In a feminist fantasy, catcalls might still exist—but the construction worker would be a reader eager to get into a woman's books. Taking some of the usual scenarios—older men and younger women, the male boss chasing the female underling—the authors spin out new plots that expose and revise old power dynamics. Expanding on their McSweeney's website article of the same title—which ran in February and is still the site's most-read piece of the year to date—the creators of The Belladonna, a platform for women and other marginalized genders, deploy a searing satire that's both funny and arousing, designed to provoke and to inspire action. Kunkel, Preston, Taylor, and Wittmer will be in conversation with Washington Post columnist Alexandra Petri.


increasingly difficult to assess how well you've struck any given shot.
and can even be performed at home.
means you can do this in your own back yard without fear of damaging property!
This entry was posted in golf, golf instruction, golf tips, sports and tagged golf fitness, golf lesson, golf lessons, golf plane, golf practice, golf slice, golf swing, golf tips, out to in golf swing. Bookmark the permalink.


The popular Fiat 500 Pop is available from £9265. The latest version of the iconic Fiat 500 now comes with Start and Stop which further reduces it co2 emissions down to 110g/km. This car comfortably seats four people and is fantastic value to the consumer as well as being one of the greenest cars in its class. It also leads the way with the latest USB-compatible eco:Drive system which shows the driver how to improve fuel economy and cut emissions.
The Fiat 500 was recently voted best supermini by readers of What Car.  It is available with a choice of three frugal, ultra-low emissions, Euro 5-ready engines: 69 bhp 1.2-litre and 100bhp 1.4-litre petrol, or 75 bhp 1.3-litre MultiJet turbodiesel, the new Fiat 500 is available in three different trim levels Pop, Sport and Lounge.
The Fiat 500 is on sale and in demand in 83 different countries around the world.  In addition to success on the sales front, the Fiat 500 has already won 40 international awards and has received the prestigious Euro NCAP 5-star crash safety rating.


text:
How to Ensure Data Security and Privacy in a Hybrid…
The Architectural Components of a Cloud Provider Model
How BPaaS Works in the Real World of Cloud Computing
Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud and Other IaaS Service Providers
Building Your Hybrid Cloud Service Management Plan
How to Ensure Data Security and Privacy in a Hybrid Cloud
By Judith Hurwitz, Marcia Kaufman, Fern Halper, Daniel Kirsch
Hybrid cloud providers must ensure the security and privacy of your data, but you are ultimately responsible for your company's data. This means that industry and government regulations created to protect personal and business information still apply even if the data is managed or stored by an outside vendor.
The three key areas of concern related to security and privacy of data in the hybrid cloud are
Location of your data
Control of your data
Secure transport of your data
It's important to note that some experts believe that certain kinds of data are just too sensitive for the public/hybrid cloud. This might include highly regulated data, such as medical information. Others believe that if the right level of transparency and controls can be provided, consumers can be protected. Clouds that host regulated data must meet compliance requirements such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Sarbanes-Oxley, and HIPAA.
For more information about security in the cloud, check out the Cloud Security Alliance.
The location of data in the cloud
After data goes into the cloud, you may not have control over where it's stored or how it's used. Numerous issues are associated with this situation:
Specific country laws: Security and regulatory laws governing data can differ across different geographies. For example, your own country's legal protections may not apply if your data is located outside of it. A foreign government may be able to gain access to your data or keep you from having full control over your data when you need it.
Transfer of data across country borders: A global company with subsidiaries or partners (or clients for that matter) in other countries may be concerned about cross-border transfer of data because of local laws. Virtualization makes this an especially tough problem because the cloud provider might not know where the data is at any particular moment, either.
Secondary use of data: In public cloud situations, your data or metadata may be vulnerable to alternative or secondary uses by the cloud service provider. Without proper controls or service level agreements in place, your data may be used for marketing purposes. It could be merged with data from other organizations for such alternative uses.
The control of data in the cloud
You may or may not have heard the term the CIA Triad. No, this isn't about covert operations. CIA stands for Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability. These three attributes have been around a long time in the world of auditing and management controls; they're critical for data in the cloud environment for the following reasons:
Confidentiality: Only authorized parties with the appropriate privileges can access certain data; that is, there's no theft of the data.
Integrity: Data is correct and no malicious software (or person) has altered it; that is, there is no tampering with the data.
Availability: Network resources are available to authorized users.
These three attributes are directly related to controlling data. Controls include the governance policies set in place to make sure that data can be trusted. The integrity, reliability, and confidentiality of your data must be beyond reproach. This holds for cloud providers, too.
You must understand what level of controls will be maintained by your cloud provider and consider how these controls can be audited.
Here's a sampling of different types of controls designed to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your data:
Input validation controls to ensure that all data input to any system or application are complete, accurate, and reasonable.
Output reconciliation controls to ensure that data can be reconciled from input to output.
Processing controls to ensure that data are processed completely and accurately in an application.
Access controls to ensure that only those who are authorized to access the data can do so. Sensitive data must also be protected in storage and transfer. Encryption can help to do this.
Re-identification (the process by which anonymized personal data is matched with its true owner) controls to ensure that codes are kept in a separate location to prevent unauthorized access to re-identification information.
Change management controls to ensure that data can't be changed without proper authorization.
Data destruction controls to ensure that when data is permanently deleted, it is deleted from everywhere — including all backup and redundant storage sites.
The concept of controls in the cloud is so important that the Cloud Security Alliance has put together a list of over 100 controls called the Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM) to guide cloud vendors and assist potential cloud customers in assessing the overall risk of the provider.
Your company needs to develop and publish a consistent set of rules and policies regarding the creation, capture, management, transmission, access, storage, and deletion of confidential and business-critical data. Use techniques such as encryption and tokenization to reduce exposure to data theft and misuse.
The secure transport of data in the cloud
Say that you've decided to move some of your data to the cloud. Regarding data transport, keep two things in mind:
Make sure that no one can intercept your data as it moves from point A to point B in the cloud.
Make sure that no data leaks (malicious or otherwise) from any storage in the cloud.
In the hybrid cloud, the journey from point A to point B might occur any number of ways: within a cloud environment, over the public Internet between an enterprise and cloud provider, or even between clouds.
The security process may include segregating your data from other companies' data, then encrypting it by using an approved method. In addition, you may want to ensure the security of older data that remains with a cloud vendor after you no longer need it.
A virtual private network (VPN) is one way to manage the security of data during its transport in a cloud environment. A VPN essentially makes the public network your own private network instead of using a dedicated connection. A well-designed VPN needs to incorporate two things:
A firewall to act as a barrier between the public Internet and any private network
Encryption to protect your sensitive data from hackers; only the computer you send it to should have the key to decode the data
In addition to transport, in a hybrid world, there will be touchpoints between your data and the cloud. Therefore, it's important to deal with the storage and retrieval of this data.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Егиндыбулак () — село в Баянаульском районе Павлодарской области Казахстана. Село входит в состав Кундыкольского сельского округа. Расположено примерно в 27 км к западу от Баянаула. Код КАТО — 553645400.

Население
В 1999 году население села составляло 619 человек (323 мужчины и 296 женщин). По данным переписи 2009 года, в селе проживало 492 человека (266 мужчин и 226 женщин).

Примечания

Населённые пункты Баянаульского района

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
FsModelEnhanced::FsModelEnhanced(QObject *parent) :
    QFileSystemModel(parent),
    timer_id_continue_(-1)
{
}

void FsModelEnhanced::startDataRetreieveSequence ()
{

    if (timer_id_continue_ != -1) {
        killTimer (timer_id_continue_);
        timer_id_continue_ = startTimer (100);
    } else if (timer_id_start_ == -1) {
        timer_id_start_ = startTimer (20);
    } else {
        killTimer (timer_id_start_);
        timer_id_start_ = -1;

        if (timer_id_continue_ == -1) {
            // this is the first item in the chain
            emit fsmeLoadStart();
        } else {
            killTimer (timer_id_continue_);
        }

        // another wait
        timer_id_continue_ = startTimer (100);
    }
}

QVariant FsModelEnhanced::data (
        const QModelIndex & index, int role) const
{
    for (;;) {

        if (role != Qt::DisplayRole) break;
        if (!index.isValid ()) break;
        if (!index.column () != 0) break;

        // this is nasty
        ((FsModelEnhanced*)this)->startDataRetreieveSequence();
        break;
    }
    return QFileSystemModel::data(index,role);
}

void FsModelEnhanced::timerEvent (QTimerEvent *event)
{
    for (;;) {
        if (timer_id_start_ != -1) {
            if (event->timerId () == timer_id_start_) {
                killTimer (timer_id_start_);
                timer_id_start_ = -1;

                break;
            }
        }
        if (timer_id_continue_ == -1) break;
        if (event->timerId () != timer_id_continue_) break;

        killTimer (timer_id_continue_);
        timer_id_continue_ = -1;
        emit fsmeLoadEnd();
        return;
    }
    QFileSystemModel::timerEvent (event);
}

#if 0
#include <QDebug>
const char * role_name = "";
switch (role) {
case Qt::DisplayRole: role_name = "DisplayRole"; break;
case Qt::DecorationRole: role_name = "DecorationRole"; break;
case Qt::EditRole: role_name = "EditRole"; break;
case Qt::ToolTipRole: role_name = "ToolTipRole"; break;
case Qt::StatusTipRole: role_name = "StatusTipRole"; break;
case Qt::WhatsThisRole: role_name = "WhatsThisRole"; break;
case Qt::FontRole: role_name = "FontRole"; break;
case Qt::TextAlignmentRole: role_name = "TextAlignmentRole"; break;
case Qt::BackgroundColorRole: role_name = "BackgroundColorRole"; break;
case Qt::ForegroundRole: role_name = "ForegroundRole"; break;
case Qt::CheckStateRole: role_name = "CheckStateRole"; break;
case Qt::AccessibleTextRole: role_name = "AccessibleTextRole"; break;
case Qt::AccessibleDescriptionRole: role_name = "AccessibleDescriptionRole"; break;
case Qt::SizeHintRole: role_name = "SizeHintRole"; break;
case Qt::InitialSortOrderRole: role_name = "InitialSortOrderRole"; break;
case Qt::DisplayPropertyRole: role_name = "DisplayPropertyRole"; break;
case Qt::DecorationPropertyRole: role_name = "DecorationPropertyRole"; break;
case Qt::ToolTipPropertyRole: role_name = "ToolTipPropertyRole"; break;
case Qt::StatusTipPropertyRole: role_name = "StatusTipPropertyRole"; break;
case Qt::WhatsThisPropertyRole: role_name = "WhatsThisPropertyRole"; break;
case Qt::UserRole: role_name = "UserRole"; break;
}
qDebug() << "FsModelEnhanced::data "
         << "row " << index.row ()
         << "column " << index.column ()
         << "role" << role_name << " " << role;
#endif

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: Nullable object must have a value. in VB.NET I have following code in VB.NET:
Public Sub Test(ByRef clientId As Nullable(Of Integer))
    Dim t As Object = IIf(clientId.HasValue, clientId.Value, DBNull.Value)
End Sub

The calling side pass in Nothing as clientId value, but when I run this statement I got exception.

Nullable object must have a value

Is my statement wrong?

A: Change it to use "If":
Dim t As Object = If(clientId.HasValue, clientId.Value, DBNull.Value)

The problem with "IIf" is that it's just a function call - all arguments are always evaluated, while the VB 'If' operator behaves like the '?' operator in C#/Java - it only evaluates what it needs to evaluate.

A:  Dim cp As Single
        '    Try
If tt.getsumpaid4cors(CInt(sidtxt.Text), CInt(coidtxt.Text), CInt(tidtxt.Text), CInt(stidtxt.Text)).HasValue Then

            cp = tt.getsumpaid4cors(CInt(sidtxt.Text), CInt(coidtxt.Text), CInt(tidtxt.Text), CInt(stidtxt.Text)).Value
        Else
            cp = 0
End If

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


This is a certain kind of pleasure, a small & specific but deliciously satisfying pleasure, in finding that someone I really admire has their own website. I can now be an Aimee Bender completist because she has links to stories I haven't read before! I love the net, I really do.
Another pleasure this week, a bigger but perhaps more diffuse pleasure, kind of an open-ended pleasure, is the fact that I tested out my audio setup on a Chinese restaurant yesterday & it sounds *really good*! I mean you can hear the wok sizzling like it's right there! Wheeeeee!


Upper trough remains over NW Europe where a strong cyclone slowly moves across North Sea and another one develops over S UK and moves towards Benelux. Short wave crossing central Europe with a weak lee low forming behind the Alps.
A SLGT+ risk has been issued for south UK, N France and Benelux into NW Germany with threat for severe winds, heavy rain and tornadoes.
A SLGT risk has been issued for northern Mediterranean with threat for heavy rain, severe winds and some tornado threat.


Maybe it's because of the ACDC-inspired CASB socks at the Bitglass booth. Or maybe people are just becoming smarter about cloud-security and realize the importance of cloud access security broker (CASB) technology. Whatever the reason, more people than usual who approached the cloud security vendor at this year's Black Hat knew what CASB is — and what it does, said Jacob Serpa, product marketing manager for Bitglass. Serpa said that compared to past security conferences, many more people approached the Bitglass booth at last week's Black Hat conference knowing what CASB is. Now the burning question is what is different about Bitglass CASB compared to others? Serpa also found that people were ready to discuss the cloud security landscape and emerging cloud-native threats. One major new one, he said, is context-aware malware.


text:
Consulting and Market Analysis Services: Learn more at www.mindwires.com
Author Kevin Kelly
Author Jeanette Wiseman
Author Clay Shirky
Blackbaud on Data Breach: Nothing to see here, move along
Author Phil Hill July 30, 2020 /1 Comment/by Phil Hill
Blackbaud – a publicly-traded software company providing fundraising, relationship, financial, and education management to academic institutions as well as other "social good organizations" – detected a data breach in May of this year. The incident originated at a managed hosting (company-run data center) environment for the Raiser's Edge and NetCommunity products that help organizations manage their fund-raising, keeping track of donors and amounts they have contributed over time. Two months later, on July 16th Blackbaud finally notified customers of the breach [emphasis added].
In May of 2020, we discovered and stopped a ransomware attack. In a ransomware attack, cybercriminals attempt to disrupt the business by locking companies out of their own data and servers. After discovering the attack, our Cyber Security team—together with independent forensics experts and law enforcement—successfully prevented the cybercriminal from blocking our system access and fully encrypting files; and ultimately expelled them from our system. Prior to our locking the cybercriminal out, the cybercriminal removed a copy of a subset of data from our self-hosted environment. The cybercriminal did not access credit card information, bank account information, or social security numbers. Because protecting our customers' data is our top priority, we paid the cybercriminal's demand with confirmation that the copy they removed had been destroyed. Based on the nature of the incident, our research, and third party (including law enforcement) investigation, we have no reason to believe that any data went beyond the cybercriminal, was or will be misused; or will be disseminated or otherwise made available publicly. This incident did not involve solutions in our public cloud environment (Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services), nor did it involve the majority of our self-hosted environment. The subset of customers who were part of this incident have been notified and supplied with additional information and resources. We apologize that this happened and will continue to do our very best to supply help and support as we and our customers jointly navigate this cybercrime incident.
It is not clear how many higher education institutions were impacted, since Blackbaud has not provided any further information.
Source: https://investor.blackbaud.com/events/event-details/q2-2020-blackbaud-earnings-conference-call
But based on what little coverage the data breach has received, and based on Educause listservs and private communications with CIOs, it appears that the number affected are in the hundreds, mostly in the US and the UK. Our friends at LISTedTECH, who track a number of EdTech systems across higher education and K-12 markets, have mapped the locations of colleges and universities that have publicly acknowledged they were impacted.
Data Hack
The primary media coverage this incident and Blackbaud's response has been from the BBC. In their most recent article, the BBC described the data obtained by cybercriminals.
But a source has told the BBC that in some cases it involved donors details including:
– names, ages and addresses
– car licence details
– employers
– estimated wealth and identified assets
– total number and value of past donations to the organisation in question
– wider history of philanthropic and political gifts
– spouses' identity and past gift-giving
– likelihood to make a bequest triggered by their death
Although Blackbaud has said the cyber-criminals had provided confirmation that the stolen data was destroyed, one expert questioned whether such an assurance could be trusted.
"The hackers would know these people have a propensity to support good causes," commented Pat Walshe from the consultancy Privacy Matters.
This would be valuable information to fraudsters, he added, who could use it to fool victims into thinking they were making further donations when in fact they would be giving away their payment card details.
It is difficult to get a full picture of the scope of the breach not just due to Blackbaud's attempts to downplay the incident, but also as schools are likely embarrassed by having to notify current and potential donors that their information was lost.
Ransom Payment
In a previous BBC article, they noted that the response of paying the ransom could have been a mistake in the first place.
The statement goes on to say Blackbaud paid the ransom demand. Doing so is not illegal, but goes against the advice of numerous law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, NCA and Europol.
Blackbaud said once the hackers had been paid, they had given "confirmation that the copy [of data] they removed had been destroyed".
"It is worrying that the supplier paid the ransom as, arguably, this encourages future attacks and doesn't overcome the fact that data has been compromised. This demonstrates the multiplier effect of supply chain hacks and reinforces the advice that security needs to be a collaborative exercise," Cath Goulding, chief information security officer at cyber-security firm Nominet said.
As the BBC has described, Blackbaud did not follow this guidance, instead notifying customers two months after the event.
GDPR and California: Data Privacy
While the UK is in a transition of leaving the European Union, that country is still bound by EU laws such as General Data Privacy Regulations (GDPR) through the end of this year. Section is Article 33 of GDPR describes the notification requirements, where Blackbaud would be a "controller" [emphasis added].
In the case of a personal data breach, the controller shall without undue delay and, where feasible, not later than 72 hours after having become aware of it, notify the personal data breach to the supervisory authority competent in accordance with Article 55, unless the personal data breach is unlikely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of natural persons. Where the notification to the supervisory authority is not made within 72 hours, it shall be accompanied by reasons for the delay.
The processor shall notify the controller without undue delay after becoming aware of a personal data breach.
The notification referred to in paragraph 1 shall at least:
1. describe the nature of the personal data breach including where possible, the categories and approximate number of data subjects concerned and the categories and approximate number of personal data records concerned;
2. communicate the name and contact details of the data protection officer or other contact point where more information can be obtained;
3. describe the likely consequences of the personal data breach;
4. describe the measures taken or proposed to be taken by the controller to address the personal data breach, including, where appropriate, measures to mitigate its possible adverse effects.
California, through SB24, requires notification to California residents for any data breach.
California law requires a business or state agency to notify any California resident whose unencrypted personal information, as defined, was acquired, or reasonably believed to have been acquired, by an unauthorized person. (California Civil Code s. 1798.29(a) [agency] and California Civ. Code s. 1798.82(a) [person or business].)
Any person or business that is required to issue a security breach notification to more than 500 California residents as a result of a single breach of the security system shall electronically submit a single sample copy of that security breach notification, excluding any personally identifiable information, to the Attorney General. (California Civil Code s. 1798.29(e) [agency] and California Civ. Code s. 1798.82(f) [person or business].)
Given the focus on donors, I'd bet that quite a few impacted individuals are California residents. Did Blackbaud do this notification, or are they relying on their customers to do so?
EdTech Accountability
What I believe is happening is that Blackbaud is trying to classify the event as not being a data breach – based on the premise that they paid the ransom and got a pinky swear that the cybercriminal got rid of the data and did not share it. Instead, Blackbaud is trying to present this as a successful prevention of a ransomware attack, noting that they "successfully prevented the cybercriminal from blocking our system access and fully encrypting files; and ultimately expelled them from our system."
Beyond GDPR regulations, this positioning could impact contract requirements with schools, as well as insurance coverage.
This event has several similarities to Chegg's data loss two years ago, which I covered at e-Literate – see my first Chegg breach post and my follow-up Chegg breach post four weeks later. Late notification, downplaying the event, focusing more on investor concerns than customer concerns, and the lack of EdTech coverage. Given the statements about Blackbaud having "no reason to believe that any data went beyond the cybercriminal, was or will be misused", it is worth noting that last year decrypted credentials from the Chegg breach were showing up on the dark web and appeared to be leading to multiple campus security attacks.
There are also several differences worth noting between the Blackbaud and Chegg events. Chegg did not learn of its data breach for several months and went public within a week of discovery whereas Blackbaud took two months, Chegg notified the SEC officially about the breach while Blackbaud did not, and Chegg's customers are students whereas Blackbaud's customers include schools (and indirectly donors). It this last point that might lead to a different resolution over time.
I don't know if the behind-the-scenes customer anger at Blackbaud will lead to any real action, but it is clear that the company is taking a 'nothing to see here, move along' approach. In this morning's Q2 earnings call with investors, Blackbaud did not even mention the security incident in the prepared remarks. Luckily two analysts asked some good questions – whether the incident "was in the rear-view mirror", how customers were reacting to the news, and whether this incident would accelerate the move to the public cloud. Blackbaud's CEO Michael Gianoni gave non-answers to the first two, based on the earnings call transcript, and note that he only answered in terms of ransomware and not in terms of data loss.
Yeah. Sure. Happy to do that. I just — related to that, I just wanted to start off for any customers that might be listening on the call, because I know they do and they also listen to the ones recorded. And I've been talking to a lot of customers, I'd like to just apologize on behalf of Blackbaud for the incident. Over the last five years, we've made significant investments to build a modern cyber security practice significant. And we follow industry best practices, we conduct ongoing risk assessments and simulations, we aggressively test security of our solutions and our infrastructure, including with several third-party experts that come in, which is the best practice.
And during the quarter, we discovered and stopped sophisticated attempted ransomware attack. Like a lot of companies, we get millions of intrusion attempts a month and unfortunately one got in to a subset of our customers and a subset of our backup environment. And based on the nature of the incident in our research including with several third-party experts in investigation folks including law enforcement that we work with, we have no reason to believe that any data went beyond the cyber criminal or will be disseminated or made available publicly.
So the incident did not reach a majority of our hosted environments and it did impact a subset of our customers who were quickly notified a couple of weeks ago. The goal of the, of any cyber criminal is to get control of a company's production environment, and we were able to detect and eradicate and stop that, so that never happens. So, it's unfortunate, but we did not have a service disruption because of this, and we're working with all of our customers that were involved here to help them through this. So my level of confidence here related to this one particular area is, we did remediate this area, we tested it, we had outside firms test it, and we're pretty confident that this one area has been shored up if you will.
It's unfortunate that this happened, because this obviously wasn't discovered by us or the outside firms we work with over the last several years. And I think we're in a good spot related to the amount of investment, the expertise we have, the folks we've hired from outside of the company that have significant backgrounds in the space, and the outside companies that we work with are tops in their fields. So it's a big focus of ours and it's unfortunate to happen, but we remain quite diligent in driving this part of the business forward.
On the third question, Blackbaud implied that they are accelerating their move to the public cloud (to AWS, where most EdTech lives), away from Colocation (or managed-hosting) data centers.
Three hours after the start of trading today, for what it's worth, Blackbaud stock was up more than 15%.
If there's any more to report on this data breach, it will be due to the BBC's reporting or to Blackbaud customers taking real action. The investment community applied some pressure, but Blackbaud is moving on.
Update 8/3: Added transcript of earnings call answer to replace paraphrased summary.
Phil Hill -
Tags: Blackbaud, Chegg, Data Privacy, Data Security
https://philonedtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/philonedtechlogo200.png 0 0 Phil Hill https://philonedtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/philonedtechlogo200.png Phil Hill2020-07-30 09:55:002020-08-03 15:19:51Blackbaud on Data Breach: Nothing to see here, move along
Blackbaud's blackmailers' impeccable promise - www.dgregscott.com says:
[…] substantive articles I could find on this incident were this one from the BBC, and this one from Phil Hill's PhilOnTech blog. Which means useful information is hard to find. This is a […]
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Don Moen and Ron Kenoly are in Nigeria for "The Rebirth" at Covenant Christian Centre. This happened on Friday, 25th March 2016. While here in Nigeria, they took time out to appear on Channels TV to talk about their music.


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Other Navy Units: Part I
Other Navy Units: Part II
US Marine Corps Units
Forward Presence in the Modern Navy Bibliography
Thomas G. Mahnken - Biography
Historiography of Programming and Acquisition Management Bibliography
Thomas Hone - Biography
Historiography of Technology Since 1950 - Bibliography
Mark D. Mandeles - Biography
Donald Chisholm Biography
The Navy, Science, and Professional History - Bibliography
Gary E. Weir - Biography
Edward L. Marolda - Biography
Social History of the U.S. Navy - Bibliography
US Navy Role in National Strategy - Bibliography
Sebastian Bruns Biography
Scott C. Truver - Biography
Appendix 1- U.S. Navy Operations 1980–2010
Appendix 2-U.S. Navy Operations 1980–2010
Appendix 4-Bibliography
Fire, People
Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. "History of the Armed Guard Afloat, World War II." (Washington, 1946): 252-253. [This microfiche, identified as United States Naval Administrative History of World War II #173, is located in Navy Department Library, and can be purchased, or borrowed through interlibrary loan.]
There are three outstanding examples of Japanese cruelty to survivors from ships which they had torpedoed which should not go unmentioned. These cases illustrate the fanatical nature of the opponent with which the armed guards had to deal while on duty in Pacific and Indian Ocean waters. These cruel acts took place in 1944 after the tide of battle had already turned against the Japanese.
The Richard Hovey was torpedoed in the Indian Ocean on March 29, 1944, just two days after she left Bombay. The Japanese submarine fired at No. 2 and No. 4 lifeboats and actually rammed No. 2 boat. The submarine took No. 1 lifeboat in tow and took four prisoners, including the master. The only persons who died were one [U.S. Naval] Armed Guard and three men who were lost in the engine room. The men were able to avoid machine gun fire only by diving into the water behind the boats and the rafts which were being towed by the lifeboats. The Armed Guard died of burns received aboard the ship. One of the most interesting facts about the struggle of the survivors for life is that the junior assistant engineer constructed a still. The water which was distilled helped to save the lives of several men.
The Jean Nicolet was also torpedoed in the Indian Ocean. Two torpedoes hit her on July 2. The Japanese shelled the ship and then forced about 95 men to come aboard the submarine from the boats. They forced the men to give up all personal possessions of any value and tied their hands behind their backs. They then forced the men to run through a gauntlet and hit them with bayonets and pieces of lead pipe. Others were taken to the after section of the submarine and beaten. About 60 people were killed in this awful ordeal. The approach of a plane forced the submarine to submerge. A few men were able to untie their hands and escape. Others died as the submarine submerged. Sharks killed others. There were few survivors. Five men refused to go aboard the submarine, including the Armed Guard officer. They were able to escape. British ships picked up the survivors.
On October 30 the John A. Johnson was torpedoed between Hawaii and San Francisco. The ship broke into two parts and both sections were set on fire by shelling. The submarine machine gunned lifeboats and rafts. Of the eleven dead or missing, five were Armed Guards. A plane quickly sighted the survivors. The submarine also rammed a raft and a lifeboat. Meanwhile the excited submarine crew shouted "Banzai" and hurled other remarks not fit to print at the helpless Americans.
Published: Wed Jun 04 14:45:12 EDT 2014


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Football Rumours on Friday 22nd October 2021
Newcastle United are interested in Porto and Colombia winger Luis Diaz, 24, and are preparing an offer to meet his release clause of 80m euros (£67.4m).
Everton want to sign Manchester United and England midfielder Jesse Lingard, 28, in January.
Belgium winger Eden Hazard, 30, could leave Real Madrid next summer and move back to former club Chelsea.
Manchester United midfielder Donny van de Beek, 24, will not be going back to Ajax but there is a strong chance he will leave Old Trafford.
(Fabrizio Romano)
Barcelona wonderkid Ansu Fati reportedly turned down Manchester United, Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain to commit his future to the Nou Camp.
Former Arsenal and England midfielder Jack Wilshere, 29, is open to a move to Major League Soccer with Inter Miami.
(Talksport)
Real Madrid are set to miss out on Borussia Dortmund forward Erling Braut Haaland, with Manchester City, Paris St-Germain or Bayern Munich the most likely destinations for the 21-year-old.
Manchester United and Chelsea are also interested in the Norway striker, who will demand more than £30m a year in wages.
Barcelona want to beat Real Madrid to the signing of 22-year-old PSG and France forward Kylian Mbappe, whose contract expires next summer.
Charlton have confirmed the departure of manager Nigel Adkins after seven months in charge.
Former Rangers striker Jonatan Johansson is in the frame to take over as Charlton Athletic manager, reports say.
Newcastle are to offer Paulo Fonseca £6m a season after he impressed Amanda Staveley in an interview.
Former Everton boss Roberto Martinez is interested in returning to the Premier League to manage Newcastle, according to reports.
Marc Overmars has emerged as a potential director of football at Newcastle United.
New York Red Bulls' head of sport Kevin Thelwell has emerged as a surprise candidate for the role of sporting director at Newcastle United.
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta says he was not worried 21-year-old English midfielder Emile Smith Rowe, who was the subject of two bids from Aston Villa in the summer, would leave the Gunners.
Manchester United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer says the club did not receive a bid from Everton for Netherlands international Van de Beek, despite speculation.
Arsenal have denied they have officially signed a four-year-old who became an Instagram sensation and instead say the kid dubbed 'Little Messi' is playing at one of their development centres.


The Mount Pleasant City Commission has its regular meeting Monday, Oct. 24 at City Hall.
The Mount Pleasant City Commission tidied up the city code at its regular meeting on Oct. 23.
Three ordinance amendments were added to the city code. The amendments are already a part of the city's zoning code, but city officials moved the policies in preparation of adopting a new zoning ordinance.
The three ordinance amendments regulate swimming pools, regulate the city's historic district and specify the power of the Planning Commission.
"The purpose of this is not to change the idea, (but) simply to change the location in order to do some housekeeping before adopting the new zoning ordinance," said Mayor Kathy Ling.
A public hearing was scheduled for Nov. 22 to discuss amending the city ordinance that prohibits the purchasing, consumption and possession of alcohol by minors.
City Manager Nancy Ridley said the change is necessary to comply with a new state law that reclassifies a first minor in possession of alcohol offense to a civil infraction, as opposed to a more serious misdemeanor.
Commissioners also approved a $4,872 contract with Mount Pleasant Fence, Sash and Door, Inc., a fence contractor located on 1315 N. Mission St.
The money is left over from a bid accepted last year to fence along West Wood Street. Only two-thirds of the fence had been completed due to the safety hazards and limited access to utilities furnished by the location.
Ridley said with money still in hand, a new fence will be installed safely with proper equipment with the new contractor.
After the regular meeting, commissioners met at a work session to discuss the 2018 Operating Budget.


Fire tube or "fire in tube" boilers; contain long steel tubes through which the hot gasses from a furnace pass and around which the water to be converted to steam circulates. (Refer Figure 2.2). Fire tube boilers, typically have a lower initial cost, are more fuel efficient and easier to operate, but they are limited generally to capacities of 25 tons/hr and pressures of 17.5 kg/cm 2.
The part of the boiler or furnace where fuel is mixed with air and combustion occurs. A low temperature, low pressure hot water or steam boiler, designed in accordance with ASME BPVC Section IV. Lower drum of a water tube boiler. Packaged Boiler.
In water tube boilers, water circulates through the tubes and hot Coal or oil can be used as fuel in this boiler. If oil is used as fuel, no grate is provided but the bottom of the furnace is lined with firebricks. Oil • A boiler may be classified as either a steam boiler or hot water boiler.
Any part of the boiler metal that has hot gases of combustion on one side and water on the other side is the heating _____.


Artwork and story research by Alan Bergin, Coolderry National School, County Offaly, Ireland.
Fionn MacCool, was no ordinary giant. He was the biggest and the strongest giant in all Ireland. His voice could be heard for miles around. He was so strong that he could lift a hundred men in one of his enormous hands. Fionn lived with his wife in the hills of County Antrim. Fionn's wife was called Oonagh.
One day a messenger came to Fionn's castle. He had come all the way from Scotland with news for Fionn. The messenger told Fionn that a Scottish giant called Angus wanted to fight him. Angus wanted to show that he was stronger than any giant in Ireland. Fionn had never seen Angus before, but he knew that he was the biggest giant in Scotland. Fionn was not afraid.
The next day, Fionn began to build a path across the sea to Scotland. This path was called the causeway. It was made of thousands of rocks. Fionn built many miles of the causeway with his great hands. When Angus heard about Fionn's causeway, he decided to build the Scottish end of the causeway himself. For weeks the two giants worked hard at building the causeway.
One morning Fionn was in the forest near his castle. He saw his wife coming towards him. He ran over to her.
As the sun was setting, he heard a knock on the door. It was the messenger. "Angus wants to fight you tomorrow at sunrise," he told Fionn.
"Yes, of course," replied Fionn.
He went into his bedroom when the messenger left. He took the blankets off the bed. Fionn and Oonagh worked through the night. They cut the blankets and made giant baby clothes. Fionn put on the baby clothes and got into the giant cradle.
At sunrise the next morning, Oonagh heard a knock on the door. It was Angus. Angus asked Oonagh was Fionn there. Oonagh told him that he was gone for a walk and that he would be back soon. She invited him in. It was not long before Angus heard a cry. He asked whom it was, pointing to the cradle. Oonagh said, "That's young Fionn, our baby.
Angus thought that if this is the size of their baby, how big could Fionn be. Then he ran out of the castle as fast as he could. He ran across the causeway and did not stop until he reached his country. He was afraid that Fionn might follow him.
Today, if you go to County Antrim, you can still see a small piece of the causeway. It is called the Giant's Causeway, because it was built by Fionn Mac Cool, the most famous giant in the history of Ireland.


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Home » news » Nba Daily The Odd Men Out Northwest Divison
NBA Daily: The Odd Men Out: Northwest Divison
Basketball Insiders continues its "Odd Men Out" series as Shane Rhodes takes a look at five candidates in the Northwest Division.
Basketball Insiders continues our "Odd Men Out" series with the fourth installment looking at the Northwest Division. We previously covered the Central, Southwest and Southeast divisions.
The Northwest Division figures to be one of the more competitive next season as four teams made the postseason and the fifth came just a game shy. As a result, roster spots and playing time on these teams will be hard to come by.
Rosters are fluid; just because one player figured to have a role doesn't necessarily mean they will come the regular season. Some players, unfortunately, get displaced from their roster or have their roles filled by another player or players.
What players fit that description from the Northwest? Let's take a look.
Raymond Felton — Oklahoma City Thunder
The Oklahoma City Thunder re-signed Raymond Felton early on in Free Agency, expecting him to serve as the backup point-guard as he did last season.
Now, he may find himself at the end of the bench or eventually out the door.
By way of the Carmelo Anthony trade, Oklahoma City acquired the services of disgruntled point-guard Dennis Schröder. While he wasn't the most popular in Atlanta, Schröder, 24, was active in the box score. Schröder averaged 19.4 points and 6.2 assists on 43.6 percent shooting. While the 34-year-old Felton played well at times last season, Schröder is younger, more athletic and should prove a higher-upside option off the Thunder bench.
With Schröder's arrival, combined with other acquisitions like Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot and Hamidou Diallo and an expected minutes increase for second-year shooting guard Terrance Ferguson, there will likely be little-to-no backcourt minutes to spare for Felton off the bench.
Evan Turner — Portland Trail Blazers
Despite his bloated salary, Evan Turner has managed to stick around with the Portland Trail Blazers over the last two seasons. The reason? Outside of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, Portland has dealt with a severe lack of reliable, secondary ball handlers.
That may no longer be the case.
While Shabazz Napier is off to Brooklyn, the Trail Blazers managed to bring in multiple guards and or wings that can run the floor, including Anfernee Simons, Gary Trent Jr. and Seth Curry. These players represent just a few of the names that could step in for Turner and make him expendable.
Not to mention, the trio makes just a fraction of Turner's salary next season, a whopping $17.8 million.
Alec Burks — Utah Jazz
The writing seems to be on the wall for Alec Burks. Between Donovan Mitchell, Ricky Rubio, Dante Exum and Raul Neto, the Utah Jazz have a more than competent group of guards and were already looking at a surplus at the position going into next season. Even Royce O'Neal can go out as the two-guard.
Then they drafted Grayson Allen out of Duke.
If they didn't before, the Jazz certainly have an abundance of talented guards, but not everyone will see the floor consistently. The reason Burks gets bounced over anyone else? Money.
Burks is set to make more than $11 million next season, coming in just over what the recently re-signed Exum will earn on the year. Considering Burks' diminished role, the Jazz should look to offload Burks' contract, which could allow Utah to save some money and open up more minutes for the likes of Exum, Neto and Allen.
Gorgui Dieng — Minnesota Timberwolves
While they certainly won't rush him back after multiple foot surgeries robbed him of his rookie season, the Minnesota Timberwolves will, eventually, have Justin Patton to fill in as the backup center behind Karl Anthony-Towns.
That spells bad news for Gorgui Dieng.
Dieng isn't going to push Taj Gibson from his starting spot at the power forward spot and the Timberwolves brought in Anthony Tolliver to slot in behind him this summer. Add that to the fact that rookie Keita Bates-Diop, at 6-foot-9, should be more than capable of playing minutes at the four, and there won't be many spots left on the roster for Dieng to occupy once Patton is fully healthy.
Dieng averaged just 16.9 minutes per game last season, his lowest since his rookie year. He posted a career low in rebounds per game, blocks per game and field goal percentage as well. While Dieng can still contribute, with the way the roster is constructed and the way Tom Thibodeau loves to ride his starters, he may not be contributing in Minnesota for much longer.
Juan Hernangomez — Denver Nuggets
There are 48 minutes in a basketball game, which is likely not enough for the Denver Nuggets to find consistent playing time for forward Juan Hernangomez next season.
With Paul Millsap healthy again, a majority of the minutes at the power forward position will find their way to the vet. Trey Lyles and, eventually, Michael Porter Jr. figure to eat the remainder of the minutes at the four spot, leaving Hernangomez in a pretty rough situation. A change of scenery could certainly be in the cards and, with a low salary, the Nuggets wouldn't have much trouble moving him.
Hernangomez, however, will more likely ride the pine for Denver, keeping their depth intact as they look to make a postseason run in a brutal Western Conference.
Malik Beasley — Denver Nuggets
Like his teammate, Hernangomez, Malik Beasley will likely find himself a victim of the Nuggets' exceptional depth.
Jamal Murray, Garry Harris, Will Barton and Isaiah Thomas are just some of the names that Denver currently rosters at the guard positions. Assuming all four names are able-bodied come next season, there will be little playing time for anyone else, including the 21-year-old shooting guard.
Beasley didn't see much time on the floor last season and that doesn't figure to change moving forward.
Again, rosters are fluid things; between freak accidents, injuries and whatever else could go wrong, these players may very well find themselves thrust into playing time. But, as things currently stand on their respective rosters, these men aren't exactly in the best position for individual success.
Keep an eye out for the remaining installments of Basketball Insiders' "Odd Men Out" series!


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Home > Kolkata > PCB to spray water on roads to counter dust pollution
PCB to spray water on roads to counter dust pollution
Team MP15 Nov 2019 6:27 PM GMT
Kolkata: State Pollution Control Board (PCB) has decided to spray water mixed with Sodium Lignosulphonate to suppress dust on roads.
According to PCB officials, though the particulate matter (PM) 10 and PM 2.5 level stays within the national standard in summer and monsoon, the level goes high during winter.
One of the components, which increase the pollution level is dust on from roads. To reduce the pollution, PCB officials have come up with the idea of spraying water on the roads.
But to prevent water from evaporating fast, PCB officials have consulted chemical experts and decided to mix Sodium Lignosulphonate with water which would delay the evaporation process.
On Friday, during a programme on environmental pollution, PCB Chairman, Kalyan Rudra and member secretary, Rajesh Kumar inaugurated three water sprinkler vehicles which would ply 50 kilometre every day. Primarily, it has been decided that these vehicles will ply on the roads in the Eastern part of the city. More such vehicles will also be bought soon.
Rudra and Kumar further informed that PCB has already provided Rs six crore to Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) to procure 10 water tankers with sprinkler and 10 mechanical sweeping vehicles. For Howrah, PCB will provide with such vehicles soon.
Primarily, these vehicles will ply from Ruby Crossing on Eastern Metropolitan Bypass to Airport on VIP Road.
"Our aim is to reduce the pollution as much as possible. We have already taken several initiative for the cause," said Kumar.
During the programme, seven police personnel from Anandapur police station were awarded and appreciated for their efforts to check burning of leather waste. PCB is mulling to propose a plan for deployment of police personnel to act against pollution related offences under leadership of a Superintendent of Police (SP) or Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) ranked officer.
On Wednesday, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) instructed the Director General of Police (DGP) to nominate a SP or DCP for Kolkata and Howrah exclusively to deal with the issue of noise pollution.
Police officials in Kolkata and Howrah will report to the SP or DCP (Noise Pollution) regarding offences pertaining to noise pollution.
The concerned SP or DCP must hold meetings with police officials within different jurisdictions to deal with issue of noise pollution.
Though NGT did not instruct deployment of any other police personnel for the issue, PCB is mulling to prepare a team which would work under the SP or DCP (Noise Pollution).
The team may consist of three Deputy Superintendent Police (DSP), five inspectors, 10 Sub-Inspectors, 15 Assistant Sub-Inspectors and 50 Constables if the proposal gets accepted.


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Separate the church and the state, you mullet wearing asshole!
Mississippi school district fined $7500 for opening assembly with prayer
Published July 27, 2015FoxNews.com
Brandon High School where the assembly in May 2014 took place. (City of Brandon)
Allowing a school assembly honoring high-achievers to open with a prayer made one Mississippi school district $7,500 poorer – and a student who sued $2,500 richer.
The Rankin, Miss., public school district was hit with the fine after U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves said it defied his prior order barring prayers school events. According to the judge, the prayer violated a 2013 court settlement that ordered the district to stop "proselytizing Christianity." The alleged violation, which came at an assembly last year for students who scored above 22 on their ACT college admissions test, prompted the judge to apply fines for that and another incident, in which Gideons International was permitted to hand out Bibles to elementary school students.
"The district's breach did not take very long and it occurred in a very bold way," Reeves wrote in his judgment. "Its conduct displays that the district did not make any effort to adhere to the agreed judgment."
Reeves also ordered the district to pay the student's legal fees, an amount that will be determined at a later date, and threatened a $10,000 fine for any future infractions of the order.
The assembly at Brandon High School in May 2014 began with a prayer led by local Methodist pastor Rev. Rob Gill. Although not mandatory, the assembly honored the district's students who scored higher than a 22 on their ACT college tests
The school district first came under legal fire when the same student took the school district and the school's then-principal, Charles Frazier, to court in 2013 for forcing him to attend a series of assemblies that promoted Christianity.
Attorneys for the school district have argued that Gill's prayer did not violate the 2013 orders or the student's First Amendment rights because attendance at the assembly was optional. Reeves, however, believes the district has been trying to indoctrinate students with Christianity.
"From the accounts detailed in the record, it appears that incorporating religious script and prayers with school activities has been a long-standing tradition of the district," the judge argued.
In a statement issued by an attorney, Rankin County Superintendent Lynn Weathersby said that despite the court's ruling, students and teachers will continue to pray. However, district staff will have to adjust in order to comply with the ruling.
-Awesome ruling. Separation of church and state people, period, no explanation necessary! School children should not have their scientific minds stunted by being told that mythology is to be believed as real. The reality is is that we do not know what exactly is beyond this life, if anything. A narrow view shouldn't demand superior advertisement when there are so many other myths to choose from. The ham-handed doctrine of Christianity speaks for itself, if the god of Abraham is as incompetent as the literal bible describes, than it might be a better bet to worship the My Little Ponies!
Tags agnostic, Apologetics, assholes, atheism, Belief, bible, Christians, christopher hitchens, CNN, Fox news, media
Awesome science!
Woo causes tragedy again!!
One thought on "Separate the church and the state, you mullet wearing asshole!"
drostdavid
Reblogged this on Dave the Atheist and commented:
Great ruling on separation of Church and state!


Fig. 3. The widespread impacts of a changing climate incomes of vulnerable populations and increase the absolute number of people at risk of hunger.
Freshwater has been an extremely important aspect of civilisation throughout human history. It is essential for health, food production and sanitation, as well as for industrial processes and sustenance of ecosystems. The quality of water is likely to be degraded by higher temperatures, but this may be offset in some areas by increased flows. There are several indicators of water-related stress applicable to different parts of the world. If withdrawals are greater than 20% of the total resources, these could easily be a limiting factor for development. Withdrawals of 40% or more represent high stress. Similarly, water stress could be a problem if a country or region has less than 1700 m3/year of water per capita. In 1990 approximately 33% of the people lived in countries using more than 20% of their water resources and by 2025 this fraction is likely to increase to 60%, simply due to growth in population. In addition, higher temperatures could increase such stress conditions. Thus climate change will exacerbate water shortages in many parts of the world, particularly the areas that are already water-scarce.
Populations inhabiting small island states and coastal areas are at particular risk of social and economic effects from sea level rise and storm surges. Human settlements in deltas, low-lying coastal areas and small is lands will face increased risk of coastal flooding, erosion and displacement. The areas at greatest risk are South and Southeast Asia, East Africa, West Africa and the Mediterranean, from Turkey to Algeria. Significant portions of highly-populated coastal cities are vulnerable to permanent land submergence and frequent coastal flooding. Essential resources like beaches, mangroves, freshwater, fisheries, coral reefs, etc., would also be at risk. Thus it is imperative that coastal areas and small island states explore and implement suitable adaptation measures. Figure 4 connects adaptation to the average number of people flooded by coastal storm surges annually.
Ecological productivity and biodiversity will be altered by climate change, with an increased risk of extinction for some vulnerable species. The increasing concentration of CO2 will initially increase productivity of some plants but climate change and disturbance regimes associated with it will eventually offset this initial increase. Some models project that the net uptake of carbon by terrestrial ecosystems will increase during the first half of the century and then level off or decline.
Thus, in order to reduce the vulnerability of certain societies to climate change, it is necessary to eradicate poverty. Research on the vulnerability of different societies and the socioeconomic dimensions of climate change, therefore, becomes urgent and important. It is difficult to determine how much of the economic decline of sub-Saharan Africa can be ascribed to the impacts of climate change, but similar climate effects in other vulnerable regions have been withstood by societies with higher incomes. An important preemptive strategy against the threat of climate change is the elimination of poverty, a subject on which fresh thinking and initiatives are required, particularly in rural areas. One such approach, which holds great promise, is the INSTEP strategy, which can be implemented in poor regions of the globe with local adaptation to suit existing conditions. Box 1 shows a schematic representation of INSTEP Global, TERI's pioneering step in the direction of poverty alleviation and economic growth in the developing world.
At this point it is relevant to refer to the basic concept of sustainable development. According to the Brundtland Commission report of 1989, sustainable development can be defined as "that form of development which meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
The concept of sustainable development can also be understood in terms of Kenneth Boulding's 'Spaceship Economy': "For the sake of pictur-esqueness, I am tempted to call the open economy the 'cowboy economy'; the cowboy being symbolic of the illimitable plains and also associated with reckless, exploitative, romantic, and violent behaviour, which is characteristic of open societies. The closed economy of the future might similarly be called the 'spaceman economy'; in which the earth has become a single spaceship, without unlimited reservoirs of anything, either for extraction or for pollution."
Another important concept, which we can borrow from the physical sciences, is that of entropy. If the accumulation and increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere are leading to human-induced climate change, and if the impacts of climate change are indeed negative for the well-being of several living systems and human activities, then climate change can be associated with increasing entropy in the eco nomic process. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen put forward this simple but powerful argument in many of his writings, and went further in highlighting the logic of greater use of renewable resources, which would not result in increasing emissions and concentration of greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere. One of his statements articulated as far back as 1971 said, "Automobiles driven by batteries charged by the sun's energy are cheaper both in terms of scarce low entropy and healthy conditions — a reason why I believe they must, sooner or later, come about." In some sense this statement was prophetic, and the growing interest in renewable energy technologies bears testimony to his logic and foresight.
Just as, in physics, the increase of entropy is an irreversible process, it is also possible that some of the effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations could become irreversible if climate change is not limited in both rate and magnitude before the associated threshold levels, the "points of no return", are reached. This is particularly challenging because the positions of these threshold lines are blurred. As it is, even after the greenhouse gas concentration and global surface temperature are stabilised, the sea level will continue to rise long after emissions of greenhouse gases are reduced.
Figure 5 illustrates this inertia in the climate system.
Temperature stabilization: a lew centuries derstanding of the geophysical aspects of climate change, we need to comprehend their nexus with sustainability and the equity dimensions of development.
The inertia of the climate system is such that the impacts of climate change can be spread over decades and centuries if not millennia. This fact combined with the possibility of irreversibility in the interacting climate, ecological and socioeconomic systems are the main reasons why anticipatory adaptation and mitigation are beneficial. It is, of course, true that these adaptation and mitigation measures could be costly to the global economy, particularly in poor countries with low-income levels and weak infrastructure. However, the faster they are implemented and the more ambitious their magnitude, the greater will be their benefits to the environment and the higher their immediate costs. Globally, a consideration of both mitigation and adaptation measures, therefore, becomes essential. Figure 6 shows the reduction in GDP in 2050 due to mitigation activities. These do not indicate a very heavy burden in terms of relative costs.
Significantly, by capturing synergies, greenhouse gas mitigation actions may yield ancillary benefits for other environmental problems. For example, the technological improvements of energy efficiency and use of renewable energy sources would be beneficial for reducing local pollution levels as well as for reducing carbon emissions. In the land-use sector, conservation of biological carbon pools not only prevents carbon from being emitted into the atmosphere, but it can also have a favourable effect soil productivity, the protection of biodiversity and the reduction of local pollution problems from biomass burning. Conversely, addressing environmental and equity problems other than climate change can also have ancillary benefits through reduction of GHG emissions.
The terms (Energy/GDP) and (CO2 /Energy) are called energy intensity and carbon intensity, respectively. They are important indicators of the state of the economic system and its sustainability in the context of climate change. Figure 7 shows the acceleration of energy system change for different mitigation scenarios.
• Reducing energy consumption, by increasing the efficiency of energy conversion and/or utilisation.
• Switching to less carbon-intensive fuels, for example natural gas instead of coal.
• Increasing the use of renewable energy sources or nuclear energy, each of which emits little or no net CO2.
• Sequestering CO2 by enhancing biological absorption capacity in forests and soils.
• Capturing and storing CO2, chemically or physically.
Ironically, the impacts of climate change are most severe for those countries that have contributed the least to the causes of the problem. For example, the developing countries have low per capita energy consumption and low contribution to global emissions and pollution, but have high local pollution levels and vulnerability to climate change. In contrast, the OECD countries have the highest per capita energy consumption and the highest contribution to global pollution, but they have less local pollution. The developed countries also have greater technical and economic resources for change than the poorer economies, particularly as the latter need to focus on development. Hence there is a need for joint technology development and deployment between north and south and the development of mechanisms to facilitate this. The transfer of technology between countries would widen the choice of options for energy mixes and associated technologies, and the economies of scale and learning will lower the cost of their adoption.
Specific mitigation options can be well understood in terms of the mitigation potentials/barriers as shown in Figure 8. The IPCC TAR identified five categories of increasing mitigation potentials: market, economic, socioeconomic, technological and physical. At any given time, the market potential represents the actual use of a technology or practice. Overcoming the barriers of market and institutional imperfections would help the adoption of more cost-effective mitigation options thus realising the full economic potential of a set of options. The next step is changing consumer behaviour and preferences leading to more climate-conscious and climate-responsible lifestyles. This expands the horizon to the socioeconomic potential. Technological improvement and cost reduction provide access to the technological potential; and finally, the physical potential represents the theoretical upper bound, which may become achievable through innovation.
Fig. 8. Concepts of mitigation potentials.
The boundaries between these potentials are not clearly defined or fixed, but are continuously varying as a consequence of changing policy, relative costs, human behaviour and technological innovation. The realisation of these potentials can only come about through effective policy-making and implementation. The economic and socioeconomic potentials inherent in a set of measures require the assistance of international cooperation initiatives like the Kyoto Protocol, mechanisms of Joint Implementation, Emissions Trading and the Clean Development Mechanism.
development of renewable energy sources. This could prove to be a serious deterrent for climate mitigation efforts.
The global challenge today is to utilise the mitigation potentials to their fullest, to overcome the technical, economic, political, cultural, social, behavioural and institutional barriers that prevent the successful implementation of the mitigation options. There is an unprecedented need for global vision and commitment towards adaptation and mitigation options and to address the equity implications of climate change effectively. Technology is the key, but the social and economic context is of critical relevance in bringing about change in the required direction. Scientists, technologists and economists, therefore, share a common agenda that requires a much higher level of collaborative activity in the future.
While this presentation in its title aims to review the environmental and water resource impacts in the eastern Mediterranean, in the subtitle emphasis is given to the fact that regional issues are inseparably linked with the environment/climate of a greater area.
E.J. Moniz (ed.), Climate Change and Energy Pathways for the Mediterranean, 15-31. © 2008 Springer.
cioeconomics, make the region prone to impacts of climate change, implying possible changes in hydrology and ecosystems.
On the basis of our present understanding, it is not clear how the global climate system is projected onto the region, or how the region contributes to the global system. Unexpectedly large impacts could occur, as they have done in the past, in such a complex system, in response to global change. On the other hand the typically delayed human response to environmental emergencies can result in irreparable damage.
Although the region where we live turns out to be interconnected and dependent on neighboring areas of the globe, we often focus our attention on local problems of direct consequence. While nature as a function of the sun's inclination and geography seems to favour some of us more than others on Earth, through the ages differences in our common inheritance have been tolerated by human settlement and adaptation. In the age of global change, inequalities in the distribution of resources, energy and people are extremely demanding for human adaptation, let alone their sharing. The situation implies a serious geo-potential for conflicts that in turn could result in further environmental damage.
Fig. 2c. Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline terminal in the Gulf of iskenderun part of the global pattern. Similarly, the distribution of water, food or energy, and their exploitation have regional impacts.
While oil and gas pipeline transport networks (Figure 1) and shipping redistribute the hydrocarbon resources, they can give rise to environmental threats in regions remote from the source, for example in the Turkish Straits System, and the Gulf of iskenderun in the eastern Mediterranean, as shown in Figure 2.
Fig. 2c. Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline terminal in the Gulf of iskenderun route, is the Gulf of ískenderun, where the recently finished Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline terminates (Figure 2).
An important natural resource of regional significance is water. Again, the distribution is determined by geometry, but also by socioeconomics. In some cases there are fewer people where the water resources are poor (or vice versa). In general there is a north-south gradient of water availability, though the population increase is faster in the south where there is a shortage of water (Figure 3). In some other countries that appear to be rich in water, the population increase is so fast that the per capita share is comparable to water-poor countries (Figure 4).
It should also be noted that the general rule of inequality also applies in the way water is consumed. Globally the production of meat in the second half of the last century increased by more than fourfold, and preferentially in the developed world. The production of meat requires 7 times more land and 10-20 times more energy and water compared to the production of grain. The side effects are disturbed marine and land ecosystems due to over-grazing, over-fishing, and the use of fertilizers and pesticides, etc.
charges from major population centers and drainage seems to have more than made up for the losses, and once again have increased eutrophication in the 1990s (Nixon 2003).
With the recent decline of the Nile discharge, the Turkish rivers in the north (Figure 5 a) presently constitute the only available runoff water into the entire oligotrophic eastern Mediterranean, concentrated in the relatively small area of the Cilician Basin (between Cyprus and Turkey). Because of the significant inputs of these rivers the region has all the characteristics of the ROFI (regions of freshwater influence) but in an oligotrophic deep water environment.
or about half of all rivers along the Turkish Mediterranean and Aegean coasts, which is still greater than the present discharge of the Nile in the eastern Mediterranean. The Cilician Basin coastal system embodies important natural resources of strategic importance, presently experiencing rapid growth in population, industry, agriculture and tourism, resulting in significant environmental stresses.
The watershed areas of rivers discharging into the Mediterranean and, Black and Caspian seas (Figures 5b, c, d) make up different ratios when compared to the target sea areas. For the Mediterranean, the rivers are spread over watersheds limited to coastal margins and plains (except for the Nile which is now dammed), while the catchments of the major rivers of the Black and Caspian seas cover much larger areas of continent compared to the destination sea. The balance between evaporation, runoff and precipitation, combined with the geometrical constraints determine the vertical structure of these seas, with the Mediterranean being a better ventilated concentration basin, and the Black Sea being a poorly ventilated and therefore an anoxic dilution basin. Interestingly, the Caspian Sea, with evaporation almost balancing the river runoff has been observed in the past apparently to switch between poorly ventilated and ventilated states depending on the relatively much larger sea-level changes on the order of several meters in the last decades, and tens of meters in the ancient past.
Physical characteristics determine the state of the ecosystem in each individual basin and its various eco-zones (Figure 6). Riverine and atmospheric supply of nutrients into the sea provide the fuel with which the ecosystems run. The Caspian and Black seas and especially their shelf areas influenced by large rivers are therefore extremely productive, while the eastern Mediterranean appears as a "blue desert", apart from limited coastal stretches near river mouths.
evaluate the present state of the ecosystems of individual seas. Transboundary Diagnostic Analyses have been performed for the Black Sea (Figure 7) and the Caspian Sea, but the gathering of such information appears largely incomplete for the Mediterranean Sea basins. It should also be remarked that the mean fluxes obtained by such analyses is a starting point, but largely insufficient, because of the need to better assess the seasonal, interannual and long-term changes in the sources, as a result of agricultural/industrial activity. In the case of the Black Sea, the nutrient inputs carried from continental Europe by large rivers such as the Danube multiplied by several factors, before the changes in economics of Eastern Europe in the mid-1990s put a halt to the trend, and had a positive impact.
An understanding of the sinister threat of eutrophication in semi-enclosed basins and the coastal ocean is not sufficiently developed, although scientific awareness has improved over the years. In the Mediterranean, eutrophication in coastal seas advances against an oligotrophic deep sea background. In comparison, the Black Sea and Caspian Sea are mesotrophic seas which are under greater risk of eutrophication. The environmental crisis in the Black Sea has resulted in major loss of fisheries and habitats, increased occurrence of harmful algal blooms (red tides) and altered food web and community structure. It appears that climatic oscillations, fishing pressure and eutrophication processes all had their fair shares in the resulting crisis (Oguz 2003), which appears to go through a partial recovery until the present.
One of the culprits in the Black Sea ecosystem collapse was the introduction of the foreign species Mnemiopsis Leidyi brought by ships from the Atlantic. The opportunistic organism occupied a new link in the food web, competing with anchovy larvae for food, and therefore had a drastic effect. Similar changes are now being observed in the Caspian Sea, as a result of the introduction of the same organism through the Volga-Don canal connecting the two seas.
The sensitivity (i.e., response to an incremental change in forcing) of an ocean basin is a function of its system characteristics and internal processes. The inability to separate natural variability of the system from man-induced changes, confounded by incomplete observations makes it difficult to understand extreme conditions that often arise unexpectedly in a system.
With today's global warming expectations it is somewhat unclear if we have already started to see measurable effects in our environment. Yet, in the last few decades we have become increasingly aware of previously unobserved extreme conditions. One example of such events is the "Eastern Mediterranean Transient", which has led to massive replacement of the eastern Mediterranean by a rapid series of events in the early 1990s (Roether et al. 1996). Another case is the anomalous warm summer season of 2003 which primarily affected the western Mediterranean (Beniston 2004), heating up the surface waters (Figures 8a, b, c) to rare levels in the available record. It is expected that such warm events would take place with increasing frequency and variability, as a result of global warming.
Despite their isolated appearance, the internal machinery of each individual marine basin is both a significant driver and participant of regional climate. The mean residence time varies considerably from 7 years for the Marmara, to 25 years for the Caspian, 100 years for the Mediterranean, and up to about 2000 years for the deeper part of Black Sea, resulting in widely differing characteristics of these basins.
Figs. 9a, b. Average salinity, potential temperature and log number of observations in the depth interval of 1000-2000m in the Cretan Sea and of 2000-4000m in the western Levantine Sea areas. The error bars denote standard deviation. The averages are obtained from individual data sets contained within the combined MODB/POEM data and grouped into 1 year intervals falling within the specified depth range (Ozsoy and Latif, 1996).
The Mediterranean thermo-haline circulation (i.e., western and eastern basin cells, with a "conveyor belt" partly connected to the North Atlantic) has undergone recent abrupt changes (Figure 9), with previously unfore seen deep water renewal of the entire eastern basin from the Aegean Sea in the 1990s (Roether et al. 1996), and recurrent deep water formation at the Rhodes Gyre core observed in 1987 and 1992 (Sur et al. 1992). Shelf processes and episodic events of deep water renewal are also evidently important in the north Aegean Sea (Zervakis et al. 2000). Abrupt changes in the surface circulation and water masses have been repeatedly recognized on decadal time scales in the eastern Mediterranean (e.g., Malanotte-Rizzoli et al. 1999).
In the relatively stable Holocene period there have been significant changes in climate with repeated periods of enhanced productivity associated with surface water budgets (especially in relation to dramatic changes in the Nile outflow) reflected in the hydrographic structure of the eastern Mediterranean (Schilman 2001).
In comparison, the Black Sea is considerably less mixed. Wind and boundary mixing processes control the permanent pycnocline in the Black Sea (Ozsoy and Unluata 1997). Below the pycnocline, both the temperature and the salinity increase towards the bottom, their competing effects on static stability leading to double diffusive convection driven by lateral sources of Mediterranean water entering from the Bosphorus and modified along the continental shelf. The present day penetration of anomalous waters is limited to the upper 500m and does not reach the bottom of the Black Sea. Saline water intrusion from the Aegean Sea fills and ventilates the three interconnected deep basins of the Marmara Sea, which could otherwise become anoxic as there is little exchange across the sharp interface separating the main water body from the surface layer (Be§iktepe et al. 1993, 1994). The surface water injected into the northern Aegean from the Dardanelles Strait is thought to have a similar function in controlling wind-induced mixing there.
The Black Sea is the largest anoxic basin of the world, with a Holocene history of transformation from a freshwater lake to a sea with low salinity. Recurrent plankton productivity events have occurred at intervals of a few hundred years within the last millennium (Figure 10), recorded in bottom sediments when the basin has evolved to sufficiently saline conditions allowing Emiliana Huxleyi blooms (Hay and Honjo 1989). A series of recent ecosystem changes has occurred as a result of the freshwater and increased nutrient supplies and poor ventilation (Ozsoy and Unluata 1997).
The sea level, besides being a good indicator of climatic fluctuations, is a sensitive measure of climate in enclosed and semi-enclosed seas driven by large rivers. In the Black Sea, sea level is controlled by atmospheric pressure and the total water budget, which are both highly variable themselves (Ozsoy and Unluata 1997; Ozsoy et al. 1998). Basin hydromete-orology driving sea level appears linked to ENSO and Monsoon regimes in the Caspian Sea (Bengtsson 1998; Arpe and Roeckner 1999) and to NAO in the Black Sea (Stanev and Peneva 2002). The recent sea-level change in the neighboring Caspian Sea is demonstrative of the magnitude of problems that could occur. The abrupt sea level drop in the 1930s and rise in the 1980s, by more than 2m each time, flooding the surrounding flat lands, is perhaps an isolated decadal event within the observed past (Radionov 1994) and forecasted future changes (Arpe and Roeckner 1999) of even greater magnitude. Sea-level fluctuations have been linked with subsequent changes in ventilation and biochemical cycles alternatively leading either to anoxia or well-mixed conditions (Kosarev and Yablonskaya 1994; Dumont 1998; Kosarev and Toujilkine 2002). It is not known whether the Holocene periods of increased productivity in Figure 2 were a consequence of sea level variations, but much greater impacts on both the Aegean and the Black seas are known to have occurred in the Quaternary (Ryan et al. 1997; Aksu et al. 1999).
inter-basin exchanges and land-ocean-atmosphere interactions including the effects of coastal processes.
The Turkish Straits System (the Straits of Dardanelles, Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara) is a highly stratified (fjord-like) two-layer system, acting as a buffer for waters flowing in both directions between the Black and Aegean seas. Mixing and turbulent entrainment processes in the two straits and at their junctions dominate the evolution of the salinity of waters transported away from their original reservoirs (Be§iktepe et al. 1993, 1994; Gregg and Ozsoy 1999; Gregg et al. 1999; Ozsoy et al. 2001). Straits conveying waters of foreign origin, as well as freshwater from large rivers act as buoyancy sources for the adjacent basins of the Aegean, Marmara and Black seas. The complex topography of the straits, continental shelf, slope and abyssal regions play important roles in channeling and the subsequent transformation of waters of different origin.
The complexity of the marine and atmospheric climate processes, and the scarcity of some resources in the region, calls for integrated scientific investigations. Networks of observing systems, shared databases and models integrated through supporting institutions are essential for answering key questions with respect to the impact of climate change in the region, and to enable environmental prediction and management from the perspective of global change.
Aksu AE, Hiscott RN, Ya§ar D (1999) Oscillating Quaternary water levels of the Marmara Sea and vigorous outflow into the Aegean Sea from the Marmara Sea-Black Sea drainage corridor. Marine Geology 153: 275-302 Arpe K, Roeckner E (1999) Simulation of the hydrological cycle over Europe: Model validation and impacts of increasing greenhouse gases. Advances in Water Resources 23: 105-119 Bengtsson L (1998) Climate modeling and prediction: Achievements and challenges. WMO/IOC/ICSU Conference on the WCRP Climate Variability and Predictability Study (CLIVAR), UNESCO, Paris, 2-4 December 1998 Beniston M (2004) The 2003 heat wave in Europe: A shape of things to come?
Abstract: This chapter discusses prospects for increased consumption of natural gas within the European Union (EU). Particular emphasis is on the power generation sector where the main growth in demand is expected to occur, on supply and infrastructural constraints and on the future price of natural gas.
It can be concluded that EU gas-import needs will increase substantially up to 2010, driven by a combination of rapid increase in demand in southern Europe and declining production in northern Europe. As a result there will be an increased import dependency which will affect security of supply, not only in the gas sector but also in the electricity sector. However, supplies of gas are plentiful, at least in the medium term, and a number of new countries will emerge as substantial suppliers to the European gas market, increasing competition and possibly leading to a situation of oversupply between 2008 and 2012, which in turn may create a downward pressure on spot market gas prices. In addition, the US market may experience considerable oversupply between around 2008 and 2015, reducing the possibilities of conducting arbitrage between the two main markets in the Atlantic basin. On the other hand, the oil price will continue to be a major determinant of the gas price and a tight oil supply/demand balance will create an upward pressure on the gas price. Large investments will be required in order to extract and transport the gas to the markets and, in particular, it can be questioned to what extent Russia will manage to raise production capacity in the short term. Also, the producing countries are prone to invest according to national interest rather than to supply an increasing global demand. Problems related to gas production capacity together with abundant supply to the EU markets and increased competition points to Russia losing market share in the short run. In the long run, it can be expected that the EU's dependency on gas from Russia and the Middle East will increase.
* This chapter was written and submitted in 2005.
E.J. Moniz (ed.), Climate Change and Energy Pathways for the Mediterranean, 33-60. © 2008 Springer.
Restrictions on CO2 emissions, the nuclear phase-out announced by some member states, high emissions from coal-based generation and barriers to rapid development of renewable generation, are factors that seem to force the EU into a high dependency on natural gas. The EU is facing a growing dependency on foreign, often politically unstable "closed" regions, not only for the supply of oil but also for the supply of gas. As a consequence, the European electricity and heat supply will be increasingly dependent on the supply of gas from these regions.
Various papers related to the development of natural gas market globally and within Europe are available (e.g., ECN 2003). Still, there is a lack of studies that are based on a detailed description of the current and planned natural gas infrastructure combined with an analysis of the energy system with infrastructural limitations and possibilities, such as location and age structure of the power generation plants. This chapter is part of a broader study with the aim to develop a methodology for a detailed analysis of possible development paths for the European energy system. As basis for this work, a comprehensive database of the European power generation system has been developed, including fuel infrastructure and CO2 storage options (Kjarstad and Johnsson 2004). Thus, part of the work deals with mapping the international fuel market. Of special importance is the natural gas market since, as mentioned above, a substantial growth in demand for natural gas can be foreseen over the coming decades (e.g., IEA 2004a). There are no up-to-date review papers on the European gas market, covering demand and supply as well as issues on price and financing the expansion in the natural gas infrastructure. In order to understand the prospects of increased use of natural gas in the EU and thereby to evaluate various pathways for the EU energy system, the global gas market must be understood with respect to development of the power generation sector (where the main growth is expected to occur), infrastructural constraints, financing and future price of natural gas. The aim of this chapter is to discuss these issues in the context of an expected increased use of natural gas within the EU. A detailed mapping of the current gas infrastructure forms the basis of the work.
IEA (2004a) expects primary gas demand in EU-25 to increase by 1.8% on average over the period 2002 to 2030, reaching 649 Mtoe in 2030 and in creasing the share of gas in Total Primary Energy Consumption (TPEC) from 23% to nearly 32%. The report "European Energy and Transport Trends to 2030" (EC 2004) suggests an average annual growth rate within EU-25 of 1.7% over the same period, while for Europe and Central Europe Cedigaz (2002) estimates an annual growth rate of around 3% up to 2010. Similarly, ExxonMobil (2004) projects European gas demand to increase by 2.5% per annum (p.a.) between 2002 and 2020, yielding a demand of around 735 bcm in 2020. BP (2004b) projects European gas demand to increase by some 2.7% p.a. from 2003 to 20l5, yielding a demand of around 740 bcm in 2015, although it is not clear what countries ExxonMobil and BP include in "Europe."
Global annual demand for natural gas increased on average by 2.2% between 1990 and 2004, reaching 2420 Mtoe in 2004, of which North America and the former Soviet Union together accounted for 51% of the total demand. The largest growth was noted in the Middle East and Asia Pacific regions where consumption on average increased by more than 6% p.a. over the period. Corresponding growth in the EU amounted to 3.5% p.a. over the period reaching 420 Mtoe in 2004. Gas consumption in the UK and Germany, which are the largest consumers in Europe, was 88 and 77 Mtoe, respectively, while Spain noted the fastest growth rate, almost 12% p.a. between 1990 and 2004 (BP 2005).
The share of natural gas in global hydrocarbon production (marketed) has increased from 30% in 1980 to 39% in 2003 indicating the increased importance of gas. Globally, marketed production increased by 2.1% p.a. between 1990 and 2004, reaching 2420 Mtoe. As for demand the largest annual increase in production was noted in the Middle East, with an annual increase of 7.5% on average over the period. There was also a considerable growth in Africa and Latin America over the period (1990-2004), with annual growth rates just below 6% on average while production in North America grew more moderately, with a growth rate of 1.2% p.a. Production in the EU was 194 Mtoe in 2004, corresponding to 8% of the world total and with an average annual growth of 2.2% over the same period. Annual gas production decreased rapidly in the former Soviet Union between 1990 and 1997, from 685 to 565 Mtoe, but has since then recovered and reached 667 Mtoe in 2004 (BP 2005).
The bulk of the increased demand for natural gas in the EU is expected to come from increased use of gas for power generation. IEA (2004a) projects that gas-based generation will increase by 3.7% on average per year over the period 2002 to 2030, from 521 TWh in 2002 to 1458 TWh in 2030, increasing the share of gas in power generation from 15% to 34%. The EE&TT report expects a similar growth in gas share as primary fuel for power generation (an increase from 18% in 2000 to almost 35% in 2030).
The increased use of gas as a fuel in the power generation sector over the last decade can be observed from the capacity of existing and planned thermal power plants distributed by fuel and age as shown in Figure 1 (thermal plants fuelled by biomass/waste are not included). The data in Figure 1 has been taken from the Chalmers Power Plant database (Kjärstad and Johnsson 2004), which contains all existing and planned power plants within EU-25 with a capacity of at least 100 MW. The database lists all power plants down to block level with respect to fuel, age, capacity, technology and current status (e.g., in operation versus in reserve).