm to others is wrong regardless of what benefits might come, then you can't ever take any risk of harming others. You certainly can't drive, which is probably the thing you do that's most dangerous to others. Instead you decide that your convenience of mobility is more important than risk to your own life and the lives of others. The ends justify the means. And we all do it, all the time.
It is more complex than any simple analysis. When we decide if the ends justify the means, we usually talk about particularly evil means, and feel no ends can justify them. When it comes to small evil means, like the risk involved in driving the roads, we are much more flexible.
What I've said above are things that I believe strictly. I didn't say that you can't ever take any risk of harming others, though.
You shouldn't take any risk of harming others that they have not voluntarily assumed, but what risks people are deemed to have voluntarily assumed by travelling on public roadways is up for debate.
The risk involved in a human driving non-negligently on public roads is not evil. Not even a small evil. At least it's not evil on the part of the driver. The government theft of private lands to create those public roads is perhaps evil.
Not evil
Well, clearly it's hard to make formal definitions of evil. And yes, society and our laws accept driving as a reasonable thing, and do not prohibit it or punish it. In fact, we're pretty lax. Even drunk driving is "allowed" in the sense that we don't demand that cars give you a breath test before you drive. (Some people after a DUI do get that requirement.) Instead, we punish you if you get caught.
We punish you if you hit something of course. We also punish you if you are caught taking particular high risks -- unsafe lane changes, speeding, rolling stops, and the various things known as reckless or careless driving. Or sometimes even a missing light.
Some people go out rested and sober on nice days. Other times people go out tired with 0.07 alcohol in a snowstorm. We punish neither but the latter is probably creating an order of magnitude more risk than the former, maybe two orders of magnitude. They are both legal, though.
What we voluntarily assume is curious. I mean, we know there are tons of people over the legal alcohol limit on the road tonight, New Year's Eve. I am going out driving. Am I voluntarily assuming the risk? What about tomorrow, when they are sober? The reality is that even Uber with all its negligence only moderately increased the risk on the streets of Tempe. Probably not as much as the drunks tonight.
Teens go out on the road, even though we know they are creating much more risk. As do brand new drivers. As do people with bald tires ready to blow and worn out brakes. In most cases we tolerate this because we're not sure how to stop it. In other cases, like the new drivers, we tolerate it as the path to training better drivers. Or we just tolerate it because we need to get around.
Many of these risks are much worse than Waymo is exposing the public to. And they're doing it with far more public benefit as the potential reward.
I don't think people are willing to voluntarily assume the risk of drunk drivers. We deem that risk too be too high, so drunk driving is illegal. Whether or not people are willing to voluntarily assume the risk of unmanned robocars, or more specifically at what quality level we are willing to accept it, is yet to be determined. As I've said before, I'm willing to accept a level of risk roughly equal to a driver who obeys the law, but some may argue that this is too high or too low. What I don't accept, though, is a utilitarian argument that killing more people today is okay if it will save many more lives years in the future.
How much Uber increased the risk depends a lot on whether or not you count the actions of the driver as the actions of Uber. I think it's fair to attribute the actions of the driver as actions of Uber, though I could see how one could argue otherwise.
Killing more people
Obviously nobody wants to kill anybody. But we accept that driving comes with that risk.
So why do we allow new drivers on the road with almost no training and a close to useless test? They are certainly riskier than experienced drivers.
And so the utilitarian argument holds no sway when the number are "cost 10 lives and save 100,000?" Usually people only take that view when then 10 lives are deliberately killed, ie. murder an innocent person to cure a disease and save many more. That view is taken because we think murder, for any reason, is a terribly immoral act. But we obviously don't think being slightly riskier on the highway is anything remotely like that.
The obvious analog as I point out is mandatory vaccination. 1 in 10,000 will suffer, but far more will be protected.
Utilitarianism again
The utilitarian argument holds no sway for me ever. Maybe that's why I don't support mandatory vaccination. If you could secretly vaccinate a million people without their consent, and it would kill 10 people but save 10,000 lives, that would be wrong. The key is consent.
If a robocar can drive as well as a new driver who follows the law, I think that is acceptable. I would consent to that. What you seem to be presenting is something different though. You seem to be presenting a scenario where we have robocars that are significantly less safe than that, for the purpose of helping robocar companies (for-profit corporations, incidentally), come out with robocars sooner. I wouldn't consent to that.
Yes, public roads are communal property, so maybe I'll get outvoted. But my vote is that robocars should not be allowed until they're safer than humans.
Significantly less safe
As I write in the article, we fortunately don't have to worry about the scenario of "significantly less safe." Waymo has demonstrated that it's possible with good safety driver procedures to match human safety levels, with only one minor accident and no injuries due to machine error. In fact, Uber's fatality is not due to machine error, it's completely and entirely due to serious human error, on the part of the safety driver and those who hired her and trained her. That's because the machine errors are expected and frequent, and the safety driver's job is to correct them. When I use my adaptive cruise control its errors are expected and frequent and it's my job to correct them. If I don't it's not the fault of the ACC designer.
The question of consent is interesting. One could make the argument that when using the roads, you consent to the risk. You certainly expose yourself to it knowingly. That does not mean you consent to any specific tort done to you. Because our roads are public spaces, we have a whole different system of expressing this. As you know, if you ever engage in risky private activity like skiing or hang gliding or boating on somebody else's land or vehicle, you almost always have to agree to a little waiver which actually consents to much more than the risk, it usually waives all sorts of things it should not, like negligence on their part etc.
Society handles these situations in lots of ways, and they generally involve a mix of utilitarian and other moral codes, but mostly utilitarian. Almost all liability for torts in society comes down to money. We really do put prices on lives. In doing so, we make the corporations that expose us to risk do the almost purely utilitarian analysis using those numbers. Except when we don't, like the McDonald's coffee case. We don't have one answer.
Yes, I think we do, as a society, consent to the risk level of a human driver, at least if that human driver carries a certain level of insurance. It's unfortunate that we have to make the decision communally, but that's the nature of public roads. So long as all the robocar companies follow the conservative lead of Waymo I think we'll be okay. It's only if companies get more agressive under the guise that it's okay to kill more people today to save more people's lives in a few years that I am concerned.
Uber's fatality was due to a lot of human errors, but the biggest three were: the choice to cross the road illegally, the choice of the safety driver not to pay attention to the road for an extended period of time, and the choice of the Uber executive to disable emergency braking. All of those choices were, I believe, but-for causes of the woman's death, and all were, in my opinion, proximate causes of the death, because it was forseeable beforehand that each of them had a very high risk of causing a serious car crash. Uber employees were responsible for 2 out of those 3 human decisions. The victim was responsible for the 3rd one. That is fortunate for Uber, as if the victim had been legally crossing or been a child, the payout probably would have been greater. They still probably would have gotten away with no criminal charges and have been back on the roads again, though, which is a travesty.
Disabling
Yes, the three causes were the improper crossing (which has half the legal responsibility) the safety driver (and the procedures under which she was selected and trained) and the technology failure. However, it is important to understand that they did not "disable" emergency braking. They did not have workable emergency braking, so could not use it. Today, you can buy cars which have emergency braking and cars which don't. I own one car that has it and one that doesn't. If I drive the one that doesn't and hit somebody, would you blame the death on my failure to drive my newer car? Or what about a person with one car who decided in the showroom whether to add AEB as an option or not? Are they culpable for not buying it if they hit somebody? (They are to blame for hitting the person, presumably, of course, the question is their showroom decision was an immoral act.)
And, in the future, when you can choose to drive yourself or ride in robo-Lyft, and you have an accident if you drive yourself, we will punish you extra? And if robo-Lyft takes 10 years longer to get here than it could have because of conservative approaches, who will we blame?
You've repeated many times that Uber did not "disable" emergency braking. However, you have presented zero evidence of this, and all the evidence leads to the conclusion that Uber had emergency braking in place that would have prevented the crash, but that they turned it off. Multiple news stories have reported that Uber disabled emergency braking. That's what they did. Doing so was a but-for cause of the crash. It was, in my opinion, the human decision out of the three that was most foreseeable to cause a fatality.
You say they did not have workable emergency braking. That is wrong. They had workable emergency braking. It didn't produce a "smooth" enough ride, so they turned it off. They traded a smoother ride for a woman's life. They chose to fail-deadly instead of fail-safe. It should have been obvious that they were making the wrong decision, but they did it anyway. Maybe they made a utilitarian argument for it: Increase the risk of killing someone now for the sake of not getting the project shut down by the CEO, thereby saving more lives in the future. They guessed wrong, as they killed someone before the demo even could take place.
"Today, you can buy cars which have emergency braking and cars which don't. I own one car that has it and one that doesn't. If I drive the one that doesn't and hit somebody, would you blame the death on my failure to drive my newer car? Or what about a person with one car who decided in the showroom whether to add AEB as an option or not? Are they culpable for not buying it if they hit somebody?"
Possibly. Have you ever heard of the Learned Hand Formula? If not, look it up. In short, whether or not you are culpable for not having a safety feature is a factor of how expensive it would be to install the safety feature and how likely the safety feature is to save a life.
In this case, Uber *already had an emergency braking system in place*. They turned it off in an effort to trick their CEO into thinking that the car was performing better than it actually was.
> And, in the future, when you can choose to drive yourself or ride in robo-Lyft, and you have an accident if you drive yourself, we will punish you extra?
At some point in the future I expect that driving yourself will be illegal. But that's probably a *long* way in the future, as driving yourself is already extremely unlikely to kill someone, so long as you follow the rules of the road.
Uber's car, on the other hand, was extremely likely to kill someone. This is obvious in hindsight, but according to reports there were Uber employees who already knew that before the deadly crash happened.
The built in Volvo emergency braking was, like all Volvo ADAS, disabled. Everybody does that.
While we don't have the final report, what we do know is that Uber felt their system triggered too many false positives to be usable. You could say they 'turned it off' but the reality as far as we know is that it was not yet safe to deploy it, so it was turned off. If you turn off something that never worked, are you disabling it? Or just deciding it never worked and making sure it won't cause a problem?
So the key question is, did Uber in fact turn off a working braking system for a demo with the CEO, or did they never have a working braking system in the first place? We'll probably learn the answer in the NTSB report. The leaks and rumours do offer suggestion of it.
Doesn't matter, really
We do not know that Uber felt their system triggered too many false positives to be usable. We know is that they disabled emergency braking. We don't know why, though the evidence suggests that they did it for reasons other than safety.
Either way, it really doesn't matter. If your car is so bad that it's safer to disable hard braking than it is to keep it on, you shouldn't be putting it on the road in autonomous mode anyway.
Question about my own marriage certificate and my parent's 1 day 1 min ago
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Offset Investment Inflow Priorities for Ordnance Factories
S. Gopalaswamy
S. Gopalaswamy is Member Corporate Planning, Ordnance Factory Board.
Defence Offsets
Offset agreements are formal arrangements of trade where some sort of leverage is exploited by a buyer to obtain compensatory benefits in the case of high value off-shore purchases by forcing the seller to undertake well-designated activities for enhancing competitiveness, up-gradation of technology for domestic industries, additions to exports, up-gradation in the infrastructure in appropriate domestic sectors, etc. Though these are business deals with built-in reciprocity clauses, it is not a matter of establishing desired equivalence of inflow and outflow resources. For the seller, it provides additional exploitable avenues to further their business interests. Thus, every offset agreement has its related cost.
The end of cold war has transformed the world polity from war of two blocks to increasing battle among splinter groups. The battle field has changed, so have their management paradigms. But increasing numbers of players are being drawn into newer fields making the world a dangerous place to live in. The concept of superiority of numbers of major weapon systems has given way to fire and forget and net-centric environment with rapidly changing newer technology – accompanied with obsolescence of earlier systems. The costs of weapon-systems are increasing in tandem with technological up-gradation putting pressure on advanced countries to search for cost cutting measures. Thus, while the demands for major weapons systems have dropped considerably, the net defence spending has gone up squeezing the available resources away from developmental activities – thereby putting pressure on local governments. To pacify hostile local sentiments against increased defence spending and to partially compensate for the procurement expenditure and outflow of resources, the supplier is pressurised to undertake programs to generate benefits for the economy of the buyer country. The supplier in turn takes the advantage of cheap labour and material costs of the buyer country to buy-back, co-produce, sub-contract or gives licence to produce the desired systems or sub-systems or part thereof. Thus, offsets have got a solid footing.
The basic need for vendor selection and source development arises out of the demand for new products or modification in existing products, change of manufacturing process, market conditions, alternate source of supply, reluctance or closure of existing suppliers, emergence of new suppliers, supplier’s poor performance, cost-reduction studies, new policies / regulations, political considerations, etc. The cheapest source is always not the best source. Similarly, the source that provides the best quality may not be the best source. A source providing the best quality may not be able to deliver the required quantity. Choosing the right source that can provide the right quantity of right quality at right time at right price is a tenuous task. The buyer can exploit the level of competition among the producers, their desperation to grab the order, and their own negotiating skills to get a good offset agreement. Purposeful selection in consonance with well defined objectives, hard negotiations to extract maximum benefit, detailed planning for its smooth implementation and timely completion and elimination of oversights are the general characteristics of a goof offset agreement.
A genuine offset is required to be free of charge to the customer. But in real terms, most sellers include the offset cost in the contract price. According to reports, it takes up anything from 3 per cent to 10 per cent of the contract cost. Since the sellers recognize the fact that the offset obligations will cost money, they make adequate allowances for it while preparing their commercial bids. They also try other camouflage methods like supplying outdated technology, counting business generated in routine commercial trade against offsets, exploiting existing markets for additional short-term gains; outsource offset requirements to new entities without much experience or commitment to deliver genuine benefits in the targeted area, etc. Countries like Belgium have burnt their fingers in offset deals due to lack of in-depth understanding of the interplay of conflicting interests and prevailing insincere practices forcing them to do away with defence offsets.
As offset contracts are required to be completed during the currency of the main contract, their consequential gains are temporary. Many nations, who failed to foresee the absence of assured continuous orders, have been saddled with manufacturing facilities that are lying idle. The resources wasted in creation of excess production capacity have negated all benefits accruing from offsets. South Africa negotiated a stainless steel plant against offsets in a defence deal, but soon found out that it is not economically viable due to surplus capacity.
Offsets are often based on political considerations as well as economic reflections. Once offset obligations are fulfilled, further orders dry up. One-off orders preclude influx of the latest technology and its continued up-gradation as short-term associations do not get translated into long-term partnerships. With no assurance of future orders, few want to go in for major investments. Thus, offsets always do not generate new business – specifically involving valuable technology transfer. For example, no country will offer technology to their business rivals.
Since offsets remain outside the purview of the main defence contract, they invite less attention and scrutiny. This makes offset agreements open to corruption. For; firstly, offsets are formulated in general terms and do not lend themselves easily to numerical quantification. Secondly, methods of fulfilment of offset obligations are often left unspecified in the original agreement and are negotiated during the term of the contract. Thirdly, the lack of an effective oversight mechanism and the vendor’s reluctance to share data, which may be termed as commercially sensitive, renders the whole program open to manipulation. Extension of the time period to fulfil obligations may be granted for subjective considerations. Pricing of sub-contracted items including Integrated Logistics Support may be flawed. Any or all of these conditions can be manipulated by vested interests to further their selfish agenda.
Offsets are of two types: direct offsets and indirect offsets. In direct offset, the trade arrangement is related to the primary product sold. It does not transcend any other economic or social activities. Thus, the compensatory dispensation remains confined to the main weapon systems, its sub-assemblies and components. It may include buy-back or co-production or licensed production or sub-contracts of the system and its sub-systems. In this arrangement, the seller helps the buyer produce the product or a part thereof and buys it back to use it in his products sold to the same country or elsewhere. Many such arrangements include transfer of technology. The seller does it for his own reasons; such as cutting the cost of production, better and cheaper availability of raw materials in buyer’s country, availability of skilled workforce at cheaper rates, to meet targets in time, etc. Thus, the developed countries prefer this mode of transaction. The increasing trend of opening BPO in India is due to the above reasons, though it is not a consequence of direct offsets agreement. Often the arrangements are not publicized to avoid adverse public opinion due to transfer of jobs to the purchasing country.
In indirect offset, the scope is much wider as the agreement is not restricted to the products sold. Since it is more broad based and transcend all economic and social activities, it generally takes the form of compensatory trading. Without using this term, India has been practicing it for a long time in the transactions with the then USSR. The earlier defence purchases of India were done through non-convertible Rupee. Actual defence procurement was done in Roubles, whose exchange value in Rupees was determined by a mutual agreement between the two countries from time to time. The money was kept in the Reserve Bank of India in the account of the Russian export agency. Against this account, the USSR used to import goods from India. After the USSR broke down, the balance at credit of the agency was de-monetized and the Rupee balance was linked to SDR basket rate. During that period, Russia was going through an economic crisis and their imports from India drastically fell. This badly affected some export sectors in India. One of the sectors most badly affected was the export of teas. The impact was felt most in the Nilgiri region hitting the tea growers the hardest.
The above transaction also affected India in a different way. Since the balance at credit was in Rupees as on April 01, 1992 and linked to SDR basket rate on that date, the subsequent devaluation of the Rupee pushed the cost of payment much higher than normally expected. This is one lesson we have to keep in mind while entering into any offset agreement.
In the US, all firms with more than $5 million offset liability are required to report to the Secretary of Commerce. According to reports, offset related defence contracts of the US in 2002 were valued $7.4 billion. The value of attached offsets was $6.1 billion. This is 82.3 per cent of the total value. It is generally estimated that presently the US defence industry has offset obligations of $10 billion. The US Government keeps a close watch on such contracts.
According to reports, the average offset percentage demanded by the 17 EU countries involved in offset activities was 92.6 per cent of the export contract values. Austria obtained 174.2 per cent offsets from the US. The figure for Netherlands, Greece and Sweden varied from 104 per cent to 120 per cent. Austrian radar program had 280 per cent offset value. Czech fighter deal had 150 per cent and South African arms package had 350 per cent offset obligation.
The Indian offset policy is applicable to all purchases where indicative cost is more than Rs.300 crores ($76 million) for “Buy”, “Buy and Make with ToT” and shipbuilding contracts. For joint ventures where an Indian firm is bidding, the foreign partner will have to discharge the offset obligation. All proposals which meet the minimum offset requirements, which are placed at 30 per cent, are to be treated at par. No preference is given to extra offsets which are offered. Offset obligation is to be completed coterminous with the main contract. Thus, it is evident that while we treat offsets as holy cow, the Western nations treat it as the milky cow. If we want to play ball with them, there is a need for changes in our attitude towards offsets. While treating the cow as holy, we still can exploit its dung, horns, hide and calf for economic development.
As per the provision of Defence Procurement Procedure-2008, the mandatory requirement of Industrial Licence to partake in offset programs has been removed. Requirement of Industrial licence for defence goods is to be governed by the DPP guide-lines on licensing. Transfer of Technology is not a part of the offset proposal as at present. However, for the purpose of defence offsets, “Services” includes up-gradation, life extension, maintenance, overhaul which can be taken as offsets. It is the onus of the Services Head Quarters to identify the key areas in which the offsets will be preferred covering a time span of 3 to 5 years.
A Committee on Defence Offsets Facilitation Agency (DOFA) has been constituted to act as a single window agency to:
Facilitate implementation of the offset policy.
Assist in vetting offset proposals technically.
Assist in monitoring the offset provisions.
Suggest improvements in the policy and procedures.
Interact with Headquarters Integrated Defence Services, the Services Headquarters.
Advise in consultation with the Headquarters Integrated Defence Services, the Services and the Defence Research and Development Organization areas in which offsets will be preferred.
Promote exports of defence products and services.
Provide advisory clarification on the policy and procedures (in consultation with the acquisition wing wherever necessary).
The DOFA is an Agency under Department of Defence Production. The Agency is functioning under the supervision of a Joint Secretary (Exports) of the DDP. Nodal Officers in the core group for the same are Director (P&C), who is the Member Secretary, assisted by PO (CAP) and DPO (CAP) respectively and representatives from the Services Headquarters, Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff, DRDO, OFB, BEL, BEML, HAL as well as representatives from CII and FICCI.
DOFA assists potential vendors in interfacing with the Indian defence industry for identifying potential offset products / projects as well as provide requisite data and information for this purpose. DOFA may set up committees and sub-groups as considered necessary or based on the inputs received from DRDO.
The total annual turnover of Ordnance Factories is in the range of Rs.7000 crores. Our net import content is about 5 per cent, which may go up to 7 per cent under special circumstances. Thus, most of our contracts have values less than the threshold value for offset agreements. Yet, we should move in the direction of offset in a bigger way due to the following reasons:
It introduces a quid-pro-quo element in defence procurement.
Indian defence industry benefits immensely, since orders are assured because of our cheap and talented workforce, skilled in specifically devoted areas.
There is a possibility of technology absorption and capacity utilization.
This will also invite inflow of FDI.
It will complement the intended goal of self-reliance in defence technology.
It creates employment opportunities and growth in the defence manufacturing sector.
It opens opportunities for Indian defence industry to provide Integrated Logistics Support for maintenance of imported goods and thereby lead to understanding of the technology involved.
However, because of the reasons explained above and because of our past experience in “Buy and Make with ToT”, Ordnance Factories prefer to go for co-production / co-development in the following areas:
5.56 mm Rifle.
5.56 mm Light Machine Guns.
5.56 mm Carbine.
105 mm Light Field Gun.
MBT Arjun.
Low Temperature Plastic Explosive (LTPE).
Mine Protected Vehicles.
Armoured Ambulance.
Water Bowser.
Ammunition for AK-47.
Rocket PINAKA.
155 mm High Explosive Extended Range (HEER) Ammunition.
155 mm Cargo Ammunition.
125 mm Fin Stabilized Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot (FSAPDS) Ammunition.
Protective clothing for extreme cold climates.
Already we are partnering with many foreign vendors for offsets services as follows:
CQB Carbine and its ammunition.
155 mm Artillery Gun Program – towed, SP Wheeled, tracked, etc.
Future Air Defence Gun.
Naval Gun and Chaff launcher for fleet tanker.
Offset program will help the OFB in easier absorption of technology for indigenization upon contract finalization. The benefits will flow to the Indian Industry in general as OFB will like to be lead integrator with the help of the Indian public / private sector. This would provide technology to the local industry, enlarge the local content share in the defence sector and simultaneously provide economic benefits. Such a long term relationship would also act as an incentive for the foreign seller to deal with India in a mutually beneficial manner and this calls for using offset credit as an instrument. This would enable passing on the offset benefits across the three services irrespective of the product purchased. The most important factor to be ensured is that the technology gap should not be permitted to widen which can only happen if the offset equation is researched by both parties ensuring mutual advantages in the long run. With a good offset agreement, we can reap the maximum benefits.
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TGS 2014: Final Fantasy XV Director Leaves Project, Focusing on Kingdom Hearts III
Kingdom Hearts III / Sept. 18, 2014
Hajime Tabata steps up as FFXV's Director as Tetsuya Nomura moves off the project.
By Mitch Dyer
Tetsuya Nomura has left the Final Fantasy XV project, on which he was serving as Director. Final Fantasy Type-0 and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Director Hajime Tabata will step up from Co-Director to FFXV's main Director.
Nomura, notable for his iconic Final Fantasy character designs and leading the Kingdom Hearts series since the original game's release in 2002, will now "focus his full efforts as the director of other highly anticipated titles," Square Enix said, "including Kingdom Hearts III." It did not specify which other games Nomura is working on.
These changes come as part of a "development restructure" within Square Enix. "Currently, Tabata and the entire development team are working, whole-heartedly, towards completing the production of Final Fantasy XV and ensuring the delivery of the highest quality Final Fantasy title to date,” said Square Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda.
"Tetsuya Nomura has mainly worked on the original concept for the [Final Fantasy XV] story and universe in addition to creating the character," Matsuda said. Hereafter, he will be focusing his efforts on the production of titles that can only be made possible by Nomura, himself, and delivering products that exceed the quality of past titles, starting with another one of his representative projects, Kingdom Hearts III. Square Enix will continue to work on these titles with the best staff formation in an effort to deliver them to everyone as soon as possible and appreciates your continued support.”
A demo for Final Fantasy XV -- called Episode Duscae -- will be included in launch copies of Final Fantasy Type-0 when it launches in early 2015.
For more on Square Enix's latest games, including Final Fantasy Type-0 and Final Fantasy XV, check out all of our coverage from Tokyo Game Show 2014.
Mitch Dyer is an associate editor at IGN. He hosts IGN Arena, a podcast about MOBAs, and is trying to read more. Here's his reading list. Talk to Mitch about books, Dota 2, and other stuff on Twitter at @MitchyD and subscribe to MitchyD on Twitch.
Kingdom Hearts 3 ReMind DLC Set for Winter Release - E3 2019
Kingdom Hearts 3 ReMind DLC Reportedly Announced
Kingdom Hearts 3 Update Adds Critical Mode for Free This Week
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Tag Archive | NSW Australia
in architecture, art deco, Bad councils, culture, heritage, history, overdevelopment of Sydney, suburban, Sydney heritage, Uncategorized
LIFE AND DEATH OF THE FULL SERVICE STATION
If you are a lover of Art Deco as am I, you may be slightly miffed by the loss of one of Sydney’s only remaining original 1930s full service stations. If you have been swayed by the Petrolmania craze that has taken over our televisions you may be a little saddened by the closure of one of the last purveyors of oil from glass bottles and classic automobile nostalgia. And if you are simply a fan of good old-fashioned driveway service you may just miss the welcoming sight of the Salisbury Service Station at Stanmore for it is about to be wiped from our motoring maps and minds forever.
You certainly won’t miss the rising concrete frame of yet another block of boutique apartments with an overzealous moniker, this time known as ‘The Radius’, perhaps as some kind of bizarre lip service homage to the semi-circular floorplan of the Art Deco structure it is destroying.
The family-run business is set to shut up shop and leave the Percival Road location it has graced since 1930, having being sold to a developer who will make full use of the prime inner west location and valuable crossroads pocket of land.
Owner Norm Iacono. No wonder he’s smiling. Image Daily Telegraph.
Current owner Norm Iacono doesn’t seem to be all too upset with the outcome. He took over the reigns from his grandfather in 1997, ran the shop for several years and is now happy to be moving the business to Summer Hill while selling the Stanmore site for a king’s ransom. Pointing the blame at higher running costs due to petrol storage laws, his comments to media that “A lot of people come in and say what a great building it is, but the building was built in the 1930s, so there is no real significance for architecture” initially struck me as slightly odd for a small business owner who has traded not only in petrol but also nostalgia for so many years. After all, you don’t see too many Art Deco service stations from the golden era in such original unchanged working order. But when you consider he is set to benefit financially by the full demolition of the site you can see how quickly nostalgia is pushed to the side like some old rattle gun that has come to the end of its useful life.
The vintage oil bar at the Salisbury still in use, but not for long. Image Daily Telegraph.
Norm is hopeful however that the developer will pay some sort of tribute to the heritage of the site, by displaying the oil bar near the entrance to the restaurant or something to that effect… It could have a Model T Ford parked in the foyer for all I care, it will still be just another oversized concrete box with a Model T parked in its foyer. There is simply no substitute for the original item.
It would have been nice to retain at least the drive-through frontage part of the structure and re-purpose that as an outdoor cafe – I mean, we are talking a matter of a few square metres for pity’s sake, would it be so hard to retain at least that much heritage within the total area of the site?
A 1951 photograph of the Salisbury service station. Image Daily Telegraph.
Unfortunately this buy-up of prime service station sites across Sydney is not confined to just this fine example. It is happening all over and many old independent stations are being bought and converted into apartments as developers fight to get hold of these prime main arterial slices of land. Among others, another Art Deco workshop at Princes Highway Tempe recently closed and is slated for residential redevelopment.
This Art Deco former service station at Tempe is set to disappear.
And sadly the lack of understanding and protection of Art Deco is not limited merely to the destruction of petrol stations. Retail shopfronts of the era are also making way for the modern. This one in particular at Liverpool Rd. Ashfield, a beautiful example of 1930s expression, is set to go. A DA for the total removal of the Koles Foto/Manchester shopfront was approved in August by Ashfield Council who don’t seem to appreciate the beauty of their own area enough to respect its architectural merits. What will rise in its place will undoubtedly not share the same level of pizazz this shopfront exudes. Sad times indeed for fanciers of Art Deco and Sydney heritage moreover…
Stunning Art Deco shopfront in Ashfield, set to go.
Main title image Daily Telegraph.
in architecture, art deco, Bad councils, culture, Hawkesbury heritage, heritage, history, NSW coastal development, overdevelopment, Uncategorized
URGENT: GOSFORD FUNERAL PARLOUR FACES ITS OWN MORTALITY
A stunning heritage-listed funeral parlour near the waterfront in Gosford that has ushered out the lives of many local identities is itself facing the possibility of an untimely end. Creighton’s Funeral Parlour at 37 Mann Street was built in 1938 in the Art Deco style by architect F. Vanderwyck Snr. The Creighton’s family business was known in the area since 1844 and was involved in building and demolition work before becoming funeral directors in 1872. Six generations of the Creighton family practiced locally under the business name.
The building is treasured not only because of its association with the well renowned family, but because it is such a marvelous and rare example of an Art Deco purpose-built funeral parlour.
Externally, a grand central arch surrounded by decorative red brickwork heralds the main entrance. This is flanked on either side by secondary arches with quality timber framed lead glazed windows, and the theme is continued on the upper floor with a trio of balconettes showing ornate cast iron balustrades, and three magnificent streamlined parapets at roof level surging into the sky. Decorative balustrades also surround the lower windows. The construction is of textured cement rendered brick, comprising two stories at Mann Street, sloping back steeply to become one storey at the rear.
On the Georgiana Terrace side (left hand, facing) is an enclosed balcony made of locally quarried rock-faced ashlar sandstone while on the opposite wing is a sandstone garage consisting of twin Tudor arches and matching parapet. Behind the garage doors are open concrete pits to allow access for working on the funeral hearses. This has been currently re-purposed as a cocktail bar, showing clever use of a heritage asset. Rather interestingly, the roofline on the Georgiana Terrace side is scalloped while the garage side is straight-lined.
Internally, a central porch leads to the house chapel that extends below street level and is surrounded by small offices. An interesting feature are the backlit frosted glass windows obviously created due to a lack of natural light filtering into the room. Original drawings for the floorplans show that very little has been changed since 1938.
The parlour is located right in the middle of an identified heritage precinct containing several unique buildings, some of which the Creighton family were involved in constructing, including the heritage-listed 1929 former School of Arts directly opposite. According to the Australian Govt. heritage database:
‘The site is located on the main street of Gosford within a precinct of civic and commercial buildings, including Gosford Council Administration Building, the Sydney Electricity building, the Old Gosford Court House and Police Station (now a branch of the Conservatorium of Music), the School of Arts building, the Post Office, Gosford Public School and several churches including a small sandstone church designed by Blacket. This precinct is located near Gosford Wharf which served as the main transport link to the area before the railway was opened in 1887. With the opening of Gosford Railway Station, the main commercial area re-established itself about 0.5km to the north in close proximity to the station, leaving the earlier civic buildings in a group near the wharf.’
Such a beautiful, rare and significant local building that has indeed been heritage-listed because of its qualities should never come under threat. However current owners Zenith have submitted a DA to turn it into a 15 storey skyscraper with 4.51:1 floor space ratio while only retaining the façade of the original Creighton’s funeral parlour, completely overwhelming any heritage reference to the site while destroying the interiors and the structural make up of the building.
Original drawing for 37 Mann St. Note structural design changes. Source Gosford Library.
Development plans loom large, courtesy Kay Williams
This outcome is simply unacceptable. While the developers will claim they are retaining the façade, the fact is they are destroying the heritage of the building and simply paying lip service to what has stood there and served the people of Gosford since the pre-WW2 era. There is no way that sticking a façade onto the end of a 127 apartment vertical glass monster is any substitute for the genuine heritage this site commands. What’s more is that the façade of the parlour will not be able to be left standing in situ while excavation takes place all around it. Rather, it will be deconstructed and pasted back together as an afterthought using new artificially aged and recycled materials, meaning the original fabric of even the façade will be completely falsified.
While we may not be able to stop unsightly highrise development from infecting waterfront areas up and down the eastern seaboard of Australia, we certainly should be able to stop the wanton destruction of locally listed heritage assets such as this one. The DA, being rushed through council currently, only allows comments until 24 September. The controversial rezoning of the site to a 36m height limit by council has opened the door for this kind of overdevelopment. I strongly urge people to use the link on the council website to oppose the demolition of this building in any shape or form by clicking here. Even a simple comment is helpful.
Remember, September 24 is the cut-off date. Save local history Gosford City Council, do not even think about sacrificing this very unique heritage treasure. A façade is not heritage. It is only a glimpse of what was once there…
Images from 2006 by Spike Anderson.
Oozing Deco charm… Images from 2006 by Spike Anderson.
Balconette with balustrade. Images from 2006 by Spike Anderson.
Lovely rounded corners. Images from 2006 by Spike Anderson.
A more current image, with eccentric colour scheme. Image: Then and now.com
Internal chapel. All this would be lost under the DA. Image Rappoport Pty Ltd.
Internal chapel ceiling plaster detail. All this would be lost under the DA. Image Rappoport Pty Ltd.
Plan for the Town of Gosford 1839. Source: Gosford District Historical Research Association.
Mann Street plan, c1884. Source NSW State Library
Plan for the Town of Gosford 1886. Source: Gosford City Library
Certificate of Title dated 19 November 1935, 37 Mann St Gosford. Source: Land and Property Management Authority
Original ground floor plans, showing nothing has changed. Source: Gosford Library.
Original second floor plans, showing nothing has changed. Source: Gosford Library.
Heritage precinct map. Source: Gosford Local Environmental Plan 2014
Rappoport Study image, 2014.
Western elevation render. DA image. Note the amount of freely available parking on the street. With only 218 car spaces servicing 127 units I doubt this will be the case.
South Eastern view render. DA image.
Former School of Arts opposite. Source: Rappoport Pty Ltd.
Nearby Conservatorium of Music, Former Courthouse and Police Station. Source: Rappoport Pty Ltd.
Nearby Former Brisbane Water City Council building, 50 Mann Street. Source: Rappoport Pty Ltd.
in architecture, Bad councils, culture, heritage, history, Industrial Heritage, suburban, sydney, Sydney heritage, Uncategorized
PETERSHAM ‘EYESORE’ IN THE WAY OF A PARKING LOT
Occasionally one gets relegated to the sidelines in this age of heritage mayhem while family matters, other choirs, and real jobs get in the way. But then something happens – a misguided decision by an ignorant council or a just plain silly comment by some rogue councillor that lights a spark inside that makes you want to take up the charge again.
This time the council is Marrickville, and it relates to their decision to totally ignore the advice of their own heritage advisor’s report and not heritage-list the unique 1886 brick warehouse at 6 Livingstone Rd. Petersham owned by Beynon & Hayward furniture removalists and storers. The building was linked for many years to James E. Gould, a local produce merchant who served as Alderman and Mayor on Marrickville Council over a period of over 18 years, and was purpose-built to suit the narrow triangular site over two stages between 1886 and 1904.
Certainly the shape of the building is quite individual, and from some angles almost looks like something conceived by the mind of the great Dutch illusionistic artist M.C. Escher. That combined with the corrugated iron roof and a real ‘wild west’ silhouette has made the warehouse quite a landmark for locals and visitors passing by on their daily commute.
Already the council has been slammed by the Australian Institute of Architects and the National Trust for not considering the much loved warehouse important enough to place in protection of a listing. On the contrary, certain councillors are calling for it to be demolished in favour of units or a carpark. Independent councillor Victor Macri has notably referred to it as “an eyesore”, seemingly oblivious to the rare heritage qualities of the shape and form of the classic 19th century warehouse.
Plan of Norwood Township Lots 13,14,15,16, sold in 1856 for 150 pounds. Image Lands Titles Office of NSW.
I think it is a wonderful building, and find Cr. Macri’s attitude extremely dangerous for a councillor in a renowned heritage area such as Marrickville to have. I don’t believe he reflects his ratepayers’ beliefs in any way, and if you are a resident within the Marrickville council area with any sort of knowledge and respect for Australian merchant heritage, perhaps you should think very carefully before giving people like this any semblance of power at the next local elections. Hopefully the building will still be standing by then.
Looking at an aerial view of the site, council’s intentions become clear. To expand the neighbouring council-owned carpark by simply eliminating the warehouse is just taking the easy option. The fact that Cr. Macri owns a hairdressing salon on Marrickville Rd. may tilt his opinion on the need for more local parking somewhat.
Aerial view, showing thewarehouse to the left of the carpark. Image courtesy Lucien Jay Buddle.
In any case the thought of replacing a heritage building such as this with a carpark is an outdated one. One similar example that comes to mind took place at Mortdale a couple of years ago when a local Masonic Hall was bulldozed to make way for an unnecessary carpark, and was widely deplored by residents all round.
The need for more carparks will be totally dependent in the future on the use or over-use of cars. The car as a mode of transport will one day become redundant as the road system fails to cope with the increase in traffic to the point where it simply breaks down to total gridlock altogether. Certainly in the current phase of government initiatives there is little contingency for this forecast situation except for building more carparks. Will that solve the problem of over-congestion, or will it simply encourage more of the same? Marrickville Council seems to think it is part of the solution, and aims to sacrifice important local heritage to achieve this short-sighted goal.
At least some voices of reason on council still seem to recognise the importance of putting heritage ahead of whimsical planning folly. Liberal councillor Mark Gardiner stated to Fairfax “It’s not for councillors to decide what buildings are important. It’s for councillors to take the advice of heritage experts and they are saying strongly that this building is important.”
Indeed it is important… As a general rule if an expert heritage report states an item is important, it probably is. That’s why it is written by an expert. And if a council is voting on the future of a heritage building, but that same council owns a carpark next door that it wishes to expand, that, to me is called a conflict of interest. Will this conflict of interest be the death of another iconic heritage building in Sydney’s suburbs? We all have the right to voice our concerns and condemn what we know is wrong.
Northern view showing loading dock. Image Heritage Assessment Report, IP0714 Item 9.
Inheritance has written to Marrickville Council to formally object to their decision.
Main title image by Jo Catherine.
Link to heritage assessment by Maxine Bayley here.
Link to Change.org petition here.
in architecture, culture, heritage, history, modernist architecture, suburban, sydney, Sydney heritage, Uncategorized, War Memorial heritage
WAR MEMORIAL SYNAGOGUE ACKNOWLEDGED
This is another good news story – amazingly that makes our second for the year, I think I need a Valium. It relates to a former synagogue in Strathfield, and the local council’s unusual move to heritage-list the building against the wishes of its owners. This doesn’t happen every day, for some councils it doesn’t happen every year, and for many it doesn’t happen at all. So first and foremost our congratulations go to Strathfield Council, who passed the motion 4-1 at its 21 May meeting, and of course Mayor Daniel Bott who initiated the heritage listing.
Naturally for every good deed there is a denier, and in this case it is the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, who represent the building and the land it sits upon, and have declared their intention to sell off the synagogue as a prime development site. This is despite Strathfield Synagogue vice-president Sam Steif telling the Australian Jewish News in 2011 that “the only way we are going to get a minyan is if we put a mirror on the wall, but we will not sell the synagogue… If we got to that point I would go to the Jewish Communal Appeal and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and do anything I could to save it because this is a war memorial synagogue and we need to keep it.”
Unfortunately for the Jewish Board’s plans for sale, the heritage listing has complicated matters somewhat.
Built in 1959, the synagogue, known as the War Memorial Synagogue due to its internal plaques adorning the walls that commemorate Jewish victims of the Holocaust, was closed in 2011 as a result of shrinking congregations. The multicultural area was once rich with postwar Jewish immigrants, but over the ensuing decades the demographic has obviously changed as many of the Jewish families have moved away.
A preschool that operates on the site was initially set up for Jewish children but now caters for the greater community, and despite the closure of the synagogue, the site still operates at a profit thanks to the ongoing preschool lease.
Former Strathfield Rabbi Samuel Tov-Lev. Image ABC News.
Samuel Tov-Lev was the resident Rabbi for 15 years but his contract has since been terminated and he was effectively locked out of the site. He has campaigned for the heritage listing of the synagogue against the Board’s aspirations, and gathered 12,000 signatures in support. He sees the heritage of the building as unique in the area and deserving of recognition and retention. When asked about the successful heritage listing by Australian Jewish News he replied “I’m pleased but at the same time I’m very sad to see people calling themselves Jews fighting to destroy the holy and sacred synagogue.”
The Jewish Board of Deputies sees it only as an unexceptional building that contains plaques that could readily be moved to the centralised Sydney Jewish Museum. They have even gone so far as to say the naming of the ‘War memorial Synagogue’ was purely for taxation reasons, as memorial items attracted tax concessions at the time.
What they fail to acknowledge is that the heritage of the site is more than just the plaques that can be lifted and replanted elsewhere. It is, as with all heritage listed items, the synergy of the whole… It is the presence of the plaques, within the community where it was created, it is the modernist building design that reflected a new life for many postwar Jewish immigrants, away from the trauma of war, to a new country, a new community, so welcoming and accepting of refugees and settlers from all corners of the globe, and the symbolism that represents. It is the growth of that community to form a new society in a land so far away from their roots. It is the freedom and acceptance that made Australia such a reliable refuge for peoples removed from their homelands. And the simple walls of this synagogue represent much of that sentiment.
I think, despite the Jewish Board’s opposition, that Jewish people in general would be grateful for the protection of this historic suburban synagogue. I think that residents of Strathfield would be grateful for their council’s bold actions. And I think Australians in general would be grateful for the preservation of a piece of multicultural heritage, a small contribution to a country so great that people traversed the globe en masse because they wanted to live here – and part of keeping that country great, an important part, is maintaining its heritage for future generations to see, not just internal fixtures but the physical structures – and that blinding truth, unfortunately for some, far outstrips the requirement to make real estate profits to the maximum level.
Link to Strathfield Council’s Heritage Review of the War Memorial Synagogue site here.
Main image courtesy Australian Jewish News.
Thanks to Quentin Dempster on ABC’s 7.30 New South Wales for publicizing the story.
in culture, heritage, history, Industrial Heritage, Maritime heritage, NSW coastal development, sydney, Sydney heritage, Uncategorized
HAMMERHEAD vs. KNUCKLEHEADS – KNUCKLEHEADS WIN
On a golden Autumn afternoon in Sydney I decided to take a stroll around the Botanic Gardens with my little daughter in tow. To one side, the idyllic aspect that every tourist knows, a postcard scene – the Sydney Opera House with its gleaming sails of iridescent white, and the iron-clad Harbour Bridge, hanging over a dreamy jade body of water, ferries plying the glistening waves en route to Woolwich or Manly or somewhere similarly exotic. To the other side, a slightly less celebrated but no less beautiful vista of harbourfront workings – Garden Island with its sleepy naval fleet, grimy Woolloomoolloo with its workers’ pubs, pie carts and Finger Wharves jutting out from crowded streets, and standing above it all bathed in afternoon sunshine, the genuine industrial grandeur of the Hammerhead Crane that marks the spot so well and has been a permanent fixture on the Sydney horizon for more than fifty years…
Of course I knew all that was about to change. Mounted high on top of the Hammerhead Crane there are smaller demolition cranes already working away picking apart and lowering pieces of the giant icon one girder at a time. Like soldier ants crawling over a stricken carcass they rummage through at a steady pace and soon enough the entire structure will be nothing more than an unidentifiable decomposing pile of scrap.
It didn’t have to be like this…
Department of Defence bureaucrats set the wheels in motion some time ago, and the matter was put to bed by a former Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities Tony Burke who is now nursing his cushy job as The Manager of Opposition Business in the House, while another pack of equally inadequate politicians take hold of the reigns of power.
When the sad news broke, I tried to garner support for the retention of the crane. I wrote the successive Ministers, without response. I wrote the proprietors of similar cranes in Scotland who have turned their investments into feasible tourist attractions. I wrote the nearby Art Gallery of NSW for support from an arts perspective, the State Library of NSW, Sydney writer’s groups, all without success. I even tried UNESCO as the removal of the Crane poses a clear contravention of the World heritage guidelines for the Sydney Opera House which recognise that the views and vistas between the Opera House and other public spaces within that buffer zone contribute to its world heritage value, and should they be altered, the World Heritage status of the Opera House would be seemingly diminished.
But support was difficult to find in any quarters…
Andrew Woodhouse, President of the Potts Point and Kings Cross Heritage Conservation Society shared my concerns and offered his voice to the cause, but more opposition was needed… Much more, and it wasn’t forthcoming… I would certainly have expected more resistance, in a city of five million, pertaining to what many would consider the death of a city icon, indeed a very important piece of naval heritage – either it was misplaced or just wasn’t there at all.
The final days of the Hammerhead Crane.
On this day my daughter’s eyes were drawn to the crane from a grassy verge on the western side of the Botanic Gardens… “Crane!” she exclaimed. “Yes. Let’s go and look at it” I suggested, knowing it would probably be both the first and last time she would see it, or at least recognize it as a crane. We ambled over the hill to a pleasant view above Andrew ‘Boy’ Charlton Pool, and cast our gaze over the bay. As usual, a couple of old navy hulks were tied up to the wharves. The Hammerhead stood with as much effortless grace as ever, despite being infested by the demolition cranes, clinging hungrily to its massive frame.
My daughter watched in awe as I explained to the fragile mind of a two year old, that, as beautiful and significant as it was, she may not be able to see the crane again. “Big crane going down” she quipped, and burst into a shower of tears. “Yes,” I calmed her before lightening the tone… “Little crane going up” she consoled herself, but it became crystal clear in my mind, that a two year old girl seemed to have more respect and regard for the heritage of our working harbour than the knuckleheads who had anything to do with the demise of this icon – and they are knuckleheads, I couldn’t think of a less insulting term to conjure up for these bureaucratic buffoons who play silly games with things of state and national signidficance they don’t have the right to. Illustrative of this point, is the outrageous display of public money that was sunk into a fireworks display for the recent Navy Fleet Review to celebrate Naval ‘heritage’, a cashpot that would have gone quite some way into saving this crane, the tangible evidence of naval industrial heritage in Sydney harbour for half a century. Instead we had a fireworks display that lasted minutes.
Woolloomoolloo Finger Wharves, saved only by Green Bans in 1991.
St Mary’s Cathedral statue
We turn and walk into the fading sun. At this time of the day it dips sharply over the Domain and through the concrete shadows of the nearby city. Our return way meanders past the successfully re-purposed (and once slated for demolition) Finger Wharves, exuding maritime heritage, before passing right by the sandstone edifice that is the Art Gallery of NSW, and the shady Speaker’s Corner of the Domain before finding St Mary’s Cathedral and Hyde Park. Such a historic walk through the richly textured layers of old Sydney, a walk that will now be somewhat poorer for the loss of the Crane…
A plaque on top of the Speaker’s Box reads “Stand up and speak your mind.” If more of us don’t head this call, if we don’t stand up for our heritage, if we sit idly by and allow it simply to fall away, if we allow these knuckleheads and bureaucrats to win we will all be the poorer; much more will be lost until there is almost nothing left to preserve, and nothing will ever, ever change. We will all be the poorer for it. The unnecessary and negligent loss of the Hammerhead Crane will become lasting proof of that.
Previous postings on the Hammerhead Crane click here.
in architecture, Bad councils, culture, heritage, history, modernist architecture, NSW coastal development, overdevelopment, Uncategorized
THE CHANGING FACE OF FORSTER-TUNCURRY
Sydneysiders are familiar with the seaside holiday town of Forster on the NSW mid north coast. Many of us have spent summer vacations in and around the centre, with its abundant beaches, rivers and lakes offering plenty of outdoor activities for the visitor. As a result of this popularity the skyline of Forster (and its twin town Tuncurry to the north) has burst sharply skyward over the years, as open real estate around the town becomes scarcer and developers move in to take advantage of the area’s cashed up holiday rental crowds.
On my last visit, I found something I didn’t really expect – a formerly sleepy seaside hamlet on the verge of much bigger things. Already several big towers have sprung up creating more of a Gold Coast style resort, leaving in their shadows vast chasms of crumbling vestiges of bygone days; fibro beach shacks and modest brick freestanding cottages, all but now slowly disappearing under the growing weight of modern skyscrapers.
What amazes me is the speed at which Forster and towns like it are changing, and just how easy we are to throw away any pieces of our past like scraps of bone to a hungry dog. Every corner you turn in Forster you see For Sale signs propping up decrepit buildings, or safety barriers around abandoned houses and 60s era motels, as they are no longer seen as profitable and either left to rot or handed over to caretaker real estate agents to find suitable developer buyers who have no qualms about turning these little slices of history into contemporary piles of rubble, with their high volume high density money making concrete cubes rising from the ashes…
So who will miss these vestiges, these quaint beach style fibro and brick cottages with their dried up gardens of hibiscus and frangipani that have served their purpose well over the years but just don’t make the cut anymore in this profit orientated, market driven, real estate focused society we call Australia?… I for one. I see the beauty in these buildings, these modest, airy, charming, homely remnants of a disappearing world that have been unashamedly sold out exclusively for the real estate value of the dirt on which they sit.
I believe the council and state government should be looking at the heritage value of certain examples of this style of Australian coastal architecture, c.1920s – 1960s and preserving them rather than allowing wholesale destruction, and at the same time applying the brakes to the total redevelopment of coastal towns like Forster, which is occurring more rapidly than many would like.
‘Tikki Village’, pictured below, is one example of a land sale that recently occurred for over a million dollars, presently holding several ornate little fibro cabins that serve the community with cheap long term rental options, but zoned for medium density development and at risk of being turned into towers.
If you want to see the real Forster, the old Forster as it was, you’d better go soon as much of it is rapidly changing. Locals are quick to point out how the character of the place is briskly disappearing, never to return as it was. Below is a gallery of photos of the town, including ‘Tikki Village’, but be warned, many of the buildings shown won’t be there for very much longer, or may in fact already be gone.
All photos copyright Inheritance.
Old world Tropicana Flats
Tikki Village was recently on the market, zoned medium density
Tikki Village with low cost rental cabins
Tikki Village. Picket fences and fibro huts.
Tikki Village
Tikki Village, for sale as a development site
Classic retro lines abound
Beachside charm galore
One of many for sale
Others await their destiny…
The end of the classic Australian Beach Motel?
CWA rooms near town
The sign speaks volumes, literally
Charming bungalows and sweeping yards
Large blocks and beach architecture
Boarded up and awaiting its fate
Classic beach architecture abandoned
Too good to lose
A weatherboard church in Forster
A lost feeling of ghostliness
Another motel for sale, redevelopment on the cards
Forster Chamber of Commerce to be bulldozed
Towers rise above humble lodgings
Classic architecture of Forster has many adaptations
The symbolised strength of a Mason’s Hall
This classic Australian fibro will be gone by now
Interesting designs, almost barn-like
Old beach style lodgings still hold on
The old and the new competing
The future of Gold Coast, I mean Forster-Tuncurry
Being squeezed out by high rise
Repurposed former Pizza Hut by the look of it
The views are still nice…
in architecture, culture, heritage, Maritime heritage, NSW coastal development, protest rallies, Pubs and Hotel Architecture, Uncategorized, Victorian architecture
BATTLE BREWING FOR HOTEL AUSTRALASIA, EDEN
A battle is brewing in the NSW South Coast seaside port of Eden. It involves something very dear to the hearts of residents of any Australian country town, the local pub. The famous Hotel Australasia on Eden’s main street has stood like a fortress overlooking the fishing hamlet for 110 years… It has quenched the thirst of former whalers, seafarers and sleeper cutters and has welcomed in more recent times the throngs of summer tourists that come to Eden for a taste of the authentic south coast experience.
Sadly the pub, known affectionately by locals as ‘the pit’ closed down in 2013 as the family owners struggled to come to terms with expensive repair work to the roof and structure of the building. It was put on the market and eventually bought up by Great Southern Developments, a company that quickly sold on the poker machine licences for a tidy profit, and now intends only to knock down the historic hotel, and replace it with a generic big brand supermarket, a liquor store, and retail shops.
History-conscious locals have petitioned the Bega Valley Shire Council into taking a stand and putting the building on the local heritage register. They fear the town will lose a big part of its character should an integral landmark like this disappear, only to be replaced by another modern day dreary box of consumerist bricks and mortar, one that would render the town no different to any other that allows such soul destroying bland architecture in place of the heritage that once stood (Ulladulla, anyone?)
The Hotel Australasia as it stands now. Image Inheritance
Original facade of Hotel Australiasia
Wagon wheels and drinking men.
Whalers, seafarers, and sleeper cutters.
Always a crowd at the pub.
A historic hotel in a historic town.
Much loved by the locals…
A landmark building.
Hotel Australasia dominating high street of Eden. Historic photograph
For decades the centre of Eden town.
Historic Hotel Australasia check-in card.
The nearby Great Southern Hotel. Image Inheritance.
An unworthy replacement. Generic architecture, generic brand. DA image.
In fact it is a crime to even contemplate knocking down a pub as outstanding and historic as the Australasia, one that helped shape the township of Eden, over many decades, one that has been at the centre of the community, one that tourists and locals alike can immediately associate with its surroundings. The pub is the town and the town is the pub. And even if the pub is not a pub anymore, then the building should remain for posterity.
It has been suggested that the facade at least would remain, but that notion has recently been flatly rejected by the developer who obviously wants to cash in on every square metre of their investment, regardless of what is wrong or right. Talking to locals recently I learned that many even question the need for a third supermarket in town, two serve the population adequately as it stands.
Council’s Heritage Adviser, Mr Pip Giovanelli, Heritage Architect stated in a 14 May 2013 report:
“Full demolition of all buildings on the site would not address heritage values or community expectations. It would lose an important urban design element from the Imlay Street streetscape and would deny the option for a future owner to restore the building and reinstate a potentially very valuable tourist element into the town. This last point is very important as it is often the historic buildings that are sought for restoration and adaption when towns such as Eden cycle into economically more prosperous times. The recent restoration of the Royal Hotel in Queanbeyan is an excellent example.
…Retaining the historic front part of the building and erecting a supermarket behind would appear to be a workable strategy. A similar example of this approach is currently being done in Gipps Street Bega, where the historic Central Hotel is being retained as a two storey frontage behind which is the main supermarket accessed via the former carriageway. The rear of the supermarket will have a sympathetic frontage to the Coles carpark.”
It is right for council to nominate the hotel as a heritage item, but the developer is now taking the case to the Land and Environment Court. They believe the listing has come too late, and feel they have a God-given right to do with the land whatever they want to. So on one hand we have the concerned residents who simply and justly wish to retain the heritage and individuality of their town for future generations to enjoy, and a council that has heard their concerns. On the other hand we have the cashed-up developer who has snatched themselves a bargain property right in the town’s high street, doesn’t give two hoots about the subject’s history or visual townscape impact, and is acting like they are doing the townsfolk a swell favour by building another supermarket that they don’t actually need.
There is a simple solution to all this, and it is a win-win. And this could apply not just to Eden, but statewide, in fact nationwide… Leave the historic building alone, keep mundane and ugly oversized modern development OUT of high street, and build it on the fringes of town or somewhere less intrusive and somewhere where it is going to cause, oh I don’t know, less embarrassment to the people of the township… Everyone’s a winner and then not every town will look the same within about ten years. People can still then take their friends for a walk and point out the beautiful heritage of buildings like the Australasia and say “that’s a century-old watering hole…” rather than, “oh that’s another Woolworths, Coles or IGA…”
Appeal date in the Land and Environment Court is 28 April 2014.
Click on thumbnail images in gallery for slideshow… Colour images Inheritance, historic images courtesy Angela George’s collection / State Library of NSW.
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I See You’re Writing an Article…
In Screen Reviews
Sometimes, major consumer products companies really do dumb things. Think “Edsel.” “New Coke.” “Jar Jar Binks.” And when they see their mistake, they usually dump the product, go back to the previous version, and generally atone for their sin. Microsoft didn’t. They introduced Clippy, the Office Assistant, in Office ’97, and when people complained, they buried him so deeply in the next version of Office it took real, dedicated hacking to eliminate his sorry, chrome-plated butt.
Well, six years have gone by, another bloated upgrade is scheduled, and Microsoft has seen the error of its ways. Perhaps it was the bloody demonstrations in Redmond. Perhaps it was the vilification by Fritz Hollingsworth on C-SPAN. Maybe it was the surgical strikes by the Air Force with 2000-pound, laser-guided bombs. But, they’ve finally killed the little bugger, and to commemorate the event they’ve created on of the funniest corporate Web sites I’ve seen in years. Clippy is now gone from the new XP Office (“Ex-Paperclip,” they claim), and his swan song is celebrated on the actual Microsoft Web site.
Now, you can’t click to it from the front page as far as I can tell, but if you visit http://www.microsoft.com/office/clippy/ , you’re in. It’s filled with the acid wit that should have been applied to Clippy back in 1996. Of particular note are three Shockwave animations covering the Gotterdamerung of his career. I particularity liked watching him drown his sorrows in a dive bar, throwing beer through his wiry frame, only to be accosted by the ominous Mr. X-Box. You can take the “What should Clippy do next?” poll, see a new product demo (bor-ring), and listen to his song. Well, I couldn’t, it’s in some weird Microsoft file format and all my media players are mad at one another and no one will play music on my computer anymore.
Gilbert Gottfreid is Clippy’s voice, a brilliant choice in my opinion, and there is even a threat of a new character, the Cranky Office Lady. Had this silliness launched him way back when, he might have become a cult figure instead of the sorry animated spokesclip he is today.
Will Clippy stay gone? Probably. I was always disappointed no one ever hacked him and had him do terrible things, but that seemed like a big job that might end up in a lawsuit. His ghost lives on in the new office, with the introduction of “Smart Tags.” You’ll find out about those soon enough, but for now, chant along with me: DIE, CLIPPY DIE! DIE, CLIPPY DIE! DIE, CLIPPY DIE!
You little bastard.
http://www.microsoft.com/office/clippy/
Carl F Gauze
I See You're Writing an Article...
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Midnight Twilight (Autumnsongs Records). Review by Carl F Gauze.
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The Unlovable EP (Forever). Review by Brittany Sturges.
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Three Finger Cowboy
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If you can lay your gat down long enough to rid your CD player of that south …
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Critical Care Medicine. 33(1):128-134, JAN 2005
DOI: 10.1097/01.CCM.0000151048.72393.44
Hepatotoxicity during rapid intravenous loading with amiodarone: Description of three cases and review of the literature*
Alexandra Bravo;Juergen Drewe;Raymond Schlienger;Stephan Krähenbühl;Hans Pargger;Wolfgang Ummenhofer;
From the Division of Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology (Drs. Bravo, Drewe, Schlienger, and Krähenbühl) and Operative Critical Care Division of the Department of Anesthesia (Drs. Pargger and Ummenhofer), University Hospital of Basel, CH-4031 Basel, Switzerland.
Objective:Atrial fibrillation is the most common arrhythmia after cardiac surgery. Amiodarone can effectively prevent and control postoperative atrial and ventricular fibrillation. Acute hepatic damage after intravenous amiodarone, which can be fatal, is not well recognized. We describe three cases of acute hepatocellular injury after intravenous amiodarone administration in critically ill patients. Another 25 published cases and six cases reported to the Swiss Pharmacovigilance Center (Swissmedic) are discussed.Design:This study consisted of a series of three case reports and review of the literature.Setting:This study was conducted at an operative critical care unit at the University Hospital Basel, Switzerland.Patients:Three hemodynamically compromised patients after open heart surgery developed significant increases of transaminases (up to more than 100-fold of the upper limit of normal) shortly after the introduction of intravenous amiodarone.Interventions and Measurement:Cessation of intravenous amiodarone and of other potentially hepatotoxic drugs.Results:Liver parameters significantly improved or returned to normal in all three patients, even after start of oral amiodarone in two patients.Conclusions:Amiodarone is a highly effective antiarrhythmic agent for the treatment and prevention of atrial and ventricular arrhythmias. Acute liver damage after intravenous amiodarone, possibly induced by the solubilizer polysorbate 80, is rare but potentially harmful. Amiodarone loading should therefore be adapted to the necessity of an immediate effect of the drug, and liver function should be monitored closely in critically ill patients. Oral maintenance therapy with amiodarone is possible, even in patients who developed liver disease during intravenous loading.
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Tomorrow People Are Superior In One Respect: They Are Better At Dying
Charlie Jane Anders
Filed to: tv recapFiled to: tv recap
Sorry, but the Dalek quote seems way too apt in this situation not to use. We've been hearing for months about how superior the Tomorrow People are, while also witnessing their atrophied reasoning skills. At this point, not only are they mostly unfit to live, they're also terrible, horrible people. Spoilers ahead...
I think someone should build a "This show"-meter that measures how many times you are forced to shake your head and say, "This show," while watching a show. Fewer than four "This shows" per episode, and there may be some sanity and logic, or possibly you've dozed off or gone on a long bathroom break. Four to eight "This shows," in a single hour, indicates serious logic farts, or characters acting like lunatics. Nine or more instances of saying "This show," possibly accompanied by recreational intoxicants and maniacal shrieking, indicates that a show is drawing you into its vortex of madness.
I think I said "This show" about ten times while watching last night's Tomorrow People. Not lethal-exposure levels, perhaps, but way outside the safe range.
So let's review. The previous week, the new bitchy blonde (played by Leven Rambin, the "carrots and apples" girl from Sarah Connor Chronicles) decided to rebel against the Tomorrow People inner circle because she realized that Roger wasn't just going to lead the mutants to the magical promised land. She decided she was done playing along with Cara and John — which, fair enough. So she could leave town, or decide to go live her own life somewhere else, instead.
But no — instead Natalie decides that she's going to lead a group of mutants to Ultra headquarters, to — what? It's not even clear. To make their own peace with Ultra. This leads to Natalie and her group (plus Russell, their inept chaperone) getting injected with "trackers" in their necks, which attach to the brainstem.
So this week, it turns out that these trackers — which Natalie and her friends voluntarily had implanted — include a "kill switch," which allows the mutants to be killed by remote control, at the press of a button. That kind of sucks, but they brought this on themselves, right? They can't possibly blame the Tomorrow People for their own stupidity... can they?
But wait. They can. And after the Founder threatens to kill them unless they hand over Roger (so he can use Roger to wipe out the entire human race), they mutiny en masse. They wind up handing Roger over to Ultra, making themselves accessories to the murder of billions of people, and in the process nearly kill Roger's innocent son Luka. The episode ends with Roger strapped in the machine, which is gearing up to wipe out humanity (over the usual weepy acoustic guitar montage music.)
Meanwhile, a lot of the rest of the episode deals with John, who was stripped of his powers last week, adjusting to life as a human. He's mopey and kind of mired in self-pity, and his arc in the episode goes like this: 1) He's out of the fight, now that he's de-powered. 2) Astrid convinces him that he's not useless any more, partly by almost getting run over by a car. He's back in the fight. 3) Oh wait. Roger's gone, so it's too late. He's out of the fight again, he's just going to cuddle with Astrid.
What was the point of watching John spend a whole episode deciding that he was back in the fight, only to change his mind again and decide that he's out of the fight again? That was frustrating!
Meanwhile, Roger and Marla finally get some more time to talk about their relationship — and Roger, who ran out on his family, told his wife he didn't love her, and generally treated Marla like shit for years, accepts her apology. Marla is sorry because she didn't join the fight against nebulously defined enemies of our own creation sooner — she could have been down here in a basement, helping Roger train a bunch of ungrateful selfish teenagers to stick-fight. Instead of wasting her time raising Roger's sons.
Given that Roger apparently never explained to Marla about Ultra and about the whole "hunting down mutants" thing they were doing — she was really out of the loop on all of it, until she got shot at in a restaurant — she has absolutely no reason to feel bad about not being part of the Tomorrow People project that she was never invited to join.
I feel like this show has a really selective memory about its characters and their continuity — and certain characters, like Marla, have been turned on their heads so many times, it's impossible to tell what we're supposed to take seriously about them at this point. Contrast that with Vampire Diaries, which has ludicrous plotting and nearly random alliances, but a memory like a steel trap for characters and their pasts.
In another subplot, Stephen and Cara go off to the Adirondacks (on motorcycles, because they can't teleport?) to take down the communications network that allows the Founder to use his "kill switch" to kill mutants. They keep forgetting how to teleport, and Cara gets herself shot, because she doesn't teleport out of the way of a bunch of bullets. Seriously, how do any of the powers work on this show? And then they convince the guard to take down the network by using their mind powers to confuse him — because the Founder didn't bother to post guards who know about mutants.
And then Cara comes back to the Lair to find that John has ditched her for Astrid, because he's human now and it's been nice, babe, but he's got a new lady now. Seriously, that scene was really weird. I have been wanting John and Astrid to get together for months now, but not like this.
And finally, there's the other weird subplot — Jedikiah and Irene the super-genius whom we haven't seen in six months work together to stop the Founder's kill switch. Irene figures out that the kill switch is bonding to certain alleles — which means these are the base pairs that cause mutant powers! Jedikiah immediately realizes that this means he can at last realize his dream of stealing someone's mutant powers, and apparently steals Irene's.
Leaving aside that Jedikiah derails the "kill switch" research — which could have saved Roger from being handed over and thus saved the entire human race — there's the wonkiness of the science here. So Ultra has had a drug and D-chips that both neutralize mutant powers for a long time, right? So they know enough about how mutant powers work to turn them off — but not enough to activate them. Except that the Founder knew all along, and shared that knowledge with enough people to mass-produce and distribute the "kill switch" injections. Right? But somehow they kept this knowledge from their ostensible director, Jedikiah?
Okay, glad we cleared that up. In any case, Jedikiah gets mutant powers and immediately teleports to the street and starts tossing cars around. Good times.
I just don't see how any of these people are superior. Makes me want Captain Kirk to come slap all of these stepchildren of Plato around, instead of livetweeting their antics.
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Home / News / International News / 33-Yr-Old Pregnant Lady Shot Dead One Week After Brother’s Funeral
33-Yr-Old Pregnant Lady Shot Dead One Week After Brother’s Funeral
ayo March 20, 2018 International News Leave a comment
Thirty-three-year-old Megan Goosen, who was six months pregnant, and another man have been shot dead in suspected gang violence.
Her family has already been in mourning after her brother’s funeral on Saturday.
The brother, Houston Goosen, was gunned down in Rembrandt Street, South Africa, last week.
It is believed Megan was trying to flee after rival gangs started shooting in the area just after 9 pm on Sunday.
Police say an unidentified man was killed in the same incident. It is not clear whether he was affiliated to any of the gangs or not.
Megan was found after homeowner Lucas Lyon saw her feet peeking out from behind his car.
She was lying on her side, with one Nike slippers on and the other lying next to her.
Lyon says his son asked him to check out the “suspicious feet” near the vehicle.
“My son woke me on Monday just after 7 am because he could see feet next to our car in the yard from the top floor. When we came down to see what was happening, we discovered a gruesome scene,” Lyon says.
A family member of Megan’s, who did not wish to be named for her own safety, says the family is already battling to deal with the death of her brother. And now she is also gone.
“I saw Megan on Saturday at her brother’s funeral. I still joked with her as she was wearing high heels and I told her she’d better walk carefully with those heels and her pregnant stomach.
“She was six months pregnant; why shoot her?” the relative asked.
Megan worked as a domestic worker at a house in Carnation Road and her employer says the mom-to-be was a trustworthy person.
“She was a wonderful person, she used to work in my home as a domestic worker and I never had any problems with Megan, I could trust her in my home,” the woman said.
Police spokesperson, Sinathi Joni, says no arrests have been made in either shooting.
“A murder case is under investigation following the discovery of the body of a 33-year-old woman in Scottsville, Kraaifontein, on 19 March at approximately 7.45am on Monday.
“Circumstances surrounding the discovery are under investigation with no arrests at this stage,” Joni said.
Tags Megan Goosen
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KP Snacks - Billingham
Re-roofing and refurbishment of existing factory.
The project consisted of two mammoth projects for KP Snacks Ltd.. Houlton set about the task of replacing a large section of roof at the huge KP Snacks site in Billingham, Teesside, whilst crisp production continued apace from the factory floor.
The scheme began with the construction of a temporary protective structure which incredibly comprised over 2km of scaffold tube! This was a huge task but obviously an essential one. The protective structure consisted of supporting towers to allow purpose made beams to span over the production lines, which was integral to the success of the project as it allowed us to carry out the works safely, with no disruption to the factory environment beneath.
Once internal preparatory works were complete, work commenced with the removal of the old roof. This was followed by the introduction of a structural liner and weather proofing to ensure the area beneath was kept dry and clean while the installation of the new roof progressed. In addition we also installed a brand new lighting scheme consisting of a series of robust, multi-purpose and corrosion resistant luminaires specifically designed for use in food factories and industrial processing areas that are capable of being controlled remotely, while each lamp has a five year life span.
The new roof offers much greater thermal efficiency compared to that of the old roof and provides a bright and serviceable soffit that is easy to clean and relatively maintenance free. As well as the new roof structure, beam encasements, lighting, an updated sprinkler system and structural elements, the factory now also benefits from ‘very large’ extract fans and supply air fans. These will improve and continually maintain a comfortable working environment by introducing fresh air from the low level supply air fans with any stale air within the factory being expelled through the high level extract fans.
KP Snacks Ltd
FoodIndustrialRefurbishment
Blast Resistant Office Building
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Missouri House of Representatives
93rd General Assembly, 2nd Regular Session
Legislation Sponsored by Rep. Michael George Corcoran
Allows certain school districts to provide transportation to students who live less than one mile from school and be reimbursed by the state if unsafe traffic situations can be demonstrated
Approved HCS HB 1180 -- (LR# 3770L.02T)
Delivered to Secretary of State (G)
Allows the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to determine issuance of a teaching certificate to an applicant with a criminal record instead of the State Board of Education
HB1181 -- (LR# 3771U.01I)
Referred: Elementary and Secondary Education (H)
Requires certain employers of 10,000 or more employees in this state to pay an assessment based on health care benefits paid for employees that do not reach a minimum expenditure level
HB1463 -- (LR# 4435L.01I)
Withdrawn (H)
Establishes a program to supplement the state's Medicaid Program by reimbursing health care providers for uncompensated medical treatment and requires certain employers to pay a surcharge
Referred: Insurance Policy (H)
Exempts motor fuel used in school buses from motor fuel tax when driven to transport students for educational purposes
Voted do pass (H)
Expands liability protection for school employees and volunteers
SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON GENERAL LAWS
Public hearing completed (H)
Establishes the Clean American Fuel Board and creates the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Revolving Fund
SCS HCS HB 1137 -- (LR# 3328S.03C)
Placed on Informal Calendar (S)
Exempts all motor vehicles assembled and sold in this state from the state sales and use tax
HB1249 -- (LR# 3762L.01P)
SENATE WAYS AND MEANS
Public Hearing held (S)
Revises the adjustment in state aid to public schools based on fluctuations in summer school or gifted program attendance
HCS HB 1273 & 1136 -- (LR# 3753L.02C)
Rules - Reported do pass (H)
Requires the State Board of Education to establish a virtual public school by July 1, 2007
HCS HB 1275 -- (LR# 4219L.02C)
SA 1, SA 3 ADOPTED/SS, SA 4 PENDING
Allows the Attorney General to appoint the public counsel for the Department of Economic Development and authorizes the public counsel to prevent rate increases during appeals
Referred: Utilities (H)
Creates the Missouri Uniform Communications Act for Homeland Security, requires certain purchases to meet certain standards, and requires the Governor to submit a homeland security spending report
Referred: Veterans (H)
Creates the Missouri State Water Patrol Fund consisting of money collected for registering a vessel and increases the fee for a certificate of number
Changes the laws regarding criminal forfeitures
Referred: Crime Prevention and Public Safety (H)
Changes the penalty for enticement of a child to a term of imprisonment of not less than five years and not more than 30 years and makes offenders ineligible for probation or parole for five years
Requires foreign corporations to provide all records sought under a search warrant within five business days and gives immunity to corporations that provide records under a search warrant
Changes the laws regarding crime prevention
Dropped from calendar - Rule 43 (H)
Authorizes the State Highway Patrol to conduct criminal background checks on gubernatorial appointees who are subject to Senate confirmation
SS#2 HB 1320 -- (LR# 4087S.07F)
Reported to the House with... (S)
Increases the property tax relief for the senior citizens' program known as circuit breaker
Referred: Ways and Means (H)
Establishes renewable energy resource use requirements for electrical suppliers
SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT
Establishes the Missouri Health Profession Shortage Planning Commission to develop recommendations regarding the health profession workforce
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT AND WORKPLACE SAFETY
HCS voted do pass (H)
Changes the laws regarding motor vehicle safety including intermediate driver's licenses, travel safe zones, work zone safety, child passenger restraints, and passing zones
HCS HB 1378, 1379, 1391 & 1541 -- (LR# 4232L.03C)
Establishes campaign finance regulations for leadership office committees of the General Assembly
Referred: Elections (H)
Establishes the Public Assistance Beneficiary Employer Disclosure Act which requires certain public assistance recipients to identify their employers
Allows each public school district to determine whether a dress code for pupils is appropriate
Changes the definition of "security" in the laws regulating securities so that the sale of variable annuities will be regulated by the Secretary of State
Second Rd/Refer: Financial, Governmental Org, & Election (S)
Designates the Table Rock Lake bridge on Highway 39 in the City of Shell Knob as the "State Senator Larry Gene Taylor Memorial Bridge"
Referred: Transportation (H)
Authorizes the Secretary of State to waive fees and other penalties when a corporation is dissolved for failure to file its annual report due to military service
Approved HB1427 -- (LR# 4229L.01T)
Increases the amount of the Higher Education Academic Scholarship Program, commonly known as Bright Flight, from $2,000 to $4,000 a year
Changes the laws regarding Missouri's minimum wage and requires that every employee be paid at least a "living wage"
Increases the penalty for possession of any methamphetamine precursor drug with the intent to manufacture amphetamine, methaphetamine, or any of their analogs from a class D felony to a class C felony
Prohibits discrimination based upon a person's sexual orientation
Requires an employer to verify that an employee has a valid Social Security number
Referred: Workforce Development and Workplace Safety (H)
Allows residential and business cell phone numbers to be added to the telemarketing No-Call List
Prohibits gubernatorial appointees from holding office in, or contributing to, political organizations and bans them from participating in political campaigns
Establishes the Compassionate Assistance for Rape Emergencies (CARE) Act and the Birth Control Protection Act and requires implementation of a women's health services program
Referred: Children and Families (H)
Modifies the Missouri Business Use Incentive for Large-Scale Development Act to include certain businesses in the City of Fenton
Allows a corporation to biennially file its corporate registration report with the Secretary of State
Revises the vehicle emissions inspection program
Creates the crime of aggravated fraudulent transmission of multiple commercial e-mail messages and changes the laws regarding unsolicited commercial e-mail
Changes the laws regarding commercial motor vehicles, outdoor advertising, vacating roads, log trucks, proof of lawful presence, driver's licenses, all-terrain vehicles, and vehicle weight limits
Prohibits a person from intentionally smelling or inhaling the fumes of or inducing or aiding another person in the use or sale of specified solvents
Exempts applicants for a driver's or nondriver's license who were born prior to January 1, 1941, from submitting a birth certificate or other documents as proof of lawful presence
Requires employers to pay employees equal wages for equal work regardless of employee's gender
Requires the Department of Social Services to determine the eligibility of an employed disabled person requesting medical assistance
Referred: Health Care Policy (H)
Establishes a transitional period for the phase in of a weighted average daily attendance distribution method for Proposition C moneys
Referred: Special Comm on Student Achievement & Finance (H)
Referred: Judiciary (H)
Changes the laws regarding tax increment financing and establishes tax rates for redevelopment projects
Referred: Job Creation and Economic Development (H)
Requires that all state service contracts awarded after August 28, 2006, must include specifications that employees of contractors or subcontractors be citizens of the United States
Establishes the Residential Treatment Agency Tax Credit Act which authorizes a tax credit for 50% of the amount contributed to a qualified residential treatment agency
Requires revenue from a tax increase within a tax increment financing district to be used for the taxing purpose only
Referred: Local Government (H)
Creates a cause of action for injury to emergency personnel caused by the wrongful actions of another person
Establishes the Twenty-First Century Scholars Program
Authorizes a tax credit for employers who hire qualified high school students for summer jobs
JOB CREATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Exempts individuals who are 65 years of age or older from the lawful presence requirements for the renewal of driver's licenses, permits, or nondriver's licenses
Laid over (H)
HCA 1 ADOPTED
Requires the removal of all emergency lights, sirens, and decals designating a vehicle as an emergency vehicle prior to selling or consigning the vehicle unless it is sold to another safety agency
Authorizes the Director of the Department of Natural Resources to enter into agreements with private, not-for-profit organizations to provide services for state parks
MOTION TO 3RD READ AND PASS WITHDRAWN
Requires certain corporations to file an annual tax disclosure statement
Authorizes additional compensation for overtime, court time, and standby court time for sergeants of the City of St. Louis police department
Allows certain former recipients of the Higher Education Academic Scholarship Program known as Bright Flight to renew their scholarship upon return to an in-state college due to death or natural disaster
Referred: Higher Education (H)
Establishes the Missouri Economic Development Code
Establishes the Guard at Home Program to assist the spouse of an active-duty National Guard or reservist with immediate needs and employment to prevent the family from falling into poverty
Approved SCS HCS HB 1787 -- (LR# 5137S.07T)
WITH EMERGENCY CLAUSE, THIS BILL BECOMES EFFECTIVE
Creates the felony crime of employing an illegal alien
Requires a certificate of value to be recorded at the time of sale of property
Establishes the Occupational Safety Standards Commission to promulgate, modify, or revoke safety and health standards in the state
Establishes the Advisory Council for the Education of Gifted Children to provide advice and consultation regarding educational programs and activities for gifted children
Modifies the proration factor for the school foundation formula
Establishes the Health Care Responsibility Act which requires applicants for Missouri Medicaid Program assistance to identify their employers
Designates a portion of Interstate 44 in St. Louis County as the "Trooper Ralph Tatoian Memorial Highway"
Increases the penalties for repeat identity theft offenders
Increases the penalty for endangering the welfare of a child in the first degree when shaking a child younger than five years of age to a minimum of 15 years in prison
Requires the Air Conservation Commission to suspend by January 1, 2007, any motor vehicle emissions inspection program established under the Air Quality Attainment Act
Creates an alternative way of calculating the state adequacy target for school funding
Changes the laws regarding several economic development programs
Establishes a five-tenths weight for funding programs for gifted students through the state school aid formula
Changes the laws regarding the school funding formula
Establishes the Missouri Man-made Spring River Rise Flood Insurance Authority to make available flood insurance for property owners affected by flooding due to man-made spring river rises
Referred: Special Committee on Energy and Environment (H)
Changes the laws regarding the investigation of fraud and abuse in Missouri's Medicaid Program
Changes the laws regarding alternative education
HCR10
Urges the United States Congress to adopt a comprehensive federal law that protects consumer information from data thieves.
HCR10 -- (LR# 4084L.02I)
SENATE RULES, JOINT RULES AND RESOLUTIONS
Reported Do Pass (S)
Urges Congress to immediately repeal the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision of the Social Security Act.
HJR41
Proposes a constitutional amendment raising the allowable level of bonded indebtedness for school districts
HJR41 -- (LR# 4225L.01I)
Proposes a constitutional amendment exempting from taxation one motor vehicle of any active-duty military personnel under certain conditions
Proposes a constitutional amendment permitting judges to teach at public universities for compensation
Proposes a constitutional amendment allowing simple majority to pass school district bond issues
Last Updated November 29, 2006 at 9:49 am
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About SunExpress
Working at SunExpress
Discover Our Bases
Antalya Base
Izmir Base
Istanbul Base
Ankara Base
Recruitment Process for Cabin Services
Dear Cabin Attendant Candidates,
Our recruitment process consists of following five steps:
At the first step you will take online foreign language exam. Our language exam is held in English and it consists of one hundred (100) questions. The duration of the exam is sixty (60) minutes. Each correct answer equals to one point. Exam results will be sent to your e-mail addresses within about fifteen (15) minutes. Candidates, who want to take a second foreign language exam, will be sent online exams in German, French, Italian and Russian immediately after the first exam. These exams also consist of a hundred (100) questions.
For the second step, an interview in English is conducted to test conversational skills. This interview lasts approximately fifteen minutes. Pronunciation and English speaking capability are evaluated here.
Following the interview in English, an MMPI test is conducted as the third step. This MMPI test consists of a total of 566 questions and the process lasts an average of 3 hours. Candidates read each statement and mark either “TRUE” or “FALSE” response choices. There are no universally accepted “correct” or “wrong” replies. The statements are merely to better understand a candidate’s personality type. Selected responses should best describe one’s personality. Answers are kept confidential and are not shared with third parties. The test is performed online.
The fourth step consists of an interview which is conducted by our selection committee. The selection committee interview lasts approximately half an hour. The interview is conducted in Turkish and English. The selection committee is comprised of a human resources specialist, a manager from cabin management and a psychologist consultant. During the interview, each specialist will ask questions according to their respective professions. Results are sent out by e-mail in approximately one week.
For the fifth step, our human resources team sends job offers to the successful candidates. Candidates who accept our job offers are then included in the planned training groups.
Our examination centers are located in Antalya, Izmir, Istanbul (Anatolian side) and Ankara. Candidates who meet the required criteria are invited to the centers closest to where they live.
We wish all of our candidates the best of luck.
SunExpress was founded in October 1989 as a subsidiary of the two industry leading airlines Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa. Today, SunExpress carries around seven million passengers per year. With its 28 years of experience and thus the long-term commitment in the traffic between the home markets of Turkey and Germany, the airline has acquired the reputation of the holiday specialist even beyond Turkey.
Güneş Ekspres Havacılık A.Ş.
TR-07230 Antalya
Yenigöl Mah. Nergiz Sok. No: 84 PK
Muratpasa Antalya, Türkiye
Kayıt No: / Tic.Sic. No:12563
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You are here: Home / Creative Nonfiction / What More Can a Body Do?
Charisse Coleman
What More Can a Body Do?
June 30, 2011 /0 Comments/in Creative Nonfiction /by Miciah Bay Gault
You are in training, learning how to help people with the sorrows, fears, and angers they want to banish, the pains they wish to exorcise or learn to carry more lightly. You are introduced to a man with cancer. He is exactly your age. Forty-eight. The first time you meet is the second week of your internship as a clinical mental health counselor. You are in a medical exam room with the man, his wife, the oncologist, and a nurse, and the news is not good. The wife’s brow is furrowed in confusion, and she has begun to cry. The man has vaulted his compact, laborer’s body from his chair and is pacing a patch of floor that, because of the number of people in the small room, cannot measure greater than four by six feet. He turns his back on everyone to stare, momentarily, through the glazed slit of a window which cannot be opened.
The man has just been told that the tumor in his lung has continued to grow throughout the month he received chemotherapy. Turning away from the window to return to his seat, his eyes find yours, and now it is as if you were peering into a kaleidoscope of his emotions, a clacking tumble of bright, jewel-colored shards: fear, anguish, pleading, disbelief, outrage. In the same instant, his glance erupts in silent questions, Did you hear what he said? How can this be happening? What did I do wrong? Am I going to die soon? All as clear in your mind as if he had spoken. This has leapt through the man’s eyes in an incalculable instant; he has stared it right into you, a total stranger.
For this man, the next nine months will be filled with medical setbacks and recoveries, with decision after necessary decision and no happy options to choose from, with all the emotional gymnastics of attempting to adjust to ever-changing circumstances. The glimpse you had of his turmoil on that first day will become a familiar eloquence. Also a source of professional dismay as you find just how difficult it is to interrupt the continuous dive and swoop of his fears, their fevered search for places to land. His anxieties are so various, constant, and energetic that you begin to think they may be as much a part of him as his arms and legs, that they are, in fact, a way for him to know who he is. It will take the remainder of your training to appreciate just what a comfort they might be to him.
The one thing that will not change is his deepest wish, a wish even he knows is useless, but which he clings to as determinedly as a terrified child will clutch a scrap of blanket for protection. How many times in nine months will you hear him say, “I just want everything to go back to the way it was before”? How many times will you look into those wetly pleading eyes and feel your heart dip heavy, because as long as he tenders a belief in a guaranteed impossibility, he will continue to rock himself in a cradle of avoidable pain. You would lift him out of it if you could. But he’s the only one who can move himself from this static nostalgia for his pre-diagnosis life (a life that can never be recovered, regardless of the course of his illness), to an active desire and will to live now.
Just how long does it take to realize that he isn’t really living anymore? A remark from his wife here, his own report, a comment from his grown daughter there, and you belatedly piece together that he just isn’t doing much of anything these days. Though he is muscular and, except for the tumor, in good health, though everyone from his medical oncologist to his radiology technician encourages him to ride his bike, go walking, take off for the beach for a few days, he will hardly leave the couch, much less the house. You suspect he is frozen in a paralysis of waiting. Waiting for this or that course of treatment to be over, waiting to feel strong again, waiting to go back to his job, waiting to be told he no longer has cancer, waiting to, at last, feel unfrightened—then he’ll get back to living.
He likes to walk, but is so scared he’ll collapse (an occurrence that, according to his doctors, is no more likely now than it was before his diagnosis) that he won’t do it, not even in his own neighborhood, not even with a cell phone in his pocket. He will not go to the beach: two-and-a-half-hours’ drive from the cancer center is too far to risk. He cannot bear for his wife to leave him alone for more than a few scant minutes at a time. (She carries around her fatigue, her desperation for a break, like a knapsack full of mud.)
Even when the scan shows a 90% reduction in tumor size, even when he learns he’s now eligible for the surgery he’s always trusted more than the mystical toxins and x-rays, he cannot be glad. To proceed as if good news could actually hold might be to jinx it. And so: “If they’re right. If they didn’t read the test wrong. If they know what they’re doing. If it lasts.” It won’t last, you want to shout, because nothing does, which is why it’s so important that he not waste time disbelieving the physical strength and health he has right now. Because you have finally realized: what he is doing, all day long, every day is having cancer. Each new day, he starts again, scared breathless by his body’s unknowable but indisputably treacherous processes, opting, finally, to sit very, very still. His head knows that such committed inertia will not keep bad things from happening; the pit of his stomach says otherwise.
And then, six months into his illness, he gives a tentative smile and confesses he might like to ride his bicycle soon. He is pleased with himself, as he is pleased to report that the beach trip his wife has been begging for is looking good, too. What a happy shock! He is actually looking forward to something. Which is about the same time he experiences a sudden and extensive loss of strength in his left arm. Back to the hospital he comes. Tests are done. Waits are endured. Results, when they finally arrive, are unwelcome. The cancer has metastasized to his brain.
A man who cannot bring himself to trust his doctors’ good news cannot now be expected to believe their assurance that brain metastasis is not a summary death notice. The oncology catechism “We can’t cure it, but we can treat it,” uttered by doctors of several different specialties, fails to convince. He cannot hear, or is afraid to believe, the promise that life is not yet finished with him; the promise hums too softly to drown the howl of betrayal inside for being given life on such fraught, compromised terms. And he continues to believe, despite repeated experiences to the contrary, that as long as he refuses to hope, disappointment can be forestalled. Entering another treatment phase, he bats away expressions of optimism as if they were poisoned arrows.
And what have you, helper-of-people in training, been doing all this time, besides witnessing his trek down a booby-trapped road from the safe vantage of your own good health? Well, you have offered yourself as a receptacle for his and his family’s outpourings. (You believe in the power of deep listening.) You have (clumsily) disrupted marital sniping, or at least redirected the focus of its energy and heat. Every time they discovered some small way to make themselves happier in the midst of their misery, you celebrated with them. You have made them laugh. You have (literally) held their hands, given hugs, and yes, planted kisses on cheeks and foreheads.
But you are a rookie. You have been so caught up in making sure they felt heard, supported, understood, that, unwittingly, you have failed them. No attempt you’ve made to apply logic or to challenge their distorted thinking has altered what was irrational to begin with. You knew better, really, than to imagine it would, but ultimately the temptation to speak in the authoritative, supposedly reassuring voice of reason overpowered this knowledge. Not knowing a more effective approach, understanding how real and exhausting their worries are, you stuck with what you knew how to do, what they seemed to appreciate your doing, which came down, mostly, to listening and encouraging. But now you wonder: at what point does long, hard listening to numerous repetitions of the problems become a mechanism that helps to sustain them? How could you have overlooked the obvious alternative of helping this patient escape the matrix of his fears by focusing on what gives him joy? What can he see himself living for, instead of only battling against?
Very near the end of your training, you visit him in the hospital. His wife, who has not been home in days, sleeps in a vinyl reclining chair, looking as crumpled as a bag of laundry. You and the patient talk quietly. His post-surgery pain level is manageable, he says, though he hasn’t felt up to the walking the physical therapist wants him to try. He hasn’t heard when he might be discharged. He otherwise feels pretty good, though he is worried, as always, about what else is in store. “You know,” you find yourself saying, “we’ve spent a fair amount of time together in the last several months, you and I.” He hums and nods an acknowledgment of this. “And we’ve had some pretty important talks, about pretty personal stuff.” He agrees with this, too. “I realized I know a lot about what upsets you, scares you, makes you angry and anxious. And I feel like an idiot,” (that sharpens his attention) “because in all this time, I still have no idea what it is you love about life. I’ve never asked, and I’m sorry, I don’t know why it hasn’t occurred to me sooner. What do you love about your life?” you ask, speaking his name.
Tears bolt to his eyes, his whole mouth turns down in a crescent of grief and trembling. “Being here,” he whispers hoarsely. “I just love being here, that’s all.” He wipes his eyes. You squeeze and hold onto his square, calloused hand. “Of course you do,” you say. “Of course.” You sit together like that for awhile. You think of all the conversations you might have had with him, conversations to name just what it is about being here that he loves so much, conversations, perhaps, about how he might bind himself more firmly to those things. All the expected recriminations of inexperience and lament for what you could have (should have) tried.
You sit there together in a small envelope of silence, holding hands. And then, emboldened by how few chances remain to be with him, having lost the luxury of time to elicit things subtly and obliquely, you risk umbrage and misunderstanding by telling him what you think he should do. With not a little urgency, you tell him he must hold fast to that wanting to be here. You tell him you believe that it is the strength of this very desire that can pull him through the darkest times. You say that all of that goodness he longs to embrace can become a stronger force in his life than all of the badness he fights so hard to ward off. You say it’s not too late, not as long as he’s here, alive, whatever his condition. He presses his lips together, looking away, pressing down new tears. You stop speaking. He squeezes your hand again, longer this time. You believe this means he wants to believe these things. You wonder what he will decide, in the end, to believe, to do.
His wife uncurls from her nest in the recliner and smiles sleepily in your direction. You rise and kiss the top of his head, your lips firm against the bristle of new fuzz, and walk around the bed to hold his wife in a long hug. A kiss for her brow this time, a reminder to have you paged (they won’t; they almost never have) whenever they want to talk, “hellos” to be passed on to their daughter and granddaughters, and off you go, other patients, other families to see.
The last time you heard, he was in a wheel chair, and they were still plugging along, doing what needed to be done. You can’t stop wondering if they ever made it to the beach.
https://hungermtn.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/monk.HM17.jpg 700 1000 Miciah Bay Gault https://hungermtn.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Writing-and-Publishing-Logo-300x874px.png Miciah Bay Gault2011-06-30 13:47:452019-03-19 08:41:03What More Can a Body Do?
Visiting with Heather Sharfeddin
by Claire Guyton Another Visit with Deborah Vlock
by Claire Guyton
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Stems Quotes
The misconception that aid falls straight into the hands of dictators largely stems from the Cold War era.
Author Profession: Businessman
Born: October 28, 1955
Find on Amazon: Bill Gates
Ross Perot, Lee Iacocca, Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, Warren Buffett, Stephen Covey, Jim Rohn, Peter Drucker
Aid, Cold, Cold War, Dictators, Era, Falls, Hands, Largely, Misconception, Stems, Straight, War
Research shows that there is only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as there is among classrooms in the same school. If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.
Education Best Teacher Achievement
Technology Business Will Efficiency
Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.
Teacher Technology Together Important
I think it's fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we've ever created. They're tools of communication, they're tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.
Communication Think Creativity Tools
It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.
Failure Success Celebrate Important
By improving health, empowering women, population growth comes down.
Women Health Growth Population
Technology is unlocking the innate compassion we have for our fellow human beings.
Technology Compassion Human Our
The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don't really even notice it, so it's part of everyday life.
Life Technology You Everyday Life
Information technology and business are becoming inextricably interwoven. I don't think anybody can talk meaningfully about one without the talking about the other.
Technology Business Think Talking
Software innovation, like almost every other kind of innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs.
Innovation People Down Understand
The PC has improved the world in just about every area you can think of. Amazing developments in communications, collaboration and efficiencies. New kinds of entertainment and social media. Access to information and the ability to give a voice people who would never have been heard.
You People Social Media World
The way to be successful in the software world is to come up with breakthrough software, and so whether it's Microsoft Office or Windows, its pushing that forward. New ideas, surprising the marketplace, so good engineering and good business are one in the same.
Good Business World Ideas
Historically, privacy was almost implicit, because it was hard to find and gather information. But in the digital world, whether it's digital cameras or satellites or just what you click on, we need to have more explicit rules - not just for governments but for private companies.
You World Hard More
Everyone needs a coach. It doesn't matter whether you're a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.
You Bridge Matter Basketball
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Tara Reid Doesn’t Care What You Think + May Be the Happiest Drunk Ever [VIDEO]
Ryan Anderson
Tara Reid went out to experience the Los Angeles night life vodka on Tuesday, May 7, and had some trouble finding her way back to her car. Quelle surprise.
The 'American Pie' actress somehow snagged an invite to a Samsung Galaxy S4 party at Chi-Lin restaurant, and was caught by TMZ photogs as she entered (wearing a T-shirt with the apt phrase "F--- what people think").
They asked some questions about Lindsay Lohan, to which an unusually coherent Tara showed empathy, saying, "I hope she's okay."
Two hours later, in the wee hours of the morning, the paps were still there as Tara stumbled out on the arm of a friend, looking like her standard disheveled self.
"I can't see!" she giggled as her pal navigated her through the field of cameras. "Let's negotiate!"
Before she got into her car (or carried on any more negotiations) Tara bid them all adieu: "Everyone! Nice to see you guys again. Welcome back to L.A."
One thing we'll give her -- when she said she was a happy drunk, she wasn't lying a bit.
Filed Under: Tara Reid
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EDM Is Life!
Lil Durk to be charged with criminal intent to commit murder
On Wednesday (May 29), Lil Durk announced that he…
On Wednesday (May 29), Lil Durk announced that he would be turning himself in to police custody without any reasons being disclosed.
According to a report from TMZ for today (May 30), the Atlanta Police Department issued a warrant for the Durk’s arrest and stated that authorities plan to charge hom with criminal intent to commit murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during commission of a felony, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and associating with a criminal street gang to participate in a crime. However, WSB-TV’s Michael Seiden reports that he’s been charged with criminal attempt to commit murder:
JUST IN:@lildurk will be booked in on
1)Criminal Attempt to Commit Murder
2)Agg. Assault
3)Unlawful For Employed by/ Associated with Criminal Street Gang to Conduct/Participate in Crime.
4)Poss. of Firearm During Commission of a Felony
5) Poss. of Firearm by Convicted Felon
— Michael Seiden (@SeidenWSBTV) May 30, 2019
Just hours before the story surfaces, Durk’s lawyer spoke to Atlanta’s WSB-TV and told them that the rapper would be turning himself in for charges related to a Feb. 5 shooting at Atlanta restaurant The Varsity. Durk’s OTF affiliate King Von has already been detained for the shooting, which reportedly left a 23-year-old man with gunshot wounds. As of press time, Dirk is not yet in custody.
‘UZI MAKES A NAME FOR HIMSELF WITH ‘TALK TO ME’
Nipsey Hussle Was Secretly Being Investigated By The LAPD For Gang Activity
Lil Wayne Reveals Features And Producers On "Funeral"
Jaden Smith Is Changing Professions
Princeton Perez Returns With Smooth New R&B Single “Perfect World” Ahead of Forthcoming EP “Papi Chulo Prelude”
Eminem's Daughter Hailie Shows Off Her Body On Instagram
Lil Baby Says He Used To Pay Gunna To Write His Songs
5 STORIES. ONCE A WEEK.
NO SPAM. PROMISE. GO ON,
GIVE US YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS.
Sign my Life Away
Eminem's daughter Hailie has blessed us quite a few times with bikini pics and other…
It seems Lil Baby didn't always write his own lyrics. In a recent interview with 16BARS…
50 Cent's Baby Mama Daphne Joy Is Absolutely Busting Out At The Beach [PHOTOS]
50 Cent seems to have a good relationship with his second Baby Mama Daphne Joy.…
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PHONEY PHOTOS OF THE THUNDERBIRD AND BIGFOOT KIND - SHOOTING DOWN ANOTHER TWO EXAMPLES
A fake 'shot thunderbird' photo (above) and a fake 'shot bigfoot' photo (below) (creator unknown to me / © Kryptomaniacle – included here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis only)
I recently noted on Facebook that I consider it very important to publicly expose and debunk fake cryptozoological photographs, because in doing so it not only prevent them from cluttering the archives of cryptozoology in the future but also prevents cryptozoological sceptics from using them as evidence for claiming that the subject is credulous and not scientifically rigorous. So with that in mind, here are another two such photos that I have recently been able to shoot down as phoneys.
The first of these came to my attention on 12 October 2016 while I was browsing online – I first spotted it in the forums section of the Taurusarmed.net website, where it had been posted by someone with the username Moondawg on 5 June 2015, but I subsequently discovered that it had been posted by various other people on a number of other sites too. As seen here, it is a typical example of the 'shot thunderbird photograph' motif (click here for the saga of this ostensibly real but elusive image), of which numerous confirmed fake versions are still doing the rounds online, and which consist of what appears to be a vintage photo of hunters posing alongside an enormous dead winged creature, the thunderbird (aka 'big bird'), fastened with wings outstretched to a wall or barn door. In some such photos, the thunderbird is avian, in others it is pterosaurian – it is the latter in the version under consideration here.
The fake 'shot thunderbird photograph' (creator unknown to me)
As soon as I saw the photo, it seemed obvious to me that it was yet another fake. I freely confess that I am no photographic expert, but in terms of both contrast and edges the pterosaur was far sharper than anything in the remainder of the photograph. Moreover, as a zoologist I was readily aware that the pterosaur's morphology was consistent with the typical reconstruction of the American pterodactyl Pteranodon that was preponderant in books and magazines dating from the 1960s and 1970s, as opposed to ones from present-day publications and considered by present-day palaeontologists to be accurate.
With this in mind, I decided to conduct an online image search in the hope of tracing the original vintage photograph that had evidently been utilised by the unknown creator to produce this fake 'shot thunderbird' photo, and within only a very short time I succeeded in doing so. Here it is:
The original vintage hunters photograph that formed the basis for the fake thunderbird photo (public domain)
I discovered it on the Viewsofthepast.com website, on a page entitled 'Superior View Hunting & Wildlife' (click here to visit it), which contained a lengthy series of vintage hunting photos. The example that had been used as the basis for the fake thunderbird photo was listed as 'H-CAMP07 Log Cabin Hunters', and clearly dated back to at least the early 1930s, and quite possibly even earlier than that.
Here is the original vintage hunters photo and the fake thunderbird photo alongside one another, confirming that except for the Pteranodon presence in the latter the two are identical:
Fake thunderbird photo (above) and original vintage hunters photo (below) (creator unknown to me / public domain)
But what about the Pteranodon image used in the fake thunderbird photo – where had that come from? Again, it didn't take long for me to track that down online. It turned out to be a photo of a Pteranodon model available by various companies as a plastic model kit during the early 1970s (thus explaining why the reconstruction was so dated). I was first alerted to this model kit's existence via the following photograph of its box from the Revell-issued version that I found online:
Box containing 1970s Pteranodon model kit released by Revell (© Revell – included here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis only)
As can be seen, the image of the Pteranodon on the lid of this model kit's box is almost identical to that of the Pteranodon in the fake thunderbird photo, and I could readily imagine that if a photo of the fully-assembled model Pteranodon were taken from slightly above the model so that its head, neck, and beak appeared slightly lower down over its body than they do in the picture on the model kit's lid, it would then correspond precisely with the fake thunderbird version.
The Revell Pteranodon picture, the fake thunderbird photo, and the original vintage hunters photo (© Revell – included here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis only / creator unknown to me / public domain)
Moreover, Facebook colleague Robert Hodge kindly brought to my attention the following photo of an early 1970s version of the same Pteranodon model, fully assembled, that had been released by Aurora as part of its 'Prehistoric Scenes' series:
The fully-assembled Aurora-released version of the Pteranodon model (© Aurora - included here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis only)
(As a noteworthy BTW: whereas the picture on the lid of the Revell version of this model is based directly upon the fully-assembled Pteranodon model itself, the picture on the lid of the Aurora version of this same model is merely a generic Pteranodon image.)
After I had made public on Facebook my findings documented here, another Facebook colleague, Joseph McKee, then used the box-lid picture of the Revell Pteranodon model to recreate via Photoshop the fake thunderbird photo, and as can be seen here his recreation confirms beyond any doubt that this plastic model was indeed the source of the Pteranodon in the fake thunderbird photo:
The fake thunderbird photo (top) and Joseph McKee's recreation of it using the Revell Pteranodon model's picture (bottom) (creator unknown to me / Joseph McKee)
Another case of crypto-photographic forgery well and truly closed!
Moving from 'big birds' to bigfoot: yesterday (21 October 2016), I was once again browsing online when I came upon the following image, purportedly a vintage photograph showing a shot bigfoot and the hunters who had dispatched it. I had been browsing various bigfoot-related sites, and had found it under discussion on several of them. Here it is:
Fake shot bigfoot photograph (© Kryptomaniacle – included here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis only)
Looking at it, it seemed to me to be another vintage American hunters photo into which something foreign had been introduced – on this occasion some form of animal montage creating the supposed bigfoot, the body possibly being that of a bear, with what may be a gorilla's head (or a model of one?) superimposed on top of it, because the head and body do not appear to be continuous (and the body not very gorilla-like anyway). For what it's worth (pardon the forthcoming pun!), however, there was an additional (and totally unequivocal) clue readily visible in this 'shot bigfoot' picture that confirmed beyond any shadow of a doubt that this was indeed a phoney photograph. And that was the presence of a certain inscription in its bottom left-hand corner, reading 'Worth1000.com' – because this just so happens to be the name of a former website that specialised in competitions for producing the best photoshopped images.
Pursuing this lead, I was able to confirm that the 'shot bigfoot' had indeed been submitted for one of Worth1000's competitions – specifically, its 'Monster Hoaxes 6' contest, held in early 2012; that it was Worth1000 Design #8830992; and that the person who had submitted it was based in the USA and had the username Kryptomaniacle. Click here to see this photo's official submission page. Unfortunately, I was unable to obtain further information because Worth1000.com has been taken over by the graphic design website DesignCrowd, and only its members can obtain more specific details regarding Worth1000 submissions, usernames, etc (and because this site's members need to be graphic designers, which I'm not, I'm not a member).
However, Kryptomaniacle did state alongside this bigfoot-inspired photo that he/she had photoshopped it as an April Fool's joke. It came 15th out of the 27 submissions in the contest (click here to see all of the entries). Some entrants provided the original sources used in creating their submissions, but unfortunately Kryptomaniacle didn't do so.
What I needed to do, therefore, was to do what I'd done with the fake thunderbird photo – i.e. trace the original vintage hunters photo that had evidently been used as the 'shot bigfoot' photo's basis. Once again, it wasn't long before I succeeded in doing this – and here it is:
Original vintage American deer hunters photograph used as the basis of the fake shot bigfoot photo (public domain)
I found it on the Wideopenspaces.com website, on a page entitled 'The Good Old Days@ 30 Historic Hunting Photos [Pics]' – click here to view this page (the vintage deer hunters photo used as the basis for the 'shot bigfoot' photo is Photo #26). It had originally appeared in Canada's Ottawa Sun newspaper.
As shown below, when the original vintage hunters photo and Kryptomaniacle's fake bigfoot photo are viewed alongside one another, it can be readily seen that except for the shot deer in the former photo and the ropes-suspended 'shot bigfoot' in the latter one (plus the image of an ungulate skull positioned over the body of the 'bigfoot'), the two are identical. Moreover, even the ungulate skull is a composite, combining the antlers of the deer in the original vintage hunters photo with the skull from some entirely different individual (and which may actually be a cow skull rather than a deer skull anyway).
Fake shot bigfoot photo (top) and original vintage American hunters photo (bottom) (© Kryptomaniacle – included here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis only / public domain)
All that remains to be done now in order to complete the full exposure of this 'shot bigfoot' photo's origins is to trace Kryptomaniacle's sources for the 'bigfoot' head and body, and for the ungulate skull placed over the body. Yet even if this isn't achieved, what I have already revealed here in relation to it is more than sufficient to verify the photo's fake nature.
Indeed, the 'Worth1000.com' inscription should have been enough for anyone to have realised straight away that the 'shot bigfoot' photo was a phoney, which is why I was so surprised to find it the subject of serious discussion as to its possible authenticity on various websites. Having said that, I must make a clear differentiation regarding this photo between its being a fake and a hoax. Yes, it IS a fake, created by Kryptomaniacle using photoshopping techniques; but it is NOT a hoax, because it was submitted openly by Kryptomaniacle for a public photoshopping competition, with no intention to deceive, having been clearly identified by him/her as a photoshopped image. It is only because it has subsequently been uploaded by others onto various sites where it has mistakenly been thought to be real that cryptozoological confusion concerning its true origin and nature has occurred.
My sincere thanks to Robert Hodge and Joseph McKee for their much-appreciated assistance in relation to my researches documented here.
From bear to bigfoot - another fake bigfoot photograph that I debunked - click here to read all about it.
Labels: animal fakes, bigfoot, cryptozoology, karl shuker, living pterodactyls, living pterosaurs, Pteranodon, ShukerNature, thunderbird, thunderbird photograph
PHONEY PHOTOS OF THE THUNDERBIRD AND BIGFOOT KIND ...
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Higgins, Jack
From the master of suspense, a novel about a very different kind of war-with a very different set of rules.
Jack Higgins is "the dean of intrigue novelists," wrote the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about his last novel, Bad Company. "He has no equal." In the words of the Associated Press, "When it comes to thriller writers, one name stands well above the crowd-Jack Higgins."
It is night in Manhattan. The President of the United States is scheduled to have dinner with an old friend, but in the building across the street, a man has disabled the security and stands at a window, a rifle in his hand.
Fortunately, his attempt is not successful-but this is only the beginning. Someone is recruiting a shadowy network of agents with the intention of creating terror. Their range is broad, their identities masked, their methods subtle. White House operative Blake Johnson and his counterpart in British intelligence, Sean Dillon, set out to trace the source of the havoc, but behind the first man they find another, and behind the second another still. And that last man is not pleased by the interference. Soon he will target them all: Johnson, Dillon, Dillon's colleagues. And one of them will fall.
Filled with all the dark suspense and sudden action for which Higgins has become famous, and driven by characters of complexity and passion, Dark Justice shows the master at the peak of his powers.
Baker & Taylor
An attempt on the life of the president of the United States during a casual visit to Manhattan is only the first step in a sinister plot involving the recruitment of a shadowy network of deadly assassins and terrorists, and it is up to White House operative Blake Johnson and British Intelligence agent Sean Dillon to uncover the mastermind behind it all. 200,000 first printing.
Blackwell North Amer
Fortunately, he is not successful - but this is only the beginning. Someone is recruiting a shadowy network of agents with the intention of creating terror. Their range is broad, their identities masked, their methods subtle. White House operative Blake Johnson and his opposite number in British intelligence, Sean Dillon, set out to trace the source of the havoc, but behind the first man lies another, and behind him another still. And that man is not pleased by the interference. Soon he will target them all: Johnson, Dillon, Dillon's colleagues. And one of them will fall.
& Taylor
An attempt on the life of the U.S. president during a visit to Manhattan is the first step in a plot involving the recruitment of a network of terrorists, and it is up to Blake Johnson and Sean Dillon to uncover the mastermind behind it all.
Publisher: New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons, [2004]
Branch Call Number: FIC Higgins, J 400.12 2004
Read more reviews of Dark Justice at iDreamBooks.com
jcphilli Dec 17, 2012
#12 in Sean Dillon Series
RichardPaul Dec 02, 2011
Dark Justice ---- by Jack Higgins c - 2004 (Sean Dillon story) ---- This is a very good read and hard to set aside. The action is well written, with many suprises ---- Enjoy! ---- RichardPaul
RichardPaul thinks this title is suitable for 16 years and over
Dillon, Sean (Fictitious Character) — Fiction
Terrorism — Prevention — Fiction
Intelligence Officers — Fiction
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Jo Litson: Scene and Heard
Articles and reviews about the performing arts in Sydney – and occasionally beyond.
Tag Archives: Philippe Klaus
Posted on September 8, 2015 by jolitson
Old Fitz Theatre, September 5
Philippe Klaus, George Kemp and Romy Bartz. Photo: Geoff Sirmai
Bull, by British playwright Mike Bartlett, is considered a companion piece to his much-admired play Cock about a love triangle between two men and a woman, which also had a production at the Old Fitz earlier this year (see review on the blog).
Bull is a less subtle play. Running a tight 55-minutes, it is a savage black comedy about bullying, going straight for the jugular from the opening moments.
Set in a London office, three young employees – Isobel (Romy Bartz), Tony (Philippe Klaus) and Thomas (George Kemp) – are waiting for an interview with their boss (Craig Ashley), knowing that one of them is to lose their job due to cost cutting.
The steely, power-dressed Isobel and more laid-back but equally manipulative Tony are determined that it won’t be them, working together to ritually humiliate and undermine Thomas. It’s the law of the jungle and though Thomas tries to fight back, he’s no match for them. He’s one of life’s loner-losers no matter how much he tries not to be.
The verbal viciousness is breath-taking at times, the outcome mercilessly inevitable.
Directing the play for Ronaissance Production in association with Red Line Productions, Rowan Greaves has the actors go full-bore from the start. The play might perhaps have built tension had they played cat-and-mouse a little more initially, pretending some semblance of nicety before they go in for the kill. Instead, the play feels like a full-on assault.
George Kemp, Philippe Klaus and Romy Bartz. Photo: Geoff Sirmai
The actors are all terrific. Bartz is chillingly cold and utterly remorseless as the main aggressor Isobel, staring at Thomas with withering condescension. As the private school educated Tony, Klaus is the good cop to her bad cop, less obviously aggressive but just as ruthlessly nasty in a slightly more insidious way, performing with an arrogant insouciance.
Kemp is also excellent as the hapless, floundering Thomas, his body language reflecting his growing desperation, as he is gradually undone.
In London, the play was performed in a boxing ring. Here, given that it’s a late-night production, it is staged on the set of The Aliens – but really very little is needed in the way of props or staging with the focus on the verbal cut-and-thrust.
Bull is a short, sharp, brutal play and though it isn’t as fascinating or thought-provoking a drama as Cock it’s still packs a punch.
One of Britain’s leading contemporary playwrights, Bartlett won the 2015 Olivier Award for Best New Play for his epic drama King Charles III, which comes to Sydney next year as part of the Sydney Theatre Company’s 2016 season. And it’s the original Almeida Theatre production from London that we’ll see, arriving here direct from Broadway. In the interim, it’s worth catching Bull as a little taster of Bartlett’s considerable way with words.
Bull plays at the Old Fitz Theatre, Woolloomooloo until September 12. Bookings: http://www.oldfitz.com/bull
Posted in Theatre | Tagged Craig Ashley, George Kemp, Mike Bartlett, Philippe Klaus, Romy Bartz, Rowan Greaves | Leave a reply
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Home > TRAVEL > TOYAMA > RECOMMENDED > 5 Things to Do in Toyama City, Chubu’s Little-Known Castle Town
5 Things to Do in Toyama City, Chubu’s Little-Known Castle Town
Toyama City (富山市), the capital of Toyama Prefecture (富山県), is a city in the Chubu (中部) region. It is one of the gateways to the Japanese Alps and other popular tourist attractions in the nearby prefectures. If you’re planning to go to any of the known attractions in the nearby areas, consider stopping for a day in this former “castle town” and discover its hidden gems. Though less popular than Kanazawa (金沢) and Takayama (高山) for tourists, the city offers equally inviting attractions that can fill your entire day with fun-filled escapades. Here are five things to do in Toyama City.
1. Tour the City Using the City Tram
Author’s photo
The city uses trams as one of the common methods of transport for the locals. It’s a great way to visit the city without spending a lot of money. Hop onto the tram, watch the surroundings pass you by, and decide your destination when and where you want to.
One possible route that I recommend is the north of Toyama Station via Toyama Light-Rail that starts at Toyamaekikita (富山駅北) and ends at Iwasehama Station (岩瀬浜駅). For only 200 yen, it will bring you to Iwase Canal and some white sand beaches like Yaezuhama (八重津浜), Iwasehama (岩瀬浜), and Hamakurosaki Beach (浜黒崎). On a nice, clear day the Iwasehama area is perfect for a stroll.
2. View the Cityscape with the Japanese Alps in the Background
jp.fotolia.com/
Toyama is one of the places in the Chubu (中部) region where you can see the majestic Japanese Alps. Though you will be able to see it in most places in the city, the best view is always on top. There are two places that you can visit for the best view of the city. These are Mt. Kureha Park Observatory and Toyama City Office View Tower. There is no entrance fee for either of the two places.
3. Explore Toyama Castle and Park
This place will keep you busy taking pictures! The reconstructed castle grounds has a Japanese garden, an art museum, and a statue of the former local lord. It is also near Matsukawa River (松川), a popular spot for cherry blossom viewing from early to mid-April.
It’s free to roam around the castle grounds but you need to pay 210 yen to enter the castle or 310 yen to enter both Sato Memorial Art Museum (佐藤記念美術館) and the castle.
Toyama Castle and Park website *Japanese only
4. See Some Glass Art by Visiting Toyama Glass Art Museum (富山市ガラス美術館)
Designed by renowned architect Kuma Kengo (隈研吾), this glass art museum is a haven for art lovers. Not only can you find glass art pieces from all over the world, but you will also be mesmerized by the architecture design of the building in and out. You pay 200 yen for the permanent exhibition, while the fee for the temporary exhibition ranges from 700-1000 yen.
Toyama Glass Art Museum website
5. Try Toyama’s Famous Black Ramen
This award-winning local specialty is cheap, different because of the soup’s dark color, and very tasty. Find Ramen Iroha in the basement of CiC Department Store, around a three-minute walk from Toyama EkiMae, to try this famous dish.
Toyama is also known for its firefly squid, Japanese glass shrimp, and fresh sushi. If you have the budget to indulge, searching for the best sushi restaurant and having these delicacies for dinner is a great way to end your day in the city.
Ramen Iroha website
You can get to Toyama from Tokyo (東京) by taking a bus from Shinjuku for around 6000 yen. You can also take the Hokuriko-Shinkansen (北陸新幹線) bullet train from either Tokyo Station (東京駅) or Ueno Station (上野駅) for around 12000 yen.
So whether you are going to Shirakawa Go to visit the famous Japanese village or you’re visiting the majestic Kurobe Gorge (黒部峡谷) in autumn, make Toyama City your starting point for some your epic adventure in this part of Japan.
Venture to the ’Roof of Japan’ for Magnificent Views of the Glorious Japanese Alps!
5 Interesting Things to Do in Takayama, Gifu’s Charming Old Town, in 2018
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Walk Along the Great Snow Walls of Japan This Spring and Summer 2018!
black ramen
by eu_in_japan
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Toyama Glass Art Museum
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Love adventure and the outdoors? There is a famous mountain sightseeing route called the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route, which lies between Tateyama, Toyama, and Omachi, Nagano. It has been carefully built in order to protect its natural surroundings and is 37 meters in length. The route is also referred to as the “Roof of Japan”…
Hida Takayama (飛騨高山), or simply Takayama (高山), is an interesting city in Gifu Prefecture (岐阜県) known for its well-preserved old town, rustic surroundings, and colorful festivals. Home to many temples and shrines, the city has been popular to local and foreign tourists as it is also a famous gateway to Shirakawa-go (白川郷). Spending two days…
Karuizawa-machi in Nagano Prefecture is a popular summer destination because of its cooler weather. The town is considered as a highland resort known for skiing in winter, golf in summer, and shopping all year round. Though more popular in the summer season, Karuizawa is also a perfect autumn destination. If you love the explosion of…
Are you planning to visit Japan but worried that you would not be able to catch its beauty in snow? Or do you live in Japan but missing the sight of snow in spring or summer? Fret not because Japan has a way of experiencing snow even in the middle of the warmer months! Murododaira…
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Miura Haruma, “Mikoshi Dako” and More in This Week’s Hot 10 Articles! Aug 19, 2016
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LBJ Tropical Medical Center Advocacy
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Medical Administration
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Medical supplies shortage at American Samoa hospital
This article from Radio New Zealand. Read full story on RNZ
Nurses at American Samoa's LBJ Hospital say the hospital's shortage of medical supplies is affecting the quality of patient care, with nurses forced to use bed sheets as dressings.
Nurses say dressing supplies and other basic supplies such as gloves and gauze pads have run out, and LBJ Hospital is also reported to be out of some IV solutions.
The chair of the hospital board Leilua Mase Akapo says the hospital is in a grave financial situation because of the government's failure to transmit funds to the hospital.
Our correspondent in American Samoa, Monica Miller, says nurses who have spoken out are describing a dire situation.
"According to these nurses, they're using trash bags as underpads for the beds, to cover under the sheets. So that's a very worrying situation. I know that there's been a series of meetings between the governor and the people at the treasury. And the governor has basically told the treasurer that he should find money to pay the hospital."
Ms Miller says off island vendors are requiring the hospital to pay up front for orders before they release any supplies.
Last month the Hospital Authority Board informed the governor that LBJ's account payables had reached US$8 million, with sources at LBJ saying unpaid bills for medical supplies represents about three quarters of this.
The chairman of the hospital board told the governor that the funds the government has failed to pay to the hospital include a monthly subsidy of US$500,000 per month, a two percent wage tax and Medicare and Medicaid payments.
A report that the chairman provided for the governor, shows that the amount the ASG owes LBJ was US$5.7 million as of December 28, 2015.
Admin - Administrative Management and Staff
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Home > Reviews > Bluey, Leap of Faith > Bluey: Leap of Faith
Bluey: Leap of Faith
Published July 28, 2013 April 25, 2019 – By Lucy Tauss
Producer-guitarist Jean-Paul “Bluey” Maunick, the main force behind the popular British acid-jazz outfit Incognito, steps out as a leader on his debut solo album, Leap of Faith. Maunick never sang much with Incognito, mostly leaving vocal duties to others, particularly singer Maysa Leak. Here, he does all the singing, and his voice proves to be a pleasant and surprisingly versatile instrument.
Maunick turns in a range of vocal performances. He employs a Prince-esque falsetto on the catchy pop number “Live Like a Millionaire,” a tune that includes a finger-snapping doo-wop break, while “Keep Myself Together” features vocal harmonies on the chorus that wouldn’t be out of place on a Donald Fagen album.
Most of the tracks on Leap of Faith are danceable jazz-funk tunes, like the atmospheric electronica number “Ain’t Nobody’s Business,” the Latin-tinged “Sky” and the house track “Why Did I Let You Go,” but Maunick gets socially conscious on the spoken-word title track. He entreats the listener: “Sometimes the only way out of a hole is to take a leap of faith/When a journey demands much more than a man-made craft/A leap of faith may well be the only form of transportation to your destination.” He then spotlights Dr. Martin King Jr. and Nelson Mandela as examples, the seriousness of the lyrics mitigated slightly by the funky groove beneath Maunick’s voice.
It’s not really appropriate to call Leap of Faith an auspicious debut, since Maunick has been a fixture on the contemporary jazz scene for decades, but the album presents an attractive individual statement, one that hopefully Maunick will decide to repeat in the future.
Lucy Tauss
Lucy Tauss is a New York City-based music journalist and longtime JazzTimes contributor. She is also a radio and audio producer/writer/editor/journalist who covers news, entertainment and everything in between.
Yoko Miwa Trio: Keep Talkin’ (Ocean Blue Tear)
Avishai Cohen: Arvoles (Razdaz)
Brandee Younger: Soul Awakening (Self-released)
Paul Bley/Gary Peacock/Paul Motian: When Will the Blues Leave (ECM)
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Goto page 1234 1, 2, 3, 4 Next
jdorama.com Forum Index -> Discussions on Japanese Dramas
juuan
Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2005 10:17 am Post subject: Rondo
Ronda/�֕��� - TBS
Air Date: 15th Jan 2006
Takenouchi Yutaka
Choi Ji Woo (Korean)
Hayami Mokomichi
Kimura Yoshino
Ichikawa Yui
Last edited by juuan on Sat Dec 10, 2005 11:00 am; edited 1 time in total
littlemissfab
Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2005 10:32 am Post subject:
YAY!! another moco-chan drama!!! yay!!!! another one to look forward to aside from start line/byakuyakou..
I<3 yamada takayuki..
Last edited by littlemissfab on Sun Jan 15, 2006 1:15 pm; edited 1 time in total
SuddenDrama
Wow, TBS lineup is pretty impressive. I'm definitely watching this one, as well as Byakuyakou.
Location: Grand Line
Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 12:36 pm Post subject:
hmmm...... the cast is really great, i hope the story will great too......look forward to aside N's Aoi
Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2006 12:20 pm Post subject:
Airing today~ =D
atheon
gonna watch it because got Kimura Yoshino
This show of courage continues even in my dreams
If I became cowardly,
I would be cut off there
-- Tokyo
YUI Lover: The 1st YUI Forum & Fansite
For those who don't know the story. This is what I gathered from the website:
Yutaka Takenouchi is Nishijima Sho, a henchman for Kazuma Ryuichiro, the president of a successful corporation but also, unknown to the public, a mafia boss! However, what the mafia group doesn't know is that Nishijima Sho is actually undercover police detective Kaneyama Takumi. He enters the underworld (the mafia) under the orders of his boss, Detective Isaki Yoshihiko and also because his father was killed in South Korea, which he believes was the work of the mafia.
One day, Sho and his friend go to a bar and find a Korean woman being harrassed. He helps her out. The woman is Choi Yoo-na (Choi Ji-woo), a woman who comes to Japan with her sister in search of their father, who went to Japan and never came back. Yoo-na also seems to draw the unwanted attention of Kim Young-jae, a Korean underboss of Kazuma's mafia group summoned to Japan from Korea for "work."
Also in the scene are Kazuma Ryugo, Ryuichiro's son who is set to inherit the corporation (and the mafia), Kazuma Kotomi (Yui Ichikawa), Ryuichiro's daughter who likes Sho (but the love is unrequited), and his Korean aide/secretary for business (and mafia) affairs, Song Gyu-hwan.
Looking forward to this
A wallpaper from official site
Location: EGG
certainly looking forward to watch this dorama... noted the actors and actresses (which are all my favourites) Yutaka takenouchi, Choi Jii woo, HAYAMI MOKOMICHI...... i really gonna watch this one....
Yeah, even without the whole Korean/Japanese angle, the STORY looks really cool. The title, Rondo, makes complete sense given the storyline, too. A Rondo is a form of classical music in which a main theme alternates between one or more contrasting themes. Similarly, the characters alternate between different identities, though it is probably more uncertain which is their "main" identity.
HOLY CRAP! I finished the first episode, and it was like a movie! The quality of this production is probably the best I've ever seen. I wonder what the budget on this was. It was probably high.
The story is really intriguing and the acting is great. The miscommunication between the 2 leads created some funny situations, which kind of breaks the tension of the very serious subject matter.
This didn't disappoint at all. The first episode definitely lived up to the hype, and the intro and outro songs, both by unknown artists (a Japanese singer and a Korean one) are really good and suit the drama.
The first episode rating is 20.0%. Really falls behind Saiyuki's 29.2%, though...
Kanjani8's 18th single, "365 Nichi Kazoku" out June 8th, 2011!
colorbar credits to [email protected]
lisa_takky
Location: Brunei
Wow great cast and an interesting storyline. Yeap..definitely looking forward to watching this drama
Carmila
must watch !!! cuz got yutaka !!!!!!!!!!!
Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 12:18 pm Post subject:
WD wrote:
hmm....that's good start...i think....
Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 4:47 pm Post subject:
Did anyone feel like the script heavily played up on Korean's dislike of Japan? At every chance, normal things would issue a, "Japan is a horrible country," or "Never trust a Japanese," or "This is why you can't trust Japanese men," or "Though I may be doing business with a Japanese, I wish to speak in Korean because I am proud to be Korean" from any Korean actor on the screen. Did anyone think that this was stereotyping or overkill? I definitely felt like it was. Meanwhile, the portrayal of the Japanese was varied and multifaced. I hope this changes in episode two, giving Koreans more than just being poor, downtrodden emigres or gang members.
I was also surprised to see that Choi Ji Woo's normally OVER-THE-TOP acting style was toned down by the "film-like quality" (somene mentioned that here, and the budget DOES seem big, doesn't it?! ) of RONDO. The ending scene with Takenouchi and Choi gazing off into the sky was all too Korean-dorama-esque for me, but at least it wasn't the entire time.
Takenouchi is an extremely good actor, and it was nice to see that Choi could keep up, even if a bit awkward somehow in some scenes.
The sister of Choi's character, Yuna, is completely negligent for me, haha. Couldn't care less about her. Though I realize her necessity in the whole plot of things.
Was anybody else confused by the first scene and thought that Takenouchi's father was a gang member???
At times it did seem more like a Korean drama than a Japanese one. I think the Japanese are just as bad as the Koreans in this one, like the club owner that cheated Yuna out of her money and of course the Kazuma family, which is the ultimate evil in the storyline. Yuna and her sister seem to be the innocent ones caught in this inter-generational crossfire between the police and the "senku" mafia, (though I think there is much more to their story than meets the eye. Their missing father may yet have something to do with the at-large plot).
And there's DEFINITELY something more to Sho's father than meets the eye. From my POV, he was either undercover like Sho is now, or he was a cop working for the Senku.
Divinefish
Location: Others
yeah, i agree that choi's usual maudlin, overly emotional acting style was alittle more controlled here, but man, yutaka takenouchi has so much screen presence, he totally stole every scene that they were in together. between choi and takenouchi, its blantantly obvious that he is by far the superior actor.
jdramas are usually alot more subdued and less "in your face" than kdramas are, so even though choi has toned down her melodramatic acting alittle, she still comes across as somewhat out of place in this drama. rondo does have alot of kdrama sensibilities though, from the way the scenes are framed, to the music, to the ways that the characters interact -- everything just seems alittle more melodramatic and overthetop than your usual jdrama.
Divinefish wrote:
YOU GOT THAT SOOOO RIGHT! hahaha. He RULES the screen.
qilver
Orion wrote:
yeah 20% for the first episode, that is quite good.
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Sex differences in morbidity and care-seeking during the neonatal period in rural southern Nepal
Summer Rosenstock1Email author,
Joanne Katz1,
Luke C. Mullany1,
Subarna K. Khatry2,
Steven C. LeClerq1, 2,
Gary L. Darmstadt1, 3 and
James M. Tielsch1, 4
© Rosenstock et al. 2015
Received: 15 June 2015
South Asian studies, including those from Nepal, have documented increased risk of neonatal mortality among girls, despite their early biologic survival advantage. We examined sex differences in neonatal morbidity and care-seeking behavior to determine whether such differences could help explain previously observed excess late neonatal mortality among girls in Nepal.
A secondary analysis of data from a trial of chlorhexidine use among neonates in rural Nepal was conducted. The objective was to examine sex differences in neonatal morbidity and care-seeking behavior for ill newborns. Girls were used as the reference group.
Referral for care was higher during the early neonatal period (ENP: 0–7 days old) (50.7 %) than the late neonatal period (LNP: 8–28 days old) (31.3 %), but was comparable by sex. There were some significant differences in reasons for referral by sex. Boys were significantly more often referred for convulsions/stiffness, having yellow body/eyes, severe skin infection, and having at least two of the following: difficulty breathing, difficulty feeding, fever, or vomiting during the ENP. Girls were more often referred for hypothermia. During the LNP, boys were significantly more often referred for having yellow body/eyes, persistent watery stool, and severe skin infection. There were no referral types in the LNP for which girls were more often referred. Less than half of those referred at any point were taken for care (47.0 %) and referred boys were more often taken than girls (Neonatal Period OR: 1.77, 95 % CI: 1.64 - 1.91). Family composition differentially impacted the relationship between care-seeking and sex. The greatest differences were in families with only prior living girls (Pahadi - ENP OR: 1.78, 95 % CI: 1.29 - 2.45 and LNP OR: 1.51, 95 % CI: 1.03 - 2.21; Madeshi - ENP OR: 2.86, 95 % CI: 2.28 – 3.59 and LNP OR: 2.45, 95 % CI: 1.84 – 3.26).
Care-seeking was inadequate for both sexes, but ill boys were consistently more often taken for care than girls, despite comparable referral. Behavioral interventions to improve care-seeking, especially in the early neonatal period, are needed to improve neonatal survival. Addressing gender bias in care-seeking, explicitly and within interventions, is essential to reducing neonatal mortality differentials between boys and girls.
Gender preference
Morbidity
Care-seeking behavior
Early neonatal period
Late neonatal period
Boys are at approximately 20 % greater risk of neonatal mortality than girls in high-income countries [1–6]. Most literature attributes this sex difference to underlying biological disadvantages in boys, including less mature lungs at the same gestational age, increased risk of prematurity, respiratory and other infectious morbidities, and higher rates of delivery complications, cesarean section and congenital anomalies [1, 4, 6–10]. Animal models lend further support, showing that testosterone suppresses the immune system, while estradiol and progesterone strengthen innate and humoral immune responses [11–14].
Despite their survival advantage, in South Asia there have been reports of excess neonatal (early, late or both) and infant mortality among girls, with ORs ranging from 1.20 (late neonatal period) in Pakistan to 3.42 (overall neonatal period) in South India [15–19]. Existing literature has pointed to gender preference and differential care-seeking behaviors to explain this inversion of risk. Reports of sex imbalances in countries such as China and India are likely linked to sex selective termination of pregnancy and infanticide [20–22]. Studies have also shown differential perceptions of illness and care-seeking behaviors by care-takers favoring boys [18, 23–26]. Additionally, birth order and prior sibling composition have been shown to be predictors of sex-specific neonatal survival [18, 19].
A secondary analysis using data from the Newborn Washing Study, conducted in Sarlahi, Nepal (described below), examined the effect of biological and environmental factors on the relationship between sex of the newborn and early and late neonatal mortality [19]. The overall neonatal mortality rate within the study population was 32.1/1000 live births. The study found that boys were at greater risk than girls of early neonatal mortality (Relative Risk (RR) (M/F): 1.20 [95 % CI:1.02 – 1.42]), but at lower risk than girls of late neonatal mortality (RR (M/F): 0.70 [95 % CI: 0.52-0.94]) [19]. Consistent with studies conducted in high-income countries, the excess early neonatal mortality among boys was statistically explained by biological factors, primarily respiratory depression, and unconsciousness at or shortly after birth [19]. The excess late neonatal mortality among girls, however, was best explained by environmental factors, including ethnicity and sex-distribution of older siblings, with the greatest differences observed among infants born to families with only prior living girls [19].
The current study aims to further examine sex differences in this population to better understand why girls are at greater risk of mortality during the late neonatal period. Specifically, we examined sex differences in morbidity and care-seeking during the early (birth – 7 days old) and late (8–28 days old) neonatal periods. We also investigated whether differences in care-seeking were associated with specific morbidities and/or prior family composition.
The Nepal Newborn Washing Study was carried out between September 2002 and January 2006. It was a pair of nested, prospective, population-based, cluster-randomized, placebo-controlled trials of skin and umbilical cord cleansing with chlorhexidine [27–29]. Briefly, women were recruited in mid-pregnancy, gave oral consent to participate in the study, and were followed until delivery. Technology was not readily available in this geographic area during this study period to determine the sex of the baby during pregnancy. Sex of the infant generally remained unknown until delivery. There were 23 662 live births during the study period. In response to an interim meeting of the Data Safety and Monitoring Board for the trial, systematic collection of referral and care-seeking data were added, and are available for 18 985 of the 23 662 newborns included in the study. Local project workers visited the newborn as soon as possible after birth and again on days 2–6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 21, and 28 to provide trial interventions, track vital status (whether the infant was alive, or had died since the previous visit), and assess the newborn’s health. The assessment, which was repeated at each visit, included a standardized physical exam and maternal report of signs of illness experienced by the neonate since the previous visit. Mothers were asked if the infant had difficulty breathing or feeding since the previous visit, had vomited more than half of what s/he had ingested in the last 24 h, had watery or bloody stools and if so, how often, had experienced convulsions or stiffening of the back, or whether the newborn had been cold to the touch in the previous 24 h. The standardized physical exam included measuring the newborn’s respiratory rate and axillary temperature, recording whether the newborn was experiencing severe chest indrawing, and examining the infant for skin infection. The umbilical cord was examined for signs of infection and the supervisor recorded whether the newborn was conscious and if his/her body or eyes appeared yellow in color. The baby was referred for care if he/she met a standard set of criteria, listing up to three possible reasons (Table 1). The referral variable used in this paper is an indicator of specific morbidities listed above that merited referring the infant for care by the study worker.
Definitions for Cause-Specific Referral for Care During the Neonatal Period
Reason for Referral
Loss of consciousness observed by field worker or reported by the newborn’s mother
Temperature of newborn measured at 101 °F or higher by field worker
Rapid breathing (≧60 breaths/min) AND Fever >101 °F OR Severe chest indrawing observed by the field worker
Convulsions/Stiffness
Convulsions and/or Stiffness of the back observed by field worker, or reported by the newborn’s mother.
Yellow Body/Eyes
Newborn’s body or eyes appeared yellow in color
Persistent Watery Stool
Mother reported that the newborn had loose/watery stools
Blood in Stool
Any blood in the stool reported by the mother or observed by field worker
Temperature of newborn measured at 96 °F or lower by field worker, OR newborn felt cold to touch
Severe Skin Infection
Field worker observed many pustules or blisters, OR one or more large areas of redness/pus
Cord Infection Level I
Field worker observed moderate or severe redness that extended from the umbilicus to the skin OR moderate or severe swelling that extended from the umbilicus to the skin
Cord Infection Level II
Field worker observed pus coming from the umbilicus AND redness AND swelling of any grade
Any Two in List:
1) Difficulty Breathing
1) Mother reported or field worker observed that the newborn had difficulty drawing breath in the previous 24 h
2) Vomiting
2) Mother reported that newborn vomited more than half his/her feed
3) Difficulty Feeding
3) Mother reported that the newborn had difficulty feeding or sucking
4) Fever
4) Temperature of newborn measured at 100 °F or higher by the field worker
Referred for other reasons not specified above
Care-seeking data were collected at each home visit by maternal report of care sought for the infant in the previous 24 h. Medical care was sought from a variety of sources including medicine shop/local practitioner, health post (basic clinic not usually staffed by a physician) and hospitals. Home remedy, Dhami Jhankri (traditional healer), Community Health Volunteer/Village Health Worker/Health Assistant, and other treatment were considered para-medical or non-medical care. Supervisors recorded up to three responses for care sought.
Statistical analyses were carried out using Stata 11 [30]. Demographic and socio-economic data were compared by sex of the neonate, using cross tabulation and χ 2 tests, to assess comparability between families of infant boys and girls. Analyses were stratified by early and late neonatal periods and ethnicity. The population residing in the study area can be loosely grouped into two overarching ethnicities (Pahadi and Madeshi). The Pahadi ethnic group includes tribal people of Tibeto-Burman descent and those of Aryan descent, who conform to the traditional Hindu caste hierarchy, and migrated from the hills to the low-lying plains. The Madeshi people belong to a culture with roots in the north Indian Gangetic floodplain. As there are important socio-demographic and health indicator differences between these groups (e.g. poorer birth outcomes, higher parity, and lower socio-economic status within the Madeshi group), analyses were stratified by ethnic group.
Binomial variables were created that indicated whether an infant was referred at least once during the neonatal period for any reason, and according to reason for referral. Several care-seeking variables were created including; 1) care sought for any reason, independent of referral status, 2) care-seeking for any reason, given referral, and 3) care-seeking given specific reasons for referral. A continuous care-seeking variable, number of times care was sought for an infant in the neonatal period, was also created. Exploratory analyses to compare care-seeking behaviors by sex of the newborn were conducted using cross tabulation and χ 2 tests for categorical variables and t-tests for continuous variables.
Comparisons between boys and girls in overall care-seeking behaviors, in relation to referral status, were stratified by prior sibling composition and ethnicity. This was done to examine whether the impact of family composition on the relationship between sex of the newborn and care-seeking behaviors was consistent with prior findings showing that family composition differentially impacted the relationship between sex of the newborn and neonatal mortality, with girls born to families with only prior living girls being at greatest risk of death [19]. Families were categorized into three family types for prior sibling composition: 1) Families with no prior living children; 2) Families with prior children, including boys and girls; and 3) Families with prior children, all of whom are girls. Generalized estimating equations (GEE), using a binomial family, logit link with independent correlation, and robust variance were used to calculate odds ratios and 95 % confidence intervals for categorical care-seeking variables, comparing boys to girls. A Gaussian family and identity link with independent correlation and robust variance were used for comparisons of continuous variables by sex of the newborn. GEE was used to adjust for clustered randomization of the parent trial chlorhexidine interventions.
Women provided verbal consent to participate in the study. The Nepal Health Research Council and the Institutional Review Board at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health reviewed and approved this study. The trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials.com (trial number: NCT00109616).
There were no meaningful statistically significant differences in socio-economic or demographic characteristics by sex of the neonate. The only statistically significant difference found was in roof material, and the difference was so small (79.1 % of boys had tile roofs and 77.1 % of girls had tile roofs) that it was deemed unimportant. During the neonatal period, 60.7 % of the newborns in this study population met the criteria for referral at least once, which serves as an indicator of the infant’s morbidity status (see Table 1). Overall, the proportions of boys and girls ill enough to be referred for care during the first 28 days of life were comparable (60.2 % and 61.1 %). A significantly higher proportion of infants were ill enough to be referred for care during the early (50.7 %) than the late neonatal period (31.3 %) [OR: 2.26, 95 % CI: 2.16 – 2.36].
The most common reasons for referral during the early neonatal period were hypothermia (22.0 %), cord infection (Level 1 (moderate to severe redness or swelling extending from the umbilicus): 14.9 %, level 2 (redness, swelling and pus coming from the umbilicus): 11.5 %), severe skin infection (7.3 %), and any two of the following; difficulty breathing, vomiting, difficulty feeding, and fever (6.2 %). During the late neonatal period the most common reasons for referral were severe skin infection (11.1 %), persistent watery stool (6.5 %), level 2 cord infection (6.2 %), and any two of the following; difficulty breathing, vomiting, difficulty feeding, and fever (6.2 %). Newborns were statistically significantly more often referred for care for fever, pneumonia, convulsions/stiffness, hypothermia, and cord infection during the early neonatal period and for having yellow body or eyes, persistent watery stool, and severe skin infection during the late neonatal period.
The proportion of boys (49.6 %) and girls (51.9 %) ill enough to require referral during the early neonatal period was similar (Table 2). There were, however, significant differences in reasons for referral. A higher proportion of boys than girls were referred for convulsions and stiffness, having a yellow body or eyes, severe skin infection, and any two of the following; difficulty breathing, vomiting, difficulty feeding, and fever (Table 2). Referral was also more often made for other (unspecified) reasons. Girls were more often referred for hypothermia and level one infection of the umbilical cord (moderate to severe redness or swelling extending from the umbilicus) (Table 2).
Comparison of Referral Patterns During the Early (ENP) and Late (LNP) Neonatal Periods by Sex of the Newborn
% Boys (n)
% Girls (n)
OR (Boys/Girls)
95 % CI
ENP (N = 9127)
LNP (N = 9485)
% Referred
49.6 % (4526)
0.05 % (5)
0.1 % (6)
1.2 % (111)
0.8 % (74)
Convulsions/ Stiffness
Yellow Body/ Eyes
10.5 % (926)
Cord Infection I
Cord Infection II
Any Two in List
As in the early neonatal period, there was not a meaningful statistically significant difference in the proportion of boys and girls ill enough to require referral during the late neonatal period, but there were differences between boys and girls in reason for referral (Table 2). Boys were significantly more often referred than girls for having yellow body or eyes, persistent watery stool (likely related to the common practice of early supplemental feeding, resulting in non-exclusive breastfeeding), and severe skin infection (Table 2). Additionally, boys were more often referred for care for other unspecified symptoms. Girls were not significantly more often referred than boys for any of the morbidities investigated during the late neonatal period.
Overall, care was sought for 44.1 % of infants during the neonatal period, independent of whether the infant was ill enough to be referred for care (Table 3). Care was sought significantly less often during the early (20.8 %) than the late (36.2 %) neonatal period. Although infant morbidity, defined as being ill enough to require referral, was similar when stratified by sex, care was consistently more often sought for boys regardless of time period examined. Of those taken for care, boys were, on average, taken a greater number of times (Table 3).
Referral and Care-Seeking Behavior by Sex of the Newborn and Neonatal Period
Neonatal Period
OR1
Percent of Infants Seeking Care2 (n)
Average Number of Times Care was Sought3
% Who Sought Care, Among those Referred4
Percent Infants Seeking Care7 (n)
1 Boys were compared to girls with girls as the reference
2 Overall: N = 18 692, Boys: N = 9683, Girls: N = 9009
3This variable was conditioned on care being sought
5 Overall: N = 17 729 Boys: N = 9161, Girls: N = 8568
6 Overall: N = 8956, Boys: N = 4524, Girls: N = 4432
Medical care was significantly more often sought than non-medical care (38.0 % and 11.5 % respectively; Δ = 26.5 %, p-value = <0.0001) and was significantly more often sought for boys than girls throughout the neonatal period (early neonatal period: Odds Ratio (OR) = 1.82 [95 % CI: 1.68 – 1.98], late neonatal period: OR = 1.83 [95 % CI: 1.72 – 1.95]). There were no meaningful statistically significant differences between boys and girls taken for para- or non-medical care in either the early or late neonatal periods. While the observed difference during the late neonatal period was statistically significant, there was only a 0.9 % difference between boys and girls (boys: 8.3 %, girls: 7.4 %). This difference was considered trivial, and the statistical significance driven mainly by the large sample size.
When care-seeking behavior was explored by specific cause of referral (as defined in Table 1), data were not stratified by neonatal period due to reduced sample size. The most common reasons for referral during the first 28 days of life included hypothermia (22.2 %), severe skin infection (15.2 %) and cord infection (Level 1: 15.1 %, Level 2: 15.5 %). Only about half of the newborns referred for these reasons were taken for care. Although girls were referred more often than boys for hypothermia and proportions were similar for the other reasons listed, care was more often sought for boys than girls for all referral reasons including hypothermia. Differences were significant for fever, pneumonia, watery stool, hypothermia, severe skin infection, level 1 and 2 cord infections, and any two of the following: vomiting, difficulty breathing, difficulty feeding, and fever (Table 4).
Care-Seeking Behavior by Sex of the Newborn According to Cause-Specific Referral
% Referred (n)
% Who Sought Care, Given Referral
(N = 18,638)
Referral – Any Reason
60.7 % (11,304)
Watery Stool
8.9 % (1666)
Cord Infection – Level 1
Any Two
1Odds ratios compare boys to girls, with girls as the reference, among those for whom care was sought
Within the Pahadi ethnic group, boys were only statistically significantly more often taken for care than girls, when referred, in families in which all prior living children were girls (ENP OR: 1.78, 95 % CI: 1.29 - 2.45 and LNP OR: 1.51, 95 % CI: 1.03 - 2.21) (Table 5). Among Madeshi families, boys were significantly more often taken for care than girls in all three family composition categories. The differences were most pronounced among neonates born to families with only prior living girls (ENP OR: 2.86, 95 % CI: 2.28 – 3.59 and LNP OR: 2.45, 95 % CI: 1.84 – 3.26) (Table 5). Additional analyses, not presented here, showed that the number of girls in a family did not impact the relationship between sex of the newborn and care-seeking.
Care-Seeking Conditioned on Referral Status by Sex of the Newborn Stratified by Family Composition, Ethnicity During and Neonatal Period1
% Sought Care, Given Referral
Pahadi Families
No Prior Living Children
Early Neonatal Period (N = 2004)
Late Neonatal Period (N = 2128)
Families with Prior Boys/Boys & Girls
Families with Only Prior Girls
30.1 % (98)
Madeshi Families
1The 492 newborns who died in the early neonatal period were excluded from late neonatal period analyses
2Odds ratios compare boys to girls, with girls as the reference
Among infants ill enough to require referral for care at least once during the neonatal period, less than half were taken for care. A critically important observation was that despite higher referral and mortality rates during the early neonatal period, care was more often sought during the late neonatal period. This inadequate care-seeking for neonatal illnesses is consistent with findings presented in a systematic review on neonatal care-seeking by Herbert et al. [31]. In South Asia, there is typically an isolation period for the mother and newborn immediately after birth, which may contribute to inhibiting care-seeking for sick newborns overall, and more markedly during the first seven days of life [32].
While there were no meaningful statistically significant sex differences in the percent of infants who were ill enough to require referral for care during the neonatal period overall or in the early/late neonatal periods, there were several significant differences in types of referral. The majority of the statistically significant differences showed increased referral among boys and were in line with biologic expectations. For example several of the categories were related to infections or infectious disease. Biologically, boys are more susceptible to infection and suffer more severe cases [4, 6, 9]. Boys were also more likely to be referred for jaundice. This is also consistent with much of the literature and aligns with increased risk factors among boys for neonatal jaundice [33, 34]. Girls were consistently more often referred for hypothermia. Hypothermia has been shown to be associated with prematurity, low birth weight, birth asphyxia, and infection [35, 36]. Although there were no differences between boys and girls in the percent born prematurely, there were significant differences in the percent born low birth weight (boys: 27.3 %, girls: 34.8 %), which may have impacted the higher proportion of girls needing referral for hypothermia. There were also consistent differences observed in warming practices favoring boys (e.g. wearing a hat, warming near a fire after bathing, etc.), however, these differences were very small and were not believed to have influenced the newborn’s well-being [19]. There may have been additional unmeasured factors influencing sex differences in hypothermia as well.
There were significant differences in care-seeking behaviors favoring boys, providing strong evidence of gender preference. Not only were boys more likely to be taken for care, but they were more likely to be taken to medical providers. Analyses investigating the relationship between care-seeking practices and cause-specific symptoms indicated that care was sought more frequently for boys than girls for every referral reason, regardless of whether boys or girls were referred more often. This study also indicated that care was more often sought among those referred for the most severe symptoms regardless of sex. It is possible that more minor symptoms spontaneously resolved and thus parents chose not to seek care. Alternatively, this may indicate that families were less likely to adhere to referral advice for more minor symptoms and were waiting, whether the newborn was a boy or girl, to seek care until symptoms became severe, or that infants (boys and girls) became severely ill rapidly, not allowing for care-seeking before death.
While these associations support the hypothesis that the excess late neonatal mortality among girls is attributable to differential care-seeking favoring boys, prior analyses adjusting for care-seeking in a multivariate model did not statistically explain the relationship between sex of the newborn and late neonatal mortality [19]. A subgroup mortality analysis among families with only prior girls, adjusting for care-seeking and ethnicity would have allowed us to determine whether care-seeking behavior was able to explain the relationship between sex of the newborn and excess late neonatal mortality among girls, as the mortality analyses indicated that this group of high risk girls was driving the observed mortality differential [19]. However, due to limitations in sample size that analysis could not be conducted with adequate precision.
Because the multivariate subgroup analysis for mortality was not possible, sex differences in care-seeking behaviors were examined according to prior sibling composition and ethnicity and were then compared to the sex-specific patterns in mortality. These analyses provided evidence of a connection between excess mortality among girls during the late neonatal period and care-seeking behavior favoring boys. In the Pahadi ethnic group, the only significant differences observed in care-seeking behaviors were between boys and girls born to families with only prior living girls. Boys in this subgroup were more often taken for care than girls throughout the neonatal period. In the Madeshi ethnic group, while care was sought more frequently for boys than girls in all family types, the difference between boys and girls in families with only prior living girls was the most pronounced. These care-seeking behaviors were consistent with observed excess late neonatal mortality among girls who were born to families with only prior living girls [19].
This was a large population-based study in which morbidity, referral and care-seeking data were collected prospectively throughout the neonatal period, minimizing recall bias associated with parental interviews. Data were also collected on specific reasons for referral, allowing for examination of the severity of symptoms for which care was sought, and type of care sought, providing information on when medical care was sought.
Additional information that was not collected in these trials may have enabled us to refine our conclusions. For example, information on parental reasons for seeking care would have allowed for more in-depth investigation of timing of care-seeking in relation to cause-specific referral, or barriers to care seeking and whether these differed for boys and girls.
While there has been improvement in the global under-five mortality rate over the past 20 years, it is insufficient to reach the fourth Millennium Development Goal of reducing under-five mortality by two-thirds of the 1990 rate. Improvements in neonatal mortality have not been as great as those beyond the neonatal period and newborn deaths now constitute 44 % of all under-five deaths, with nearly one third of these deaths occurring in South Asia [37].
This study revealed that care-seeking, especially in the early neonatal period when mortality is highest, is inadequate regardless of newborn sex. Less than half of newborns who were ill enough to require referral were taken for care. This is likely due to cultural norms (e.g. isolation of the mother and baby immediately after birth) and environmental factors that impact delayed care-seeking (e.g. infrastructure, cost, time, distance, etc.), and must be addressed if we are to reduce neonatal mortality in South Asian populations. The timing of the decision to seek care is critical to improving neonatal survival [31].
This analysis also suggests a connection between care-seeking behaviors and excess late neonatal mortality among girls. The results indicate that different care-seeking behaviors, especially between boys and girls observed in families with only prior living girls, may play a critical role in observed excess mortality among girls. Although evidence of gender bias exists in communities in South Asia, few studies or programs aimed at reducing neonatal mortality in this region specifically address gender preference for boys and its impact on mortality or care-seeking [38–42]. Data such as ours suggest that gender inequalities in South Asia begin from the moment a child is born, and thus behavioral interventions to reduce differential care-seeking by gender must include the neonatal period in order to reduce excess mortality among girls in Nepal and throughout South Asia.
This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health [HD 44004, HD 38753]; National Eye Institute Training Grant provided through Clinical Trials Training Program in Vision Research [EY 07127]; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [810–2054]. Commodity support was provided by the Procter and Gamble Company. None of the funders had any role in the study design or data collection. Funders did not in any way participate in writing or the decision to submit the paper for publication.
National Institutes of Health [HD 44004, HD 38753]; National Eye Institute Training Grant provided through Clinical Trials Training Program in Vision Research [EY 07127]; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [810–2054]. Commodity support was provided by the Procter and Gamble Company.
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
SR and JK made primary contributions to the study design, data analyses, interpretation of results, and writing of this manuscript. SR had full access to the data in the study. She takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the analyses. JK, GLD, LCM, and JMT contributed to the study design, conduct, analysis, and interpretation of this and the parent trial results. SKK and SCL contributed to the study design, field conduct, quality control of the parent trial, and interpretation of results. All authors have reviewed and approved the manuscript.
Department of International Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 415 N. Washington St., Baltimore, MD 21231, USA
Nepal Nutrition Intervention Project – Sarlahi, Kathmandu, Nepal
Stanford School of Medicine, Pediatrics - Neonatal and Developmental Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
Department of Global Health, School of Public Health and Health Services, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
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Elsewhere on the card, Neil Magny will make his return to action against late replacement Craig White, who joins the UFC with an impressive record on the U.K. fight scene.
Top prospects Arnold Allen and Mads Burnell will also do battle, and Makwan Amirkhani returns to take on nasty grappler Jason Knight.
In today's fantasy preview, we'll examine these fights and several more to see who has the edge and who might be primed for an upset at UFC Fight Night: Thompson vs. Till.
These are the fights that are just too close to call, but a few minor differences between favorite and underdog could lead one fighter to victory and the other to defeat.
Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson vs. Darren Till
In a battle between two knockout strikers, Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson will travel into enemy territory to face Darren Till in a bout that could have huge ramifications for the welterweight division.
For Till, this is not only a chance to shine in his hometown but it's also an opportunity to prove he belongs amongst the elite fighters at 170 pounds after his stunning knockout win over Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone last year. Till is a massive fighter for the welterweight division who hits with power while showing a very versatile game on the feet. Till's ground game hasn't been tested much, but that probably won't matter in this matchup, where he'll take on another noted striker in Thompson.
Till is a very aggressive fighter who loves to put the pressure on his opposition with big, powerful combinations where he comes forward with punches in bunches. Till will almost always have the size advantage in his fights, although he will be giving up an inch of reach to Thompson on the feet in this particular matchup. Till hits with pure dynamite so he only needs to connect with one or two shots and he can put anybody's lights out.
As for Thompson, the book on him has been well read since first arriving in the UFC. Thompson comes from a karate background with a stance on the feet that can give most fighters a serious headache. He loves to use a well-timed side kick to keep his opponents at a distance rather than a stiff jab and his feet can come from any angle thanks to the odd sideways stance he uses during most of his fights. Thompson is also an incredible counter striker, which is what allowed him to feast on an aggressive opponent like Jorge Masvidal in his most recent fight. Thompson is surgical with his strikes and the last thing Till wants to do is take a step forward and then get eaten alive by two or three kicks in a row from “Wonderboy.”
It's that stylistic matchup that makes this a tough fight for Till because for all his power, he loves to be the aggressor and that plays right into Thompson's skill set. Thompson is a master at stepping back and catching fighters coming towards him and that's exactly what Till does throughout almost every exchange. Thompson is also deceptively patient, so he won't make many mistakes to give Till an opening to hit him unless he's coming forward. That kind of resolve can hamper the offensive output of his opponents and Till isn't immune to getting frustrated when Thompson forces him to step into one of his brutal fight finishing combinations.
Thompson proved in his last fight the difference between his elite striking and everybody else who might be pretty good. Till is better than that but he still hasn't faced the kind of striking acumen that will be unleashed against him this weekend. Look for Thompson to bide his time in the early going while Till feasts off the energy of the crowd while looking for the finish. If that doesn't come, Thompson will then begin to methodically pick him apart and, by the latter part of the fight, he should remain in control or put together a combination that will hand Till the first loss of his career.
Prediction: Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson by TKO, Round 4
Arnold Allen vs. Mads Burnell
Two fierce, young up and comers will square off on the main card in Liverpool as Arnold Allen looks to remain undefeated in the UFC when he takes on Denmark's Mads Burnell.
Burnell has gone 1-1 in his two UFC fights but his loss came against Michel Prazeres, who is regarded as one of the toughest matchups inside the Octagon with his nasty ground game. Burnell powered back in his last fight with a unanimous decision win against Mike Santiago and now he'll look for another victory when he returns this weekend in England.
Burnell is best known for his own grappling game, where he's wrapped up a ton of submissions during his career, including a rarely used Japanese necktie which helped him win back-to-back fights in 2016. Burnell is no slouch on the feet either, but he'll have to mix up his striking attacks if he wants to deal with Allen in this particular matchup.
Allen is primarily known for his talent on the feet after beginning his martial arts training as a teenager. Allen went on to test himself in both kickboxing and boxing before turning his full time attention to mixed martial arts. Allen is very slick on the feet, with fast combinations and good accuracy. Allen's best weapon in this particular matchup could be the lacking defense of his opponent.
Burnell gets hit with nearly double the amount of strikes per minute and has only blocked 39 percent of the strikes against him in his two UFC fights. That's a tough number to deal with on the feet, considering Allen will probably be coming after him with a striking-focused attack. Allen will enjoy a slight reach advantage as well, so that will also help him to keep Burnell at a distance.
Now strangely enough, Allen actually averages way more takedowns per fights than his opponent so he might mix in some wrestling as well just to keep Burnell guessing. Still, considering Burnell's willingness to mix it up on the ground and his submission arsenal, it's more likely Allen will use a defensive wrestling game to keep the fight standing.
If Allen is able to keep Burnell at a distance and then stay on top if the fight hits the ground, he should be able to work his way to a decision victory in Liverpool.
Prediction: Arnold Allen by unanimous decision.
MORE FROM LIVERPOOL: Free Fight - Till vs Cowboy Cerrone | KO of the Week - Darren Till | On the Rise in Liverpool | Theodorou building his brand
Jason Knight vs. Makwan Amirkhani
This featherweight matchup has to be an early favorite for Fight of the Night, as Jason Knight takes on Makwan Amirkhani in a bout between two of the most animated fighters in the 145-pound division.
Both athletes are looking to bounce back from recent losses, so this fight has plenty on the line for Knight and Amirkhani.
In his first few fights in the UFC, Amirkhani looked like a future contender in the featherweight division with a dynamic striking arsenal coupled with a slick submission game. Amirkhani is explosive with his combinations, although he's not the most active fighter on the feet. Amirkhani is a ground specialist with a long history in wrestling, which he's used to average more than four takedowns per fight. Amirkhani is best when he's able to control the pace of a fight with his grappling game, but he'll have to be careful with that strategy against a submission specialist like Knight.
Knight has an incredible ability to seemingly pull a submission out from anywhere, so he'll definitely invite a ground battle if that's what Amirkhani wants. Knight nearly averages two takedowns per fight as well, and he's particularly dangerous in the scrambles. Knight will happily feast on the slightest mistake, especially if Amirkhani isn't careful when he's shooting in for his takedowns.
The difference in this fight is Amirkhani's ability to drag the action to the mat and then avoid Knight's submissions. If he can handle that, Amirkhani has a great opportunity to pull off the win. The key will be not getting caught in those scrambles on the ground because that's where Knight lives and breathes. He'll gladly give up a takedown if he can bait Amirkhani to fall into one of his traps on the ground. Knight is long and lanky so he's got a nasty series of chokes and he'll wrap up Amirkhani if he makes the slightest mistake on the mat. Still, Amirkhani's wrestling should be enough to allow him to maintain control, but if he makes one wrong move, Knight will definitely make him pay for it.
Prediction: Makwan Amirkhani by split decision
KNOCKOUT PICKS
These are the fights that appear to be a little more one-sided, but remember that this is MMA, where anything can - and usually does - happen.
Neil Magny vs. Craig White
Following an injury to Gunnar Nelson, Neil Magny will now take on late replacement Craig White in the welterweight co-main event.
White is no slouch stepping into this fight on late notice, and he was already preparing for a bout when he got the call so he's been deep into training camp already. White is a crafty veteran who has a good overall mixed martial arts game, including a very solid submission arsenal off his back. In fact, White has wrapped up two of his last four wins by triangle choke while finishing the other two fights by guillotine and TKO. In other words, White is always looking for the finish, with an offensive output that will definitely give him the chance to pull off the upset.
Carlos Condit in their welterweight bout during the UFC 219 event inside T-Mobile Arena on December 30, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Brandon Magnus/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)" align="center" />
That being said, Magny remains one of the most underrated fighters on the entire UFC roster because he's not the loudest guy in the room but he always seems to find a way to get the job done. Magny is a long, rangy striker with good hands and he'll certainly mix in a few takedowns where necessary. Magny will enjoy a four-inch reach advantage, so don't be surprised if he uses that to keep White on the end of his punches until he decides to mix things up with a takedown.
Magny is well versed in all facets of the game, although he has struggled at times with top-notch submission stylists like Demian Maia and Rafael Dos Anjos. That being said, for all of White's submission wins, he's not a ground wizard like Maia or Dos Anjos, so while Magny will have to be careful, he shouldn't be in nearly as much danger on the mat in this fight.
Look for Magny to control the range on the feet, mix in a few takedowns and then ratchet up the pressure on White as the newcomer deals with those infamous Octagon jitters in his first UFC fight.
Prediction: Neil Magny by unanimous decision
Manny Bermudez vs. Davey Grant
Top prospect Manny Bermudez will make his second appearance in the UFC this weekend as he takes on Ultimate Fighter veteran Davey Grant.
Grant has bounced back and forth between wins and losses in his most recent fights while struggling a bit to find his footing in the UFC after appearing on the reality show. At his best, Grant is an imposing fighter who will outsize most of his opponents. That won't be the case this weekend, however, as Bermudez will have him on both height and reach in this bantamweight matchup.
Bermudez is an incredibly slick ground fighter with a bevy of submissions on his record. While his wrestling isn't the best, Bermudez has an innate ability to find openings with the slightest mistakes of his opposition and then seize on it with a long list of weapons on the ground.
Bermudez has a nasty guillotine choke that he'll certainly apply if Grant is the least bit sloppy if they get locked up in a clinch position.
Now Grant may try to keep this fight standing, which would certainly be his safest path to victory. Still, Grant's striking isn't so world-class that he'll just be able to keep Bermudez at range all night long. Chances are Grant will eventually get locked up in a clinch or a scramble on the mat and that's where Bermudez will start fishing for submissions.
Grant has struggled at times avoiding mistakes on the mat and that's exactly where Bermudez lives and breathes. One wrong move means Grant will end up in the worst possible position, with Bermudez seizing up on a choke to finish the fight.
Prediction: Manny Bermudez by submission, Round 2
Elias Theodorou vs. Trevor Smith
Former Ultimate Fighter winner Elias Theodorou will look for his fourth win in his past five fights when he takes on always-tough middleweight Trevor "Hot Sauce" Smith in Liverpool.
Theodorou has only suffered two setbacks during his career, with both coming against legitimate top 15 talents in Thiago Santos and Brad Tavares. In both fights, Theodorou certainly had his moments, so it's justified that he's earned a top 15 ranking of his own with impressive wins over the likes of Dan Kelly, Sam Alvey and Cezar Ferreira.
Theodorou can best be described as a “jack of all trades” because he doesn't do anything that stands out above the others, but he's definitely good everywhere. Theodorou is a painfully frustrating fighter to deal with on the feet or on the ground because he's just as solid defensively as he is offensively. Theodorou is a high output fighter on the feet or on the ground, but his ability to avoid taking damage might be one of his best weapons.
Now Smith will almost certainly look to take this fight to the ground at some point with his background in wrestling. Smith averages two takedowns per 15 minutes in the Octagon but he's also very adept at taking advantage of the slightest slip up to put the fight on the mat and keep it there. Smith's ground control can be stifling at times, so that's probably the last place where Theodorou wants to be in this matchup.
Thankfully for Theodorou, he has shown very solid defense on the ground while mixing in nearly as many takedowns per fight as Smith. On the feet, Theodorou is slightly more active in volume while once again possessing better defense as well. Theodorou won't do anything flashy but that also helps him stay out of trouble, which is what will probably frustrate Smith to the point of exhaustion in this matchup.
As time ticks away round by round, Theodorou will begin peppering away at Smith while stuffing his takedowns and that should all lead to a unanimous decision victory for the Canadian.
Prediction: Elias Theodorou by unanimous decision
UPSET SPECIAL
Claudio Silva vs. Nordine Taleb
It's been more than three years since Claudio Silva last stepped foot in the Octagon, but he'll make his long awaited return this weekend against Canadian knockout artist Nordine Taleb.
When he was forced out of action with a foot injury that required several surgeries and nearly ended his career, Silva was riding an 11-fight win streak, including two victories in the UFC. Silva's last win came against Leon Edwards, who has been on a tear lately while working his way into the top 15 in the welterweight division.
Now make no mistake, Silva is going to be fighting an uphill battle after coming back from such a long layoff while facing a really tough challenge in Taleb.
Taleb has won three of his past four fights in a row with two vicious knockouts decorating his recent record as well. Taleb's only setback came against top 10-ranked welterweight Santiago Ponzinibbio in a three-round battle. Taleb is very dangerous on his feet, where he hits with solid volume and devastating accuracy, with more than 54 percent of his shots landing. Taleb is also very tough to deal with defensively while stopping nearly 70 percent of the strikes against him.
That being said, Silva definitely has the kind of arsenal to deal with Taleb - assuming he's able to knock off the ring rust and get back into a rhythm in the early going in this fight.
Silva is well versed enough on the feet that he can throw hands as long as he doesn't get too aggressive, because Taleb will definitely make him pay for that. Silva also mixes in three takedowns per fight on average, which could be his best offensive weapon to ground Taleb's potent striking attack. Taleb has shown great takedown defense while stuffing over 72 percent of the shots against him, but that doesn't mean he won't leave himself open for a potent wrestling attack if Silva can get his timing down.
The key for Silva is mixing up his striking and ground game to keep Taleb guessing. If he can do that, Silva has a great chance to pull off the upset and stay undefeated in the UFC in his return to the Octagon. Remember, on paper, Taleb is a heavy favorite, especially dealing with an opponent coming back from such a long layoff. Still, Silva looked like a legitimate threat to the top 15 when he was part of the active roster previously, and this fight will give him a chance to shine again in his return.
Prediction: Claudio Silva by split decision
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#India – More mines, fewer schools in former Maoist stronghold
by kracktivist in Advocacy, Announcements, Human Rights, Justice, Kractivism, Law, Minority Rights, Political Prisoners, Prison Tags: Central Reserve Police Force, India, Jairam Ramesh, Jharkhand, Maoist, Saranda, Saranda Forest, Sarandë
Manoharpur (Jharkhand), June 17, 2013
Anumeha Yadav, The Hindu
The Hindu Villagers in Saranda, West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand, get their drinking water from the Koina river, which has high iron content. Photo: Manob Chowdhury
A Google map of the affected villages in West Singhbhum district, Jharkhand, and the mines.
The red story of Saranda forests
Deep inside the Saranda sal forest, Thalkobad lies at the core of what was a CPI (Maoist) “liberated zone” in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district along the Odisha border. Thalkobad, along with 24 other villages, was reclaimed by the Indian state after a massive military operation — Operation Anaconda-I in August 2011 to destroy the CPI (Maoist) Eastern Regional Bureau and several training camps inside Saranda. The village bears scars of conflict — a high machaan used by the then rebel government of the village is intact but the secondary school building the Maoists took cover in to return fire at the CRPF is gone. The rebels blew up the school before escaping.
Saranda is a “laboratory for how to consolidate on security successes,” Jairam Ramesh, Minister for Rural Development, in a recent interview. Mr. Ramesh launched the Rs. 250-crore Saranda Development Plan (SDP) in 56 villages here in 2011 and has since announced similar plans for rebel-controlled zones in Latehar and Bokaro districts recovered through recent paramilitary operations. Two years on, Saranda villagers are still awaiting schools and health centres, even as mining companies have lined up to invest in the newly secured forests.
In Thalkobad, the adivasi villagers recall the pitched battle that August: most families fled to Karampada 13 km away for a month, 18-year-old Munna Soya and his father were taken by the Central Reserve Police Force in a helicopter to Ranchi on suspicion, detained and beaten in several police camps and later released, 50-year-old Jarda Honhaga was beaten so severely that he died in the hospital. From the 25 villages, 37 persons were arrested, more than 100 were detained.
The CRPF returned six months later bearing sarees, blankets, and farm implements. In the last few months, the villagers have watched the construction of a security camp next to their village, and then a road connecting Karampada to Jaraikela. Some have found temporary work with the road contractor and in MGNREGA. Others fear new mines will be opened in the forest. “If mines open our land will be ruined. The river will have only red water. We are not literate. How many of us will find jobs?” said Binodini Purti who cooked meals at the secondary school that was blown up.
Red area to ‘Lal paani’
Almost all the villages in Saranda struggle for drinking water. The forest is the catchment of three large rivers — Koina, Subarnrekha, and Damodar, and several streams flow through it. But there are 12 large mining companies operating in 200 sq km of this 800 sq km forest which holds one-fourth of India’s iron-ore reserves. The Ho adivasi living in the forest first launched ‘Lal Paani Andolan’ against the pollution of the streams from effluents and surface-run off in 1978 at Noamundi and their resistance has continued. “All 56 villages are in need of potable water. There is a problem of high iron content in the water,” notes the Saranda Plan outline of October 2011.
Thalkobad, Tirilposi, Baliba lie downstream of Steel Authority of India (SAIL)’s crushing plant at Kiriburu where ore is washed and crushed into uniform pieces. At Kiriburu, SAIL’s Rs. 4.23 crore-slime beneficiation machine meant to extract ore from the water that is discharged back into the river does not work. “It has not worked even once since it was inaugurated in 2010. When the inspection teams come, the guesthouses are full and the orchestra comes from Jamshedpur,” says a SAIL official. SAIL’s mines in Saranda accounted for over 80 per cent of its 15 million tonne production last year.
Downstream, villagers dig shallow pits, a few inches deep by the river to collect drinking water. Farms in Thalkobad, Karampada, Navgaon, Bandhgaon, Mirchgada, Bahada, Kalaita, Jumbaiburu have been ruined by the ore-laden water. “I cannot say about the beneficiation plant but the Kiriburu plant is being modernised. The river is polluted because private mining companies wash 200-250 dumpers carrying iron, oil and grease everyday in the river. I check them when I spot them,” said Dilip Bhargava SAIL General Manager (Mines).
More mining leases
Since January, the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure headed by the Prime Minister has recommended clearance for opencast mining in Saranda forest in areas that form the Singhbhum Elephant Reserve to three private firms. JSW Steel owned by Sajjan Jindal got lease of 998.7 hectares in Ankua forest division, Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL) led by Congressman and industrialist Naveen Jindal got 512 hectares in Ghatkuri forest. The approval of 138.8 hectares forestland in Ghatkuri to Rungta Mines Limited was nearly completed last month. There are 155 proposals on the anvil for leases in 500 sq km — nearly two-thirds of the forest.
On paper, the proposals must first be recommended from the state government. “We have little say in the recommendations,” says a senior forest official. “There are over 600 elephants in Saranda. More mining may disturb their migration intensifying their attacks on villages,” says state Principal Chief Conservator of Forests A.K. Malhotra in Ranchi. A proposal by the department of forest to notify 63199 hectares forest in Saranda as inviolate is pending since 2006.
Ironically, the recent approvals to private firms are riding on the back of clearance given to SAIL in February 2011 to mine iron ore in Chiria in Saranda by Mr. Ramesh. Mr. Ramesh, then Minister of State for Environment and Forests had overturned the Forest Advisory Committee’s decision to grant approval to SAIL citing the Public Sector Unit (PSU)’s “Rs. 18,000 crore IPO on the anvil”. Private mining firms have cited the proximity of Ankua and Ghatkuri to SAIL’s Chiria mines to argue they too be granted permits in the already “broken,” what is no longer pristine, forest. Mr. Ramesh in 2011 said that in Saranda, he was in favour of mining only by the PSU but there was no executive order to back this or grant it legal status.
As the government has issued a slew of mining permits, the Minister in interviews to the media asked for a 10-year moratorium on mining in Saranda. “A gap of 10 years will allow the situation to stabilise, will allow building trust among the locals, and allow time to train and educate local people to take advantage of the economic opportunities that mining throws up but there seems to be a desire on the part of the government to allow mining in Saranda,” said Mr. Ramesh to The Hindu. There has been no public reaction from the UPA to Mr. Ramesh’s suggestion.
No new schools, or health centres
While in Thalkobad where the secondary school building was blown up by Maoists, Surendra Purti, a high school graduate from the village volunteers to teach teenaged children in the primary school building. He is not paid any wages. The teachers stopped coming long back and the nearest high school is in Manoharpur, 45 km away. At Tirilposi, the next village 17 km away, there are 90 school-going children but no building. “CRP sahib broke the roof,” explains village munda Budhram Gudiya.
The SDP’s original outline proposed 10 residential schools. Now, that seems all, but abandoned. “There is a plan to build one ashram school at Manoharpur,” says the recently-posted District Collector Abu Bakr. Mr. Ramesh explained the conceptual change in the SDP as both the interiority of the villages and the fact that “education and health are different ministries.”
The plan lists building 10 Integrated Development Centers (IDCs) — each will have a hospital, besides an anganwadi, ration shop, banks — only one has been completed at Digha this April. To improve health services, a mobile health unit has deputed since last October to visit all villages. “The ambulance visits regularly,” say villagers in Thalkobad. But it has not yet been spotted in Tirilposi though a motorable village road exists. In January an eye-health camp was held by a private hospital. “More than a third of over 1000 villagers had pterygium — a painful inflammation which may lead to blindness — because of exposure to mine dust,” said Dr. Bharti Kashyap.
There is hectic activity in all villages to build new Indira Awas houses. This March as part of the Jharkhand State Livelihood Promotion Society’s efforts to provide long-term livelihood security, a team of trainers of Self-Help Groups from Andhra Pradesh visited Saranda. The team stayed 15 days in Thalkobad but no meetings have been held since it left. Villagers say they are unsure what to make of their visitors. “They said “hum se judiye”(join us). That is what the party (Maoists) used to say too, and look what followed,” said Binodini Purti. At Tirilposi, villagers explain it differently. “Most families earn Rs. 60 a day after selling siali leaves in the market in Barsovan in Odisha. What will we save?” asks Budhram Gudiya. Then there are families in debt to pay legal expenses. Guvida Honhaga (60) among those arrested by CRPF got bail last year after his son Bimal, a mine worker, spent Rs. 1,60,000 on legal expenses. “I borrowed Rs. 40,000 each from four people at 20 per cent interest. Now he is required to go Chaibasa court thrice a month and that costs Rs. 900 — a fourth of my salary,” said Bimal Honhaga.
Rubber stamp by gram sabhas
At Manoharpur block office, 40 km away, an official waved a sheet of blank paper with 40 signatures. “This is what the mining firms submit as gram sabha’s consent for mining. They call people to football matches and get them to sign anything,” he says.
Bilarman Kandulna, 25, a political science graduate from a Manoharpur college was elected panchayat representative in Digha in 2010. “Some manki-munda (community leaders) now roam in Scorpio SUVs, but a few boycotted the Electrosteel public hearing for Kudalibad mines last year. Last April, we held demonstrations in the villages. The company then shifted its public hearing in Bahihatu, 20 km away,” says Kandulna. “What is the use of forest pattas when they give mining leases in the same forest?” he asks. Of 812 claims for individual forest rights, 511 were accepted till April, the rest were rejected as they fell in mining lease areas. Though a significant number of community rights — over 1200 — have been granted under SDP.
At Jamkundiya at the house of Laguda Devgam, the manki of 22 villages, there is no Scorpio car, but there are three solar street light poles towering on three sides of his house — the only streetlights in the otherwise non-electrified villages in Saranda. They are inscribed as gifts from Rungta Mines Limited, Usha Martin Industries, and Tata Steel.
At Sonapi, one of the six villages that boycotted the public hearing, there is anger. “If anyone comes to your courtyard, something will be disturbed,” said Mary Barla. “We asked for a written commitment that the company will provide health, education, jobs but they did not do it. Instead they shifted the public hearing site. Now they are back again with blankets.”
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Complaint to Odisha Human Rights Commission on CRPF atrocities in Niyamgiri
12 Jun 2013 2 Comments
by kracktivist in Advocacy, Announcements, Human Rights, Justice, Kractivism, Law, Political Prisoners, Prison, Violence against Women, Women Rights Tags: Central Reserve Police Force, CRPF, Human Rights, Maoism, New Delhi, Niyamgiri, Supreme Court, Supreme Court of the United States
To, The Secretary,
Odisha Human Rights Commission,
Date: 11th June 2013
Sub: CRPF atrocities and human rights violations in villages of Niyamgiri mountains
On 3rd June 2013, at around 11am, the Central Reserve Police Force opened fired on a group of three Dongria Kond tribals (1 adult and 2 children) from the interior Batudi village of the Niyamgiri mountains who were bathing in the stream near Panimunda village. A group of adult men and children from Batudi village had gone to bathe to the nearby Panimuda village as the water streams around their village were still dry. Around 11 Dongrias (6 adults and 5 children) were bathing at a higher level of the stream, and one adult and two children were bathing at a lower level. Suddenly, the CRPF opene fired. The two children, Munna Jakesika (14years) and Ravi Jakesika (10years), and Pakru Jakesia (25 years) were present in the area where the CRPF open fired. Their photo is attached. Terrified, three of them started running uphill towards where the the other people were. Bullets flew through Munna, Ravi and Pakru’s sides and above their heads. The adults who were on a higher level of the stream, on hearing the bullet sounds rushed towards where the sound was coming from. They saw Munna, Ravi and Pakru frantically running uphill, as bullets missed them by inches. This open firing by the CRPF lasted for around 5 minutes.
This incident was reported by villagers of Batudi who witnessed the firing to a group of activists (Samarendra Das and Devangana Kalita) who visited the village on 7th June 2013. The names of the 11 people who saw the firing on Munna, Ravi and Pakru, and who reported the incident to us are as follows:
Duku Jakesika: 30yrs
Derku Sikaka: 20yrs
Janju Mandika: 22yrs
Bindu Jakesika: 32yrs
Momo Jakesika: 20yrs
Druku Jakesika: 21yrs
Babula Jakesika: 8yrs
Lanji Kuturuka: 6yrs
Swadevo Jakesika: 10yrs
Manni Kuturuka: 8yrs
Lassu Jakesika: 12yrs
We also spoke to the three people on whom the CRPF had fired. The two children, not surprisingly, were immensely shaken after the experience, and recounted how terrified and scared they felt as the bullets flew on their sides and above their heads. Duku Jakesika, in a powerful statement, said,
“This is an assault on our very lives. The CRPF has no right to shoot at us without any provocation. Villagers bathing in a stream are not Maoists. Little children are not Maoists. These are our mountains, our forests, our land. Because of the CRPF, today, we cannot roam around freely in our own area. We do not feel safe anymore, we have to live in fear and insecurity. Our lives do not matter to the state, they can kill us whenever or wherever.”
This incident in Batudi is indeed a gross violation of national and international human and children’s rights. It is however, one of many similar incidents of CRPF atrocities in the Niyamgiri mountains. CRPF’s ‘combing’ operations have been generating immense fear and insecurity amongst the Dongria Kond, and threatening people’s lives, livelihood and culture. On 5th June in Kesarpadi village, a meeting of Dongrias from various villages was held to discuss on the gram sabha process ordained by the Supreme Court. In the meeting, a Dongria woman, in an interview with Oriya journalist, Amitabh Patra, narrated the following experience of CRPF atrocities,
“Few days back we were gathering forest products near our village. At that time so many armed forces arrived and they pointed guns at us and surrounded us. They started asking “where is Lada (the tribal leader)? Where have you hidden the maoists ? Where have you hidden the weapons? Why are you opposing mining?” Some one from the behind yelled – ‘If you resist the mining you will be killed like dogs’…………….We do not want such development where our lives are threatened every moment by the armed forces! We kept some weapons to safeguard our selves and our crops from wild animals. We do not want to kill the animals, but to drive them away. Occasionally when these animals attack or come too close to us we get killed. They (CRPF) came and barged into our houses, took away our belongings, threw our stored food grains and cooked food, took away our worship weapons and the guns we kept for our protection from wild animals. We have been living and preserving the mountains and the soil and everything around us since centuries. You can see us living in harmony with nature. But since past ten years our peace and life has been disturbed by the company and police. Since the armed forces presence our freedom to move around in our mountains has been restricted. We are living in a state of fear”
The video of the women’s interview can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5D7FAUhNQg&feature=youtu.be . She did not want to reveal her name or village in fear of retribution by the armed forces. She felt without her name and village, it would be difficult for the CRPF to easily locate her, since she lived in the villages inside the forests.
Such atrocities and gross violations by the CRPF are threatening the existence, livelihood, mobility and freedom of the Dongria Kond. The Dongria Kond only live in the Niyamgiri mountains, and such immense repression by the CRPF and the atmosphere of fear and vulnerability generated by this are violations of international standards and protocols for protection of tribal groups.
We demand an immediate enquiry by the Orissa Human Rights Commission and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights into these violations by the CRPF in the Niyamgiri mountains. These inhuman atrocities need to be immediately stopped, especially in the context of the democratic process of conducting gram sabhas for determining Dongria’s religious, cultural and habitat rights that has been initiated by the Supreme Court judgement on the Niyamgiri mining case. No democratic process can be truly free and fair, in a context of such repression and violation of the Dongria’s basic human rights.
We look forward to hearing from you at the earliest and hope that immediate action will be taken on this matter.
Samarendra Das, Activist, Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti and Foil Vedanta (London)
Devangana Kalita, Independent Researcher and Activist, New Delhi.
Amitabh Patra, Journalist and Activist, Orissa
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Chhattisgrah- Police Complaint on Edesmetta Adivasi killings in Bijapur
by kracktivist in Advocacy, Announcements, Human Rights, Law, Political Prisoners, Prison, Violence against Women Tags: Central Reserve Police Force, Edesmetta, Gangalur, Karam Joga, Karam Masa, Karam Somlu, Maria Gond, Pandu
Police Station In-charge
Gangalur police station
Gangalur village
Bijapur district, Chhattisgarh
Subject: Killings of adivasi civilians in Edesmetta village on 17 May 2013
Respected Sir,
1. Yesterday, we visited Edesmetta village that falls under your jurisdiction and enquired into the killings of adivasis, which according to newspaper reports, had occurred on 17 May 2013.
2. We talked with relatives of those killed and injured as well as with other eye-witnesses and villagers; visited the site of the firing; and today we have also talked with the Inspector of Gangalur police station.
3. Residents of Edesmetta are Maria Gond adivasis. There are 78 houses in this village, which are divided into 6 hamlets. The village is situated in the midst of forests and villagers are dependent on agriculture and forests for their survival.
4. People told us that Friday, 17 May, was the last day of the seed sowing festival (beej pandum), which had begun three-four days ago. Around 70-100 male members of the village (adults, youth and children) representing their respective households were present in the field where the male and female deities (Roi-Gama), worshipped during the beej-pandum, are kept. They had started assembling from 6.30 pm and the ceremony began at around 9 pm.
5. The field where the festival was being celebrated is surrounded by forests. A thatched shed on one side includes wooden sculptures of the deities. Many small leaf bundles and agricultural implements hang from the beams of the roof on both sides. Pointing at the bundles, people said that at the start of the ceremony that evening the village pujari (priest) first collected the grain that each family had brought and then re-divided it amongst all. Then the portion of each family were tied in bundles; these are the seeds that will be sown this season.
After this, people lit a large bonfire near the thatched shed and singing the song of beej-pandum and playing the pen akum, a brass trumpet-like musical instrument that has a narrow tube and a flared bell, they started walking around the fire; according to custom each has to go around the fire thrice.
6. Around 10 pm., with the idea of quenching their thirst, three youth headed towards a water source that is on the east of the field. It is then that they noticed the security forces who had been watching them under cover of bushes and trees. According to the villagers, the security personnel caught the three, but two youth (Punem Chukku and Karam Sannu) managed to escape while the third youth, Karam Budhram, was beaten severely by the security forces and left for dead. Around this time, firing commenced from all directions. In the disturbance that followed people ran towards their homes.
According to the villagers, only the police and security forces were firing [there were no maoists and no exchange of fire with them]. In the shootout, 8 civilian villagers were killed of which 4 were children (two are below ten years) and 4 civilian villagers were injured, of which one is a ten year-old child. Besides, one member of the security force was also killed, though, he was a victim of cross-firing between the security forces.
7. List of those killed and injured is as follows. All the persons who were killed or injured are male because according to the Maria-Gond tradition only male members can participate in the beej-pandum.
Names of those who were killed
Name Age (years) Father’s name Hamlet
1. Karam Pandu 35 Karam Unga Kadwapara
2. Karam Guddu 10 Karam Pandu
3. Karam Masa 16 Karam Lacchu
4. Punem Sonu 30 Punem Gutta
5. Punem Lakku 15 Punem Lakku
6. Karam Somlu 35 Karam Pandu Permapara
7. Karam Joga 35 Karam Aaitu Gaitapara
8. Karam Budru 8 Karam Joga
Names of those who were injured
Name Age (years) Location of the bullet injury
1. Karam Somlu 40 upper back
2. Punem Somlu 20 right upper arm
3. Karam Somlu 25 back
4. Karam Chotu 10 through right thigh
8. People believe that the police and security forces who were involved in this incident had come from Gangalur police station.
9. We learnt that on 17th night on their way back the police took dead bodies of Karam Masa and the security person as well as three others (Karam Aitu, Karam Manga and Karam Lachu) with them. The three were beaten on the way.
10. On 18th morning women from Karam Masa’s family and other village women went to the police station and protested and forced the police to free the three they had taken the previous day as well as hand over Masa’s body. Masa was cremated that day.
11. On 18th morning, at around 10 am, a batch of around a hundred policemen and security forces came to the village from the Cherpal-Todka direction. By that time the relatives of the deceased had taken the dead bodies to their homes. After repeated requests by the security forces they handed the bodies to them for post-mortem.
12.The post-mortem was carried through in the Community Health Centre in Gangalur by Dr. Biswas, who was heading a panel of medical personnel. We learnt about this from the Inspector of Gangalur police station. After the post-mortem women and other family members took the deceased to their village for last rites.
13.On 20th, around 300-400 policemen and security forces came to the village again. It was reported that senior officials who were accompanying the force apologised to the villagers accepting that they had made a mistake.
14.People mentioned that the government has since talked about providing compensation but they have refused to take it so far.
15. We learnt from the Inspector of Gangalur police station that an FIR related to the case had been lodged in the Gangalur police station by the officer who was leading the team of policemen and security forces (CoBRA). The FIR mentions that the deaths and injuries occurred due to an armed encounter between the security forces and the maoists.
16. We have provided the information that we learnt in the course of our fact-finding so that people’s testimonies may reach you, this incident of injustice is enquired into truthfully and as per due procedure, and justice is achieved.
Bela Bhatia Honorary Professor
Tata Institute of Social Sciences
V.N. Purav Marg
Deonar, Bombay – 400 088.
Also on behalf of other team members, all of the Human Rights Forum, Andhra Pradesh:
VS Krishna (HRF State general secretary)
G Mohan (HRF State secretary)
SK Khadar Babu (HRF Khammam district president)
K Sudha (HRF Visakhapatnam district committee member)
Another Volley of Bullets for Bastar’s Tribals (kractivist.wordpress.com)
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Chhattisgarh- What will Bastar’s children reap from this bloody war of binaries?
02 Jun 2013 12 Comments
by kracktivist in Advocacy, Health Care, Human Rights, Justice, Kractivism, Political Prisoners, Prison Tags: Andhra Pradesh, Central Reserve Police Force, Chhattisgarh, CRPF, Mahendra Karma, Maoism, Maoist, Nand Kumar Patel
SANJAY RAWAT
No kind conflict Tribal kids have no escape from the red war
An Ill Sowing Festival
What will Bastar’s children reap from this bloody war of binaries?
SUPRIYA SHARMA, in Outlook
A few hundred metres short of where the Maoists would launch an attack that would propel them as far as the pages of the New York Times, a young adivasi boy, not more than ten years old, stood in the dull afternoon heat, facing perhaps the biggest dilemma of his life. He knew what lay ahead on the road. He possibly struggled with the burden of what to do about it for a couple of moments before he flagged down a motorcyclist. “All he said was ‘aage kuch hai’,” recounts Om Prakash Singh, a 42-year-old businessman and Congress party worker who was racing ahead of a convoy of party leaders on his motorcycle when he noticed the boy and slowed down to hear him out.
Singh ignored the boy’s words of caution. A few minutes later, he heard an explosion ring through Darbha Ghat. While Singh had safely crossed the bend where 30 kg of ammonium nitrate laid buried, the convoy of about 25 cars had not. An explosion heaved the road. What followed was a bloodbath its survivors are not likely to forget.
But what about that boy? He would remain unknown and unheard. And it is best that way. For he had violated the rule of self-preservation that Bastar’s adivasis drill into their young as early as they learn to speak: see everything, but stay mum.
Last year, when I returned to Chhattisgarh after a break of eight months, I was told things were looking up in Bastar. The official figure of lives lost in the Maoist insurgency had plunged to 107—the lowest in eight years. The state had lost the top spot in the casualty table to Jharkhand. Beyond the statistics, I looked around for signs of change. A construction boom was under way in the district headquarters. Bijapur had a swimming pool. Dantewada had a new cricket ground with grass as green as the lawns in Lutyen’s Delhi. People in the towns were breathing easy. Even the villages seemed somewhat better off. At least the ones along the highways.
Then I ventured off the roads and spent a few days inside the large expanse of forests where adivasis live to the sun, the seasons and the rules of the Janatana Sarkar. Here, in the second week of March, the news that an encounter had taken place in Kanchal, a village deep south, just 25 km short of Andhra Pradesh, floated to the village where I was staying. Fear had travelled like radiation, distorting the face of a young boy—let’s call him Joga—who had made plans that morning to take his cows down to sell at a border market. Now, it was no longer wise to go, he surmised. The security forces could still be around. He could be caught, beaten, taken away. At 16, Joga had internalised the twisted logic of the conflict: You may have to pay for what you have not done.
The Greyhounds, Andhra’s elite anti-Naxal force, had stormed Kanchal in the early hours of morning. They had wanted to bust a group of Maoists camping near the river. The Maoists escaped. But a village woman, Kunjam Deve, who was filling a vessel of water, fell to the bullets. Three days after her death, I found Deve’s daughter Bhime, aged 17, standing by the river bed, crying her heart out.
A little tribal boy, all of 10 years, had warned a motorcycle-borne Congress worker of the danger ahead. He wasn’t heard. Or understood.
The summer grew blistering inside the Maoist territory. On April 16, the Greyhounds came further inside Chhattisgarh and killed nine Maoists, including a senior leader, in Puvarti village. A month later, on the night of May 17, in Edesmetta village, men, women and children gathered to cajole the village spirits to send new life their way—the village was celebrating Beeja Pandum, the seed festival marking the beginning of the sowing season—but instead, CRPF jawans turned up to deliver death. Eight villagers died in firing by the CRPF. Three were children.
Regardless of who was killed, the pertinent fact, from the point of view of the Maoists, was that the security forces were frequently entering their terrain, carrying out attacks and outrages, and going away unchallenged and unharmed. “Hatyare sarkari shastra balon par jawabi hamla kar shaheedon ka khoon ka badla lenge (We will avenge the death of our martyrs at the hands of the murderous government security forces),” said the Maoists’ note on the Puvarti encounter. At the bottom of the page, printed in fine red, were thumbnail pictures of the Maoist guerrillas who had perished. How long before a publication rolls off the Maoist press featuring dead government soldiers, I thought.
Shot at CRPF firing killed 3 kids in Edesmetta. This boy survived. (Photograph by Supriya Sharma)
With the clarity of hindsight, one can argue it is not surprising that the bloodied bodies of Mahendra Karma and Nand Kumar Patel and not dead soldiers would become the face of a Maoist victory pamphlet. Since the humiliating losses of 2010, inflicted by the Maoists in a mine attack and ambush, the CRPF has come a long way. It is better equipped and trained. It has more camps and boots on the ground. For the Maoists, under pressure to deliver a victory, it was easier to blow up a political convoy than ambush a security patrol. Except, by doing so, they have ensured that when children living in their area are gunned down by the CRPF, no one would care.
Three days before he found himself crouching in a ditch, ducking the spray of bullets coming from the automatic weapons of young adivasi guerrillas, Congress MLA Kavasi Lakhma had climbed a hill to reach Edesmetta, to condemn the killing of the three children and five others and to ask for the CRPF soldiers to be punished. A year ago, Lakhma had his party boss Nand Kumar Patel by his side when they made a similar demand in Sarkeguda, the village where the CRPF troops had shot dead 17 people, including children.
Tasked with breathing life into a comatose Congress when he took over as the state chief in 2011, the mild-mannered Patel had first shown mettle when he had taken on the state government in March that year over a police rampage in Dantewada. The police had burnt homes and granaries in three villages—not for the first time. But for the first time perhaps, the state Congress raised a ruckus. Patel led a delegation to the villages, held up the state assembly for days, and kept the story alive in Chhattisgarh’s newspapers, otherwise not keen to report police violence. The Congress’s repeated attacks ensured that this year, with elections coming up, the Raman Singh government took no chances and swiftly announced Rs 5 lakh in compensation for the Edesmetta victims. But with dead bodies of Congressmen landing up in faraway districts, there is no opposition left for a future protest.
In the Times of India office in Raipur where I worked, I was the sole journalist. The rest of my office colleagues were young men and women employed in the paper’s marketing department. Some of them were freshly out of college. Born and raised in the city, they had travelled to Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Vishakapatnam, but not to Bastar. They sourced bright ads of Bastar tourism but saw it as an area of darkness. It filled them with vague fears. Those fears have intensified this week. The landmine explosion has opened up a bigger chasm between the youth of Raipur and the youth of Bastar.
The Maoists fear that TV will turn the minds of villagers towards consumerism. “Dimaag gol gol ghoom jayega,” said rebel leader.
And yet, never before has the gap been narrower. For the first time, a generation of adivasi children, living and studying in ashramshalas, the residential schools run by the government, is being raised on more than just stale textbook narratives. Along with mid-day meals, satellite TV has been made compulsory in school. Already, the adivasi children and youth have taken to cricket with a vengeance. Young men shop for jeans and sneakers and crave for mobiles and motorcycles. They still love to lock their arms and sway while singing Gondi songs lustily. But at a school annual day I attended in January, they reserved their greatest enthusiasm for the ‘taara rara’ of Daler Mehndi.
Urban radicals may believe revolutionary fire cannot be doused by stoking material aspiration through a culture of consumption. But the Maoists are more pragmatic. The party does not want electricity in its villages, because with electricity would come TV, and by watching TV “logon ka dimaag gol gol ghoom jayega”, as a Maoist commander told me. It is not surprising then that in the football tournament it organised in February, the CRPF gave out solar-powered TV sets with satellite dishes even to teams that lost.
The state’s push to woo the young is unmistakable. It did not begin as coherent policy but as the drive of a young collector who “wanted to do something big”. When he arrived in Dantewada in 2011 at the age of 29, O.P. Choudhary wasted no time in drawing up an ambitious plan to spend Rs 100 crore on building an education city with schools, hostels and polytechnics. While the campus came up, he built a library, a plush auditorium, a cricket ground in the district headquarters. It was no less than a blitzkrieg. Every week, buses brought children from the village ashramshalas to watch movies and play games. And those who had dropped out of school began showing up at a newly created livelihood college to train the in industrial stitching, plumbing, welding, computers, hospitality. When I visited the college in January, a young boy expertly folded a table napkin five times and gingerly stuck it in a glass, looking pleased with his newfound skill.
But the state cannot create opportunities for all, and even if it could, not everybody would want to take them. Many children who come to study in the state’s ashramshalas eventually want to go back to their villages in the Maoist territory. Their life is inextricably linked to family and community. And after three decades, the rebels are part of the clan. Not many young people would easily break rank. Not for an outside world that has much to offer but not respect.
Two days after the attack, when the clamour for sending new troops to Bastar reached a feverish pitch in TV studios, the CRPF quietly began its long-planned rally to hire adivasi youth. Some 2,000 constables were to be recruited, 280 from each district of Bastar. But over three days, only 46 turned up in Sukma; Dantewada fared better with 233, but only half of them were adivasi. Some would argue it was because of the Maoist attack. But I wondered if it would have been any different at any other time. Between state and rebel, Bastar’s youth have no simple choice; it’s complicated by everything that complicates the lives of young people elsewhere—family, love, ambition, personality. But the choice they don’t seem to have—not now, not unless they leave Bastar—is between war and peace.
In his ten years, the boy who stood on the highway has lived through the bloodiest years of Bastar. It seems unlikely peace would come his way before adulthood.
(Former NDTV reporter Supriya Sharma reported for the Times of India from Chhattisgarh for two years.)
Press Release- Stop the cycle of violence in Central India. Halt all violence on Adivasis (kractivist.wordpress.com)
Statement Condemning the Maoist Politics of Murder in Chhattisgarh (kractivist.wordpress.com)
Empower tribals or it will get worse: Ex-DG, BSF (kractivist.wordpress.com)
Press Release- AID Condemns the Violent Attack in Chhattisgarh (kractivist.wordpress.com)
#India – The Bloodstained Karmic Cycle #Peru #Guatemala
by kracktivist in Advocacy, Announcements, Human Rights, Justice, Kractivism, Law, Political Prisoners, Prison Tags: Central Reserve Police Force, Chhattisgarh, Chhattisgarh government, Communist Party of India, Guatemala, Indian National Congress, Mahendra Karma, Maoism, Maoist, Naxalite, Peru, Salwa Judum
Target of reprisal The late Mahendra Karma, with guards
The Bloodstained Karmic Cycle
To end the Maoist conflict, look to Peru and Guatemala
NANDINI SUNDAR in Outlook
Any keen observer of Chhattisgarh could have foreseen Saturday’s deadly Maoist attack at Jeeram Ghat in Bastar, though not perhaps its magnitude. Mahendra Karma’s death was long expected, though politicians like him who flirt with the dark side usually have enough security to keep them safe. With a string of killings of Maoist leaders under its belt, the security establishment thought the Maoists could be written off. However, like insurgents elsewhere, the Maoists scaled back only to strike hard.
Calls for more concerted military action ignore what has actually been happening. In fact, in recent months, the security forces have ratcheted up operations, densely carpeting Maoist strongholds with CRPF camps. On the 46 km stretch between Dornapal and Chintalnar, there are now seven camps, with the latest two, Burkapal and Minpa, having come up in the last fortnight. Overnight, large stretches of forest were cleared in Burkapal, for a helipad on one side and a CRPF camp on the other, and the question of forest clearances for this, or any other security installation, is never even seen as an issue. The biodiverse forests of Bastar—which are national treasures—have been one of the biggest casualties of this war, which rages across trees, roads, transformers, schools and the bodies of men, women and little children.
Sceptical villagers argue that rather than reducing hostilities, the presence of the camps will mean constant skirmishes between the forces and the Maoists, following which the forces will take it out on them. They report that security forces steal chickens from their homes when they are out in the fields; and indeed, with camps close by, even going out to defecate, cultivate or collect fuel wood becomes a hazard, especially for women. In Chintagufa, where several buses are parked to ferry security personnel back and forth, the forces have taken over the primary healthcare centre and the school. The Supreme Court’s orders on keeping off schools mean nothing to them.
We are on a slippery path if we dismiss any citizen, whether a Congress leader or a Gond child, as expendable. The very raison d’etre of a democracy is lost if it thinks that way.
Simplistic morality plays may be good for the trps, but will not address the real issues. The Maoist ambush came barely a week after an equally terrible attack by the security forces, again during an area domination exercise, on the villagers of Edesmetta in Bijapur, who were celebrating Beeja Pandum, the seed sowing festival. Eight villagers, including four children, were killed, while severely injured villagers were given medical aid only a day later after local media coverage. The Beeja Pandum is one of the most important festivals of the adivasi calendar. The only glimpse that non-adivasis get is when they are stopped at roadside blocks placed by women and children, and they assume it is just for some easy money. But the ritual significance is that anyone crossing the village during Beeja Pandum must be fined for taking the seed away with them. The equivalent of what happened there would be the police opening fire on a garba dance during Navratri in Ahmedabad, saying the presence of so many people at one place was suspicious. Yet, there has been little national outrage around Edesmetta. For once, the government has promised compensation, but as one CRPF jawan said about the 2010 killing of 76 CRPF personnel, “Nothing can recompense the loss of a loved one.” The adivasis have loved ones too. Unlike the CRPF, they did not even sign up to fight. If what happened in Edesmetta can be dismissed as “collateral damage”, then why not apply the same logic to Saturday’s ambush, where Mahendra Karma was the main target? This is, after all, a war. But once we dismiss any citizen, whether a Congress pradesh president or a Gond child, as expendable, we are on a slippery path. In particular, a democracy that holds this stand loses its raison d’etre.
As in Tadmetla March 2011 (where security forces burnt 300 homes, raped and killed), Sarkeguda June 2012 (where they shot dead 17 villagers during their Beeja Pandum last year) and Edesmetta 2013, the Chhattisgarh government has ordered a judicial inquiry into the Jeeram Ghat ambush. But since the Congress knows well what this means, they have preferred to enlist the NIA. Given a list of 537 killings by Salwa Judum and security forces, the state government has ordered magisterial inquiries into eight cases since 2008, of which seven are still pending!
The Chhattisgarh police claims it need SPOs for intelligence gathering, refusing to disband them as the Supreme Court ordered. But what kind of intelligence are they getting if they claim Edesmetta was a Maoist gathering, and could not predict the Jeeram ambush? Instead, the fortification of SPOs with better guns and more money as the renamed ‘Armed Auxiliary Forces’ only increases alienation.
Even if they support massive human rights violations, politicians are not combatants. The same is true for unarmed villagers who may support the Maoists ideologically. An attack on party leaders engaged in electoral rallies must be strongly condemned, and the Maoist’s expanding hit list is truly reprehensible. However, it is only partially true to say that what happened is an attack on democracy. In a democracy, someone like Karma would have been jailed long ago. Even when confronted with evidence of his personal involvement in the Salwa Judum atrocities, quite apart from a CBI FIR for his role in a major tree-felling scam, the Congress chose to retain Karma in the party. And despite declaring Naxalism the country’s gravest security threat, never once has the prime minister felt the need to visit the area himself to find out why people support them, or console grieving adivasis.
Under the Constitution of India, chief minister Raman Singh and the Union home ministry, who are as responsible for the Salwa Judum as Karma, should also be held accountable. At least 644 villages were affected, over a thousand people killed, hundreds raped, and some 1,50,000 displaced. Small children were bashed to death or thrown into ponds; old people who could not run away were burnt alive. Yet there has been no prosecution or compensation, despite the Supreme Court’s repeated orders. Indeed, there is a danger that, with Karma gone, the uncomfortable questions regarding official culpability for Salwa Judum will be closed. The Constitution and democracy are not terms of expediency, as the Congress and BJP seem to think—they embody difficult moral principles which must guide our collective behavior.
To respond with even more force now would be a grave mistake, for insurgencies thrive on government excesses. The combing operations under way must take great care to see that ordinary villagers are not harassed. It is unlikely that anyone will countenance calls for peace talks now, as the war has become a prestige issue on both sides. But eventually, there is no alternative to negotiations. If a country like the US with its military might could get bogged down in Vietnam and Afghanistan, what makes us think we can succeed militarily? A far better model would be the Latin American countries, like Peru and Guatemala, with similar histories of guerrilla war and exploitation of indigenous people which resolved their conflicts through Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. If FARC and the Colombian government can come to an agreement on land reforms after 30 years, what prevents a democracy like India?
(The writer, a professor of sociology at Delhi University, was a co-petitioner in a case that resulted in the Supreme Court’s 2011 ban on the Salwa Judum.)
Chhattisgarh- Mahendra Karma and his cynical form of vigilantism #Maoists (kractivist.wordpress.com)
Remembering Mahendra Karma- Two Roads Parted In The Woods (kractivist.wordpress.com)
#India- Tribal Affairs Minister cautions against deploying Army to tackle Maoist problem (kractivist.wordpress.com)
Report Of The Killing of Adivasi Civilians by CRPF at Edesmeta in Bijapur District
29 May 2013 14 Comments
by kracktivist in Advocacy, Announcements, Human Rights, Justice, Kractivism, Law, Minority Rights, Violence against Women, Women Rights Tags: Andhra Pradesh, Bijapur district Karnataka, Central Reserve Police Force, Chhattisgarh, CRPF, Edesmeta, Karam Masa, Maoism
Human Rights Forum
Following media reports that eight adivasis and a CRPF constable had died in an alleged encounter on the night of May 17, 2013 at Edesmeta village in Bijapur district of Chattisgarh, a team of the Human Rights Forum (HRF) from Andhra Pradesh visited the area on May 25, 26 to elicit facts. The team spoke with residents of Edesmeta as well as police officers at Gangulur. There are 67 households in Edesmeta located in six paras (hamlets). The village is in Burgil panchayat of Bijapur block and falls in the jurisdiction of Gangalur police station.
The following is a brief report of the fact-finding team. A more detailed report will be put out in due course:
It is the HRFs view that contrary to the police version of an encounter with Maoists, there was no exchange of fire at Edesmeta on the night of May 17. Eight adivasis, including four minors, all of them male, and the CRPF constable died as a result of indiscriminate and unilateral firing by the CRPF. None of the deceased eight adivasis are Maoists as the police initially claimed. The eight did not die because the Maoists used them as human shields as an improvised police version put out a day later stated. They were killed in gunfire unleashed by a specialized anti-naxalite unit of the CRPF. There was no provocation whatsoever for the firing. Four more adivasis including a minor were injured. This callous brutality is chillingly similar to the slaughter of 17 adivasi civilians (including six minors) at Sarkeguda, also in Bijapur district, on the night of June 28, 2012.
This one-sided firing by the CRPF took place upon a gathering of adivasis of Edesmeta who were performing the beej pondum, the seed festival normally held this time of the year before the rains arrive and sowing begins. About a 100 adivasis had gathered around a small structure containing their dieties known locally as ‘gaama’. The beej pondum on May 17 (Friday) was the last of the four-day long festivities that were held during the evening-night. The adivasis had congregated at the place which is an open field and about a 10 minute walk from the village. The area is ringed on all sides by fairly thick forest. That the adivasis were unarmed civilians would have been clear to the naked eye from a distance since they had going a large fire.
A huge contingent of security forces from Gangulur consisting principally of CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action, a specialised anti-naxalite guerilla unit of the CRPF) commandos numbering well about 150 personnel surrounded the area from three sides. The CRPF men caught hold of three young men Punem Sukku, Karam Budra and Karam Lakhma who were going towards a chelimi (a water hole) to drink water and also fetch some for the others gathered at the pondum. The CRPF men roughed them up. The terrified three, however, managed to wriggle out and ran into the forest in the direction away from the gathering. The villagers noticed the presence of the CRPF men when the three young men started running. They stopped dancing and almost immediately the CRPF started firing at the gathering. It was about 10 pm.
The initial burst of firing was from the north and it hit Karem Somlu(35), Punem Somu (30) and the beej pondum pujari Karem Pandu (37). They died on the spot. As soon as they heard the shots and saw these men falling, the adivasis began to scream and run with most of them heading south towards the village. The firing continued, this time from the west killing the four minor boys Karam Guddu (10) Karam Masa (16), Karam Badru (8) and Punem Lakku (15). It is entirely credible that the CoBRA constable Dev Prakash was hit by the gunfire unleashed by his colleagues from the west. His body lay next to that of Karam Masa’s. Villagers of Edesmeta the HRF team spoke with stated emphatically that there were absolutely no Maoists in the area and the CoBRA constable was hit in the same burst that felled Masa.
In fact, a few adivasis who managed to survive this massacre and were hiding in the bushes or behind some boulders said they overheard some of the CRPF men shout “stop firing, one of our men has been hit”. After the firing stopped, the CRPF lit up the area with flare guns. They also slapped and beat up a few adivasis. They left about an hour later carrying with them the bodies of Karam Masa and the constable Dev Prakash. They also took away three survivors Karam Aiytu, Karam Manga and Karam Lachhu. All three were beaten enroute Gangalur and at the police station also.
Karam Soma (35) managed to survive as he ran quickly and hid behind a boulder pretending he was dead. Karam Joga, who was hit by a bullet fell close by. Joga pleaded for water a few times and then passed away. After the firing stopped, the CRPF men found Soma and beat him up before leaving.
Those killed in this senseless carnage are:
Karam Pandu (35), the village pujari.
Karam Somlu (35) husband of Somli.
Punem Somu (30), husband of Boodhi.
Karam Joga (36), husband of Somli.
Karam Guddu (10) son of Karam Pandu (killed in firing).
Karam Masa (16), son of Karam Lachu and Somli.
Punem Lakku (15), son of Punem Lakku (late) and Borru.
Karam Badru (8), son of Karam Joga (killed in firing) and Somli.
Injured: Karam Somlu (40), Punem Somlu (20), Karam Somlu (25) and Karam Chotu (10). All four spent well over as day in pain before being given treatment. They are now recovering at the Maharani Government Hospital in Jagdalpur.
As soon as news of the firing and death of their relatives reached the village, the women rushed to the spot. In fact, an old woman Karam Lakki reached the place even before the CRPF men had left. On seeing the bodies of the adivasis, she screamed at the CRPF. She was slapped a couple of times by them before they hurriedly left. After the other women arrived, they carried the seven dead bodies and the four injured back to the village.
Women relatives of Karam Masa and those of the three men picked up by the CRPF after the firing went to the Gangalur police station the next morning (May 18). They pleaded with the CRPF to let their men go. Masa’s body was handed over to his mother after a post-mortem and the three were let off towards the evening.
The same day meanwhile, another large contingent of security forces came to the village from towards Cherpal. On seeing them, most of the adivasi men fled into the forest fearing they would be subjected to violence. Weeping women shouted at the CRPF men saying “you have butchered our men and children”. The CRPF men, who were on their best placatory behavior, told the women that it was not them but another party from the Gangalur and Bijapur side that had taken part in the firing the night before. It took a long time for them to convince the women to allow them shift the dead bodies for post-mortem. Many women from the village followed the CRPF men as the bodies were carried to Gangulur that evening.
A post-mortem was conducted by a panel of doctors at the Community Health Center, Gangulur the next morning (May 19) after which the bodies were handed over to their relatives. Angry villagers, most of them women, then placed the bodies between the Gangulur police station and the CRPF camp located opposite it and abused the local police as well as the CRPF and threw stones at the police station. That adivasi women pelted stones on a police station in an area where even the presence of the police is highly intimidating to the average citizen speaks volumes. The police merely watched on. Would they have been silent if their conscience was clear and there really was an exchange of fire? The women later took the bodies back to Edesmeta and cremated them the same evening.
According to the villagers, on Monday (May 20), another huge contingent of the police went to the village. A few of the officers addressed the adivasis where the firing took place and apologised for what had happened on the night of May 17. In turn, the villagers told the police that they wanted those who were responsible for the killings punished. When we asked the Gangulur inspector PK Sahu about this he denied that the police had even gone to Edesmeta on Monday.
Police Version:
In the face of this terrible brutality, the security establishment continues to maintain the fiction that the Maoists had fired upon the CRPF men and the latter had to therefore, retaliate. In this version, the fact of the dead adivasis being unarmed civilians is conceded, but the averment is that they were felled by Maoist bullets or they were a tragic outcome of crossfire in which they were used by the retreating Maoists as “human shields”.
The police assert that a special CoBRA unit from Gangalur enroute Pidiya to launch an offensive against the Maoists came under hostile fire near Edesmeta village following which they retaliated in self-defence. While one of their men was killed in the fierce encounter, they managed to kill an extremist and apprehend three suspects. It was only the next morning that they discovered some bodies which could be those of civilians and had evacuated them for post-mortem. Even senior officials in the security establishment touted this falsehood initially. When media reports emerged that a number of civilians including minor boys were killed, the version quickly changed to ‘Maoists used adivasi villagers as human shields to make good their escape.’ Senior officials in Raipur maintained that the CoBRA was a specially trained elite force and that the CRPF had put in place additional precautionary measures after the Sarkeguda incident last year. In effect, what is being conveyed is that the CRPF men exercise maximum restraint and only engage in exchange of fire. Civilian fatalities resulted because of Maoists firing recklessly while retreating!
These assertions fly in the face of facts. The plain truth is that the CRPF personnel opened fire without any provocation upon a gathering of unarmed adivasis celebrating a traditional festival. Edesmeta residents stated repeatedly that the CRPF men could easily ascertain that there were no Maoists in the area and that it was an unarmed gathering of villagers but they fired nevertheless. Several villagers who are still in grief and anger told the HRF team: “They want to finish us off”.
Attacked By Salwa Judum:
Edesmeta village has been subjected to violence during the early months of the Salwa Judum campaign. In the winter of 2005, Salwa Judum vigilantes and the police raided and set the entire village on fire. Three adivasis Karam Budru, Karam Latchu and Karam Lakku were caught by the Salwa Judum on that day. They beat up and inflicted knife and axe injuries on all three. Budru and Latchu died but Lakku managed to survive. This is reflective of the brazen manner in which a combination of the Salwa Judum and State instrumentalities committed illegalities during that period. On that occasion, the adivasis got wind of the impending raid and fled deeper into the forest to save themselves. They managed to survive for about two years after which they returned to the village and rebuilt their homes and lives. All of them are subsistence farmers who also go to the border mandals of Khammam district in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh to work as farm labour during the mirchi plucking season for about 2 to 3 months every year.
The State government has awarded a compensation of Rs 8 lakh to each family of the deceased adivasis of Edesmeta. The villagers of Edesmeta are in open contempt of this largesse. They told the HRF team: “We do not want this blood money. We want those responsible for killing our people punished”. A judicial enquiry has also been ordered by the State government to be headed by VK Agarwal who is also probing the Sarkeguda massacre of last June.
Time and again we have pointed out that the government’s policy of treating the Maoist movement as an outbreak of mere criminality and seeking to “wipe it out” by deploying more and more special forces is deeply offensive of the Constitutional scheme and democratic sensibilities. As has been elucidated in the report of the Expert Group of the Planning Commission in 2007, a detailed and democratic response to the sources of discontent that is at the root of Naxalism is the way forward instead of a ‘law and order’ quick fix. This would per se include viewing and treating the Maoist movement as a political phenomenon and devising political means to address it. It is not our contention that the police apparatus must be a mute spectator to violence committed by the Maoists. They must meet that violence but in a manner that is respectful of the law and the rights of the people. They cannot overstep the boundaries of the law much less indulge in ‘administrative liquidation.’ Otherwise, immense injury would be done to the ‘children of our republic’ as the Supreme Court so poignantly put it.
A judicial enquiry is no substitute for a criminal prosecution. The law of the land and the Constitution will not have it any other way. We demand that:
1. CRPF personnel who participated in the unilateral and unprovoked firing upon unarmed adivasi civilians at Edesmeta village on the night of May 17, 2013 must be charged under Section 302 of IPC relating to murder and other relevant provisions of the penal code as well as provisions of the SC, ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 and prosecuted.
2. The investigation into these cases must be handed over to the CBI.
3. The Central and State governments must stop the ongoing policy of trying to suppress the Maoists by increased deployment of Special Forces. It must address that movement politically.
4. Governments must respect the Fifth Schedule mandate in letter and spirit and the adivasis’ right to land, forest and other natural resources in their region. Protective legislation meant for the adivasis must be implemented in letter and spirit.
Members of the fact-finding team:
Bela Bhatia (Researcher, Bombay)
PRESS RELEASE- Fact Finding Report ‘ Guilty Until Proven Innocent’ on Unlawful Police Activities in North Bastar
by kracktivist in Advocacy, Announcements, Human Rights, Justice, Kractivism, Law, Violence against Women Tags: Bhilai Steel Plant, Central Reserve Police Force, Chhattisgarh, Kanker district, Naxalite, People's Union for Civil Liberties, Raipur, Supreme Court
CHHATTISGARH LOK SWATANTRYA SANGATHAN
(PEOPLES UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES, CHHATTISGARH)
Date 20th May 2013
To: The Editor/ Chief Reporter
PRESS RELEASE: FOR FAVOUR OF PUBLICATION
A team consisting of eminent activists and lawyers went for a fact finding mission organized by PUCL-Chhattisgarh to the Edanar and Malmeta Villages of the Edanar Panchayat, Kanker District and the Anjrel Village of Khadkagaon Panchayat, Narayanpur District of North Bastar, on 18th and 19th April 2013. The purpose of the mission was to investigate and document the unlawful police activities that were exposed by Edanar villagers during a statewide camp by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) conducted on 12th April, 2013 in Raipur. The representation by Edanar village focuses mainly on a police rampage that happened in Edanar and Malmeta Villages in which six villagers were assaulted, two families were robbed, and one innocent man was arrested, and remains in jail till date, after being accused of aiding Naxalites.
However, the 23rd January incident is only a small part of a longer history of militarization and unlawful police activities in this region. In the Edanar Panchayat (P.S. Tadoki), security forces consisting of CRPF and BSF, accompanied by local police and Special Police Officers (SPOs), conduct combing operations twice a month in which homes are looted and villagers are assaulted, threatened, labeled as “Naxalites”, arrested, charged with very serious offences and some of them even killed. In the Khadkagaon Panchayat (P.S. Narayanpur), villagers are routinely terrorized and even evicted from their homes by local SPOs, despite the Supreme Court order declaring SPOs unconstitutional.
The team documented over 20 such incidents of unlawful activities in both panchayats. The report also examines the legal issues associated with and the overall context in which these violent attacks have occurred. It gives special importance to the broader impact of the ongoing militarization of the region including the six BSF camps which are already stationed in Kanker, and the pending construction of 22 paramilitary barracks by the Bhilai Steel Plant to protect the functioning of its Raoghat iron ore mine.
The team releases the attached report, Guilty Until Proven Innocent : A Fact Finding Report on Unlawful Police Activities in Two Panchayats of North Bastar, Chhattisgarh with the hope that the media would highlight the situation of the people living in these areas, understand the larger political and economic context of the ongoing violence, and strike a well-educated public discourse around the issue. We strongly urge correspondents to visit the area and write firsthand accounts of the issues faced by the local villagers.
Team members include: Shishir Dikshit (Lawyer, Janhit Legal Center), Lakhan Singh (People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Chhattisgarh), Somdutt Upadhayay (Lawyer, Bilaspur Social Forum), Tathagata Sengupta (People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Chhattisgarh), Samantha Agarwal (Sanhati), Pinki Verma (Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha-Mazdoor Karyakarta Samiti), and Keshav Sori (Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan). The following report has been jointly prepared by the members of the fact finding team.
For further information contact: Adv. Sudha Bharadwaj (9926603877)
Sudha Bharadwaj
General Secretary, PUCL-Chhattisgarh
Chhattisgarh PUCL’s Memorandum to the NHRC (kractivist.wordpress.com)
Chhatisgarh PUCL condemns the abduction and killings of Congress men in Bastar (kractivist.wordpress.com)
#India – The Bastar Land Grab #tribalrights #indigenousrights (kractivist.wordpress.com)
The continuing tragedy of the adivasis (kractivist.wordpress.com)
SC ban on Salwa Judum not implemented: Nandini Sundar
by kracktivist in Advocacy, Announcements, Human Rights, Justice, Kractivism, Law, Minority Rights, Violence against Women, Women Rights Tags: Central Reserve Police Force, Chhattisgarh, Chhattisgarh government, Congress, Mahendra Karma, Maoism, Salwa Judum, Supreme Court
by Pallavi Polanki May 27, 2013
“On no count has the government done anything to implement the Supreme Court judgment. In fact, they have done everything to subvert it and make the situation worse,” says author and sociologist Nandini Sundar, on whose petition the apex court in 2011 banned the Salwa Judum, a state-sponsored militia propped up to counter Maoists in Chhattisgarh.
In its hard-hitting judgement, the Supreme Court had ordered the prosecution of all those involved in criminal activities of Salwa Judum, the architect of which was controversial Congress leader Mahendra Karma. On Saturday, Karma, the tribal leader from Bastar was among the 27 people gunned down in a deadly Maoist attack on a convoy of Congress leaders while they were returning from a political rally.
CRPF jawans carry of the body of a victim. PTI
The Supreme Court had directed the state government to investigate all previously “inappropriately or incompletely investigated instances of alleged criminal activities of Salwa Judum”, file appropriate FIRs and diligently prosecute the guilty.
But no one has been prosecuted, says Sundar. “Somebody like Mahendra Karma should have been in jail a long time ago,” she adds.
Has the Supreme Court verdict impacted the government’s response at all? “No. For one thing, we had explicitly named Mahendra Karma and shown from police diaries and the Collector’s monthly reports of his involvement. Right from the beginning we had shown the involvement of the Chhattisgarh government in what was going on. It wasn’t a people’s movement at all.”
Describing the response by the state government to the Supreme Court’s order to disband the 6500 “barely literate” and inadequately trained tribal special police officers to fight the Maoists, as a “slap in the face of the court”, Sundar says “The SPOs were supposed to be disbanded. Instead, they were constituted into an armed constabulary force from the date of the judgment. The Chhattisgarh Act says very clearly that everyone who was an SPO on the date of the judgement would now be considered an armed constabulary force and they were given better guns and more money.”
Asked whether the scale and nature of response by the government to the deadly attack was a cause of worry and what she would like the government response to be, she said, “I am very saddened by the attack and I think it is terrible… Firstly, I would like to see the government implement the Supreme Court judgment. Secondly, I would like to see them resign for their complete failure to address the whole issue.
“The judgment laid down very clearly the fact that people who violated human rights should be prosecuted. I would like to see the SPOs disbanded. I would like to see the compensation and rehabilitation of all those who were affected by the Salwa Judum. I would like to see the schools being vacated and restarted in every village. They continue to be occupied by the security officers (despite the Supreme Court’s order). We would like to see some element of justice and normalcy as the main plank rather than just military operation.”
#India – Why Salwa Judum was held Unconstitutional by Supreme Court (kractivist.wordpress.com)
CPI(ML): do not unleash greater repression on Bastar people (thehindu.com)
The rise and fall of Mahendra Karma – the Bastar Tiger (thehindu.com)
Activists probing Maoists’ deaths detained #WTFnews
by kracktivist in Advocacy, Announcements, Human Rights, Justice, Kractivism, Law, Political Prisoners, Prison, Violence against Women, Women Rights Tags: Central Reserve Police Force, Chhattisgarh, Director General of Police, Jharkhand, Maoism, Maoist, Ranchi, TPC
Ranchi, May 26, 2013
Anumeha Yadav
Activists of the Coordinationof Democratic Rights Organisations at a Ranchi police station on Sunday. Photo: Manob Chowdhury
Jharkhand on high-alert following Maoists attack on Congress rally in Chhattisgarh
A team of activists from Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisations (CDRO), an alliance of 20 human rights advocacy bodies, was detained for questioning at a police station in Ranchi for over three hours on Sunday evening.
The activists said they had visited Jharkhand to do an independent fact-finding into the killing of 10 Maoists by the banned Tritiya Prastuti Committee, a breakaway faction of Maoists, in Kunda panchayat in Chatra district on March 29 this year.
The TPC had allegedly killed 10 Maoists in Lakarmanda village and taken 25 hostage for four days. Eye-witnesses in the village had at the time reported that they seen the TPC hand over the bodies of the Maoists to security personnel from the Central Reserve Police Force, who reached the site the next day but did not attempt to arrest any of the TPC cadre.
“We were talking to journalists at Albert Ekka Chowk in the city when policemen called [us] aside for questioning. [They] insisted we accompany them to the police station,” said Shashi Bhushan Pathak, a Ranchi-based CDRO activist.
Chatra Superintendent of Police Anoop Birtharay said the district police had informed Ranchi police to probe the team after local intelligence inputs from Kunda. “[The activists] spoke to the villagers portraying Maoist leader Laleshji, who was killed by the TPC in the encounter, as a “people’s protector”,” said Mr. Birtharay.
Jharkhand Director-General of Police Rajeev Kumar said his state’s police were on high alert following Saturday’s Maoist attack on a Congress motorcade in Chhattisgarh in which over 27 were killed.
#India -Free lawyer’ service helps tribals branded Maoists in Jharkhand #goodnews (kractivist.wordpress.com)
Another Volley of Bullets for Bastar’s Tribals
by kracktivist in Advocacy, Announcements, Health Care, Human Rights, Justice, Kractivism, Law, Violence against Women, Women Rights Tags: Central Reserve Police Force, Chhattisgarh, CRPF, Edesmeta, Naxal, Operation Green Hunt, Raman Singh, Salwa Judum
In a replay of last June’s killing in Sarkeguda, CRPF jawans gun down eight innocent villagers in Edesmeta, reports Anil Mishra
Anil Mishra
1-06-2013, Issue 22 Volume 10
Hapless victims Women display the bodies of their loved ones in Gangalur
Little did the tribals know that death awaited them at the village temple. On the night of 17 May, they had gathered at Edesmeta village in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district to celebrate a local festival when the firing started. Eight villagers, including three children, were shot dead. The CRPF, which was conducting a combing operation in the area, claims that its personnel retaliated after coming under Naxal fire, but the villagers dispute those claims.
This is not the first time that the CRPF’s trigger-happy jawans have come under the scanner. On 29 June 2012, they had shot dead 17 villagers in Sarkeguda village of Bastar district. They claimed to have sprayed bullets in self-defence after coming under fire from Naxals. But a ground report by TEHELKA had found that the CRPF was guilty of attempting a cover-up (Death. And dark lies in Bastar by Brijesh Pandey and Prakhar Jain, 21 July 2012). Even before the judicial inquiry into the Sarkeguda incident is over, the carnage at Edesmeta took place.
On 18 May, the CRPF told the media in Bijapur that a Naxal and a CRPF jawan had been killed in an encounter in Edesmeta.
When reporters visited Gangalur to cover the incident, the women from Edesmeta reached there carrying seven bodies on their shoulders. The angry women demonstrated and pelted stones at the police station and demanded that the guilty must be hanged.
Edesmeta is a small hamlet located 12 km from Gangalur in Bijapur district. There are around 70 houses scattered across the village, which is accessible only by foot.
According to sources, the tribals in Edesmeta traditionally celebrate Beej Pondum (seed festival) before sowing paddy every year. The paddy seeds are blessed by the village priest first and then the tribals dance around the local deity.
Villagers claim that a new CRPF unit set up a camp in Edesmeta the day after the firing. Sources say the jawans privately acknowledged to the villagers that a mistake had been made the previous night. After this, the jawans asked the women to carry the bodies to the Gangalur police station. During all this commotion, the terrified men stayed away from the village.
Rage A villager attacks the police station
Budhram, the brother of Karam Masa, 19, who was killed in the firing, says the tribals were dancing around the deity at 10 pm when around 300 CRPF personnel surrounded them from three sides. They got hold of Masa, but shot him when he tried to run away. Later, they took his body to the Gangalur police station.
Karam Joga, 28, the priest who conducted the ritual of Beej Pondum, and his 10-year-old son Badru, were among those killed in the firing. Joga is survived by his wife, a son and an old mother who are all inconsolable.
Karam Bhanu, 12, and Punem Lakhkhu, 14, were also killed in cold blood, while Lakhkhu’s brother Punem Somlu was injured. Karam Somlu, 40, Karam Pandu, 45, and Punem Sonu, 25, were the others killed in the firing.
Doctors in Gangalur conducted a postmortem of the bodies but the report has not been released as yet. In all, four villagers were injured in the firing. Karam Somlu, Karam Mangu, Punem Somlu and 10-year-old Karam Chotu have been admitted in Jagdalpur for treatment.
Besides firing indiscriminately, the jawans also beat up the villagers. Karam Aaytu says he was hit with a rifle and taken to the police station where he was again beaten up. He was finally let off in the evening on 18 May.
Thirty-five-year-old Soman was beaten up and then shot; he saved himself by lying motionless with the other corpses. Forty – year- old Karam Mangu’s ribs were fractured as a result of the beating he got from the police.
On 18 May, villagers who sustained bullet wounds lay in agonising pain in the village but were too afraid to go to the hospital for treatment. The police took them to the hospital only when the media highlighted the carnage.
Ashok Singh, the sub-divisional police officer in charge of Naxal operations, told TEHELKA that acting on a tip-off on the night of 17 May, security forces from six locations were dispatched to Pidiya village to nab Naxal commander Madhvi. The 208 battalion of CoBRA (Combat Battalion for Resolute Action) was dispatched from Gangalur and Cherpal. He claims that jawan Dev Prakash Singh was killed in the encounter.
CRPF DIG S Llingo claims that the jawans were crossing Edesmeta to carry out an operation in Pidiya when they came under fire. “When they approached the place, the Naxals opened fire in which one CoBRA jawan was killed and another was injured,” he says. “It was a genuine encounter. A CoBRA unit cannot commit such a mistake because they are trained for such situations.The villagers are making false allegations.”
But the villagers vehemently deny that any such encounter took place. They say that the security forces surrounded them from three sides and started firing and the CRPF jawan was killed accidentally in the firing.
“We have nothing to do with Naxals. A vendetta is being carried out against us for not joining the Salwa Judum (an anti-Naxal campaign),” says Budhru, a resident of Edesmeta who works as a farm labourer. “We were targeted when the Salwa Judum was active. The whole village was set on fire and two people were killed. A road was constructed to the village through the mountains and the forest department used to take bamboo from here. But the road closed after the Judum was started. Even the village school was shut down. Now the forces routinely attack the village.”
After Salwa Judum, Operation Green Hunt was started. “In any case, we would be killed,” says Budhru. “Although the villagers have ration cards and some even go to Gangalur to cast their votes, the government has isolated this village from the outside world.”
In an election year, the incident has immediately taken a political colour. Congress leaders have accused the state government of killing innocent tribals, putting the Raman Singh-led BJP government on the backfoot. Stung by the outrage, the government has announced a compensation of 5 lakh to each victim’s family and ordered a judicial inquiry headed by high court judge VK Agarwal to probe the incident. However, no representative of the government has taken the trouble to visit Ground Zero.
On 22 May, CPI leader Manish Kunjam and Congress MLA Kavasi Lakhama visited Edesmeta and wanted the government to lodge an FIR against the jawans. The leaders said the fact that the state government has offered compensation to the dead proves that they were innocent. However, the angry villagers have refused the offer and have demanded action against the erring jawans.
After the incident, the village is seething with anger at the CRPF. Ironically, the Naxals will benefit from this and the villagers will be targeted further by the forces.
Translated from Hindi by Saif Ullah Khan
anil@tehelka.com
(Published in Tehelka Magazine, Volume 10 Issue 22, Dated 1 June 2013)
Chhattisgarh- No Maoists were present when forces opened fire, say villagers (kractivist.wordpress.com)
Mix-up cloud on tribal deaths – Cops unable to establish Maoist link of Bastar casualties (kractivist.wordpress.com)
Chhattisgarh – Bastar tribals demand CBI probe #indigenous (kractivist.wordpress.com)
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CNY Inflows Into Crypto Markets Surge After Shanghai Composite Spike
Dir_Manager
Back in January 2017, China’s financial authorities initiated their first crackdowns against domestic bitcoin exchanges, with a ban on mainland exchanges cryptocurrencies against the yuan coming shortly thereafter. Now, close to two years and three months later, a surge of CNY has been flowing back into the digital currency economy after the Shanghai Composite posting a 24 percent gain this week.
Also read: BTCC Founder Positive the PBOC Will Remove China’s Exchange Ban
The Steady Rise of CNY Trade Volumes on Paxful and Localbitcoins
Since the increase in cryptocurrency volumes and some solid gains across the board, digital currency supporters have noticed a resurgence of Chinese yuan (CNY) pour into the cryptocurrency ecosystem. On March 17, the avid BTC trader Anton Pagi tweeted to his followers that the latest rally has been fueled by CNY. “Something to watch during this bull run, Chinese profits from their roaring stock market in recent weeks flowing into bitcoin,” Pagi detailed while explaining that exchanges dealing with CNY have “more than doubled in volume in the past week.” Moreover, the Shanghai Composite has spiked more than 24 percent and speculators believe investors are moving into alternative markets.
Paxful volumes 3/16/2019.
In addition to the statements from Pagi, data from a few different cryptocurrency data collection sites draw the same conclusions. For instance, Localbitcoins volumes have been steadily climbing since the second week of February’s low of 12.9 million yuan ($1.9 million). This week CNY volumes touched a high of 25.4 million yuan ($3.7 million) in trades during the 2-week period on March 16. Similarly, the peer-to-peer trading platform Paxful show a significant increase in CNY/BTC trade volumes as well after the lows last month. In addition to the Shanghai Composite stock pump in China, the country’s Premier Li Keqiang has also pledged to cut taxes and deregulate the tech industry in order to boost China’s slowing economy. This has given speculators reason to believe Chinese investors are being less frugal with regard to digital currency and blockchain investments.
Localbitcoins volumes 3/16/2019.
Over $250 Million in CNY-Crypto Pairs in the Last 24 Hours
In parallel with the peer-to-peer exchange volumes, the data and price website Coingecko also displays a jump in CNY/BTC volumes over the last 24 hours. Further, the statistical website Coinlib.io shows some considerable CNY inflows into a few different cryptocurrencies. At the moment Coinlib’s data shows $161.3 million worth of CNY flowing into BTC markets. This is followed by $74.1 million into CNY/ETH and $19.7 million worth of CNY/XLM trades as well. With tether (USDT) fueling the current rally, as far as the top pair traded with all the dominant cryptocurrency markets, CNY has still managed to find its way just below the U.S. dollar for a short period.
At the time of writing according to Coinlib.io, there’s roughly $255 million worth of CNY-crypto pairs in the last 24 hours.
There are between roughly 12 and 15 prominent exchanges that Chinese investors can still flock to for cryptocurrencies but they are all located offshore. Current exchanges fueling the renminbi and crypto flames right now include popular platforms like Hitbtc, Zb.com, Binance, and Fatbtc. Moreover, these specific exchanges started seeing more CNY volume since March 11 when the exchange Coinex revealed it would no longer serve customers from mainland China. The day before the Coinex announcement, Chinese legislative delegates called for a strict and clear approach to cryptocurrency regulations in the country, according to Securities Daily.
What do you think about the CNY inflows into crypto markets after the stock market rise and Premier Li Keqiang’s comments? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
Image credits: Shutterstock, Coin.dance, and Coinlib.io
Express yourself freely at Bitcoin.com’s user forums. We don’t censor on political grounds. Check forum.Bitcoin.com
The post CNY Inflows Into Crypto Markets Surge After Shanghai Composite Spike appeared first on Bitcoin News.
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Theme from New York, New York lyrics
Frank Sinatra - Sinatra Reprise: The Very Good Years
Sinatra Reprise: The Very Good Years
Start spreadin' the news
I’m leavin' today
I want to be a part of it
New York, New York.
These vagabond shoes
Are longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it
I want to wake up
In a city that doesn’t sleep
And find I’m king of the hill,
Top of the heap…
These little-town blues
Are melting away
I’ll make a brand new start of it
In old New York.
If I can make it there,
I’ll make it anywhere
I want to wake up in a city
That never sleeps
And find I’m “A” number one,
Top of the list,
King of the hill, “A” number one…
These… little town… blues
Are… melting away,
I’m gonna make a brand new start of it
In old New York
And… If I can make it there,
I’m gonna make it anywhere
It’s up to you,
New York, New Yoooooooooork…
New Yooork!
More lyrics from Frank Sinatra
01The Last Dance
02Night and Day
03I Get a Kick Out of You
04Luck Be A Lady
05The Way You Look Tonight
06My Kind of Town
08Fly Me to the Moon
09It Was a Very Good Year
10Love and Marriage
12Strangers in the Night
14All Or Nothing At All
15That's Life
16My Way
18Send In The Clowns
19Nancy
20Theme from New York, New York
jazzoldieseasy listeningswing
Video Theme from New York, New York
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Exploit Broker Zerodium Offers $100k Per Flash Zero-Day
Thread starter frogboy
exploit flash
http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/exploit-broker-zerodium-100k-per/
Exploit broker Zerodium has announced a month-long bounty program for code that can bypass the new heap isolation mitigation in Flash Player. It said that it will pay up to $100,000 per working zero-day.
Adobe has been working to strengthen Flash Player, a perennially popular target for vulnerability-hunters and hackers alike. Last month, it announced that it had rewritten its memory manager to protect against use-after-free vulnerability exploits.
Zerodium took that as its cue to up the ante, announcing via Twitter: “Adobe added isolated heap to Flash. This month we pay $100K (with sandbox) and $65K (without sandbox) per #exploit bypassing this mitigation.”
Zerodium launched in July 2015 as a new entrant to the ethically grey-scaled world of cyber-arms/defense-dealing. As its name suggests, it specializes in acquiring zero-day exploits. And then selling them off, typically to government intelligence agencies.
The start-up is backed by Vupen, the French vulnerability dealer that has often drawn controversy for brokering exploits to the highest bidder. Though it says it won’t deal with “oppressive governments,” Vupen has been criticized for eschewing the concept of community-minded white-hat research in favor of fueling a kind of cyber-arms race. Also, critics note that delivering advanced capabilities into the hands of governments and others can result in their ending up in the wrong hands—i.e., the Stuxnet effect.
For its part, Zerodium bills itself as an effort “to build a global community of talented and independent security researchers working together to provide the most up-to-date source of cybersecurity research and capabilities.”
Full article. Exploit Broker Zerodium Offers $100k Per Flash Zero-Day
Reactions: Rishi and harlan4096
Zero Day Alert: Flash Player vulnerability exploited
tallorder
Security Alert Adobe Patches Flash Zero-Day Exploited in the Wild
Flash Player 17.0.0.169 Fixes Zero-Day Exploited in the Wild
Adobe Fixes Flash Player Zero-Day Exploited in the Wild
Security Alert Adobe Patches Flash Zero-Day (exploited via Office files)
LASER_oneXM
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Tag Archives: Dioptrics
Deciphering Spinoza’s Optical Letters
3 Comments Posted by Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu on August 17, 2008
Below is my reading of Spinoza’s Optical Letters (39 and 40) as best as I have been able to extract interpretations from them. They are letters that are in general ignored, or when brushed over, taken to be evidence for Spinoza’s incompetence in optical matters. It seems that few have thought to examine in detail Spinoza’s point, or the texts he likely had in mind when formulating his opinion and drawing his diagrams. It should be said right from the start that I am at a disadvantage in this, as I have no formal knowledge of optics, either in a contemporary sense, nor in terms of 17th century theory, other than my investigation into Spinoza lens-grinding and its influence upon his metaphysics. In this research, the reading of this letter has proved integral, for it is one of the very few sources of confirmed scientific description offered by Spinoza. That being said, ALL of my facts and inferences need to be checked and double checked, due to my formal lack of familiarity with the subject. It is my hope that the forays in this commentary reading, the citations of likely texts of influence and conceptual conclusions would be the beginning of a much closer look at the matter, very likely resulting in the improvements upon, if not outright disagreement with, what is offered here.
[The Below English selections and links to the Latin text: here ]
Spinoza Answers
“I have looked at and read over what you noted regarding the Dioptica of Descartes.”
Spinoza is responding to a question we do not know, as we have lost Jelles’s letter. We can conclude from several points of correspondence that it is a section of Descartes’Dioptrics that Jelles’ question seems to have focused on, the Seventh Discourse titled “Of The Means of Perfecting Vision”. There, Descartes describes the interactions between light rays, lenses and the eye for purposes of magnification, preparing for the Eighth Discourse where he will present the importance of hyperbolic lenses for telescopes, and also onto the Ninth, “The Description of Telescopes”, where that hyperbola is put to use in a specific proposed construction.
“On the question as to why the images at the back of the eye become larger or smaller, he takes account of no other cause than the crossing of the rays proceeding from the different points of the object, according as they begin to cross one another nearer to or further from to eye…”
This is the beginning of Spinoza’s attack on Descartes’ rendition of how light refracts through lenses to form images of various sizes at the back of the eye. In the Seventh Discourse Descartes claims to have exhausted all factors that can influence the size of the image, which he numbers at three:
“As to the size of images, it is to be noted that this depends solely on three things, namely, on the distance between the object and the place where the rays that it sends from its different points towards the back of the eye intersect; next on the distance between this same place and the base of the eye; and finally, on the refraction of these rays (trans. Olscamp).”
His descriptions that follow are varied. Among his either trite or fanciful augmentations he considers moving the object closer to the eye, then the impossibility of lengthening the eye itself, and lastly musing that if the refraction of the crystaline humor would spread rays more outward, then so too should magnification be achieved. This seems to be the extent to which Descartes will treat the factor of refraction in this discourse (hence perhaps Spinoza’s claim of the repression of a very important factor); but what Spinoza has cast his critical eye upon, I believe, is Descartes characterization of the solution to questions of magnification achieved by fundamentally extending of the distance of the intersection of rays:
There remains but one other means for augmenting the size of images, namely, by causing the rays that come from diverse points of the object to intersect as far as possible from the back of the eye; but this is incomparably the most important and the most significant of all. For it is the only means which can be used for inaccessable objects as well as for accessable ones, and its effect has no limitations; thus we can, by making use of it, increase the size of images indefinitely.
It is good to note that in his description of the strategies of telescope magnification, Descartes is operating under an extended analogy, that the telescope can work like a prosthetic lengthening of the human eye, causing the refraction that would regularly occur at the eye’s surface to happen much farther out, as if the retina were being placed at the end of a very long eye. This is his mechanical concept.
Descartes distance-analysis of magnification (and an assertion of the significance of the hyperbola) is then carried forth in the Ninth Discourse, where again Descartes will treat magnification in terms of the proximity to the eye of the crossing of rays, which here he will call the “burning point” of the lens. The descriptions occur both in the context of solutions to far and near sightedness as well as in proposals to the proper construction of telescopes, and generally follow this idea that one is primarily lengthening the eye.
“…and so he does not consider the size of the angle which the rays make when they cross one another at the surface of the eye. Although this last cause would be principle (sit praecipua ) to be noted in telescopes…”
What Spinoza is pointing out is that when constructing telescopes, as he understands it, the aim is to increase the magnitude of the angle of rays upon the surface of the eye (the cornea), something not solely achievable merely through the adjustment of the distance of the “burning point” or the crossing of the rays of the lens from the eye. Attention to the angle of intersection is for Spinoza a more accurate discriminator probably because it leads to calculations of refraction which include the angle of incidence upon the lens, giving emphasis upon the varying refractive properties of different shapes and thicknesses of lenses in combination, some of which can increase magnification without lengthening the telescope. Descartes conceived of the objective and eyepiece lenses as mimicking the shape and powers of the eye’s lens(es), just further out in space. Though he states at several points that we do not know the exact shape of the human eye, under this homological view, he still sees a correspondence between his proposed hyperbolic-shaped lenses and those of the eye, likely drawing upon Kepler’s observation that the human crystalline humor was of a hyperbolic shape.
The fuller aspects of the factor of refraction – the third factor listed in Descartes three – are left out in such a distance calculation, Spinoza wants us to see. As mentioned, in the combination of lenses, depending upon their shape and powers, the required lengthening of the telescope can be shortened (Spinoza presents just this sort of argument to Hudde in Letter 36, arguing for the efficacy of convex-planolenses). One can also say that this same emphasis on the powers of refraction was also at play in Spinoza’s debate with Huygens over the kinds of objective lenses which were best for microscopes. Huygens finally had to privately admit in a letter written to his brother a year after these two letters, that Spinoza was right, smaller objective lenses with much greater powers of refraction and requiring much shorter tubes indeed made better microscopes (we do not know if Spinoza had in mind the smallest of lenses, the ground drop-lenses that Hudde, Vossius and van Leeuwenhoek used, but he may have). It should be said that Huygens’ admission goes a long way toward qualifying Spinoza’s optical competence, for Spinoza’s claim could not have simply been a blind assertion for Huygens to have taken it seriously. Descartes to his pardon is writing only three decades after the invention of the telescope, and Spinoza three decades after that. Be that as it may, Descartes’ measure is simply too imprecise a measure in Spinoza’s mind, certainly not a factor significant enough to be called “incomparably the most important and the most significant of all”.
Because Jelles’ question seems to have been about the length of telescopes that would be required to achieve magnification of details of the surface of the moon (the source of this discussed below), it is to some degree fitting for Spinoza to draw his attention away from the analysis of the distance of the “burning point”, toward the more pertinent factor of the angle of rays as they occur at the surface of the eye and calculations of refraction, but it is suspected that he wants to express something beyond Jelles’ question, for focal and telescope length indeed remained a dominant pursuit of most refractive telescope improvements. And Spinoza indeed comes to additional conclusions, aside from Descartes imprecision. Spinoza suspects that Descartes is obscuring an important factor of lens refraction by moving the point of analysis away from the angle of rays at the surface of the eye. This factors is, I believe, the question of the capacity to focus rays coming at angles oblique to the central axis of the lens, (that is, come from parts of an object off-center to the central line of gaze). Spinoza feels that Descartes is hiding a weakness in his much treasured hyperbola.
“…nonetheless, he seems deliberately to have passed over it in silence, because, I imagine, he knew of no other means of gathering rays proceeding in parallel from different points onto as many other points, and therefore he could not determine this angle mathematically.”
Descartes, in Spinoza’s view, wants to talk only of the crossing of rays closer to or farther from the surface of the eye, under a conception of physically lengthening the eye, and not the magnitude of the angle they make at the surface of the eye because he lacks the mathematical capacity to deal with calculations of refraction which involved rays coming obliquely to the lens. For simplicity’s sake, Descartes was only precise when dealing with rays coming parallel to the center axis of the lens, and so are cleanly refracted to a central point of focus, and it is this analysis that grants the hyperbola its essential value. In considering this reason Spinoza likely has in mind Descartes’ admission of the difficulty of calculation when describing the best shapes of lenses for clear vision. As well as the admitted problem of complexity, Descartes also addresses the merely approximate capacties of the hyperbola to focus oblique rays.
[regarding the focusing of rays that come off-center from the main axis]…and second, that through their means the rays which come from other points of the object, such as E, E, enter into the eye in approximately the same manner as F, F [E and F representing extreme ends of an object viewed under lenses which adjust for far and near sightedness]. And note that I say here only, “approximately” not “as much as possible.” For aside from the fact that it would be difficult to determine through Geometry, among an infinity of shapes which can be used for the same purpose, those which are exactly the most suitable, this would be utterly useless; for since the eye itself does not cause all the rays coming from diverse points to converge in exactly as many other diverse points, because of this the lenses would doubtless not be the best suited to render the vision quite distinct, and it is impossible in this matter to choose otherwise than approximately, because the precise shape of the eye cannot be known to us. – Seventh Discourse
This is an important passage for several reasons, but first because it comes the closest to the question of the focus of rays para-axial to the center. Again, one must keep in mind that Descartes is thinking about trying to make lenses of a shape that are exact to the shape (or powers) of the eye. Here he is thinking about ever more exotic geometrical shapes which may achieve this, and insists upon the fruitlessness of such a pursuit; it is significant that in contrast to this, Spinoza imagines rather a very simple solution to the question of aberration: the acceptance of spherical aberration and the embrace of the advantage of spherical omni-axial focus. The quoted passage directly precedes Descartes’ summation of the three factors in magnification, with which I began my citations. And I will return to the latter parts of this passage later when we investigate Spinoza’s critique of the hyperbola and the eye. (Note: Aside from this direct reference to Descartes on the issue of calculation, perhaps Spinoza considers also James Gregory, who had some difficulty calculating paraxial rays for his hyperbolae and parabolae in his Optica Promota, though writing an entire treatise devoted to their value.)
Nonetheless, Spinoza suspects that Descartes has shifted the analysis of magnification not simply because it is not amenable to calculation, but more so because, had Descartes engaged the proper investigation, he would have had to face an essential advantage of spherical lense, lessening to some degree his hyperbolic panacea to the problems of the telescope. Again, we will leave aside for the moment Descartes’ justification of this approximation on the basis of the human eye and Nature.
Soft Focus: Spherical Aberration
“Perhaps he was silent so as not to give any preference to the circle above other figures which he introduced; for there is not doubt that in this matter the circle surpasses all other figures that can be discovered.”
Spinoza goes on to expound for Jelles the virtues of the simple circle, as it expresses itself in spherical lenses. One has to keep in mind that since the publishing of Descartes’ Dioptrics (1637), there had been a near obsessional pursuit of the grinding of hyperbolic lenses, a lens of such necessary precision that no human hand was able to achieve it. The hyperbolic lens promised – falsely, but for reasons no one would understand until Newton’s discovery of the spectrum character of light in 1672 – a solution to the problem of spherical aberration. Spherical aberration is simply the soft focus of parallel rays that occurs when refracted by a spherical lens. Kepler in his Paralipomena provides a diagram which illustrates this property:
As one can see, rays that are incident to the edges of the lens (α, β) cross higher up from the point of focus, which lies upon the axis (ω). It was thought that this deviation was a severe limitation on the powers of magnification. With the clearing away of the bluish, obscuring ring that haloed all telescopic vision, the hope was for new, immensely powerful telescopes. And it was to this mad chase for the hyperbola that Spinoza was opposed, on several levels, one of which was the idea that spherical lense shapes actually had a theoretical advantage over hyperbolics: the capacity to focus rays along an infinity of axis:
diagram letter 39
“[referring to the above] For because a circle is everywhere the same, it has the same properties everywhere. If, for example, circle ABCD should have the property that all rays coming from direction A and parallel to axis AB are refracted at its surface in such a way that they thereafter all meet at point B; and also all rays coming from point C and parallel to axis CD are refracted at its surface so that they all meet together at point D…,”
This is a very important point in the letter, for I believe it has been misread by some. At the same time that Spinoza seems to be asserting something painfully obvious in terms of the geometry of a circle, he, at first blush, in bringing this geometry to real lenses appears to be making a serious blunder. And, as I hope to show later, beneath both of these facts there is a subtle and deeper phenomenal-epistemic philosophical point being made, one that echoes through to the roots of Cartesian, and perhaps even Western, metaphysics. Let me treat the first two in turns, and then the third in parts.
The first point is obvious. As we can see from the diagram Spinoza provides, each of the refractive relationships of rays parallel to one axis are symmetical to the same relationships of other parallel rays to another axis. The trick comes in Spinoza’s second sentence, where he seems to be asserting an optical property of actual spherical lenses. As one email correspondent to me concluded, (paraphrased) “Spinoza thinks that the focal point of such a lens lies on the diameter, and this only occurs in rare cases.” The index of refraction of glass simply is not 2 in most cases. Spinoza seems to be making an enormous optical blunder in leaving the refractive index of the glass out, opening himself to a modern objection that he simply does not know the significance of the all important Law of Refraction, put forth by Descartes. This is a similiar prima facie reading done by Alan Gabbey in his widely read essay “Spinoza’s natural science and methodology”, found in The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza,
One’s immediate suspicions of error is readily confirmed by a straight forward application of Descartes Law of refraction. For the circle to have to the dioptrical property Spinoza claims, the refractive index of the glass would have to be a function of the angle of incidence, a condition of which there is not the slightest hint in the letter…[he is] apparently unaware of the importance the “[other] figures”…that Descartes had constructed (154).
The problem with these readings, among many, is that Spinoza is not at all asserting that there exists such a lens which would have this refractive property (Gabbey’s concerns about Spinoza’s awareness of the Law of Refraction should be answered by looking his familiarity with Johannes Huddes “Specilla circularia”, in letter 36, which will be taken up later). I have corrected a weakness in the prominent English translation of the text which helps to bring out the distinction I am making. If one looks at the sentence closely, Spinoza is presenting an if-then assertion (he uses the subjective in the intitial clause). IF, and only if, a circular lens can be said to have the focusing property along axis AB, THEN it would have the same property along axis CD. To repeat, he is not asserting such a property in real glass and therefore he remits any refractive index reference because it is not germane to his point; he is only at this point emphasizing the property of an infinity of axes of focus, and he is using a hypothetical sphere for several reasons.
The first reason I suspect is that he is trying to draw out the remarkable resonance of spherical forms, making his diagram evocative of notions of completeness and internal consistency. This is of course not an optical concern, but we have to consider it as an influence. We have a similiar looking diagram presented by Spinoza in the Ethics, showing an argued relationship between Substance and the modes that express it. As Spinoza writes:
diagram from the Ethics 2, prop 8, scholia
“The nature of a circle is such that if any number of straight lines intersect within it, the rectangles formed by their segments will be equal to one another; thus, infinite equal rectangles are contained in a circle. Yet none of these rectangles can be said to exist, except in so far as the circle exists; nor can the idea of any of these rectangles be said to exist, except in so far as they are comprehended in the idea of the circle.” E2p8s
There is perhaps much speculation to be made as to Spinoza’s feelings about the the interweave of causes that express themselves in modes and the apparitions of focus generated by hypothetical spherical lenses (are modal expressions seen in some way like a confluence of rays?), but at this point I only want to point out Spinoza’s affinity for the sphere, and thus this one possible reason for using a full sphere to illustrate an optical property of spherical lenses. (Remember, this is just an informal letter written to a friend, and not meant as a treatise.)
The second reason is that Spinoza very likely is thinking of a real sphere, that is, the “aqueous globe” that Kepler used to investigate refraction in his Paralipomena, a work in which he was the first to articulate with mathematical precision the dynamics of spherical aberration (before there was a telescope, in 1604), and also was the first to suggest the hyperbola as the resolving figure for such aberration. Here is Kepler’s diagram of his sphere through which he gazed at various distances, illustrating his Proposition 14: “Problem: In an aqueous globe, to determine the places of intersection of any radiations parallel to an axis”.
Kepler's diagram from proposition 14
Thus, Spinoza’s use of a sphere in his diagram has at least two readings that have heretofore not been noticed. The first is that his description is operating at solely the hypothetical level, asserting the abstract properties of spherical symmetry, but secondly, he is referencing, or at least has in mind, a primary historical optical text, in all likelihood the text which spurred Descartes’ enthusiasm for the hyperbola in the first place (likely read by Descartes around 1620). It is precisely in this parallel fashion, between the geometrical and the manifest, that Spinoza seems to work his optical understanding.
The third reason that Spinoza is using a full sphere to illustrate his principle of omni-axial refraction is that Descartes’ treatise deals not only with lenses, but also with the human (and ox) eye. And this eye in diagrams is represented as a sphere. I will return to this point a little later, because as he encounters Descartes, he is making an argument, however loosely, against not only his optics, but his essential concepts of clear perception. By taking up a full sphere in his objection, he also poses a relation to Descartes schemas of the eye.
Aside from Descartes’ pseudo-spherical diagram of the eye, we have to consider as an additional influence Hooke’s spherical depiction of the eye with two pencils of rays focused along different axes, used to illustrate the reception of color (pictured below left). The reason why I mention this diagram is not only because it bears some resemblance to Spinoza’s, but also because Hooke’s extraordinary Micrographia might have been the source of Jelles’ question, as I will soon address, and so may have been a text Spinoza thought of in his answer, though we are not sure if he ever read it, or even looked at it, as it was in published in English. Christiaan Huygens owned a copy of it and it was the subject of a conversation between the two. If Spionoza indeed visited the Hofwijck several times, it is hard to believe that he would not have looked closely at this page of diagrams.
figure 5, Robert Hooke's Micrographia
“…this is something that could be affirmed of no other figure, although the hyperbola and the ellipse have infinite diameters.”
Spinoza here declares the exclusivity of a property that only spheres and their portions possess. It is hard to tell exactly at what level Spinoza is making his objection. Is it entirely at the theoretical level of optics that Spinoza believes hyperbolic lenses to be impaired, such that even if people could manufacture them with ease, they still wouldn’t be desired. If so, he would be guilty of a fairly fundamental blindness to potential advantages in telescope construction that such a lens would grant, rather universally understood. If indeed he was an accomplished builder of telescopes – and we have some evidence that he may have been – this would be a difficult thing to reconcile, forcing us to adopt an estimation of a much more craftsman level understanding of his trade. But it is possible that Spinoza is asserting a combine critique of hyperbolic lenses, one that takes into account the difficulty in making them. There are signs that spherical aberration after Descartes was taken to be a much greater problem than it calculably was, and Spinoza brings out a drawback to hyperbolic focus that adds one more demerit to an already impossible-to-make lens. Thus, as a pragmatic instrument maker he may not be assessing such lenses only in the abstract, but in reality. It may be that Spinoza sees the ideal of the hyperbolic lenses as simply unnecessary, given the serviceability of spheres, and the perceived advantage of oblique focus. This question needs to be answered at the level of optical soundness alone, but such an answer has to take in account the great variety of understandings in Spinoza’s day and age, even among those that supposedly “got it right”. For instance, such an elementary and widely accepted phenomena as “spherical aberration” was neither defined, nor labeled in the same way, by any two thinkers; nor were its empirical effects on lensed vision grasped. We often project our understanding backwards upon those that seem most proximate to our truths. Spinoza’s opinions on aberration seem to reside exactly in that fog of optical understandings that were just beginning to clear.
“So the case is as you describe; that is, if no account is taken of anything except the focal lenth of the eye or of the telescope, we should be obliged to manufacture very long telescopes before we could see objects on the moon as distinctly as those on earth.”
Here we possibly get a sense of Jelles’ question. It must have come from a reflection upon Descartes’ comments on crossing of rays at various distances from the eye, posed as a question to whether we might be able to view the Moon with such clarity as we see things here – remember, Descartes’ promised infinite powers of magnification. I mentioned already that Jelles’ question may have come in reference to Hooke’s work. We must first overcome the problem of language of course, for I do know that Jelles read English, though it is possible that he read a personal translation of a passage, as Huygens had translated a passage for Hudde. But given these barriers, I believe there is enough correspondence to make a hypothesis that is not too extravagant: Jelles had recently read a portion of Hooke’s Micrographia. The reason that I suspect this, is that the Micrographia published with extraordinarily vivid plates of magnified insects and materials, concludes with a speculative/visual account of what may be on the moon, seen through his 30-foot telescope (and a suggested 60 ft. telescope), coupled with a close up illustration of a moon’s “Vale” crater, he writes of an earthly lunar realm:
…for through these it appears a very spacious Vale, incompassed with a ridge of Hills, not very high in comparison of many other in the Moon, nor yet very steep…and from several appearances of it, seems to be some fruitful place, that is, to have its surface all covered over with some kinds of vegatable substances; for in all portions of the light on it, it seems to give a fainter reflection then the more barren tops of the incompassing Hills, and those a much fainter then divers other cragged, chalky, or rocky Mountains of the Moon. So that I am not unapt to think that the Vale may have Vegetables analogus to our Grass, Shrubs, and Trees; and most of these incompassing Hills may be covered with so thin a vegetable Coat, as we may observe the Hills with us to be, such as the Short Sheep pasture which covers the Hills of Salisbury Plains.
As one can see from this marvelous, evocative passage, the suggestion that the moon’s vales are pastorially covered with rich meadows, calling up even flocks of sheep before the mind, one can easily see that Jelles has something like this in mind when he asks what it would take to see objects on the moon, as we can see objects on the Earth. One might speculate that, having read such a passage, Jelles had a spiritual or theological concern in mind and excitment over the possibility of other people on the moon, but this would be perhaps only wistful supposition on our part. But it is too much to suppose that it was likely Hooke’s description of the moon Jelles was thinking of when he wrote his question to Spinoza, for not only are the details of an Earth-like moon present, but also Hooke’s urging of the reader to use a more power and much longer telescope than he used. Spinoza is responding directly to this aspect of telescope length.
(An alternate thought may be that Jelles had come upon Hevelius’s Selenographia, sive, Lunae descriptio 1647, filled with richly engraved plates of the moon’s surface. It did not have the same fanciful description of moon meadows, and was not circulated with the acclaim of Hooke’s Micrographia, but it did name features of the moon after Earth landmarks, giving it an Alps, a Caucasus and an Island of Sicily.)
If we allow this supposition of a posed question on Jelles’s part, we might be able to construct something of Spinoza’s thinking in his response. It would seem, in our mind’s-eye, that Jelles had read Hooke’s description of the moon and his urge for a longer telescope and set about checking Descartes’ Dioptrics if it were the case that we really would have to build an extraordinarily long telescope to see the details that Hooke invoked (indeed Huygens built a 123 ft. arial telescope; and Hevelius one of 150 ft., pictured below).
Hevelius' 150 ft. arial telescope
Following this evolution of the question, it would seem that Jelles came to Descartes’ treatment of magnification in the Seventh (and related) Discourses, one that defined the power of magnification by the all important distance of the crossing of rays from the surface of the eye, treating the telescope as an extended eye. If indeed Jelles was not familiar with optical theory he may have taken this increase of distance for an explanation why telescopes had to be so very long to see the moon with desired detail. It would seem natural for Jelles to pose this question to Spinoza, who not only was regarded as the expert on Descartes in the Collegiant group, but also was a grinder of lenses and a designer of telescopes.
If this hypothetical narrative of the question is correct, Spinoza responded in a slightly misdirected way, taking the opportunity to vent an objection to Descartes thinking which did not have acute bearing upon Jelles’s question. For Descartes’ description of a “burning point” distance and Spinoza’s emphasis on the angle of incidence of rays oblique to the center axis, makes no major difference in the conclusion that Jelles came to, that indeed it would take a very long telescope to do what Jelles imagined, and Spinoza admits as much, above. Yet, when Spinoza qualifies his answer “if no account is taken of anything except the focal lenth of the eye or of the telescope” he is pointing to, one imagines, factors of refraction, for instance in compound telescopes and lenses of different combinations, which do not obviate the contemporary need for very long telescopes, but may affect the length.
Aside from this admission, Spinoza has taken the opportunity to express his displeasure over a perceived Cartesian obscurance, one that has lead to an over-enthused pursuit of an impossible lens, and as we have seen, in this context Spinoza puts forward his own esteem for the spherical lens, and the sphere in general. But this is no triffling matter, for out of Spinoza’s close-cropped critique of Descartes’ Dioptrics run several working metaphors between vision and knowledge, and a history of thinking about the optics of the hyperbola that originates in Kepler (made manifest, I contend, in a full-blown metaphysics in Descartes). Though Spinoza’s objection is small, it touches a fracture in thinking about the Body and Perception, a deep-running crack which might not have direct factual bearing on optical theory, but does have bearing on its founding conceptions. As I have already suggested, we have to keep in mind here that though we are used to thinking of a field of science as a closed set of tested truths oriented to that discipline, at this point in history, just when the (metaphysically) mechanical conception of the world was taking hold, it is not easy, or even advisable, to separate out optical theories from much broader categories of thought, such as metaphysics and the rhetorics of philosophy. For example, how one imagined light to move (was it a firery corpuscula, or like waves in a pond?), refract and focus was in part an expression of one’s overall world picture of how causes and effects related, and of what bodies and motions were composed: and such theories ever involved concepts of perception.
“But as I have said, the chief consideration is the size of the angle made by the rays issuing from different points when they cross one another at the surface of the eye. And this angle also becomes greater or less as the foci of the glasses fitted in the telescope differ to a greater or lesser degree.”
Spinoza reiterates his point that it is the intersecting angles of incidence at the surface of the eye which determined the size of the image seen through a telescope. He finally connects the factor of the angle of incidence and intersection to the foci of lenses themselves. It is tempting to think that Spinoza in his mention of lenses is also thinking of compound forms such as the three-lens eyepiece invented by Rheita in 1645, or as he was already familiar through visits to Christiaan Huygens’s home in 1665, proposed resolutions of spherical aberration by a complex of spherical lenses. Such combinations would be based upon angle of incident calculations.
“If you wish to see the demonstration of this I am ready to send it to you whenever you wish.”
Spinoza will send this evidence in his next letter (pictured at bottom).
Letter 40 “…I now proceed to answer your other letter dated 9 March, in which you ask for a further explanation of what I wrote in my previous letter concerning the figure of a circle. This you will easily be able to understand if you will please note that all the rays that are supposed to fall in parallel on the anterior of the glass of the telescope are not really parallel because they all come from one and the same point.”
Jelles has apparently had some difficulty with understanding Spinoza’s explanation. It is interesting because this confusion on Jelles’ part has actually been taken as evidence that Spinoza not only is impaired in his understanding of optics (this may be the case, but Jelles’ confusion, I don’t believe, is worthy of being evidence of it), but that those close to Spinoza around this time became aware that Spinoza’s optical knowledge was superficial at best, something not to be questioned too deeply.
As Michael John Petry writes:
“There is evidence that after 1666 Spinoza’s ideas on theoretical optics were less sought after by his friends and acquaintences…Even JarigJelleswasquiteevidently dissatisfied with the way in which Spinoza explained the apparent anomaly in Descartes’ Dioptrics” (Spinoza’s Algebraic Calculation of the Rainbow & Calculation of Chances, 96)
Petry cites other evidence which needs to be addressed (primarily Huygens’ letters), but a close reading of the nature of Jelles implied question does not seem to support in any way the notion that Spinoza’s optical knowledge had been exposed as a fraud of some sort. Alan Gabbey as well, who maintains serious doubts about Spinoza’s optical proficiency, seems to focus on Spinoza’s need to explain himself to Jelles as a sign that he is somewhat confused:
In his next letter…to Jelles, who has asked for a clarification, Spinoza explained that light rays from a relatively distant object are in fact only approximately parallel, since they arrive as “cones of rays” from different points on the object. Yet he maintained the same property of the cirlce in the case of ray cones, apparently unaware of the importance of the “[other] figures” [the famous “Ovals of Descartes”] (154).
It seems quite clear that Spinoza was aware of the “importance” of these figures, at least he was aware of Hudde’s and Huygens’ attempt to minimize that importance. But Gabbey here seems to suggest that Spinoza is evading a point of confusion by simply changing descriptions, instead of parallel rays of light, Spinoza now uses “cones of rays”. For these reasons of suspicion it is better to go slow here.
The question that Jelles raised apparently has to do with the reading of Spinoza’s circular diagram and its focus of two pencils of light rays, for Spinoza imagines that if Jelles understands these pencils as cones of rays his confusion will be cleared up. To take the simplest tact, it may very well be that Jelles, upon seeing Spinoza’s diagram, turned back to Descartes’ text in order to apply it, and found there a diagram which was quite different. What Jelles may have seen was Descartes’ figure 14 from the Fifth Discourse (pictured below, left), or really any of his diagrams which depict the interaction of rays with the eye:
figure 14 from the Fifth Discourse of the Dioptrics
One can see how in this context Jelles may have been confused by Spinoza’s diagram of the focus of two pencils of rays, and even by the accusation that Descartes is being somehow imprecise, for the illustration seems to depict rays as something like cones of rays, not rays flowing parallel to an axis, as they are in Spinoza’s drawing. Aside from this plain confusion, Jelles’ question may have dealt with some other more detailed aspect, for instance, a question about the importance of a lens’s ability to focus rays oblique to its center. If so, Spinoza would require not only that Jelles understand that rays come in cones, but also have a fuller sense of how those rays refract upon the eye, perhaps provided by the diagram that will follow. In either case, rather than understand Spinoza’s change in descriptive terminology as an attempt to dodge his incomprehension, Spinoza simply appears to be guiding Jelles in the reconsilation of both kinds of diagrams, or preparing ground for a more complete explanation.
Note: Regarding the analytical descriptions of a pencil of parallel of rays or “cones of rays” there is no standing confusion between them. They exhibit two different ways of analyzing the refractive properties of light. But there is more than this, the use of the phrase “cones of rays” by Spinoza gives a clue to what texts he has in mind in his answer. The orgin of this phrase for Spinoza likely comes from Kepler’s Paralipomena (1604), in a very significant passage. As mentioned, Kepler has already provided a description of the phenomena of spherical aberration (shown in diagrams including the one I first cited here), and forwarded the hyperbola as a figure that would solve this difficulty. Further, he has claimed that the crystalline humor of the human eye has a hyperbolic shape. Here Kepler describes how light, having proceded from each point of an object in a cone of rays (truly radiating in a sphere), intersects the eye’s lens at varying degrees of clarity. The cone that radiates directly along the axis of the lens is the most accurately refracted:
All the lines of the direct cone [a cone whose axis is the same as the axis of the cornea and crystalline] are approximately perpendicular to the crystalline, none of those of the oblique cones are, The direct cone is cut equally by the anterior surface of the crystalline; the oblique cones are are cut very unequally, because where the anterior surface of the crystalline is more inclined [aspherical], it cuts the oblique cone more deeply. The direct cone cuts the hyberbolic surface of the crystalline, or the boss, circularly and equally; the oblique cone cuts its unequally. All the rays of the direct cone are gathered together at one point in the retina, which is the chief thing in the process; the lines of the oblique cones cannot quite be gathered together, because of the causes previously mentioned here, as a result, the picture is more confused. The direct cone aims the middle ray at center of the retina; the oblique cones aim the rays to the side…(Paralipomena 174)
This passage has multiple points of importance, in part because I suspect that it is the orgin passage of Descartes’ enthusiasm for the hyperbola, but also, as I will show later, for a naturalized justification for hyperbolic vision, something which will play to Spinoza’s optical critique. But at this point it is just sufficient to register the citation as a reference point for Spinoza’s phrase. We have already pointed out that Spinoza may have Kepler’s aquaeous globe in mind for his intial diagram, so there is something distinctly Keplerian in Spinoza’s approach.
Another reference point for Spinoza’s phrase is James Gregory’s 1663 Optical Promota, a treatise written without the aid of Descartes’ Dioptrics, but which all the same proposed parabolic and hyperbolic solutions to refraction aberrations and proposed reflective mirror telescopes to avoid the problem altogether. This text we know Spinoza had in his personal library, and he seems to be reasoning from it in part. Gregory regularly uses both “pencils of rays” and “cones of rays” as modes of analysis.
As a point of reference for us, he offers these defintions to begin his work:
6. Parallel rays are those which are always equally distant each to the other amonst themselves.
7. Diverging rays are those which concur in a point when produced in both directions: those rays produced in the opposite direction to the motion from the ray-bearing cone – the apex of the cone is the point of concurrence of the rays.
8. Converging rays are those rays are those which concur in a point in the direction of the motion when produced in both directions; these rays are called a pencil, and the point of concurrence the apex of the pencil…
10. An image before the eye [i.e. a real image], arises from the apices of the light bearing cones from single radiating points of matter brought together in a single surface.
Pencils of parallel rays feature in many of the diagrams, within the understanding that rays proceed as cones. So seems to me that Spinoza is operating with both Kepler and Gregory in mind as he answers Jelles’ question.
“But they are considered to be so because the object is so far from us that the aperture of the telescope, in comparison with its distance, can be considered as no more than a point.”
Spinoza follows Gregory’s Fourth Postulate: “The rays coming from remote visible objects are considered parallel.”
“Moreover, it is certain that, in order to see an entire object, we need not only rays coming from a single point but also all the other rays that come from all the other points.”
Spinoza may be still addressing the nature of Jelles’ request for clarification. He follows the reasoning of Gregory’s Tenth defintion (above). Whether the rays be treated as parallel pencils, or cones does not make a strict difference to Spinoza’s point, though understanding that they are coming to the lense as cones does something to express their spherical nature (one must recall that Kepler asserted that light radiates as a sphere as it can, and even that Hooke proposed that it moves in waves; Spinoza’s attachment to the sphere may be in regards to this). It is the lens’ capacity to gather together these rays come from diverse points of the object, and not just rays parallel to its central axis, that Spinoza emphasizes. In other words, though considered no more than a point, it is a point that must gather rays from a variety of angles.
“And therefore it is also necessary that, on passing through the glass, they should come together in as many other foci.”
It should be noted that Spinoza is talking about glass lenses here, and not the eye’s lens. Spinoza has taken his ideal model of a spherical refraction from the first letter, and has applied it to actual lenses (there is no requirement to the index of refraction of the glass). As Spinoza envisions it, because a glass has to focus rays coming obliquely, the foci along those alternate axes are significant factors in clarity.
Seeing More, or Seeing Narrowly
“And although the eye is not so exactly constructed that all the rays coming from different points of an object come together in just so many foci at the back of the eye, yet it is certain that the figures that can bring this about are to be preferred above all others.”
This is the big sentence, the one that opens up the place from which Spinoza is coming from. What does Spinoza mean “the eye is not so exactly constructed”? How odd. Descartes’ comments on optics indeed are often made in the service of correcting far- and near-sightedness, so there is context for a notion of the “inexactness” of the eye, and for his own uses Descartes picks up on the notion that the eye is limited or flawed: …”in as much as Nature has not given us the means…”, “I still have to warn you as to the faults of the eye”. But this is not what Spinoza has in mind. What I believe Spinoza is thinking about is the hidden heritage behind a naturalizing justification of hyperbolic vision itself. This is not strictly an optical point, as we have come to understand optical theory, but an analogical point. And this distinction organizes itself around the failure that a hyperbolic lens to handle rays oblique to its axis, with clarity, and whether this failure is something to be concerned with.
Kepler's drawing the hyperbolic crystalline humor, 167
Kepler begins the justification. The passage continues on from the conclusion of the one cited above, which ended with an explanation of why the image of the eye is blurred at its borders,
All the rays of the direct cone are gathered together at one point in the retina, which is the chief thing in the process; the lines of the oblique cones cannot quite be gathered together, because of the causes previously mentioned here, as a result, the picture is more confused. The direct cone aims the middle ray at center of the retina; the oblique cones aim the rays to the side…
…so the sides of the retina use their measure of sense not for its own sake, but whatever they can do they carry over to the perfection of the direct vision. That is we see an object perfectly when at last we perceive it with all the surroundings of the hemisphere. On this account, oblique vision is least satisfying to the soul, but only invites one to turn the eyes thither so that they may be seen directly (174).
This is a striking passage in that we know the history of the hyperbolic lens, and Descartes’ fascination with it. Due to the hyperbolically shaped crystalline humor (as Kepler reasons it), the image at the border, projected at the edges of the retina, is said to be more confused due to the inability of the lens to focus oblique rays. This is what Spinoza has in mind when he says that the eye is not so exactly constructed. But there is more to this passage. Not only is the image more confused, but Kepler goes so far was to qualify this confused quality as an explanation for why the soul is dissatisfied with oblique vision. At the margins of blurred vision, according to Kepler, the sides of the retina do not “sense” for their own sake, but for the sake of central axis perfection, in effect serving the center. Kepler has provided the hyperbola as the solution for spherical aberration, but has also couched that shape within a larger context of human perception and the nature of what experience satisfies the soul or not.
This theme of the hyperbola’s justifcation through Nature continues. I will leap forward to Gregory’s Optica Promota, a writer who, as I have said, had no access to Descartes’ treatise but did read Kepler closely. At the end of a thorough and brilliant work on the value of hyperbolic and parabolic forms for use in telescopes, Gregory as well evokes Kepler’s notion of the weakness of the hyperbola, along with its naturalization. This is how he ends his Optica :
But against hyperbolic lenses, it is only objected that nothing will be able to be most clearly seen, except a visible point arising on the axis of the instrument. But this weakness [ infirmitas ] (if it would be worthwhile to call it that) is sufficiently manifested in the eye itself, though not to be impuning Nature, for whom nothing is in vain, but how much all things most appropriately she carries out [ peragit]. Nevertheless, withconicallenses and mirrors not granted, it shall be rather with spherical portions used in place of spheriods and paraboloids in catoptrics; as with hyperboloids in dioptrics, in which portions of spheres are less appropriate.
With these we go to the stars – His itur ad astra
Just as Kepler justifies hyperbolic vision by appeal to the eye’s own weakness, redeemed by the roles of the retina and the satisfactions of the soul, so here too Nature herself is the justification of central axis priority. This is a curious naturalization, given that so much of optics addresses the failings or the limitations of Nature. Such a self-contradiction deserves attention, especially with a focus upon the foundations of valuations that make one adjustment to Nature desired, and another not. But here I would like to continue the line of justifications of the hyperbola through the construction of the eye that Spinoza likely has in mind.
Descartes, if you recall from a passage cited above, also justifies the shape of the hyperbolic lens through appeal to the shape of the human eye. After he admits that the foci of rays that come obliquely to the axis of the hyperbola can only approximate a point of focus,
…for since the eye itself does not cause all the rays coming from diverse points to converge in exactly as many other diverse points, because of this the lenses would doubtless not be the best suited to render the vision quite distinct, and it is impossible in this matter to choose otherwise than approximately, because the precise shape of the eye cannot be known to us…
Descartes has not strictly forwarded Kepler’s claim that the crystalline humor has a hyperbolic shape, perhaps because his own anatomical investigations caused him to doubt the accuracy of this, but he maintains Kepler’s reasoning to some degree. While Descartes has long let go of any notion that spherical lenses may be preferred due to their omni-axial focus, he shrugs off the necessity for anything more than approximate foci along these oblique axes. The reason he provides for this is unclear. Either it is proposed that because the eye does not focus oblique rays, the benefits of any lens that does so would simply be lost – yet, if this were the reason, it would not result in the conclusion that such shapes are not best for precise vision, for they would be no worse than his hyperbola; or, he means to say that hyperbolic lenses are simply preferred because their weaknesses are natural weaknesses of the eye, with Nature not to be improved upon. This is emphasized in conclusion of the passage:
…Moreover we will always have to take care, when we thus place some body before our eyes, that we imitate Nature as much as possible, in all things that we see she has observed in constructing them; and that we lose none of the advantages that she has given us, unless it be to gain another more important one. – Seventh Discourse
There is additional evidence for the naturalized justification of the hyperbolic “weakness” (notice the question of valuation in the phrase “important one”). Firstly, when he proposes his notion that the telescope is simply an extension of the eye, Descartes imagines that all the refraction would occur in one lens, thus, “…there will be no more refraction at the entrance of that eye” (120). In this analogical conception of the extended length of the eye Descartes imagines his hyperbola as supplimenting and even supplanting the eye’s refractions. Secondly, when Descartes addresses the possibility that seeing at the borders may be an improvement of vision, he denies this, by virtue of how Nature has endowed our sight. Seeing more is not seeing better.
There is only one other condition which is desirable on the part of the exterior organs, which is that they cause us to perceive as many objects as possible at the same time. And it is to be noted that this condition is not in any way requisite for the improvement for seeing better, but only for the convenience of seeing more; and it should be noted that it is impossible to see more than one object distinctly at the same time, so that this convenience, of seeing many others confusedly, at the same time, is principally useful only in order to ascertain toward what direction we must subsequently turn our eyes in order to look at the one among them which we will wish to consider better. And for this, Nature has so provided that it is impossible for art to add anything to it. – Seventh Discourse
What Kepler has stated as simply the role of the borders of the retina to serve the perfection of the center, Descartes has made an occasion to assert the virtue of the human Will (a cornerstone of his metaphysics, and a cornerstone which Spinoza rejects, which makes the two philosophers quite opposed in their philosophy of ideal perception). For Kepler the edges serve the center, as is shown in the satisfactions of the soul. For Descartes the width of blurred vision becomes only a field upon which the Will manifests itself in making judgements of good and bad. Not only is the hyperbola’s condensed vision naturalized, it is key to how the Individual Will functions. Nature herself has foreclosed the possibility of improving the capacity to see more in a better way. Spinoza’s philsophy of mind’s-eye perception is based on the principle that one sees clearly as one sees more – more at once. (It is interesting that immediately following this assertion Descartes uses the examples of sailors and hunters who are able to improve on Nature’s provisions, but only in the direction of further sharpening their eyes to a more narrow focus. Descartes valuation is both implicit and naturalized.)
It suffices to say that in this long digression what Spinoza means by “the eye is not so exactly constructed” is that the non-spherical shapes of the eye (and our tendencies of vision that come from it) provides a focus that is not optimal. Spinoza here likely conflates his metaphysics and his optics, as perhaps does Descartes. His critique, right down to the root of centralized conceptions of a naturalization of hyperbolic vision, opens to Post-modern and Post-structuralist critiques of marginalization and philosophies of Presence, locating his objection not in the glorification of the human eye, but in the understanding of its limitations. Descartes’ philosophy of “clear and distinct” and its parasitic conceptions of Human Will are cut at in a very essential way. But the question remains, is there an optical advantage to spherical lenses, as they exhibit the flexibility of omni-axial foci? The obvious objection to hyperbolics is that they proved impossible to grind, either by hand, or in the kinds of automated machines that Descartes proposed. As a practiced lens-grinder Spinoza better than most would surely know this. But aside from this serious detraction Spinoza finds one more, and it is one that Kepler, Descartes and Gregory all admit, as they justify it not in optical terms, but in terms of naturalized conceptions of the eye and perception. Perhaps we can assume that Spinoza, out of his love for the sphere, coupled with the Keplerian sense of the spherical radiation of light, the practical considerations of lens grinding, and a epistemological conception of Comprensive Vision, saw in the admitted weakness of the hyperbola (and the eye) something that outweighed the moderate weakness of spherical aberration. In a sense, Spinoza may have seen spherical aberration in terms of his acceptance that almost all of our ideas are Inadequate Ideas. [More of this line of thought written about here: A Diversity of Sight: Descartes vs. Spinoza ]
“Now since a definite segment of a circle can bring it about that all the rays coming from one point are (using the language of Mechanics) brought together at another point on its diameter, it will also bring together all the other rays which come from other points of the object, at so many other points.”
A modified version of the letter 39 diagram, showing what Spinoza believed to be the failings of the hyperbola
Spinoza repeats his insistence upon the virtues of spherical lenses. As the modified diagram here shows, the capacity to refract rays along an infinity of axes is in Spinoza’s mind an ideal which hyperbolic forms cannot achieve. He does not accept the notion that an assumed narrow focus of human vision, nor the supposed shape of the crystalline humor (Kepler) determines that “hyperbolic abberation” is negligable to what should be most esteemed. This insistance upon the importance of the sphere calls to mind James Gregory’s description of refraction on sphere of the “densest medium” presented in his first proposition of the Optica:
If truly, everything is examined carefully, then it will seem – on account of the aforementioned reasons -that all the rays, either parallel or non-parallel, which are incident on the circular surface of the densest medium for refraction, are concurrent in the centre of the circle. Now we ask: how does this come about? The answer is: – Well, however a line is drawn incident on the circle, (provided they are co-planar) an axis can be drawn parallel to it and without doubt the circle can be considered a kind of ellipse so that any diameter can be called the axis, from which it appears that the special line sought is the axis of a conic section. – Optica Promota
figures 1 and 2 from the Optima Promota
One feels that there seems something of this ideal conception of the densest medium floating behind Spinoza’s conception of the spherical lens. Material glass somehow manifests for Spinoza, in its particularities of modal expression, these geometric powers of unified focus, and peripheral focus is a part of what Spinoza conceives of as ideal clarity.
“the language of mechanics”
But there is another very important clue in this section of the letter: the phrase “using the language of Mechanics”); for now I believe we get direct reference to Johannes Hudde’s optical treatise “Specilla circularia” (1655), an essential text for understanding Spinoza’s approach to spherical aberration.
Rienk Vermij and Eisso Atzema provided a most valuable, but perhaps sometimes overlooked insight into the 17th century reaction to Descartes resolution to spherical aberration in their article “Specilla circularia: an Unknown Work by Johannes Hudde”. They present Hudde’s small tract (it is not quite nine typed journal pages) which offers a mathematical treatment of the problem of spherical aberration. Interestingly, as it was published anonymously, Hudde’s teacher at Leiden, Van Schooten, actually thought that the work belonged to his star student Christiaan Huygens. Presumably this was because of the closeness it bore to Huygens’ 1653 calculations of aberration, and he wrote him to say as much, and he likely sent him a copy of it as Christiaan requested. Hudde’s approach is a kind of applied mathematics to problems he considered to be pragmatic mechanical issues. In a sense he simply took spherical aberration to be a fact of life when using lenses, and thought it best to precisely measure the phenomena so as to work with it effectively. The hyperbolic quest was likely in his mind a kind of abstract unicorn chasing. He wanted a mechanical solution which he could treat mathematically, hence his ultimate distinction between a “mathematical point” of focus and a “mechanical point”. As Vermij and Atzema write describing this distinction and its use in analysis:
At the basis of Hudde’s solution to the problem is his distinction between mathematical exactness and mechanical exactness. Whereas the first is exactness according the laws of mathematics, the second is exactness as far as can be verified by practical means. After having made this distinction, Hudde claims that parallel incident rays that are refracted in a sphere unite into a mechanically exact point (“puntum mechanicum”). In order to substantiate his claim Huddethen proceeds to the explicit determination of the position of a number of rays after refraction.
Restricting his investigation to the plane, Huddeconsiderstherefraction of seven parallel rays by explicitly computingthepoint of intersection of these rays with the diameter of the circle parallel to the incident rays for given indices of refraction. The closer these rays get to the diameter, the closer these points get to one another until they finally merge into one point. Today, we would call this point the focal point of the circle; Hudde does not use this term.
Returning to spheres, Hudde erects a plane perpendicular to the diameter introduced above and considers the disc illuminated by the rays close to this diameter. He refers to this disc as the “focal plane”. On the basis of the same rays he used earlier, Hudde concludes that the radius of the focal plane is very small compared to the distance of the rays to the diameter. Therefore this disc could be considered as one, mechanically exact point. In other words, parallel rays refracted in a sphere unite into one point (111-112).
From this description one can immediately see a conceptual influence upon Spinoza’s initial diagram of spherical foci, and far from it being the case that Spinoza knew nothing about spherical aberration and the Law of refraction, instead, it would seem that he was working within Hudde’s understanding of a point of focus as “mechanical”. We know that Spinoza had read and reasoned with Hudde’s tract, as he writes to Hudde about its calculations, and proposes his own argument for the superiority of the convex-plano lens. And the reference to “the language of mechanics” seems surely derived straight from Hudde’s thinking. What these considerations suggest is that Spinoza’s objection to the hyperbola to some degree came from his agreement with Hudde that spherical aberration was not a profound problem. As it turns out, given the diameters of telescope apertures that were being used, this was in fact generally correct. Spinoza joined Hudde in thinking that the approximation of the point of focus was the working point of mechanical operations, and the aim of shrinking it down to a mathematical exactness was not worth pursuing (perhaps with some homology in thought to Descartes’ own dismissal of the approximations of focus of rays oblique to the axis of the hyperbola).
F. J. Dijksterhuis summarizes the import of Hudde’s tract, in the context of Descartes’ findings in this way:
The main goal of Specilla circularia was to demonstrate that there was no point in striving after the manufacture of Descartes’ asphericallenses. In practice one legitimately makes do with spherical lenses, because spherical aberrations are sufficiently small. (Lenses and Waves. Diss. 72)
Spinoza has a connection to the other main attempt to resolve the difficulty of aberration from focus using only spherical lenses, that which was conducted by Christiaan Huygens. Spinoza in the summer of 1665 seemed to have visited Huygens’ nearby estate several times, just as Huygens was working on developing a theory of spherical aberration and devising a strategy for counteracting it which did not include hyperbolas. In that summer as Spinoza got to know Huygens, he was busy calculating the the precise measure of the phenomena. In 1653 he had already made calculations on the effects in a convex-plano lens, an effort he now renewed under a new idea: that the combination of defects in glasses may cancel them out, as he wrote:
Until this day it is believed that spherical surfaces are…less apt for this use [of making telescopes]. Nobody has suspected that the defects of convex lenses can be corrected by means of concave lenses. (OC13-1, 318-319).
What followed was a mathematical finding which not only gave Huygens the least aberrant proportions of a convex-plano lens, but also the confirmation of its proper orientation. In addition he found the same for convex-convex lenses. In August of that summer Huygens wrote in celebration:
In the optimal lens the radius of the convex objective side is to the radius of the convex interior side as 1 to 6. EUPHKA. 6 Aug. 1665.
During this time the secretary of the Royal Society was writing Spinoza, trying to get updates on the much anticipated work of Spinoza’s illustrious neighbor (he was about to become the founding Secretary for the Académie Royale des Sciences for Louis XIV. Spinoza writes to Oldenburg:
When I asked Huygens about his Dioptricsandabout another treatise dealing with Parhelia he replied that he was still seeking the answer to a problem in Dioptrics, and that soon as he found the solution he would set that book to print together with his treatise on Parhelia. However for my part I believe he is more concerned withhisjourneytoto France (he is getting ready to to live in France as soon as his father has returned) than with anything else. The problem which he says he is trying to solve in the Dioptrics is as follows: It is possible to arrange the lenses in telescopes in such a way that the deficiency in the one will correct the deficiency of the other and thus bring it about that all parallel rays passing through the objective rays will reach the eye as if they converged on a mathematical point. As yet this seems to me impossible. Further, throughout his Dioptrics, as I have both seen and gathered from him (unless I am mistaken), he treats only spherical figures.
This letter is dated October 7, 1665, two months after Huygens had scribed his Eureka optimalization of the lens shape. Significantly, Huygen found that lenses of this optimal shape actually were not the best for his project of combining lens weaknesses (302-303), rather lenses with greater “weaknesses” were better combined. Several facts can be gleaned from Spinoza’s letter, and perhaps a few others guessed at. Spinoza had both looked at and discussed with Huygens his contemporary work. So the sometimes guarded Huygens was not shy about the details of his project with Spinoza. It may well have been Huygens’ treatment of the convex-plano lens here that caused Spinoza to write to Hudde less than a year later with his own calculations in argument for the superiority of the convex-plano lens, using Hudde’s own Specilla as a model. (Hudde seemed quite interested in Spinoza’s proofs of the unity of God, and the correspondence seems to have begun as early as late 1665.) What cannot be lost is that with a joint awareness of both Hudde’s and Huygens’ attempts to resolve spherical aberration, Spinoza was in a very tight loop of contemporary optical solutions to the problem. Not only is his scientific comprehension trusted by both Huygens and Oldenburg at this point, but perhaps also by Hudde.
What is striking though is Spinoza’s pessimism toward Huygens’ project. Given Spinoza’s optical embrace of spherical lenses (in the letters 39 and 40 we are studying), what would lead Spinoza to such a view he qualifies as “As yet this seems to me impossible.” Is this due to a familiarity with Huygens’ mathematics, and thus comes from his own notable objections? Has Huygens actually shared the frustrations of his experiments? Or is he doubtful because Spinoza has only a vague notion of what Huygens is doing? He seems to deny the very possibility of achieving a mathematical point of focus, though his mind remains tentatively open. His added on thought, Further, throughout his Dioptrics, as I have both seen and gathered from him (unless I am mistaken), he treats only spherical figures” , is also curious. He seems privy to the central idea that Huygens is using spherical lenses to achieve this – what other figure would it be? – but it is possible that Spinoza here qualifies his doubt as a general doubt about sphericals which he only believes Huygens is using in his calculations, showing only a cursory knowledge. Perhaps it is only an addendum of information for Oldenburg.
Huygens indeed would soon find such a solution to aberration writing,
“With concave and convex spherical lenses, to make telescopes that are better than the one made according to what we know now, and that emulate the perfection of those that are made withellipticor hyperbolic lenses” (OC13, 318-319).
I am unsure if he had come to this solution before he left for Paris in mid 1666, or if he would even have shared this discovery with Spinoza, but he also came to the same pessimistic conclusion as Spinoza held, at least for Keplerian telescopes, for his design only worked for those of the Gallelian designs which had fairly low powers of magnification. By combining convex lenses the aberration was only increased. This would be the case until February of 1669, when Huygens finally came up with right combinations of lenses.
“For from any point on an object a line can be drawn passing through the center of a circle, although for that purpose the aperture of the telescope must be made much smaller that it would otherwise be made if there were no need of more than one focus, as you may easily see.”
Again Spinoza returns to his initial point, now putting it in context of real telescopes. Such telescopes required the stopping down of the aperture, something that reduced the impact of spherical aberration; but restricting the aperture reduced the amount of light entering the tube, hence making the image less distinct. I am unsure what Spinoza refers to in “as you may easily see”, for neither of his diagrams seem to distinctly address this aspect. Perhaps Spinoza has in mind two diagrams of the eye that Descartes provides, contrasting the angles of rays entering the eye with a narrow and a wide pupil aperture. Was this a diagram which Jelles had mentioned in his response (below, left)?
Descartes' diagram 17 of the eye, Sixth Discourse
“What I here say of the circle cannot be said of the ellipse or the hyperbola, and far less of other more complex figures, since from one single point of the object only one line can be drawn passing through both the foci. This what I intended to say in my first letter regarding this matter.”
I am unsure what Spinoza means by “both the foci”, but it appears that he asserts again that because there is only one axis of either hyperbolics or ellipse available to any rays of light arriving for refraction, and that spherical lenses, again, have the advantage that rays come from any particular point of an object then can be focused to a single “mechanical point” along an available axis. Under Spinoza’s conception, this is an advantage that cannot be ignored.
Below I post Spinoza’s last diagram to which he refers with his final remarks. I place it beside Descartes diagram to which it most likely refers. This may be the most telling aspect of Spinoza’s letter, for we have to identify just what Spinoza is making clear as distinct from what Descartes was asserting.
Descartes’ diagram is a variation of as similar diagram which illustrated his prototype idea of forming a single lens made of an objective lens and a tube of water which was imagined to be placed directly upon the eye, making a long prosthetic lens, physically extending the eye. In this version he proposes that because such a watery tube is difficult to use, the tube may be filled with one large glass lens, with surfaces A and B acting as the anterior and posterior surfaces. And yet again acknowledging that the making of such a lens is unlikely, the same diagram is meant to serve as a model of an elementary telescope:
…because there would again be some inconvenience…we will be able to leave the whole inside of this tube empty, and merely place, at its two ends, two lenses which have the same effect as I have just said that the two surfaces GHI and KLMshouldcause. And on this alone is founded the entire invention of these telescopes composed of two lenses placed in the two ends of the tube, which gave me occasion to write this Treatise. – Eighth Discourse
Spinoza’s diagram from Letter 40
Descartes diagram 30, Seventh Discourse
“From the attached diagram you will be able to see the proof that the angle formed at the surface of the eye by rays coming from different points becomes greater or less according to the difference of the foci is greater or less.”
There are several ways to look at Spinoza’s diagram, but it is best to take note of where it diverges from Descartes’ (for Jelles would have had the latter to compare it to). The virtual image of the arrow appearing to be much closer to the eye is eliminated, presumably because the appearance of magnification is not in Spinoza’s point. The refraction of the centerpoint of the arrow remains, and is put in relation to refractions of rays coming from the extreme ends of the arrow. The refractions within the eye have been completely collapsed into an odd, artfully drawn eye, (the touch of lid and lashes actually seem to speak to Colerus’ claim that Spinoza was quite a draftsman, drawing life-like portraits of himself and visitors). Behind this collapse of the eye perhaps we could conclude either a lack of effort to portray his version of refractions into the mechanisms of the eye, or even a failure of understanding, but since this is just a letter to a friend, it probably marks Spinoza’s urge just to get a single optical point of across, and he took more pleasure in drawing an eye than he did tracing out his lines of focus. An additional piece of curiousness, which may be a sign of a very casual approach is that the last arrow in the succession, which to my eye appears to be one supposed to be in the imagination of the mind, Spinoza fails to properly reverse again so that it faces the same direction as the “real” one, although perhaps this is an indication that Spinoza thought of the image as somehow arrived within the nervous system at a point, on its way to be inverted by the imagination (though in the Ethics he scoffs at Descartes’ pituitary concept of projective perception). There is of course the possiblity that I am misreading the diagram, and the the final arrow somehow represents the image as it lies on the retina at the back of the eye. At any rate, it is a confusing addition and one wonders if it is just a part of Spinoza’s musings.
As best I can read, below is an altered version of the diagram designed to emphasize the differences between Descartes’ drawing the Spinoza’s:
The first thing to be addressed, which is not labeled here, is what C is. There is the possibility that it is a crude approximation of the crystalline humor, acknowledged as a refractive surface. If so, the upper arc of the eye and the figure C would form some kind of compound refractive mechanism approximate to what Descartes shows in his eye, here compressed and only signified. But I strongly suspect that C is the pupil of the eye, as the aperture of the telescope has been recently has been referred to in terms of its effect on the requirements of refraction, and in Descartes text there is a definite relationship between the telescope aperture and the pupil of the eye (it has also been proposed to me that C is the eyepiece of the telescope).
The primary difference though is the additional emphasis on the cones of rays that come from either end of the object to be seen (here shaded light blue and magenta). This really seems the entire point of Spinoza’s assertion, that spherical lenses are needed for the non-aberrant focus of oblique cones for a object to be seen clearly. In addition to this, the angle that these rays make at the surface of the eye (indicated) points to Spinoza’s original objection to Descartes incomplete description of what is the most significant factor the construction of a telescope.
What remains is to fully assess this conception of refraction that Spinoza holds. While it is made in the context of historic discussions of the blurred nature of the borders of an image’s perception, it is also true that such an oblique focusing must occur, however slightly, at any point exactly off from the center axis of a hyperbolic lens. It may well be that Spinoza is balancing this aberration of focus in hyperbolic lenses with the found-to-be overstated aberration of spherical focus. Given his comprehensive conception of clear mental vision -seeing more is seeing better – and its attendant critique of the Cartesian Will, given his love for the sphere, perhaps aided by a spherical conception of the propagation light come from Kepler, with Spinoza being much sensitized to the absolute impracticality of ground hyperbolic glasses through his own experiences of glass grinding, it may have been quite natural for Spinoza to hold this optical opinion…though it is beyond my understanding to say definitively so.
“So, after sending you my cordial greetings, it remains only for me to say that I am, etc.”
This is a curious ending for such a wonderful letter. Perhaps we can assume that once again the editors of his Opera suppressed important personal details.
These English selections and links to the Latin text: here
Alan Gabbey, Descartes, James Gregory, Kepler, Philosophy, Spinoza, Spinoza's Foci Descartes, Dioptrics, Epistemology, Jelles, Johannes Hevelius, Johannes Hudde, Kepler, Micrographia, Optica Promota, Optical letters, Optics, Paralipomena to Witelo, Refraction, Robert Hooke, Spherical Aberration, Spinoza, Van Leeuwenhoek, Vossius
Descartes’ Dioptrics 7th Discourse and Spinoza’s Letters 39 and 40
1 Comment Posted by Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu on July 14, 2008
[For a fuller treatment of the topic read “Deciphering Spinoza’s Optical Letters”]
Telescopes and Turning a Flea into a Elephant
To offer context to the question that Jelles poses in a letter we have lost, regarding the size of objects on the retina, I post here the likely text that Jelles has in mind, and to which Spinoza is responding. Spinoza writes in answer:
I have looked at and read over what you noted regarding the Dioptica of Descartes. On the question as to why the images at the back of the eye become larger or smaller, he takes account of no other cause than the crossing of the rays proceeding from the different points of the object, according as they begin to cross one another nearer to or further from to eye, and so he does not consider the size of the angle which the rays make when they cross one another at the surface of the eye. Although this last cause would be principle (sit praecipua ) to be noted in telescopes, nonetheless, he seems deliberately to have passed over it in silence, because, I imagine, he knew of no other means of gathering rays proceeding in parallel from different points onto as many other points, and therefore he could not determine this angle mathematically.
Perhaps he was silent so as not to give any preference to the circle above other figures which he introduced; for there is not doubt that in this matter the circle surpasses all other figures that can be discovered (letter 39)
It is the 7th discourse that Spinoza and Jelles are discussing. Here is a portion of the relevant passage:
At this point in the explanation Descartes seems to have touched on the factor of the “the size of the angle which the rays make when they cross one another at the surface of the eye” for this would seem implicit in a discussion of the refraction of rays. But Spinoza seems to have focused on what follows, which leaves off any concern for this factor:
Using this diagram, Descartes continues:
“Thus it is evident that the image RST would be greater than it is, if the object VXY were nearer to the place K, where the rays VKR and YKT intersect, or rather to the surface BCD, which is properly speaking the place where they begin to intersect, you will see below; or, if we were able to arrange it so that the body of the eye were longer, in such a way that there were more distance than there is from its surface BCD, which causes the rays to intersect, to the back of the eye RST; or finally, if the refraction did not curve them so much inward toward the middle point S, but rather, if it were possible, outward. And whatever we conceive besides these three things, there is nothing which can make this image larger.”
Here, Descartes has claimed to total all possible means of enlarging an image. He indeed has talk about the surface of the lens (BCD), but perhaps in keeping to Spinoza point, has not talked about the “size of the angle” that the rays make at the surface of a lens. (An issue Spinoza would like to make regarding the powers and functions of a telescope, it would seem.)
Descartes continues, detailing the kinds of improvements of magnfication that are possible:
“Even the last of these [the refraction curving outward from point S] is scarcely to be considered at all, because by means of it we can augment the image no more than a little bit, Read more of this post
Descartes, Philosophy, Spinoza, Spinoza's Foci Descartes, Dioptrics, La Diotrique, Letter 39, Letter 40, Magnification, microscope, Olscamp, Optics, Seventh Discourse, Spinoza, Telescope
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Tag Archives: Shaw Brothers
Leave a comment Posted by Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu on December 28, 2009
The Kung fu, Wuxia and Opera in Avatar
I was listening to a famous opera actress speak of her transition to film and her telling of how much control she had to bring her face and gestures under called to mind a connection between the operatic and Cameron’s film Avatar. As I argued in my post Two Vectors of Avatar’s Cinematic Achievement: Affect and Space Interface, Avatar exhibited a new relationship between actorly expression and synthetic environment, facilitated by new, data-dense facial motion capture. The face became the plane of an artifice’s reality, taking advantage the power of the Hollywood close-up. The entire virtual world is in a sense sewn to the actor’s plane through the directorial affective synthesis of event, movement and volume. What occurrs is that cinema indeed went through a similar transformation in the genre of Hong Kong “kung fu” Action Film, which became an aesthetic expression of Peking Opera (a highly stylized, acrobatic and often melo-dramatic or mythological artform). In Kung Fu films of the 70s and 80s, the extreme physicality of Peking formal expression was married to the fantasy tradition of “chivalrous knight” wuxia literature from early in the century (the Shaw Brothers among others), then splitting into more gritty conflict themes, or the spatial expansions of famed “wire-fu”. Throughout strong moral and fantasy elements struggled in an invented space, imbued with spiritual messaging and social criticism. In a feature now almost lost to action cinema, one saw the character of a martial arts figure expressed in his or her fight style or capabilities, in world imbued with moral positioning.
Many see all sorts of ethnic or sociological loom-work in Cameron’s Avatar, and perhaps this is much to be analyzed there, but in many ways it is an unfurling of the mythological, wuxia elements found in 70s and 80s that found their telling of personal development and realization from early films as diverse as the immortal death scene gangster classic The Boxer from Shantung to mytho-poetic gender questioning in The Fist of the White Lotus all the way to the CGI Tsui Hark remake of his own wire-fu fantasy icon, The Legend of Zu (to which I had already compared the film, among many others: Avatar: The Density of Being ).These are a vast array of an cinematic ouvre, and make perhaps the very best interpretative touchstone for both the seemingly simple-minded moral spritualism (much criticized), and the acute physical actor and environmental acrobatics. What seems likely is that while the wuxia and Peking purities began to lose much of their character force as the wire-fu transformations of space and human expression became more baroque and absurd, and budgets became bigger, the genuine transformation of Peking Opera’s masked formalism though the Hollywood close-up that Hong Kong action brought about, the way that it was able to stitch subjectivity back into the historically momentous and mythological scene and enable a person to conceive of the moral force of every angle and posture of their physical frame, has been reborn in Cameron’s technological re-invention of 3D and Capture. It can be argued that Hong Kong wire-fu with its elaborate in-space camera swing was the first 3D directorial interface of the kind that Cameron synthetically achieved in Avatar. In Cameron’s allegory, the simple, mythological and personal are woven through, but this time the acrobatics of the performer are embodied in the almost muscular transformations of space itself. Environment becomes the mutual expression of anatomy and technology. It is no longer spiritual and physical geniuses transcending the mundane world, but rather a realization that a world itself is intimately linked to both anatomy and character. What remains is of course the acolyte, studying to find the rudiments of graceful and powerful exposition, the same story of the warrior seeking to perfect or unlock a secret power, but here the metamorphosis is that of trying to enter into and fit both an anatomy and a world, a world full of capabilities beyond our common reconnoiter. A question of conscience.
Avatar, Philosophy Avatar, Cameron, cinema, Hong Kong, kung fu, Peking Opera, Shaw Brothers, The Boxer From Shantung, The Fist of the White Lotus, The Legend of Zu, Tsui Hark, wuxia
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Cal Petersen signs three-year deal; two-way in 19-20, one-way in 20-21, 21-22
Matt Millar joins Kings organization as Reign goaltending development coach
Amadio, Roy, Brickley sign for two years; Rempal accepts one-year qualifying offer
Audio: LAKI joins All the Kings Men Podcast
Jon Rosen October 1, 2015 0 Comments
Six days, Insiders. Six.
It’s a big day for All the Kings Men Podcast. Our 2015-16 premiere podcast is up, and in these 51 and a half minutes, Jesse Cohen, The Royal Half, Pat Donahue and I identify the remaining training camp battles, look ahead to Frozen Fury and important season dates in the year to come, all while peppering in the usual amount of irreverence and Simpsons and Mr. Show references that many easily tire of. Plus, we all have really cool new recording equipment (thanks, Kings!), so the sound is top-notch.
All The Kings Men PodcastaudioPodcastPodcasts
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© 2018 LA Kings Insider
#9 | 6′ 2″ | 195 lb | Age: 21
Birthplace: Kramfors, SWE
Position: LW
Handedness: Left
Kempe was selected by the Kings in the first round (29th overall) in the 2014 NHL Draft.
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#19 | 6′ | 185 lb | Age: 23
Birthplace: Eden, NY, USA
Iafallo was signed by the Kings as an unrestricted free agent on April 18, 2017.
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#11 | 6′ 3″ | 224 lb | Age: 29
Birthplace: Jesenice, SVN
As the 11th overall pick in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft, Kopitar became the first Slovenian to play in the NHL. Kopitar has spent his entire NHL career with the Kings, and following the 2015–16 season, was named the Kings’ captain. Noted for both his offensive and defensive play, Kopitar was awarded the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the best defensive forward in the NHL in 2016.
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Born: December 8, 1989
Birthplace: London, ON, CAN
Bio: Doughty is a Canadian defenceman who was selected second overall by the Kings in the 2008 Draft. Doughty made his NHL debut in 2008 as an 18-year-old and was named to the All-Rookie Team. He is a two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Kings, a two-time Olympic gold medallist with the Canadian national team, and a Norris Trophy finalist.
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Born: January 1, 1985
Carter began his hockey career playing in the Ontario Hockey League in Canada before joining the AHL and playing for the Philadelphia Flyers. He was then traded to the Colombus Blue jackets before joining the LA Kings in 2012, where he has since won two Stanley Cups with the Kings.
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Birthplace: Milford, CT, USA
Bio: Quick is the current goaltender for the LA Kings and was selected by Los Angeles at the 2005 NHL Entry Draft. Previously, Quick was a silver medalist with USA at the 2010 Winter Olympics. He’s won two Stanley Cup championships with the Kings, along with being the most recent goaltender to be awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs.
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The Story of Stuff: Conscious consumerism or anticapitalist propaganda?
Julie Schwietert
Millions of people have watched “The Story of Stuff.” But not everyone agrees that it’s a perfect primer on conscious consumerism.
Photo: Yoshimai
Maybe you’re one of the millions of people who’s watched “The Story of Stuff.”
If you’re not, then here’s the quick overview: “The Story of Stuff” is a video made by Annie Leonard, an environmental activist and former Greenpeace employee who is deeply concerned about mass consumer culture and its effects on the environment.
Leonard put the video online in late 2007 and it became what the New York Times recently called “a sleeper hit.” Though it’s free online (both on The Story of Stuff website and on YouTube), thousands of churches and schools have ordered their own copies so they can teach their members about the ways our purchases ultimately impact the world we live in.
“The Story of Stuff” has been praised because it’s simple without being insulting, informative without being dry and overly didactic. It conveys a message without being painfully preachy. And it’s stimulated conversation online and off, encouraging people to share ideas about how they can take Leonard’s message and make it real in their own lives:
But not everyone is as enthusiastic about “The Story of Stuff.” One parent in the United States, annoyed that his child had been exposed to the video at school, argued that “The Story of Stuff” was just anticapitalist propaganda. In his complaint to the local school board, he griped, “There was not one positive thing about capitalism in the whole thing.”
The school board agreed, ruling that showing the video violated school policies.
And this guy’s by no means an anomaly.
A quick scan of the comment thread on “The Story of Stuff’s” YouTube account shows that plenty of folks have confused Leonard’s message of conscious consumerism with communism.
“Would someone tell this stupid commie #*&$% about economies of scale.” wrote one commenter.
Another: “Jesus enviros and their lackiers [sic] are troglodytes.”
That’s good for a laugh, maybe, but it’s too bad that some viewers (we’ll assume they did watch the video, right?) have blown “The Story of Stuff” out of proportion and find its call to be more conscious about our purchasing patterns a threat to capitalism.
This Australian company gives employees 12 weeks of ‘life leave’ every year
Thousands of fireflies will light up the Great Smoky Mountains next month
This Texas movie theater is dog-friendly and provides unlimited wine
London’s proposed ‘Tulip’ building just got the axe
Texas is having its biggest bluebonnet bloom in a decade
Air Force issues strict warning to people planning to storm Area 51
The largest flower park in the world has seven million bulbs in bloom right now
Immerse yourself in Van Gogh’s Starry Night at this Paris exhibit
Anonymous person pays for 70 homeless people to stay in hotel rooms to escape the frigid Chicago weather
Insta-famous ‘Russia’s Maldives’ is a dump for nearby coal plant waste
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HomeNewsMotorsportSpain
Movistar Plus claims IndyCar rights
Spanish telco Telefónica’s Movistar Plus platform has announced the acquisition of exclusive rights in the country to US motor-racing series IndyCar.
The deal covers the 2019 season, which commences with the Grand Prix of St Petersburg on March 10, and includes all 17 rounds. It comes after streaming platform DAZN initially announced it had acquired the rights in January.
IndyCar will have increased interest in Spain as two-time Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso prepares for his second tilt at the showpiece Indianapolis 500 race.
Alonso, who left F1 at the end of the 2018 season, is aiming to secure the final piece of motorsport’s fabled ‘Triple Crown’, having already won Formula One’s Monaco Grand Prix and World Endurance Championship event the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The 2019 Indy 500 takes place on May 26.
Movistar Plus
Telefónica (Spain)
LaLigaSports backs Spanish Karting Championship
Movistar Plus extends F1 rights deal
Movistar Plus, the pay-television platform of Spanish telco Telefónica, has renewed rights in the country for the Formula One motor-racing world championship, according to news service El Español.
Movistar Plus picks up Serie A, Ligue 1 rights
Spanish telco Telefónica will this week assume full control of Italian Serie A and French Ligue 1 rights in the country.
RTVE retains domestic rights to Spain’s Copa del Rey final
Spanish public-service broadcaster RTVE has retained domestic rights to the final of club football competition the Copa del Rey
SIS adds Spanish horse racing to rights portfolio in three-year deal
SIS, a provider of end-to-end products and services to the betting and broadcast industries, has signed a three-year deal with Asociación de Hipodromos Españoles to become the exclusive distributor of l…
Women’s motorsport series goes for ‘reach over reward’ in inaugural season
W Series, the all-female motorsport competition, is prioritising exposure over revenue in its media-rights strategy for the series’ inaugural year, it has told SportBusiness Media, although it would be difficult for the series to adopt any other approach, according to industry experts.
Speedway GP maintains UK income despite lack of competition in BT renewal
The value of FIM Speedway World Championship rights in the UK held up in a new three-year deal, from 2019 to 2021, despite incumbent rights-holder BT Sport facing no serious competition.
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Federal Advocacy Priorities of Associations Representing State and Local Government Officials in Washington, DC
This article demonstrates the federal policy priorities of the National Governors Association, National Conference of State Legislatures, National League of Cities, National Association of Counties, and U.S. Conference of Mayors. The most common priority is investment in infrastructure, followed by policy related to the economy, including workforce development and addressing poverty, as well as public safety. Below are lists that include the federal policy priorities for the groups listed above.
National Governors Association – NGA Policy Positions
The National Governor’s Association does not have a condensed lobbying agenda anywhere on their website. They have numerous policy positions which are not ranked in any order of importance. There are policy positions under each of the following categories:
Transportation and infrastructure
K-12 education reform
Job training and higher education
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families
Homeland security, emergency management, and public safety
Domestic energy
NGA has designated legislative directors for Homeland Security & Public Safety; Education & Workforce; Natural Resources; Economic Development & Commerce Committee; and Health & Human Services.
NCSL opposes unfunded federal mandates and unwarranted federal pre-emption of state authority, and seeks to provide state legislatures the flexibility they need to innovate and be responsive to the unique needs of the residents of each state. They adopt policy directives and resolutions at their Capitol Forums and Legislative Summits that guide lobbying efforts.
Most recently adopted Policy Directives and Resolutions from December 2017:
Increased state representation on the federal communications commission broadband deployment advisory committee
Child welfare and family services: includes several more specific directives
Nutrition programs and assistance: includes several specific directives, most related to SNAP
Public health: numerous and varied directives
A more extensive list of Policy Directives and Resolutions adopted at the 2016 legislative summit can be found here.
National League of Cities – Federal Action Agenda
Expand technical assistance programs within the Department of Justice that could assist hundreds of cities and towns in developing evidenced-based community policing programs that build trust, improve community relations, and reduce racial tensions and crime rates;
Provide sufficient funding to support coordination and cooperation between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies; and
Take action to reduce the epidemic of gun violence that plagues our nation.
Act as a champion for tax-exempt municipal bonds, the primary financing mechanism for state and local infrastructure projects. Any policy to alter the tax-exempt status of these bonds will cost local governments billions of dollars and prevent many projects from going forward;
Support adequate and reliable long-term funding for infrastructure reflecting local needs and priorities;
Support a vibrant web of connected transportation options — from transit and air to railways, roads, and waterways — as a means to reduce congestion, protect the environment, and stimulate economic development; and
Encourage and promote deployment of broadband networks in a competitive and technologically neutral manner, while preserving local authority to take action to ensure that residents have access to high-speed Internet and other communications services.
Increase federal funding for workforce development and training programs that provide basic skills training and opportunities to upgrade skills to adjust to changing job market demands;
Leverage federal resources to support universal pre-K, afterschool programs and other initiatives that ensure that all children and youth have an opportunity to graduate from high school prepared for post-secondary education or employment; and
Support federal economic development tools such as New Markets Tax Credits and the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, which allow cities to drive investment in struggling neighborhoods, attract and retain businesses, and grow jobs.
National Association of Counties – 2018 Legislative Priorities
Promote county infrastructure priorities
Support the Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILT) and Secure Rural Schools (SRS) programs
Support policies to promote mental health, substance abuse treatment and justice reform
Protect the federal-state-local partnership for Medicaid
Work towards a more effective definition of Waters of the U.S.
Support county authority to collect existing sales tax
Support programs that assist counties to prevent and reduce poverty
Support a comprehensive long-term farm bill reauthorization
U.S. Conference of Mayors
The US Conference of Mayors has a Mayors’ Agenda for the Future which identifies priorities associated with four major pillars. Within each of the pillars are more specific priorities.
Ensure the safety and security of our neighborhoods
Invest in community policing and resources to build trust, reduce violent crime, prevent domestic terrorism, and make every neighborhood safe.
Reform the criminal justice system.
Pass comprehensive immigration reform.
Fix Our Crumbling Infrastructure
Pass a major infrastructure bill that invests in public infrastructure projects and prioritizes projects that make our communities more resilient.
Support resilient and sustainable growth through investment and policies that recognize the impact our climate has on our collective health, safety, and economic future.
Generate new jobs and career pathways while improving construction standards, worker training and safety, and efficiency.
Expand Our Workforce to Create Economic Growth
Address the impact of technology disruptions in our communities.
Invest in training and access to jobs that exist in today’s economy.
Guarantee equal access to financing and capital.
Build Equitable Communities to Increase Opportunity for All
Invest in inclusive neighborhoods, affordable housing, and community development.
Improve our public education from pre-k through college.
Provide affordable and quality health care in every community and promote an environment of health and well-being.
Increase equity and ensure civil and human rights.
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Cloudy with showers. High near 75F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%..
A clear sky. Low 46F. WSW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
Missoulian editorial
Community must sustain support for Blanchard family
Casey Blanchard returned to his home in Stevensville last weekend. He had been receiving treatment at the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City since March, when he was shot eight times in an attack that killed his friend, Shelley Hays, and wounded his mother, Julie Blanchard.
The suspect in that shooting is being held at the Missoula County jail. He is also being charged in a second shooting that same night that left Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Wade Palmer fighting for his life in the same Utah hospital as Blanchard. Palmer recently returned to his home in Stevensville as well, but remains unable to verbally communicate and must use a wheelchair to move around.
Tragically, only a few days after Casey Blanchard’s triumphant homecoming came the stunning news that Julie Blanchard had died at a hospital in Washington. She had been having respiratory problems, but the exact cause of death is still being investigated.
No words can adequately express the heartbreak and grief we share with Casey Blanchard and his family. He has experienced so much senseless loss over a few short months, it leaves us reeling.
Blanchard, who according to his wife is now a paraplegic and facing other limitations, has a rocky road ahead as he begins home-based therapy for his physical injuries. Additionally, he has the unimaginable task of coping with the loss of his friend, and now, his mother as well.
Thankfully, he will not travel this road alone. He has his friends and family, and the unflagging support of a caring and committed hometown.
In April, nearly 350 people attended a spaghetti dinner benefit in Stevensville that raised more than $26,000. Last month, a “Boost for Blanchard” fundraiser at Big Sky Brewery brought another strong wave of support for both Casey and Julie Blanchard.
A GoFundMe page set up to help offset other costs related to Casey Blanchard’s recovery has raised more than $7,500 toward its $10,000 goal at last count.
We have no doubt Casey’s neighbors in Stevensville, Missoula County and throughout western Montana will step forward to close the funding gap, as well as to offer continued aid in whatever form it is needed. The Blanchard family need only ask, and our community will see to it that no call for help goes unanswered.
Casey Blanchard
Julie Blanchard
Shelley Hays
Wade Palmer
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Campus + Environment + Life + Science & Technology
Published: Feb. 18, 2014
'Campus Food Security Tour' makes stop at MSU
Contact(s): Marguerite Halversen Dry Grain Pulses CRSP office: (517) 432-6656 halverse@msu.edu
The MSU Peace Corps Office is teaming up with USAID and Feed the Future Innovation Labs to host MSU, Peace Corps, USAID: How Spartans are Feeding the Future, which will take place from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday in Room 115, International Center.
The event is part of USAID’s “Campus Food Security Tour,” which is connecting students interested in greater food security and sustainability to the Feed the Future initiative and Feed the Future Innovation Labs across the country. Attendees will learn about service in the Peace Corps and how it can be relevant to a career of making a difference in the developing world.
Feed the Future Innovation Labs draw on the expertise of top U.S. universities and research institutions in developing countries to collaboratively tackle the world’s greatest challenges in agriculture and food security. They are fighting problems such as climate change and poor infrastructure for food storage and distribution along with reduced crop yields, diseases and pests.
Two of such labs, the Legume Innovation Lab and the Food Security Policy Innovation Lab, are located at MSU. Innovation Labs are central to advancing science and research towards reducing hunger, poverty and malnutrition in developing countries. MSU is also the home for a related USAID project, the Global Center for Food Systems Innovation (GCFSI). Peace Corps volunteers often provide expertise for such efforts.
The event will bring together leaders in agriculture and international development who will participate in discussions, presentations and a sustainability fair featuring local organizations, campus groups and academic departments focused on food security and sustainability. The Peace Corps acting director, Carrie Hessler-Radelet, will be one of the featured speakers.
Cynthia Donovan, MSU assistant professor in agricultural, food and resource economics and deputy director of MSU’s Legume Innovation Lab, will be an Innovation Lab presenter. Donovan served in the Peace Corps in Paraguay from 1981 to 1984, helping develop co-ops and train their managers in fund management and cash flow concepts for the benefit of small communities and cotton farmers.
“My time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay clarified how I could combine my interests in economics and international development into a meaningful career,” Donovan said. “As an agricultural economist at MSU, I have been able to focus on key issues in development, including agricultural production economics and market development for smallholder participation in sub-Saharan Africa.”
David Tschirley, MSU professor of international development, will talk about how the Food Security Policy Innovation Lab links to the efforts of the Peace Corps and Feed the Future and Ajit Srivastava, director of the Global Center for Food Systems Innovation, will provide information on how GCFSI links students and professors to key development issues.
MSU ranks sixth among large universities for producing Peace Corps volunteers with more than 2,300 MSU Peace Corps alumni since 1961.
MSU, Peace Corps, and USAID: Spartans Feeding the Future
Top school in Peace Corps' rankings
Students International Alumni Food Food production
Grace Koepele: No limitsJul 10, 2019Grace Koepele is a senior arts and humanities major in RCAH with a focus. . .Zach Richardson: Getting orientedJul 02, 2019The organizers of MSU’s New Student Orientation, or NSO, were. . .Izzo family contributes $1.1M to support Munn Expansion, marching band and student-athlete servicesJun 26, 2019MSU men's basketball head coach Tom Izzo and wife, Lupe, have made a. . .Katherine Rifiotis: Empowered to speakMay 28, 2019Katherine Rifiotis is a recent graduate with a degree in political. . .Facing cancer with an athlete’s determinationMay 17, 2019Jacqueline Setas, a recent Spartan graduate, came to MSU on a golf. . .
So, what really is jihad?Jun 20, 2019Often, many people conflate the terms jihad and terrorism. This is in. . .Environmental reporting can help protect citizens in emerging democraciesJun 07, 2019What happens when an illegally logged tree falls or poachers kill. . .MSU’S International Business Center earns Presidential AwardMay 28, 2019The United States Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross presented. . .Professor receives Fulbright for research on dance in IndiaMay 08, 2019Sitara Thobani, an assistant professor in the Residential College. . .MSU launches ‘China and the World’ symposium seriesMar 29, 2019To develop a nuanced understanding of China and its role in the world,. . .
Susan Packard named 2019 MSU Homecoming grand marshalJul 09, 2019Susan Packard, former HGTV chief operating officer and Michigan State. . .Alumni magazine finds a wayMar 29, 2019Excerpts from the teal issue as it existed in May 2018 begin on page 38. . .MSU among Peace Corps’ 2019 top volunteer-producing schoolsMar 20, 2019MSU ranked No. 25 among large schools on the Peace Corps’ list of. . .Social art pieces are at the forefront for visiting artist and scholarFeb 26, 2019A solo exhibition, titled “The Wash (As It Seams),” by. . .As oneNov 19, 2018This spoken-word poem by Spartan alumnus William T. Langford IV was. . .
Food drive yields record results for MSU Food BankMay 08, 2019The “Help Tackle Hunger” food drive by Residential and. . .Food additive may influence how well flu vaccines workApr 07, 2019MSU scientists have linked a common food preservative to an altered. . .USDA Director Scott Angle visits MSUMar 14, 2019U.S. Department of Agriculture Director of the National Institute. . .Meagan Shedd: Growing healthy eatersMar 05, 2019Her voice bellows to the other small children across the landscape of. . .Exercising helps you make better food choicesFeb 28, 2019A new study, involving a Michigan State University epidemiologist, has. . .
GMOs 101Nov 25, 2018Spartan plant researchers explain the basics of genetically modified. . .MSU lands grant to increase nutritious food consumption in developing countriesJun 19, 2018MSU has landed a grant that will focus on different ways to increase the. . .MSU Institute of Agricultural Technology graduates 124th classApr 05, 2018The MSU Institute of Agricultural Technology graduated its 124th class. . .MSU 'smart ag' forum focuses on feeding more with lessNov 30, 2017The SmartAg International Symposium, being held at MSU Dec. 3-6, will. . .Fighting plant disease at warm temperatures keeps food on the tableNov 27, 2017An issue of global concern is the anticipated shortage of agricultural. . .
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Tag Archives: press release
23 April Paragon Dreams opens at Hull Truck Theatre
Hull Truck Theatre and homegrown artist Hester Ullyart team up to present a new one-woman tour-de-force. Continue reading →
Filed under Theatre
Tagged as Hester Ullyart, hull truck theatre, Paragon Dreams, press release
Moomins And Mischief At Beverley Puppet Festival
Following the acclaimed exhibition of author and artist Tove Jansson and her tales of Moominvalley at the Dulwich Picture Gallery earlier this year, 2018 sees more Moomin mischief as East Yorkshire’s Beverley Puppet Festival announces a puppet version of this much loved fictional family over the festival weekend on Sunday 15th July. Continue reading →
Tagged as Beverley Puppet Festival, Moomins, press release, puppets
#REDboard2017 – Made in Hull Starts 2nd January 2017
Red Contemporary Arts is launching its REDboard project for Hull UK City of Culture 2017 with a billboard designed by Hull-based artist Yol on Cottingham Road. Celebrating 20 years of RED Contemporary Arts (formally RED Gallery), billboards across the city will be transformed into platforms for artistic excellence, as well as playing host to site-specific cultural events. Continue reading →
Filed under 2017
Tagged as hull 2017, press release, REDboard2017
We can’t wait to show you our Dick!
Middle Child Theatre return to Fruit tomorrow 17 December, with the first public performances of Dick Whittington, their annual affordable, alternative pantomime, until 29 December. Continue reading →
Tagged as Dick Whittington, Fruit, Middle Child Theatre, Pantomime, press release
Festive Return for Hull’s Angel
Hull’s Angel. Written by Janet Plater. Directed by Matt Jamie 19th – 24th December, Kardomah 94, Hull. Following the recent success of her critically-acclaimed play, The Gaul (**** The Guardian), Janet Plater serves up a festive treat to delight both Hull and Newcastle audiences (13th – 16th December, Alphabetti Theatre, Newcastle) Continue reading →
Tagged as Hull's Angel, Janet Plater, kardomah 94, press release, theatre
Hollywood Star Returns to Tread the Boards
Hull-born actor Marc Pickering is returning to the area to star in the multi-award winning play As We Forgive Them to be staged at the East Riding Theatre (ERT) in Beverley.
Marc was most recently seen in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire playing young Steve Buscemi. He has also starred in Sleepy Hollow with Johnny Depp, Calendar Girls with Helen Mirren and played Montparnasse in the film version of Les Misérables.
An ERT production, the play is directed by Andrew Pearson who also directed A Steady Rain starring Vincent Regan and Adrian Rawlins at ERT last year.
Marc will be joined onstage by actor Charles Daish who has appeared in Kenneth Branagh’s film version of Hamlet amongst others.
Marc said, “I’m really excited to be coming home to work on this exciting project especially as it coincides with the presidential election.”
The play is set over 10 years on the eve of the presidential elections in 2008, 2012 and 2016.
Director Andrew Pearson said, “It seemed like exactly the right time to revive Richard Vergette’s amazing play. We open the night after the election, but I don’t think any of us who worked on the original production could have foreseen the showdown we’re having at the moment!”
The play has a limited run at the theatre from 9th – 26th November 2016.
Pearson then teams up again with Vincent Regan to produce the Christmas show at ERT, Great Expectations.
November 2008: The US elections herald a new era of change and optimism. For newly elected Democrat Congressman, John Daniels, this should be the happiest of times. However, the brutal murder of his only daughter forces him to confront his liberal values; should he use his right to request the death penalty and junk his views on abolition or does he let his daughter’s killer live?
“..Expertly directed by Andrew Pearson… Not to be Missed”
4 Stars – Manchester Evening News
“…Intense, intelligent drama…Superb”
British Theatre Review
“As We Forgive Them satisfies on every level… Should not be missed… 5 Stars”
What’s on Stage
“Taut, pacy thriller remains on a knife edge and doesn’t let up.”
Michelle Dee Read review from show premiere here
This 8 time award winning production (including Manchester Evening News and Off West End Award) is being remounted and reworked by the original team, featuring a new exciting cast to coincide with the 2016 Presidential elections.
As We Forgive Them by Richard Vergette
An East Riding Theatre Production
9th November 2016 – 26th November 2016 at 8pm
Location: East Riding Theatre, Beverley
Tickets: £10.00 to £13.00
Tagged as As We Forgive them, East Riding Theatre, Mark Pickering, press release, Richard Vergette
Hull’s Heads Up Festival returns to the city in October
The twice-yearly event presents some of the most exciting, challenging theatre and is produced by Ensemble 52 in partnership with Battersea Arts Centre. The festival runs from October 5 to October 15, 2016. This season’s programme of work includes work originally developed at Battersea Arts Centre alongside some of the most exciting work produced out of the city. Continue reading →
Tagged as battersea arts centre, ensemble 52, exhibition, heads up festival, hull, performance, press release, theatre, workshops
Dreaming Big: Artist returns to her roots for Pave exhibition
Exhibition at Pave, Princes Avenue, Hull from November 2 until the end of November. A launch event and discussion with artist Sarah Mole will take place at Pave on Tuesday 10 November from 6pm. FREE entry.
Two large scale paintings will go on exhibition at Pave, Princes Avenue this week, as a Hull artist returns to her roots.
Tagged as arts, exhibition, paintings, pave, press release, sarah mole
Hull Dance Prize Returns
On Thursday 22 October four companies will be entering their work before a panel of judges and a voting audience once more as Hull Dance plays host to Hull Dance Prize 2015, Hull Truck Theatre. Continue reading →
Filed under Art blogs, dance
Tagged as art, City Arts, dan craddock, dance, flick, Hull Dance, Hull Dance Prize, JoinedUp Dance, Lo:cus Dance Theatre, press release, Sarah Roe
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Michelle Matthews
Features, Portfolio
30 November 1999 Michelle Leave a comment
Cover feature: SL magazine, November 1999
I first realised Helen was an amputee on a summer’s day at the Rhodes Memorial reservoir. We all took off our tops. We all took off our shorts. Helen took off her left leg. We all swam. Sitting on the bank, I watched her balance heron-like on a protruding pylon far out into the reservoir, strong and steady, before diving into the water.
When I told people I was writing an article on amputees the common reaction was one of shock tinged with disgust. Amputees are mutilated. Amputees are not whole people. Somewhere there’s a leg or an arm that’s now just a piece of meat. Amputees are proof that our bodies are just flesh and blood. They are a reminder that the vehicle that carries our consciousness is fragile and transient. You can spend hours in the gym building the body beautiful and wake up one morning to find the sheets falling strangely flat where your leg once lay.
Helen was 15 when she fell under a train pulling out from Rosebank station. The last three carriages ran over her left leg and amputated it below the knee. ‘If you put a five cent piece on a railway line you can see what it does – it just spreads,’ explains Helen candidly. ‘So the train basically took the leg straight off.’ The first thing she said when she was told that she had lost her limb was: ‘So when do I get my new leg?’
Many amputees go through an initial period of denial, especially if the amputation was traumatic. Most suffer from depression and anger while trying to come to terms with their loss. Helen accepted her amputation relatively well. ‘I think I was lucky in the respect that I was 15 at the time. At that stage of your life you haven’t really formulated a lot of who you are. I think if I’d really structured my identity as one does when you get into your early 20s, I would have been in a bit of a predicament.’
Our bodies are such an integral part of our understanding of ourselves; they are the physical manifestation of our identity. When someone loses a leg they need to renegotiate their relationship with their body. They may wonder whether they are still complete people, and what their body can still do.
That is what worried Helen when she was discharged from hospital. ‘When I came out it was a really emotional time, but there were basic questions I was asking about what I could and couldn’t do. I actually asked the doctors if I could still have sex. And these are the questions you ask. It’s really based on a physical level of “What can I actually do?”’
Many young, fit amputees will push their bodies, taking up rock climbing or mountain biking, testing their physical limits. Proving that they can still be exceptionally physical people is also a way of negating the label ‘disabled’.
‘The term “disabled” is very much a state of mind,’ says Helen. ‘If you see yourself in that light, where you’re incapacitated by what’s happened to you, then you are disabled. I think people who see themselves as incomplete and incapable don’t stretch themselves. I wouldn’t say it’s always been such a good thing, but I’ve always pushed myself, trying to prove to myself that I can do these things. It’s sometimes a bit mad. I’ve had some big mountain biking wipe-outs! But there’s almost nothing I can’t do.’
Accepting their changed bodies is difficult for amputees. But not as difficult as gaining the acceptance of others. Amputation is not private: ‘It’s in the public eye, you’re going to be seen,’ Helen says opening her arms and adding, ‘your body carries messages and this is carrying a message to the world.’
Most amputees don’t mind the innocent curiosity of children. Craig, another BK (below the knee) amputee, laughs about how some kids once came up to him in the supermarket to ask him if he was Robocop. He likes to let children play with his prosthesis. ‘And once they’ve touched it and they’ve pulled it, it’s over. For the rest of their lives they’ve had that physical contact and that’s vital. So next time they see an amputee they’ll say “Oh, that’s the same leg as that other other man had” – no big deal.’
But parents usually tell their children not to look, caught up with ‘doing the right thing’ (i.e. looking, but pretending they’re not looking). Or worse, they will stare openly. Frankly, most amputees would prefer it if you just approached them and spoke about it. ‘The single biggest problem with the public,’ says Craig, ‘is their lack of familiarity with amputees.’
Helen’s sister Claire has been involved with Craig for two years. He and Helen share identical amputations, Craig having lost his leg in a motorbike accident. The three of them joke about amputation being a ‘family affair’ and the fact that Helen is an amputee did help Claire to accept Craig’s amputation. ‘He was active and ambitious and that’s actually what drew me to him. The leg just happened not be there,’ Claire laughs.
Claire starts teasing Craig about how he’s always bugging her to massage his stump and I grimace involuntarily. ‘It’s like having your foot rubbed,’ Craig explains. Obviously. Your stump is where your nerves end, just like a foot. But I can’t help thinking it’s a little kinky.
‘Men have found it very sexy,’ says Helen of her amputation. ‘Some men really get turned on by it. Different things appeal to different people.’
On cue, I go trawling in the cyber sewer hoping to dredge out some filthy ameliatatists. Unfortunately they were all rather well behaved. Derik, an animator for Sesame Street, has a web page dedicated to women with bilateral hip disarticulation – that’s both legs amputated at the very top of their thighs. It bears the highly questionable title of ‘Most Beautiful – with wonderful bottoms below their hips’. But Derik’s intentions are pure. ‘This page,’ he writes, ‘exists to pay homage to this very special kind of woman, and to appreciate her for all her unique beauty,’ while the pictures show radiant women, fully clothed.
Feeling sexy is particularly important for most women and beautiful legs are an integral part of society’s sex semiology. Female amputees tend to wear aesthetic covers on their prostheses and can even get specially adapted ankles, which allow them to wear high heels. Helen has incorporated her uncovered ‘pole’ prosthesis into her sexual identity. ‘I definitely think there’s a bit of an enigma about it,’ she says. ‘You’ve got this leg that is hidden under all these parts and the socket.’ She even spraypaints her socket; lately she’s leaning towards metallic blue. ‘It’s a whole different body image for me. It’s a lot more masculine, but there’s still a femininity within this.’
But Helen’s main reason for choosing to wear a bare prosthesis is practicality. ‘I can walk through water, I can go into the sea with it, I don’t have to worry about damaging my leg, I’ve got this completely bionic-looking, robotic leg, but it’s also a fully functional leg.
‘There’s a huge divide between being disabled and being physically challenged,’ she explains. ‘When you are without a [prosthetic] leg you are physically disabled. You cannot be a fully functional part of society.’
A good prosthesis is essential to an amputee living a normal life. Apart from the fact that prostheses are incredibly expensive, Craig’s bone was very close to the surface of his stump and he was forced to walk on crutches for years. ‘Try carrying a cup of tea on crutches. If it’s a full cup you’re going to have a quarter by the time you sit down. And a lot to clean up afterwards!’ Craig says with a frustrated laugh. The medical aid scheme he was on paid out R2000 a year to amputees, which, according to Craig, ‘doesn’t even pay for the nuts and bolts in this thing.’ Eventually he had his leg donated by an organisation in England. It’s worth R75 000. ‘A guy climbed Mount Everest two years ago with this exact leg,’ says Craig.
For those you can afford it, parts that enhance mobility include shock absorbers and carbon fibre blade feet. Parts are imported at huge expense, distributed by a dealer and fitted by orthopedic doctors. ‘It’s like going to have your car serviced,’ says Helen. And the costs rise if you have to factor in a joint.
Keith is an above-the-knee (AK) amputee who lost his leg to a spreading cancer. That was just over a year ago and he’s still a little shy, even nervous, about talking about his amputation. Unlike Helen and Craig, he is not yet absolutely comfortable with his prosthesis. But he eagerly shows me how his hydraulic knee works.
Detaching a little black hook from the side of the titanium joint, he makes a few adjustments to his knee, changing the speed at which the hydraulics loosen the joint. Depending on whether he wants to run and walk, he needs to set his knee accordingly. He points to a thick tube below his knee. ‘That’s my torque compressor,’ he says. ‘It’s difficult to explain how it works, but it’s really made a difference.’
It’s much more difficult for AKs to learn to walk. Keith shows me the special method of kicking the leg out in front to lock the joint before taking each step. Although he knows where his foot is in the ‘pattern’, he can’t fee; if it catches on something, and sometimes stumbles on uneven ground. Lower extremity amputees seem to eventually get to a stage where they can actually sense where their foot is and how much pressure it’s exerting. This is facilitated by increased sensitivity in the stump.
An amputee’s stump is rich in nerve endings, most of them cut and scarred, and as a result many amputees experience stump pain. This is usually just a sensation of pins and needles, but can be a burning, tearing pain that can be difficult to alleviate. Neurological damage is also the most likely explanation of the phantom limb phenomenon.
Almost all patients will feel pain in a limb that they no longer have after an amputation. This gradually disappears, but many amputees still experience phantom limbs periodically for years after the operation. Helen describes sudden urges to take an uncomfortable shoe off a foot that is no longer there. Most of the time these sensations can be relieved by massaging the stump, but sometimes they seem to be psychosomatic. Craig says that sometimes he relieves an itch in his phantom foot by scratching his prosthetic one.
Kirillian photography, which records the energy levels around the body, has shown that an aura remains around an amputated leg. ‘In your subconscious mind, very deep inside, you’re still an entire person,’ says Helen. ‘Your subconscious doesn’t register the loss. That’s why you can walk with a prosthetic, because on a deep level you can still integrate with that functional part of your body.’
Down at the pub, Craig and his friends play a unique drinking game, the only rule being ‘no feet on the table’. Craig detaches his prosthesis, puts a bottle of beer in the socket and passes his leg around so everyone can take a swig. A toast to Craig’s amazing leg!
It’s a good laugh, but what it really comes down to is acceptance. ‘I’d like to this article to help people be at ease with amputees, they are exceptionally strong people! They’re not helpless or disabled,’ I babble enthusiastically.
‘Don’t overdo it,’ Craig laughs. ‘I’d hate to lose my handicapped parking bay!’
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Project manager, writer and sustainability consultant
I’m a conceptualiser and a doer. I’m a communicator and a connector. I am passionate about fair food, inclusive cities, design for development, sustainable business, social entrepreneurship and clear thinking.
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Trump’s Prospects Starting to Stir as Clinton’s Health Remains a Question
Steve Walker September 16, 2016 May 7, 2018 No Comments on Trump’s Prospects Starting to Stir as Clinton’s Health Remains a Question
Maialisa / Pixabay
Hillary Clinton’s personal health scare is a new market risk for jittery investors already spooked by central banks poised to disappear into the woodwork in the face of lax money policies.
The 68-year-old Democratic presidential nominee, whose polling edge over Donald Trump has soothed traders who fear ruptures to U.S. policy and see virtue in political gridlock, is suffering from pneumonia and became overheated and dehydrated during a Sept. 11 commemoration Sunday, forcing her to leave abruptly, her doctor said. Clinton was prescribed antibiotics and advised to modify her schedule so she can rest.
#Clinton’s health scare is a new market risk for investors already spooked by central banks Click To Tweet
Most investors have discounted the chances of a protectionist and populist Mr. Trump becoming president, says Financial Review. A host of institutions including UBS, Citigroup and Moody’s, as well as billionaire investor Mark Cuban, have warned such an outcome would be negative for share markets.
“As a result, if Mr. Trump were to win I think that would be viewed as a negative development because it wasn’t expected,” Cuban said Monday.
Clinton’s sudden departure from the ceremony in New York and a bystander’s video showing her appearing to stumble as she was helped into a black van by aides and Secret Service agents is sure to resurface health questions, said Bloomberg. She blamed recent coughing jags on allergies, but Republicans have sought to raise questions about her fitness for office, particularly following a concussion in 2012 that resulted in a blood clot.
“If Clinton’s health becomes a larger factor with regard to voter decision-making, the market may have to recalculate the risk-reward of a regime change in the White House, as Clinton right now is assumed as a continuity from the current administration,” Yousef Abbasi, global market strategist at JonesTrading Institutional Services LLC, said. “Obviously today is another thing that’s going to draw closer attention.”
The issue for the election result and markets is not confined to Clinton’s actual health leading into the November 8 poll, but how her team has disclosed and handled her physical condition, according to Financial Review. The risk for Clinton and investors counting on her more predictable leadership style is that voters smell a coverup, reinforcing widespread perceptions about the Democratic nominee’s lack of honesty and trustworthiness.
After media queries about Clinton’s noticeable cough over the past week, she was officially diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday, her doctor said. The campaign did not go public with her illness until Sunday evening, after she was suddenly and prematurely escorted away by advisers and security officials from a September 11 memorial event. A spokesman initially said she felt “overheated”.
“If we found out that there was something catastrophic about her health it obviously would matter, but you have to be very careful about extrapolating shorter-term news,” Jonathan Golub, managing director and chief US market strategist at RBC Capital Markets LLC in New York, said. “What we do know is we have two candidates around 70 years old and in reality it must be brutal running around the world for two years.”
The extent to which investors have been able to ignore politics is illustrated by the CBOE Volatility Index, the options-derived gauge of price turbulence that in August recorded one of its lowest monthly averages since the bull market began in March 2009. A measure of cross-market volatility encompassing equities, rates, currencies and commodities overseen by Bank of America hit its lowest level of the year last week.
Investors overwhelmingly believe Mrs. Clinton, an experienced policymaker, would be better for the economy and stock market than the erratic Mr. Trump, says Financial Review. They worry the real estate mogul’s threat to raise tariffs on imports, plan to slow immigration, unbudgeted big spending on defence and tax cuts and policy to replace US Federal Reserve Fed chair Janet Yellen could destabilize equity prices.
“While fiscal stimulus would no doubt be welcome, the threat of trade wars, draconian changes to immigration policies, and ballooning deficits would preoccupy market participants, particularly at the onset of a Trump presidency,” UBS recently noted.
The property mogul warned on Monday the “false” stock market would sell off if the Fed raised interest rates and said Dr. Yellen should be “ashamed” of what she was doing to America. He also accused President Obama of forcing the Fed to keep rates near zero, ahead of its crucial September 21 monetary policy decision.
Entering the last two months of the election Trump has gained ground in recent national opinion polls, to trail Clinton 45.9% to 42.9% according to a Real Clear Politics average of polls. But Clinton leads in 10 of 11 crucial swing states that will ultimately determine the election.
Wall Street is indeed in a different mindset since the weekend’s offputting news.
“We’re fragile right now,” said Kevin Kelly, chief investment officer at Recon Capital Partners LLC in Greenwich, CT, which oversees $350 million. “It’s already priced into the market that Hillary Clinton is going to be president so right now anything that changes that narrative is going to give the market a pause to consider what that would mean.”
Steve’s Take: Complacency usually doesn’t reward investors in the long term. For many months leading up to the Florida Republican primary on Feb. 1, almost no one, and I mean not even those pundits sitting precariously, althouogh comfortably, on the brink of lunacy, picked Trump to finish better than 16 out of the 16 candidates back then.
Still, as far as a Clinton presidency is concerned, up until now, the odds of Trump prevailing again, but this time in the general election, have seemed lower than the recent yield on 5-year Treasuries. I don’t think that’s the case anymore.
Markets are starting to wake up to the possibility of an increase in the odds of a double Trump victory with the most recent, widely reported news of heightened interest in Clinton’s health following her pneumonia diagnosis, revealed only after she became “overheated” and had to abruptly leave a Sept. 11 ceremony. Trump and his allies have been raising questions and stoking speculation about Clinton’s health for months.
Some people are now throwing out a 25% “risk” of a trump victory. Is it way too early to price in that possibility, albeit somewhat slim, of a Trump presidency? Even if you have a low probability scenario of something occurring, but if it were to occur the results would be absolutely horrible, it then becomes a high risk scenario, nevertheless.
Signs of this change in the national mentality about the presidential outcome are springing up everywhere. Even the odds of a Trump victory, although still arguably “low,” they aren’t so low as to bet the ranch against it. Some observers think this now is, in fact, the case, and maybe it is time for investors to start contemplating some form of hedging strategy.
The Trump campaign is still a bit light on the details of the trajectory of a win, but if we look at what he has said in terms of fiscal policy, some say it could add another third to the total US debt over the coming 10 years. That’s pretty close to a disaster scenario. Obviously, his protectionism is extremely dangerous, not only for the US economy, but for the entire world economy.
What does this mean for bonds and money market securities? As far as fixed income markets are concerned, you would have two competing forces in a Trump presidency. If we first contemplate the protectionism philosophy, that can result in a recession which would lead to lower rates. On the other hand, you would have this “fiscal laxity” that would push rates higher. As to which result would prevail, it’s still hard to judge at this point.
Steve's Take: Is a #Trump presidency good/bad for markets? Too early to tell Click To Tweet
Yes, Mrs. Clinton on Wednesday released some concrete vital statistics about the condition of her health that support her claim that she is, indeed, “healthy.” But for many of us who follow these trends, there is a nagging sense that we’re not getting the whole story from her medical team either, just as we almost certainly aren’t from Mr. Trump, who went on the “Dr. Mehmet Oz” television show earlier in the day to tout his own health.
Stranger things have happened in our presidential history than a Trump victory would be in November. Perhaps it’s time to dust off my bible on hedging strategies. Or at least locate it. Or not.
Addendum: On Thursday, a rested Hillary Clinton returned to the campaign trail after three days of recovering at home from the pneumonia, and vowed a different approach on the final stretch of the campaign, one more focused on her own positive vision for the country, rather than impaling her rival.
“I want to close my campaign focused on opportunities for kids and fairness for families,” Mrs. Clinton said after her first rally of her renewed campaign. “I want to give Americans something to vote for, not just against.”
The shift in tone felt striking after Mrs. Clinton had spent months tearing down her Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, The New York Times reported. But with less than eight weeks until Election Day and tightening polls showing a majority of voters dislike and distrust her, aides said it was imperative that Mrs. Clinton deliver a more uplifting message.
“From now until Nov. 8, everywhere I go I’m going to talk about my ideas for our country,” Mrs. Clinton said.
This week, Mrs. Clinton plans speeches to discuss how she would help young people and improve the economy, weaving in her own background as an advocate for children and as a first lady focused on women and families. That focus was central in her address Thursday at the University of North Carolina, where she took the stage to James Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good),” seeming rested and revived, eager to tell the audience that her rare couple of days of downtime allowed her to “reconnect with what this whole campaign is about.”
A New York Times/CBS News poll released on Thursday found her virtually tied with Mr. Trump among likely voters.
Government Bloomberg, CBOE Volatility Index, Donald Trump, Financial Review, Hillary Clinton, Jonathan Golub, JonesTrading Institutional Services LLC, Kevin Kelly, RBC Capital Markets, Real Clear Politics, Recon Capital Partners LLC, Yousef Abbasi
Google Parent, Sanofi to Invest $500 Million in Diabetes Joint Venture
Mylan Reportedly Paid Its Top Execs More than Industry Giants
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Home > News > HAVE BRANDS MISSED A TRICK IN NOT SPONSORING THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES?
HAVE BRANDS MISSED A TRICK IN NOT SPONSORING THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES?
As the Commonwealth Games gets ready to kick off a number of sponsors are ramping up their activation in a bid to promote their brand from Glasgow and beyond. Automotive giant Ford and Scottish electricity supplier SSE have accelerated their social, print and outdoor activity in an attempt to engage with fans during the ten day spectacle.
However, as this article on Marketing Week discusses, a number of big name brands have steered well clear of the Games, while a number of other companies, such as Heineken and Speedo have become involved on a much smaller level. Indeed, Speedo only came on as official swimwear provider for Glasgow three weeks before they were due to kick off, and Gatorade only came on board more or less on the eve of the Opening Ceremony.
But have companies missed a trick with Glasgow? In the wake of London 2012, many brands are dubious about Glasgow 2014’s ability to provide full value for money, but could there be a value in associating with the Games that that hasn’t been full appreciated? Generate Managing Director Rupert Pratt was asked by Marketing Week to give his thoughts on the Commonwealth’s commercial appeal and this is what he had to say:
“London 2012 raised the profile of sport and sponsorship and theoretically that should have just rolled into Glasgow’s commercial plans. That momentum failed to materialise and it is made all the more obvious by some obvious categories missing from the top tier [sponsorship] roster.
“It’s really suffered from a marketing and profile perspective and the perception of something that’s happening in Scotland and not commercially for the rest of the UK, something that will change once the games have begun.”
Whilst it may seem apparent that Glasgow 2014 has experienced low-key marketing, potentially to its detriment, and a slight World Cup hangover, it will be interesting to see whether this changes once the Games kick off, and if brands will be kicking themselves for not being a bigger part of the action.
Got a question, enquiry or fancy joining Team Mongoose? We’re always looking for new additions to the Mongoose burrow. Are you a hungry & motivated sales person or passionate & energetic activation specialist? We’d love to hear from you.
Email: info@mongooseagency.com
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Read This: Cord-cutting may not be all it’s cracked up to be
Filed to: TVFiled to: TV
Great Job, Internet!
Cutting the cord on expensive cable TV service is a rosy proposition for many, and since the FCC just voted to uphold Net Neutrality, why not? Still, it may not ultimately end up being much of a bargain, according to this in-depth piece by Ben Thompson at Stratechery.
Thompson explores the structure of the TV business in the U.S., from content creation to delivery to the way affiliate fees have been handled, and argues that while the industry has been through technological shakeups before, they’ve largely resulted in money moving around between its major players without resulting in significantly reduced costs to the consumer. Cord-cutting via a service like the new Apple Web TV, (with a reported $30-40 per month subscription fee) will likely be no different. Especially not if you want your HBO and Amazon Prime along with it.
And maybe that isn’t a bad thing. It’s cable TV and the affiliate fee model (where companies paid networks like ESPN for the privilege of carrying their channel) that created an environment that’s enabled the growth of television’s golden age. As Thompson writes:
The advertising-only model of the 60s and 70s resulted in blah, lowest-common-denominator content; the affiliate fee model, on the other hand, meant content creators had to have must-see content for some fraction of subscribers—that was their leverage for jacking up affiliate fees. Some, like ESPN, have bought that must-see status with exclusive sports rights deals, while others, like AMC, have earned it with compelling content like Mad Men or Breaking Bad.
Thompson, who worked at both Apple and Microsoft, leaves less licit means of television consumption out of the cord-cutting equation entirely, though it seems like they should be worthy of at least a mention. How many shared Netflix accounts are out there? HBO Go? That’s not even to get into the touchy question of torrents, TV streaming sites, and region-unblocking VPN services. Perhaps those take up too small of a slice of the pie, but pretending that these methods don’t exist as a free way for consumers to cut the cord seems like a strange omission.
Still, between convenience and control of content, it’s hard to imagine that the cable companies or their partners are going away any time soon, he argues.
The fact of the matter is that the Internet has made the cable companies even more powerful than they were in the days when TV dominated. All of the investment required for supporting hundreds of high definition channels lent itself wonderfully to supporting the fastest—and in many locations, only—broadband access to the Internet. Moreover, while Congress regulated just how much rent cable companies could collect on television, the latest net neutrality regulations largely give broadband providers free rein as long as they treat all content equally … I would argue that the future for Comcast—even as a dump pipe—is quite bright.
For the consumer, ultimately that means “be prepared to pay the same, if not more, than you pay today,” he writes.
[via Stratechery]
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Sports March 13, 2019
Dynamos Coach Chigowe Likens Coaching To A Syllabus
Dynamos coach Lloyd “Mablanyo” Chigowe was satisfied with his team’s performance against eternal rivals Caps United in a match played over the weekend.
Speaking after the match, Chigowe lauded the ‘Maghreb’ spirit shown by his charges. He said:
I think the foundation is there. I think we should not get carried away there is a lot of work to be done, there is a lot of improvement still to be expected but, of course, it gives us hope that something can come out of this project.
The resilience shown by the boys was amazing, the Maghreb Spirit, the spirit of wanting to die for the blue side of the capital.
Coaching is like a syllabus and we haven’t even got to the halfway stage of the syllabus there is still a lot to be done in terms of correcting tactical awareness, technical combinations and formations on the field of play.
But otherwise, for a team that is rebuilding, I was satisfied with the progress made so far.
I think winning this is a morale booster for these youngsters. It also gives confidence to the multitudes of Dynamos fans that their team is back … they can now bring their families to the stadium knowing that they will not have heartaches when they go home.
Win Over Caps United A Morale Booster – Dynamos Coach
More: Daily News
DynamosCAPS United
Dynamos Football Club is a Zimbabwean based professional football club which plays in the Zimbabwe Premier Soccer League. It is arguably the most decorated football club in Zimbabwe. The club has won several accolades locally, and has performed at various international tournaments and commands a... Read More About Dynamos
CAPS United F.C. Makepekepe is a Zimbabwean football club based in Harare. The club was Formed in 1973, the team rose to prominence in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Used to be nicknamed Manchester Road Boys because of their former address. Its nickname is... Read More About CAPS United
“Mablanyo” Still Bitter Over Dynamos Sack
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Tagged: Dynamos FC Lloyd Chigowe Mablanyo
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Could Climate Change Lead to a Global Water Crisis?
Andrea Guthmann | February 6, 2018 7:29 pm
Officials in Cape Town, South Africa, say they could soon be the first major city to run out of water.
Michael Tiboris, a global water fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, cites three main reasons for Cape Town’s crisis:
• Climate change: Most cities were built on sites where stable, expected water resources could be exploited. Climate change moves those resources away from those centers.
• Urbanization: Cape Town’s population has grown by 30 percent since 2000
• Political: No one wants to be the one to demand people reduce water consumption or require that people pay more for water. It’s not going to make anyone popular with voters.
Here in the Midwest, another water controversy is spilling into the headlines: Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources says it will decide within 90 days whether to give Foxconn, an electronics manufacturer building a factory near Racine, permission to divert seven million gallons of water a day out of Lake Michigan.
(waywardtraveler / Flickr)
Tiboris is concerned that Foxconn will not only remove too much water from Lake Michigan, but potentially dump water polluted by chemicals and metal back into the lake. “The real question is, will they be regulated and will those regulations be enforced,” Tiboris said.
He points to the environmental restrictions created by the 2008 Great Lakes Compact, approved by all eight Great Lakes states, as one way to safeguard this important natural resource. “One of the things necessary to avoid a Cape Town-like water crisis is long-term, thoughtful, flexible compacts like this one,” he said. “The Great Lakes Compact is a rare example of this. There aren’t that many other agreements like this in the world. But it’s only as strong as the enforcement.”
Will water become scarce because of climate change and what policies can we implement to keep water safe and avoid shortages? Tiboris joins us in discussion.
Chicago Sues U.S. Steel Over Lake Michigan Pollution
Jan. 24: The city’s lawsuit comes a week after attorneys at the University of Chicago filed their own lawsuit against the steel corporation. “This Great Lake is our most precious natural resource and we must preserve and protect it,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a statement.
EPA’s Pruitt Wants Lead-Free Drinking Water, But Offers No Plan
Jan. 19: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt told representatives of a children’s health group last week that he wants to eliminate lead from drinking water within 10 years, but he has yet to offer a strategy to meet the goal.
$300M for Great Lakes Program Passes Hurdle in Senate
Nov. 21: A key federal program responsible for protecting the Great Lakes is one step closer to being fully funded after it was targeted for massive cuts earlier this year in President Donald Trump’s proposed budget.
Michael Tiboris
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The FDA warns that Big Penis is working too well – BGR
Meet Sigma, the Potential Overwatch Hero 31 • The Game House
Home / Business / Elizabeth Warren tells Stop & Shop buyers: "Do not cross the picket line"
Elizabeth Warren tells Stop & Shop buyers: "Do not cross the picket line"
April 12, 2019 Business 4 Views
SOMERVILLE – US Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat candidate for presidency in 2020, delivered donors and coffee on Friday to stop and shop workers in Somerville, pushing buyers, their business elsewhere cross the picket line, "Warren said. "The people on the picket chain are not just understanding that they are fighting for their families. They fight for all our families. They fight for basic fairness and equality in this country. "
On Thursday, unions representing 31,000 Stop & Shop workers in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut voted in favor of a strike. Their contract expired in February and they failed to reach a new deal.
Warren shook hands with the workers and encouraged them with an anti-union message.
"This is a business worth $ 2 billion In terms of profits, this has been tax-exempted in Washington by the Republicans, and now we want to squeeze our workers here in Massachusetts," Warren told the workers. "Well, we will not settle for that."
In a conversation with the reporters, Warren repeated the message she has been fighting for years that the rich use the working class. "This is the problem across the country that upper-level people think they can just take advantage of every profit and leave nothing to the working people, to the people who actually come out there and make a difference every day." Warren said.
"What people are asking for here is that they are just asking for decent wages, they are asking for health care and just as they were shot at a decent retirement," she said. Marc Perrone,
United Food & Commercial Workers International President said 243 Stop & Shop stores have been closed. Others, such as the shop in Somerville, only have a limited number of working hours and services.
Perrone said in an interview with the picket line that health insurance is the main issue in the negotiations. Although the business offered a small salary increase, this would more than offset the proposed reduction in health insurance benefits. "If you look at the whole package, it would have less money in it," Perrone said.
Stop & Shop says employees' health insurance premiums are still below the national average and would increase by $ 2 to $ 4 a week. The offered wage package is, according to the business, one of the best UFCW retail contracts in the country. The company would continue to offer a defined benefit pension plan.
The exact contract varies by trade union.
Stop & Shop unions strike; 30,000 workers from five New England residents said they should join picket
. Five UFCW locals from New England representing more than 30,000 Stop & Shop workers have been out of contract since the end of February.
Kristen Johnson, Deli Manager in Somerville and Union Shop Steward, said she was particularly worried about the increased healthcare costs and changes that the new employee business is proposing.
"We ask our customers to shop elsewhere until we are back, until we have a fair contract. Johnson said.
UFCW residents are connected to the AFL-CIO. Steven Tolman, president of Massachusetts AFL-CIO, said: "The goal is that they come to the table with a sensible process to be fair and just and have a little dignity for the employees."
Tags amp Buyers cross Elizabeth linequot picket quotDo shop stop tells Warren
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