Resilience and solar energy are separately growing in popularity for urban planners and similar professionals. This project links the two discrete terms together and examines the extent to which solar energy can improve local government resilience efforts. It includes a detailed literature review of both topics, as well as the methodology and findings related to a survey and interviews of local government officials and key stakeholders across the country related to hazard mitigation and energy assurance planning.
This research finds that integrating the use of solar energy can improve local government resilience efforts related to mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery activities in the following ways: by being incorporated into hazard mitigation strategies as a means to maintain critical operations, thereby reducing loss of life and property; by being utilized in comprehensive planning efforts to increase capacity and decrease reliance and stress upon the grid, thereby reducing the likelihood of blackout events; by being used in tandem with backup storage systems as an integral part of energy assurance planning, which can help ensure critical functions continue in times of grid outage; by being used to provide power for response activities such as water purification, medicine storage and device charging; and by being used as an integral part of rebuilding communities in a more environmentally-conscious manner.
The result of the research is a document entitled Solar Energy & Resilience Planning: a practical guide for local governments, a guidebook for local government officials wishing to have more information about incorporating solar energy into current resilience initiatives; it is included at the end of the report as Appendix C.


In 2007 the Tay Ho district of Hanoi had few F&B outlets. Our team helped the partners conduct research to gain insights as an input to a concept and challenge which was to develop an elegant but approachable restobar with a kidsroom and single B&B unit (incidentally the 2nd AirBnb listing ever in Vietnam).
Our naming process led to the name Daluva, based loosely on the Spanish: de la uva, from the grape. Our design team developed the red-wine coloured dynamic logo and graphic system. The elegant-yet-comfortable interior design was created in collaboration with Uyen Nguyen (currently at Halo Design).


In my previous post, I described the journey that had led to my decision to self-publish my second novel, If Pigs Could Fly. In this post, I'm going to talk a little about the nuts and bolts details that the process involved, mainly in the hope that it might prove useful for anyone following a similar path.
I've presented those in a rough chronological order, but in reality it's much more fluid than that, with considerable overlap.
My advice really starts at the point where you've got the text of your manuscript to as good a point as you can get it. I'm assuming that you've done multiple drafts, and perhaps shown it to some beta readers (friends whose opinions you trust) to get additional feedback.
One point of advice I will give on the actual writing of your manuscript is to use the specialist writers' word processor, Scrivener. It's just brilliant in the way it helps you organise and shape your story.
Firstly, I hired Amanda Rutter as an editor. I blogged a little while ago about how Amanda helped me, but basically, I would strongly recommend that you hire an editor. You yourself are simply too close to the woods to see the trees.
Once I'd gone through the manuscript, reviewing Amanda's changes, and then rewriting various sections to address issues that Amanda had highlighted, I then reformatted the Word document in the actual format of the final paperback version of my novel (more about that format later). I think the technical term for this is the slightly anachronistic "typesetting".
I then gave that "typeset" version of the novel (still a Word document) to the second person I hired, Ro Smith, to do a copy edit / proof read (they are actually slightly separate things, but that's probably something beyond the scope of this post).
A second editing pass, at a more sentence-based level, and in addition, looking more specifically to catch typos.
Checking that I hadn't introduced any new screw-ups in the new sections I'd written in response to Amanda's observations.
Checking that I hadn't screwed up any of the layout / formatting when creating the typeset version of the document.
In parallel to the work on the text, I was working with my cover artist Jon Hodgson, who'd been the cover artist on Game Night some seven years before. This involved me giving him some initial ideas and thoughts, then the two of us batting various ideas around, and going through several versions. I was probably quite an annoying client, but I'm thrilled with the final result.
I'd recommend all three of them.
The obvious questions for endeavours such as these are how long did it take and how much will it cost. Well it probably took around six months to go from a basic manuscript to a "typeset" Word document and a JPEG of the cover. You can do it faster if all the ducks line up, but it's probably best not to rush it. For cost, it would be unprofessional of me to mention the actual prices changed, but between the three of them it was more than several hundred but less than several thousand, if that makes sense.
Paperback on its own simply isn't an option. And there are many who argue that you should go E-book only, which isn't as mad as it sounds. Realistically, your book isn't going to get into bookshops and will only be available online. And even there, while people might be willing to make a punt on a self-published e-book by an author they've not previously heard of, they're unlikely to spend several times that amount to purchase a paperback.
Let me illustrate this with an anecdote. Game Night is currently only really ticking over sales-wise, something that will hopefully change a bit when If Pigs Could Fly comes out. Since May/June, when I put the new version of it up in both e-book and paperback format, I've probably sold something like 120 copies of the e-book version. Meanwhile, I've only sold one copy in paperback, and that was a test purchase I made myself from my personal Amazon account, to check that it was working.
So that I could sent out physical review copies ahead of publication (more on this later).
So that I could sell the book at conventions (I've just come back from doing this very thing at the Irish Discworld Convention).
Because it makes the Kindle version of your book look more professional and credible. This is because: a) the paperback will be shown as an alternate format on the Kindle version's page, which puts it psychologically ahead of the mass of self-published e-books that have no paperback version; b) the Kindle version's price will be shown as a discount against the paperback price; c) the Kindle version's page will display a page count, that being the page count of the paperback.
I wanted to be able to hold a real book in my hands. It wouldn't feel real otherwise.
There is one big disadvantage in doing a paperback, which is that your cover design becomes more complicated. Instead of merely needing a matchbook sized front cover, you need both front and back covers and a spine, in a much larger size.
Your book appears on the various Amazons around the world, at a price that you've set. When a customer orders the book, CreateSpace/Amazon prints it and ships it to them. You don't need to do anything, and no up front cash investment is required from you. (Theoretically, it should be available / orderable from other channels, but I have no idea how well that works).
I'm sure there are other, better, print-on-demand companies out there, but CreateSpace does what I need it to do, and being an Amazon service it should work well with them.
Creating a CreateSpace version of your book is relatively simple. You have to upload the interior of your book in PDF format, and the cover in JPEG format. You can download dynamically created templates for both of these items from the CreateSpace website: you enter in the dimensions of your book, and it generates an appropriately sized template.
For the e-book, I went with two separate routes. To get If Pigs Could Fly onto Kindle I went with Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing. (You can actually publish a Kindle version from the CreateSpace version, but I wanted the greater control you get when you do it directly).
For the Kindle version I had to create a separate version of the If Pigs Could Fly Word document, which I formatted differently, according to the guidelines on the KDP site. And I also needed to cut just the front cover portion of my cover JPEG into a separate JPEG.
As with CreateSpace, creating a KDP account and uploading your book is free.
Now I could have left it at that, with the e-book available for the Kindle only – and in fact Amazon do offer various inducements to do just that. In reality, Kindle is probably about 95% of the e-book market, but I didn't take the exclusive deal, basically because: a) I don't want to be the man that helps Amazon have a monopoly; and b) if one of my readers has bought a non-Amazon e-reader, I still very much want them to be able to read my book. (In fact, I find the idea of telling someone that they can't read your book because they've bought the "wrong" e-reader objectionable on several levels).
People can purchase the book directly from Smashwords, DRM free, in a variety of formats including PDF, .mobi, and .epub. The point being that no matter what type of reading device you have, you can purchase a copy of my book.
Smashwords distributes your book to a variety of other disseminators, including the other three of the "big four": iBooks, Kobo, and Nook.
Smashwords offers authors the ability to generate voucher codes allowing readers to download free copies of your book. I'm going to use these in two ways. a) As prizes for "win a free copy of the book" type competitions; b) to allow me to offer a free e-book copy with each physical copy of the book sold at conventions.
An interesting pricing inversion often becomes apparent when you compare the prices of self-published and conventionally published books.
In paperback, the conventionally published books are usually cheaper (at least, once they've reached the mass-market paperback phase of their life-cycle). This is because they're printed on conventional printing presses with runs of several thousand, which is always going to be cheaper than a book produced singly using print-on-demand technology.
By contrast, when it comes to e-books, it's usually the self-published version that's cheaper. This is because while the conventionally published product has to firstly cover all the costs of producing the product that aren't related to printing (which is most of them – writing, editing, design, publicity etc), and secondly, because they don't want to too badly undercut the paperback version. Whereas the self-published author doing it for a hobby can basically afford to sell it for 99p / 99c (the minimum price that Amazon allows).
I wanted to fight this inversion.
I've priced the paperback as cheaply as I can, at £6.99 / $9.99, so that its price is comparable with a conventionally published paperback. This means that I make very little on it, but I figure the reader doesn't care about what kind of printer was used – they're paying for the end product.
But I've priced the e-book at £1.99 / $2.99, because I happen to think that this is a reasonable price to pay for a full-length 90,000 word novel, and I think I should have enough pride in my work to ask for that.
I made sure to have everything product-wise ready at least three months ahead of my set launch date.
I'd spent the previous few months assembling a list of people I could send review copies to (a.k.a. Advance Reader Copies, or ARCs). This was friends, contacts, bloggers, reviewers and so on. Once the book was up on CreateSpace, albeit not visible to the outside world, I then ordered myself a bunch of copies and sent them off to all my ARC recipients. I think I sent out about fifty in total. (After the editorial and cover costs, the purchasing and posting of the ARCs was the other big cost). As part of this, I'd ordered some nice book boxes off Amazon, and also had some stickers made up (red text on a clear background) saying "Advance Reader Copy, Not For Resale" that I stuck on each book.
Finally, I got an entry for the book up on Goodreads. For those who haven't come across it, Goodreads is sort of a Facebook for people who like reading books. They can talk about what books they're reading, what books they have read, what books they would like to read, and recommend books to their friends. Unlike Amazon, Goodreads allows people to post reviews of books that haven't yet been released. But they also have a very cool feature: Goodreads Giveaways.
This feature allows an author to give away a set number of their books, one or more, for free, to Goodreads members. To the members, it's like a free-to-enter lottery, with the prize being free books. They go to the link I just posted above, and click on any of the offered books that take their fancy. The author is responsible for shipping the books to the winners (you can limit the giveaway to specific countries to avoid punitive shipping costs).
Why do it? Well basically, in the hope that some of those who receive the books will write review of your book and / or recommend it to their friends.
Does it work? Yeah, I think so.
Between the ARCs that I sent out myself, and the Giveaways, If Pigs Could Fly now has 14 reviews on Goodreads and 17 ratings. In addition, 193 Goodreads members have added it to their "to read" list. I think that's pretty good for a self-published book that isn't being published until tomorrow.
I hope all the above makes sense. How successful my endeavours will be is yet to be determined. And if you want to talk about any of the above, and get more details (there's more I could have said, but then this post would have been ridiculously long), please drop me a line (see the contact page on this site).
And finally, if you've found these two posts at all useful or entertaining, perhaps you might consider purchasing a copy of If Pigs Could Fly at one of the links below. I really would be hugely grateful. Thank you.
If Pigs Could Fly is available in both paperback and e-book format, from all leading outlets.
If Pigs Could Fly should also be available on iBooks, Nook, and Kobo within a few days of its publication.
London Social Worker Rav Shah moonlights as a paranormal detective, aided by one of his clients and a Border Collie he rents by the hour. It was supposed to be a bit of fun: a search for truths out there; a quest for a life more interesting than the one that fate, destiny, and personal apathy had granted him.
But then a case involving a Yorkshire farmer and a herd of flying pigs leads him into a world darker and more dangerous than he'd ever dreamed.
The truth is indeed out there.
And it's got Rav square in its sights.
I saw you post on Facebook, and when I saw you FINALLY had another book available (well available tomorrow) I immediately bought it for my Kindle. Plus a copy of Game Night for it as well (as my paperback is getting pretty beat up).
I hope to see you again at Gencon (or was it Origins) so that I can buy a dead trees version and get your signature on it.
Thanks! That's very, very cool to hear. And yeah, it would have been at Gencon. We (my wife and I) went there in 2008. I doubt we'll be there next summer, but maybe the one after that.


text:
/********************************************************************
 *
 * File		:	TestContentProvider.java
 *
 * Author	:	Bob Brady, rpbrady@gmail.com
 *
 * Contents	:	Provides the content for the Test View
 *
 ********************************************************************/
package edu.harvard.fas.rbrady.tpteam.tpbuddy.views;

import org.eclipse.jface.viewers.ArrayContentProvider;
import org.eclipse.jface.viewers.ITreeContentProvider;
import org.eclipse.jface.viewers.TreeViewer;
import org.eclipse.jface.viewers.Viewer;
import edu.harvard.fas.rbrady.tpteam.tpbridge.model.ITreeNode;
import edu.harvard.fas.rbrady.tpteam.tpbridge.model.ITreeNodeChangeListener;
import edu.harvard.fas.rbrady.tpteam.tpbridge.model.TPEntity;

/*******************************************************************************
 * File 		: 	TestContentProvider.java
 *
 * Description 	: 	Provides the content for the Test View
 *
 * @author Bob Brady, rpbrady@gmail.com
 * @version $Revision$
 * @date $Date$ Copyright (c) 2007 Bob Brady
 ******************************************************************************/
public class TestContentProvider extends ArrayContentProvider implements
		ITreeContentProvider, ITreeNodeChangeListener {

	/** The Test View TreeViewer */
	private TreeViewer mTreeViewer;

	/**
	 * Refreshes the tree when input has changed
	 *
	 * @param viewer
	 *            the TestView's TreeViewer
	 * @param oldInput
	 *            the old data input
	 * @param newIput
	 *            the new data input
	 */
	public void inputChanged(Viewer viewer, Object oldInput, Object newInput) {
		mTreeViewer = (TreeViewer) viewer;
		if (oldInput != null) {
			for (ITreeNode node : (TPEntity[]) oldInput)
				removeListenerFrom(node);
		}
		if (newInput != null) {
			for (ITreeNode node : (TPEntity[]) newInput)
				addListenerTo(node);
		}
	}

	/**
	 * Because the domain model does not have a richer listener model,
	 * recursively remove this listener from each child node of the given
	 * ITreeNode.
	 *
	 * @param node
	 *            the ITreeNode
	 */
	protected void removeListenerFrom(ITreeNode node) {
		node.removeChangeListener(this);
		for (ITreeNode child : node.getChildren()) {
			removeListenerFrom(child);
		}
	}

	/**
	 * Because the domain model does not have a richer listener model,
	 * recursively add this listener to each child node of the given
	 * ITreeNode.
	 *
	 * @param node the ITreeNode
	 */
	protected void addListenerTo(ITreeNode node) {
		node.addChangeListener(this);
		for (ITreeNode child : node.getChildren()) {
			addListenerTo(child);
		}
	}

	// TreeViewer refresh operations in response to node CRUD

	public void updateNode(ITreeNode node) {
		mTreeViewer.refresh(node.getParent(), true);
	}

	public void addNode(ITreeNode node) {
		addListenerTo(node);
		mTreeViewer.refresh(node.getParent(), false);
	}

	public void deleteNode(ITreeNode node) {
		removeListenerFrom(node);
		mTreeViewer.refresh(node.getParent(), true);
	}

	// Public accessors

	public Object getParent(Object child) {
		return ((ITreeNode) child).getParent();
	}

	public Object[] getChildren(Object parent) {
		return ((ITreeNode) parent).getChildren().toArray(new ITreeNode[0]);
	}

	public boolean hasChildren(Object parent) {
		return ((ITreeNode) parent).getChildren().size() > 0;
	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


SAN FRANCISCO — Two markets in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood are the target of civil lawsuits filed Monday by City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who said the businesses are facilitating drug deals and the sale of stolen property.
The lawsuits, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, allege that each business functioned as a "safe haven" for the sale of cocaine, crack, heroin, prescription painkillers and other drugs, and that the businesses purchased and resold stolen merchandise.
The suits state that undercover police officers frequently bought drugs in or around Barah Market — also known as Azaal Market — and Razan Deli throughout 2010 and 2011.
Officers also sold merchandise they claimed was stolen from nearby Walgreens stores to market employees, who encouraged them to return with more stolen goods to sell, according to the lawsuits.
Suhr and Herrera announced the lawsuits at a news conference held across the street from Barah Market.
Hashem Algahim, who works at Barah Market, said he was unaware of the lawsuit until he was asked about it by reporters, and denied any wrongdoing by the market.
Algahim, who said his cousin, identified in the lawsuit as Jaber Algahim, owns the market, acknowledged that store employees would frequently be offered stolen items but that the market did not accept them.
Tony Montesinos, who works as a case manager at the nearby nonprofit Hospitality House, said he thinks Barah Market is being unfairly picked on.
The owner of Razan Deli could not immediately be reached for comment.
The city attorney's office is seeking to close each business for one year "until they get their houses in order," and is also seeking thousands of dollars in fines and fees from the markets, Herrera said.
Copies of the complaints against the two markets are available at the city attorney's website at www.sfcityattorney.org.


OK, OK, this is going to be a really silly post so you really don't have to read, especially when you're following Japanese TV drama... hey, I warned you!!
I really haven't had any RL model for my Harry or Draco arts(although I do get some inspirations for Albus/Scorp from WaT, as I mentioned before), and my image is mostly influenced by several manga and doujinshi. Only recently, however, I got an actor for young adult!Harry in my mind, whose name is Hiro Mizushima.
....hell, I know those of you familiar with Japanese actors are jeering at me this moment. See, I warned you!!
Reason 1: His look is perfect.
Well, indeed an adult Harry Potter doesn't have to be a perfect-looking man, but since Daniel Radcliffe portrays the character in the movie we don't expect Harry to be no less handsome than Dan, do we? On that matter, Mizushima has no problem as he easily catches my eyes even when he's among the bunch of handsome young butlers.
Reason 2: His hair is mussy.
Okay, I know it's "fashionably and deliberately" mussed-up as a latest style, but for me, it still looks mussy, and I'm saying it positively. If anyone is going to do the cosplay of Harry Potter, I'd recommend to check this hairstyle which perfectly matches the character.
Reason 3: His smile is devious.
I mean, if he ever comes to me and shows this smile, I'd yell at him: "what the hell are you plotting!!!?" This 'clean-cut yet somehow scheming' smile is an essential element for my image of adult!Harry and drives my Slytherin!Harry fantasy endlessly.
...all right, you might be wondering my sanity by now, but unfortunately, I'm quite serious--as much as making a snap sketch for the interpreted image of the drama. Aww! Does anyone know a good Butler!Harry fic!??
That's cute. Love Draco's expression!
Hmm, I really don't know how to watch this show outside Japan; in fact, I myself once uploaded some video clip of the show at YouTube and just a few days later it was deleted by Fuji TV Network.--; So, maybe some J-drama fans and related communities knows better about this matter, I think.


Mayor Chris Beutler today encouraged the public to attend one of the open houses planned over the next few weeks to find out more about StarTran's route changes which take effect June 5. He also said more changes are on the horizon for the City's transit system.
StarTran has planned ten open houses to provide new route brochures and answer questions. Two radio broadcasts are planned for the first day of the new routes. (See schedules here.) While supplies last, StarTran will offer one free pre-validated pass to each person attending an open house or radio event.
In addition to the existing 11th and "N" Street transfer station, a new station will be added on the north side of "N" Street between 10th and 11th streets.
In addition to the existing transfer station on 14th Street west of the State Office Building, a new transfer station will be added on the north side of that building.
For more information, call StarTran at 476-1234 or see the City Web site at lincoln.ne.gov (keyword: startran). The phone line will operate 24 hours a day through the end of June.


text:
Iwata Asks: Nintendo 3DS Guide: Louvre
Nintendo 3DS Guide: Louvre
3. A New Ambition: The Best Angle
1. One day, the Louvre
2. Over 500 Antennas
4. A Wondrous Experience
So the original form of Nintendo 3DS Guide: Louvre has been available for rent at the museum since last April, and is now available as paid download-only software. Are there any added features?
Miyamoto:
We were able to add some things that had been cut from the museum guide version into the version available for sale. We had made a lot of different functions for the original guide, but since visitors to the museum only have the devices for a few hours, we felt it was just too much information for such a short period of time.
That have been pointed out during development, and there had been a course change partway to make it strictly a guiding software for use on location. So in the product version there are features that didn't make it into the version being used at the Louvre.
That's right. So in the downloadable version there are features where it can automatically generate a tour for you, and it can act as a photo stand with a clock where it will display photos of the exhibits and the art pieces randomly. There's also the ability to automatically play through all of the information of every exhibit and select and view any one you like. So there's a lot to enjoy as just a standalone product.
To put it another way, you didn't cut anything out.
Right. If you bring this software to the museum, you can also use the location detection functionality that's setup throughout the Louvre. We've also got all of the things for kids too, like a tour with quizzes. For people using a wheelchair, the guide can show you all the routes using elevators and lifts. You'll be able to enjoy the Louvre for days! (laughs)
Listening to the guide and learning everything is so much fun, it just makes you want to learn even more.
That's true. The original explanations in the audio guide were made in France, so they do have that French flair to them.
For example, it begins with "Please listen carefully. Match the rhythm of my footsteps as you walk." Then you hear the sound of footsteps walking down the hall, and if you match them, you arrive just at the time when the footsteps end. Of course people have different walking speeds, but we were told, "You mustn't take that part out." (laughs)
Ah, so that part was very important.
The translation in the Japanese version was focused so it accurately portrayed and respected the original academic descriptions, so there are parts that sound a bit unnatural. We felt like changing some of these translations so they could be more easily understood in Japanese, but we honoured and prioritised their translations, which were based on an academic perspective, when we were told, "You can't change it that easily!" (laughs)
Because the explanations were scientific, we would have had to inquire with specialists of that field and have them re-review any changes we wanted to make. But for the download version we're selling in Japan, we got permission to change some of the Japanese explanations that will only be included in the download.
By the way, how did you do the 3D scanning used in the 3D photos of the statues?
There are various types of scanners. The easiest way using the latest available technology was to use a handheld scanner and scan the statues that way. For the larger statues, we used a stepladder and scanned from directly above the statues. Then we put textures on the models we made to make the 3D models look like the originals. The 3D designers had the task of perfectly matching the 3D models with pictures of the real thing.
But I'm sure there were also some works that were difficult to photograph, right? Things that you couldn't move, or couldn't take out of a glass case…
That's true. We couldn't take photos of something in a glass case unless we opened the case, but it's not an easy thing to open those cases, because even the humidity is regulated to preserve the works inside.
And you wouldn't want to accidentally break something.
The same goes for the larger statues – you don't want any accidents to happen. So what we did was scan a real-size replica that was moulded off of the original and then touched up the details based on the real thing.
Oh, I see.
Yes. The data is for use in this software, but since it's a 3D model, if we put the framework in, we could do things like have a warrior statue swing his sword.
What? He can swing his sword?
No, you can't do that in the software. I wanted to, but understandably, they told us no. (laughs)
So actually, we could have made the Nike of Samothrace flap her wings. We've got the materials to do that, as long as we get the Louvre's permission…
When it goes that far, it's like a Hollywood movie.
I'd love to be able to work on motions like that someday.
That's your new ambition! (laughs)
I have so many. There are a lot of theories about the missing arms of the Venus de Milo23, right? I said, "Let's create all of those," but I was told, "No, because we don't have conclusive proof of how the arms were." I really wanted to make it so that if you pressed a button, it would generate arms.
23. Venus de Milo: A statue of a woman made in Ancient Greece. There are many theories about her missing arms. A widespread myth is that she held an apple, and a reconstruction has been widely distributed. Other theories suggest she was holding a crown, shield, or a mirror.
"There's this theory, and this one, and this other one too." (laughs)
There are a lot of things like that that I think would be really fun, but it became a balancing act between protecting and inheriting the culture versus doing things in the name of entertainment, and ultimately I couldn't get the Louvre to agree. I do wish we could bring it up to that level though, that's my next ambition. I want the people who'd go to visit to get interested.
I'd love to see everything you just mentioned.
Right? If I got close to the warrior, I've love for the warrior's eyes to focus on me. I'd love him to move. Well, as long as we've got the data, we can do it if we want.
Um, no, we really can't! (laughs)
I'm only joking! (laughs)
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Best Super Bowl Bets: From Coin Toss to Halftime Show to Gatorade Bath
By John Bonazzo • 02/02/18 11:32am
Will Tom Brady be covered in confetti again? Jim Rogash/Getty Images
The Super Bowl may be a big game, but it's also big business.
On average, more than 110 million people watch the game, making it the highest-rated TV show of the year. And brands take advantage of those eyeballs by paying top dollar for ads. According to Quartz, this year a 30-second spot costs $5.8 million.
But while the game may be played in Minneapolis, the other big profit center for the Super Bowl is Las Vegas.
Gamblers can make "prop bets" based on the likelihood of over 400 different events occurring (or not occurring) during the game.
Here are some of Las Vegas' preliminary predictions for Super Bowl 52.
The New England Patriots will lose coin toss but win game. The NFC normally makes the first play, but New England has still won its last five Super Bowls after losing the toss.
The Philadelphia Eagles will score first. Philly is historically an aggressive team, and the Patriots haven't scored a point in the first quarter in their last seven Super Bowl appearances. According to Newsday, if the Eagles do score first expect LeGarrette Blount or Nelson Agholor to be the man responsible.
Danny Amendola will score the Patriots' first touchdown. Tom Brady's right hand man caught a pair of touchdown passes in the playoffs and had another one in last year's Super Bowl.
The game will likely be decided by three points. The Patriots have a history of scoring late field goals, and four of their Super Bowl wins have been decided by only three points.
Tom Brady will be Super Bowl MVP. A Patriots staffer was carrying the quarterback's acceptance speech in plain view during a press conference yesterday. SB Nation predicts Brady will thank his family first.
Expect the temperature of the game to be mentioned more than once. Weather.com reports that Minneapolis will be a balmy eight degrees on Sunday, though the stadium is enclosed and should ward off the cold.
Pink's rendition will likely be under two minutes. The average length of the last 12 anthems has been 1:58.
No, she won't be flying through the air. This is the Super Bowl, not the Grammys.
Yes, she will likely be wearing Eagles gear. She's from Pennsylvania, after all.
Players are likely to kneel. And if they do, expect a presidential tweet to follow.
Will Justin Timberlake's halftime show score a touchdown? Christopher Polk/Getty Images
THE HALFTIME SHOW
Justin Timberlake will open the show with "Can't Stop the Feeling." Bookies think it'll be the Oscars all over again.
There will probably be a special guest. Forbes predicts it will be NSYNC, Janet Jackson or Madonna.
JT will likely cover a Prince song. Timberlake has said he's a huge fan of the "Purple Rain" singer, and the game is being played in the late legend's hometown.
THE COMMERCIALS
Peyton Manning will likely appear in at least one. But will it be another Nationwide spot with Brad Paisley?
There will be at least four Anheuser-Busch ads during the telecast. Expect to hear "Dilly Dilly" a lot.
Brady won't be wearing a bandage. He told reporters his injured hand will likely be healed by game time
Bill Belichick will wear a hoodie. The trademark jacket will either be blue, grey or red, according to bettors.
The Gatorade thrown on the winning team will likely be green. Yes, people really do bet on everything.
We'll find out this weekend who will go home rich and who will fall faster than a "Deflategate" ball.
Filed Under: Business, Sports, News, Las Vegas, Justin Timberlake, Tom Brady, Super Bowl, New England Patriots, Peyton Manning
SEE ALSO: SpaceX Sets Date for 2022's First Rocket Launch: Another Starlink Mission


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26 December, 2019 19:08:00
Everything under heaven is in utter choas; the situation is excellent.
Mao Zedong, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who became the founding father of the People's Republic of China, which he ruled as the Chairman of the Communist Party of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976.
"A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another."
"The struggle of the Black people in the United States for emancipation is a component part of the general struggle of al the people of the world against U.S. imperialism, a component part of the contemporary world revolution. I call on the workers, peasants, and revolutionary intellectuals of all countries and all who are willing to fight against U.S. imperialism to take action and extend strong support to the struggle of the Black people in the United States! People of the whole world, unite still more closely and launch a sustained and vigorous offensive against our common enemy, U.S. imperialism, and its accomplices! It can be said with certainty that the complete collapse of colonialism, imperialism, and all systems of exploitation, and the complete emancipation of all the oppressed peoples and nations of the world are not far off."
"You can't be a revolutionary if you don't eat chilies."
"The Communist party must control the guns."
― Mao Tse-tung
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text:
MBP peut faire référence à :
 MacBook Pro, ordinateur portable du fabricant Apple ;
 Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego, le ministère de la sécurité intérieure polonais ;
 Mouvement Bretagne et progrès, parti politique de Bretagne ;
 , capitale de la région de San Martín, au Pérou ;
 Myelin basic protein, protéine qui intervient dans la myélinisation du système nerveux central.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Sox, Beckett begin on roll
By Howard Ulman THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Josh Beckett and the Boston Red Sox were in October form during their exhibition opener.
Baseball�s only 20-game winner last year didn�t care that his first opponent of spring training was a Boston College team that had been working out indoors all winter to escape the cold and snow up north.
The Red Sox ace only cared about keeping batters from making contact and refining his pitches on a relatively chilly (58 degrees) Florida day. He retired all six hitters he faced, four on strikeouts, in Boston�s 24-0 victory in seven innings yesterday.
AL Rookie of the Year Dustin Pedroia hit a two-run double, and a Red Sox split squad picked up right where the team left off last October when it swept Colorado for its second World Series title in four years.
�It doesn�t matter if you�re playing in a media game or a college team or facing big league hitters. I actually told somebody that today,� Beckett said. �They told me, �You�re going to at least let somebody hit it.� �
�No, I�m not going to let him hit it. I�m out there trying to do my job, and my job right now is to get in shape for the season,� last year�s AL Cy Young Award runner-up said. �If I�m out there facing a college team and I�m out there messing around or something, I might take that into another game.
�That�s not what I�m trying to do.�
Beckett threw 25 pitches in two innings, 18 for strikes, then threw 17 more after he left the game, including eight or nine good curveballs. He wasn�t pleased with his curve against BC.
�I thought he threw some good ones,� catcher Jason Varitek said. �I don�t say he threw them for strikes. He threw some good ones at the bottom of the zone, so that was good ... but it�s early, and he didn�t quite have the feel that he wanted for it.�
Another Red Sox split squad was set to play Northeastern last night.
Daisuke Matsuzaka started the game against BC last season and allowed a double on his first pitch in a Red Sox uniform to Johnny Ayers. Boston won, 9-1.
Yesterday, Beckett struck out leadoff hitter Ryan Akel on four pitches. In the second inning, he fanned Mike Augustine on three.
The Red Sox scored their first eight runs in the second on five hits, six walks, a wild pitch and an error. They added five in the fourth and nine in the fifth before finishing with two in the sixth. The previous high for runs scored by the Red Sox in their annual exhibition series with Boston College was 22 in 1996.
�We obviously don�t want to embarrass anybody,� Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. �What we set out to do, I thought worked very well.�
He wanted five pitchers to get their work in and his starters to get two at-bats each.
Nonroster player Tony Granadillo hit a grand slam, Brandon Moss went 3 for 3 with three RBIs, and minor league catcher George Kottaras drove in three runs.
Pedroia doubled in two runs in the second, then was replaced by Granadillo.
The scrappy Pedroia said he never played an exhibition game against a major league team when he was at Arizona State.
But, if he did, �we might have put a whupping on somebody,� he said with a smile as he left the clubhouse. �That�s how I�d have handled it.�
Justin Masterson moved up in Boston�s farm system when Clay Buchholz was promoted to Triple-A last July.
Now, Masterson would like to follow Buchholz to the big leagues.
�If I show that I�m ready to be there, then the opportunity will show itself,� Masterson said after pitching the first two innings of Boston�s 15-0 win over Northeastern last night. �Especially with the young guys moving up through, it gives you that excitement that I can do that exact same thing.�
In 2006, Jon Lester reached the Red Sox and compiled an 11-2 record in two seasons. Masterson began last season at Class-A Lancaster, then advanced to Double-A Portland when Buchholz was promoted to Pawtucket. Last September, Buchholz pitched a no-hitter in his second major league start.
Red Sox manager Terry Francona was pleased with Masterson last night. The right-hander allowed one hit and struck out one in two innings.
�That�s the first time I�ve ever seen him live,� Francona said. �I was impressed with his poise.�
Playing their first exhibition games since sweeping Colorado last October for their second World Series title in four years, the Red Sox beat up on two Boston area college teams Thursday. Earlier in the day, their other split squad held Boston College to one hit and drew 15 walks in a 24-0 rout.
The Red Sox benefited from 12 walks by Northeastern pitchers and scored in all six innings in which they batted. Northeastern had runners at second and third with one out in the last inning, the seventh, before Kyle Jackson struck out the final two batters.
Mickey Hall drove in three runs for Boston. Alex Cora, Chris Carter and Gil Velazquez had two RBIs each.


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Apprenticeship funding: where are we now?
Published Thursday, 08 September, 2016
Work and incomes
Jeanne Delebarre
The past ten months have seen major changes to English apprenticeships policy– not least to its funding system which is going through an overhaul. The apprenticeship levy and the latest Department for Education's Proposals for apprenticeship funding in England from May 2017 are key to the new funding regime.
These proposals are part of a consultation that closed on 5 September. Although they have attracted less mainstream media coverage than the apprenticeship levy did when it was announced, professional sectoral organisations and interest groups have been quick to comment on the latest plans.
The proposals and the levy are intrinsically linked and together will radically reform funding for English apprenticeships. Given the importance of these changes, a summary and clarification of the latest policy developments is welcome.
The funding system for English apprenticeships until now: how does it work?
The current system is managed by the Skills Funding Agency and varies by the type of apprenticeship. Apprenticeship frameworks are funded in a different way from apprenticeship standards, both of which are explained below.
An apprenticeship framework is like a curriculum: it is a list of skills and learning requirements that must be achieved by an apprentice for them to complete their apprenticeship. They ensure that similar apprenticeships delivered in different parts of the country by different providers provide learners with equivalent standards of skills and knowledge nationally.
There are over 200 different types of framework available in thirteen broad sector subject areas. Under the Coalition Government, apprenticeship frameworks came under fire in several reports (the Richard Review of Apprenticeships, Ofsted's Apprenticeships: developing skills for future prosperity, the National Audit Office's Adult apprenticeships…) for the poor quality and low success rates of some of them. See the House of Commons Library briefing papers onApprenticeship policy and Apprenticeship policy 2010-2015 for more details on the impact of those reports.
Pressures for reform from all parties led the Coalition Government to put employer groups (known as 'trailblazers') in charge of developing new frameworks more in line with the needs of UK businesses and learners. At first called 'apprenticeship trailblazers', these new frameworks are now known as apprenticeship standards and are meant to replace frameworks as the latter are progressively phased out. For this reason, no new frameworks have been issued since 2014. The Skills Funding Agency expects to finish phasing out the remaining frameworks by 2017/18.
Frameworks:
For apprenticeship frameworks, the amount of training costs covered by government depends on the age of the apprentice:
100% of the training costs if the apprentice is aged 16-18;
50% of the training costs if the apprentice is aged 19-23;
Up to 50% of the training costs if the apprentice is aged 24 and over.
In certain circumstances, government will provide extra funding in the shape of a 'disadvantage uplift' to support learners living in the most deprived areas of the country or an 'area cost uplift' for those in areas where training costs are higher.
Employers who choose to deliver additional training as part of an apprenticeship on top of the minimum requirements funded by the government must pay for it themselves. Employers can also fund apprenticeships themselves without any support from government.
Funding for apprenticeship standards does not depend on age but on funding bands: all standards are assigned to one of five or six funding bands. The employer and training provider agree on a price for an apprentice's training and assessment within the standard's funding band. The government covers two-thirds of the total agreed price up to the set maximum for that funding band. The employer pays the remaining third.
Small businesses, employers recruiting 16-18 year-olds, English and Maths qualifications and successful completion of an apprenticeship warrant additional support from government.
The levy and new funding rules: what will the future system look like?
The Government announced in November 2015 that it would replace the existing system with one in which the funds for apprenticeship training are drawn from large UK employers via an apprenticeship levy and redistributed across fifteen funding bands.
The apprenticeship levy:
From April 2017 onwards, the apprenticeship levy will be paid at a rate of 0.5% of all UK employers' annual paybills worth more than £3 million. It is estimated that between 19,000 and 20,000 businesses will fit the bill. All UK employers, whether public or private, are eligible.
The Government expects to raise over £3 billion a year by 2019-20, £2.5 billion of which will be ring-fenced to be spent on English apprenticeships only. A £15,000 allowance guarantees that employers will effectively only pay the levy on the portion of their paybill that is above the £3 million threshold. This is because 0.5%*£3 million equals £15,000.The funds collected will be accessible to employers who want to purchase apprenticeship training regardless of whether they paid the levy or not.
The latest proposals from the Department for Education provide details on the future apprenticeship funding rules – in other words, they explain how the funds gathered with the levy will be spent.
New funding rules:
Starting from May 2017, the Government wants to launch a new system of fifteen funding bands to which all apprenticeship frameworks and standards will be assigned. As with the apprenticeship standards system, employers are responsible for negotiating with their chosen training providers a price for training and assessment within a funding band.
The allocation of funds is then two-fold:
For those who pay the levy: these employers will receive a digital voucher worth the amount of money they paid into the levy multiplied by the fraction of the employer's paybill paid to their workforce living in England. In addition, they will receive a 10% top-up from government. All in all, employers will thus receive more than they put in.These digital vouchers will be ring-fenced for the purchase of apprenticeship training only and expire after 18 months. The Government is also considering allowing employers to transfer some 10% of their unused funds to other employers in their supply chain or sector.
For those who do not pay the levy or those who do pay it but want to spend more than the funding band allows them to: the Government put forward a co-investment proposal.The principle of funding bands is that no employer is able to use levy funds to purchase training that is more expensive than what the relevant funding band allows. Employers are responsible for funding any additional costs.However, the Government is offering to support employers in doing so by paying for 90% of these additional costs while employers will only pay for 10% of them. As a result, even employers who do not pay into the levy and do not have de facto digital vouchers to spend can purchase apprenticeship training and only pay for 10% of it.
The Government will also maintain incentives for employers to hire 16-18 year-olds by giving them an additional £1,000 when they do so. Small businesses (with fewer than 50 employees) will also be reimbursed 100% of the costs for training a 16-18 years old apprentice.
Finally, the Government is adding some new incentives to the list. For employers who hire apprentices aged 19-24 who have previously been in care or who have a Local Authority Education, Health and Care plan, the government will pay for 100% of training costs.
For apprentices with a learning or physical disability, the government will give an additional £150 each month to cover for extra learning costs.
For apprenticeship frameworks in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), the Government will increase by up to 80% the amount of funding provided to reflect the higher costs incurred by these subjects.
Reactions from professionals: what do they think of the Government's plans?
These new proposals have attracted less media coverage than the apprenticeship levy. However, some professional sectoral bodies and interest groups have commented on the announcement. Some of them welcomed the proposals but many others pressed for adjustments.
Tech professionals:
techuk expressed on behalf of UK tech companies their support for most of the proposals, including the Government's plans for:
Increased funding for higher apprenticeship and STEM frameworks which "accurately reflect the cost of training and assessment"
Employers who want to start providing in-house apprenticeship training – "a welcome development"
Apprenticeships offered at the same or lower level than the existing apprentice's qualification
Employers who want to use their levy funds for in-house retraining or upskilling
Businesses in devolved nations who want to use levy funding to train apprentices whose main workplace is in England
Representing UK manufacturers, eef welcomed the proposals as "both balanced and fair". In particular, the organisation hailed the measures for co-investment and additional support for 16-18 year-old apprentices. They also stressed that "the announcement that up to 10% of vouchers will be transferable from 2018 will be particularly welcomed by larger organisations". Likewise, eef described the possibility for employers to spend their vouchers on equivalent or lower qualifications as "particularly beneficial for learners wanting to make a career move or move across industries or sectors".
In contrast, the representative body for the construction industry (the CITB) released the following statement: "The Government's proposed funding bands for framework apprenticeships raise real concerns for the construction industry. We support the new employer-designed standards (…). However, no standards for construction have yet been approved (…). Even with the sector beneficial STEM increases to funding the Government's proposed funding bands will cut funding for construction apprenticeships by between 20% and 30%."
HR professionals:
The professional body for HR and people development (the CIPD) also criticised the new proposals and denounced as "irresponsible" the Government's plan to press ahead with the levy. According to CIPD's research "the levy, in its present form, will undermine efforts to improve the quality of apprenticeships." The organisation thinks "it is disappointing the government has not taken the opportunity afforded by a new ministerial team (…) to look again at the apprenticeship levy."
Members of parliament:
In a damning article by specialist newspaper FE Week, Shadow Skills minister Gordon Marsden (Labour MP for Blackpool) described the proposals as a "major strategic blunder" creating "perverse incentives in the apprenticeship programme" and working against small employers.
In the same article, the former minister for Higher Education David Lammy (Labour MP for Tottenham) criticised the proposed funding rules as "devastating". He accused the Government of "shafting working class kids", especially 16-18 year-olds in deprived areas because of the new upper limits to funding bands and the discontinuation of the disadvantage uplift top-up.
Under the current system, employers are able to claim up to £5,400 of 'additional incentive payments' if they hire a 16-18 years old apprentice. The Government now proposes to cap this payment at £2,000: £1,000 for the training provider and £1,000 for the employer. For learners in the most deprived areas of the country, a disadvantage uplift based on the learner's postcode used to warrant up to 34% more funding to training providers. The latest proposals do not mention the continuation of the disadvantage uplift. Instead, employers are encouraged to apply for an AGE or Apprenticeship Grant for Employers.
Training providers:
The Association of Colleges cautioned of a "risk in the short term that the complexity of the change, the parallel running of new and old systems and implied cuts in funding levels per apprentice will result in a reduction rather than expansion in numbers."
They believed "this may make it harder to reach the 3 million target" and suggested that "rather than focusing on numbers, it might be better to spend more per apprentice and think hard about the programmes themselves."
The consultation period ended on 5 September. Commentators from a range of backgrounds have asked the Government to delay and re-think the funding rules. Others are in favour of the plans as they are. The Department for Education will publish the final policy details between October and December.
Picture credit: Apprenticeship report launch at Bridgend College / Lansiad adroddiad prentisiaethau yng Ngholeg Pen-y-bont by National Assembly for Wales, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC by 2.0)


Welcome to our web site. Here you can learn all about us, what we stand for, how we operate and most importantly how we support each other.
The web site is packed full of interesting and useful information about our charity that supports children and young adults with congenital heart disorders, and the families.
Please use the navigation bar above to direct you to details on what we do as a charity, why we do it, and how we can perhaps help you.
We hope you enjoy reading all about The Scottish Association for Children with Heart Disorders and would warmly invite you to let us know your thoughts about the SACHD web site.
We are a registered charity and run by parents whose own children have heart disorders.
Dates for your diary can be found on our forthcoming events page.
CHF is campaigning for the introduction of Pulse Oximetry screening for all newborn babies in the UK.
Research shows that this quick and painless test can detect the underlying signs of a heart condition.
We're leading this campaign and pushing for its inclusion in the national screening programme of all newborns.


We know that the Internet and search engines have revolutionized the way companies conduct candidate searches and recruit new employees. But many firms probably have not updated their job descriptions since Google was just a Stanford grad school project.
Job descriptions that are out-dated, too broad or poorly written or both are bad for the employees as well as the employer.
In our latest ebook, The Essential Guide to Writing World Class Job Descriptions, we expand on these benefits and give you important questions that need to be asked to create the best job descriptions.
For instance: how can a complete, and up-to-date job description protect you in the event of wrongful termination litigation? How can a job description aid you in keeping up with FLSA and ADA requirements? If you are in a position to hire new employees, or retain current ones, these are questions that you must consider.
You can hold your job descriptions up in comparison to your competitors, and make sure you are staying in line with industry standards.
When writing a great job description, it's all about the component parts that go into it. While no two jobs will have the same requirements, there are still several core components that should be present in every job description.
What is expected of this employee at work?
What are the essential duties, requirements and objectives for the job?
How does this role fit within the larger company?
What is the role they have now, and the roles which may become available to them as their skills progress?
Job title. This is especially important when recruiting. Most job seekers will search under specific terms, so appropriate labeling is essential.
The name of your company, and a brief description of the company.
Department. This is also helpful in attracting job seekers.
Supervisor. This helps define reporting status.
Position status. Will this be full time, or part time?
Pay type. Hourly or salaried?
FLSA status. Is this position exempt, or non-exempt?
Physical requirements. If there are any circumstances which might be difficult, list them here.
Why struggle to write job descriptions on your own when you can get professional help for free? Download our free eBook, The Essential Guide to Job Descriptions, to learn how to overcome the challenges of creating high quality job descriptions.
According to research by human resources organizations, the biggest challenge to overcome when writing job descriptions is "identifying the necessary interpersonal and soft skills". One way to find the right mix of skills is to look at job descriptions from successful companies. See if the skills they list would be necessary for your company's positions as well.
To help you with this, we have included ten sample job descriptions from some of the most successful companies in the world. These will be a valuable resource as you build your own job descriptions.
Job descriptions should be considered "living documents." Once they are written, do not consider them complete. Be prepared to sit down with your current employees, and change these descriptions as new requirements or objectives become apparent. Make sure you are allowing for change and growth, while still giving clear parameters.
Download Our Free eBook to Help!
To read a more thorough breakdown of job description writing, see examples of completed job descriptions, and to access some boilerplate documents, check out our eBook!


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Last Updated on Wed, 10 Jul 2019	| Evergreen Forest
Guild: np
Life form: medium-sized to large tree Max. height: 35 m (Voorhoeve 1965) Max. diameter: 120 cm (Voorhoeve 1965) Leaf: alternate, simple, narrowly oblong, mesophyll (3-8 x 13-30 cm), entire, coriaceous, young leaves more narrowly elliptic and covered with a dense, rusty brown indumentum of branched hairs, leaves nearly always perforated with numerous holes caused by insects
Inflorescence: axillary, panicle (male inflorescence 5-15 cm long, female inflorescence up to 30 cm long) Flower: monoecious; small; both male and female flowers rufous
Fruit: dry dehiscent, in large bunches (2.3 x 3 cm), woody; 1 seed Seed: with a red aril Other: an unbuttressed tree with very characteristic, highly untidy looking crown. The boughs are initially in whorls, but all the lesser branches are pendulous on the periphery of the crown, and most leaves are generally heavily insect-tattered. Wood density is 0.25 g/cm3.
Continent: Benin to Uganda, Angola (Voorhoeve 1965) Upper Guinea: Guinea to Togo (Voorhoeve 1965) Forest type: upland evergreen forest, wet evergreen forest, moist evergreen forest, moist semi-deciduous forest, dry semi-deciduous forest, secondary forest (Voorhoeve 1965, Hall & Swaine 1981)
The abundance increases with rainfall, attains an optimum around 2000 mm/yr, to decline strongly after 2600 mm/yr. It is most abundant at infertile soils (regression analysis). Similarly, in Ghana it prefers high rainfall areas and infertile soils (Swaine 1996). It is very drought sensitive as a seedling (Veenendaal & Swaine 1996), but does not grow in swamps (Voorhoeve 1965). It is a light demander but prefers partial shade in youth (Taylor 1960). The tree is a common component of very disturbed forest.
Germination is normal (Hawthorne 1995a). It has a cryptocotylar epigeal reserve seedling type (cf. Voorhoeve 1965). It has a poor germination which may be due to short viability (Savill & Fox 1967). Seedlings are common in complete shade.
Judging from the conspicuousness of the tree in heavily disturbed forest it would seem that it is capable of rapid and healthy ongrowth when large gaps appear in the canopy. Mean annual increments of between 0.6 and 2.4 cm in diameter have been observed in Sierra Leone (Savill & Fox 1967).
Deciduousness: evergreen Dispersal: probably by animals, especially birds. Lieberman et al. (1987) showed that elephants can be effective dispersal agents. It is an important fruit tree for birds (Gautier-Hion & Michaloud 1989). Timing: flowering period from November to April; fruits ripen during the next flowering season (Voorhoeve 1965)
A timber species. The seeds have a very high fat content and can be used as candles.
Taylor (1960), Voorhoeve (1965), Savill & Fox (1967), Hall & Swaine (1981), Lieberman et al. (1987), Gauthier-Hion & Michaloud (1989), Swaine & Veenendaal (1994), Hawthorne (1995a), Swaine (1996), Veenendaal & Swaine (1996)
Guinea Upper Lower


Provide comfort for the family of Martha Scholz with a meaningful gesture of sympathy.
Marty (Martha) Jane Scholz, age 73 (but always 29 in spirit) and resident of Cheshire, MA, passed away at Berkshire Medical Center on February 19, 2019 after an unexpected but brief illness.
Born March 17, 1945 in Ohio, Marty spent her formative years in the Buckeye state. During her lifetime, she counted Ohio, New Mexico, California, and Massachusetts her homes. As a well-travelled citizen of the world, she enjoyed exploring other cultures, meeting new people and nurturing life-long friendships.
Most recently, she split her time between Cheshire and Warsaw, OH and was an active member of her church and community as well as enjoyed being part of the Cheshire Ladies' Reading Club, Red Hat Society, Coshocton Library Association and Walhonding Historical Commission.
Marty was married to her second husband, Richard Scholz, of Cheshire. She is also survived by her sister Margaret; daughters Karen Crisostomo and Kristine Talbott; stepchildren Karl Scholz, Tara Pinkos, and Michael Scholz; and nephews and nieces Jay, Shawn, Suzanne, Valerie and Michele. "Nonnie" loved her grandchildren dearly — leaving behind a legacy of strong, intelligent young women and men: Nadia, Addison, Zoë, Victoria, Coco, Shayla, Loryn, Anthony, Sophia and Julianna. Marty was predeceased by her sister Mary, niece Lisa, and granddaughter Sasha.
Known for always remembering loved ones birthdays and holidays, Marty never missed the chance to reach out with a thoughtful, handwritten note. She studied interior design and imbued beauty and elegance into everything she did. From dinner parties and holidays, to high teas and Cinco de Mayo celebrations, Marty was always a welcoming and wonderful host. She took pride in raising her children and grandchildren to appreciate the same kindness and social graces.
Marty will be greatly missed by her family and friends. A tea celebration was held in Marty's honor by her children and immediate family. It was a beautiful afternoon of remembering. A memorial service will be held at a later date. Friends can honor Marty by donating to LifeNets International (LifeNets.org) in lieu of flowers.
To send flowers in memory of Martha "Marty" Scholz, please visit our Heartfelt Sympathies Store.


A sophomore at the University of Texas at Austin in 1963, Belisle contributed to the university newspaper and was locally involved in the Civil Rights Movement. From 1966 to 1969, she served in the Peace Corps in Micronesia in the western Pacific. Recorded September 13, 2010.


April 26, 2008 Posted in Ironman.
This was a nice day with training buddies Cathy and Malinda, even though some things went wrong.
We took off…I have to confess that the mass bike starts to these rides bother me a lot; I probably feel like people who are afraid of swim starts feel (heart pounding fear).
So I just rode how I felt, and I felt pretty darn good.I managed my food and hydration well and remembered to take my electrolytes. And I got to finish with my hubby, who decided at the last minute to come along and do the 100K with us.
4:11 ride time. I hate not having any of the other stats. This was faster than Rosedale and I think it felt very similar terrain-wise. But I liked it better because the countryside was so much prettier (though I totally missed the namesake red poppies!).
Pleasant surprise: chatting it up with a very friendly cyclist, who had talked to me about my arm warmers and I'd talked to her about her pretty bike…turns out it was someone I'd actually met once, but then she was in spiffy street clothes, so I didn't recognize her in her "real" clothes.
I hate it when I don\'t get stats. The good thing though, and the most important, is that you got the training (work) in.


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Swindon-Town-FC.co.uk is an unofficial website that is aiming to be a complete online encyclopedia of Swindon Town Football Club. Always a work in progress, at the time of writing (August 2010) the site consists of the following sections:
All of the current season stats - including squad details, results, match reports, kits and programmes.
The current league table and results from this season..
Detailed statistics of every season since 1879 � this section of the site is where most of the data can be found, with details of every match and appearance, plus transfer details, kit information, team photos, programmes etc etc. Also includes �In The Beginning�, a short text about the beginnings of the club.
Details of all past players, managers, plus complete club records and other statistical information.
A chronological listing of some of the Town's greatest moments, including videos, radio footage, photos and newspaper reports.
Videos of some of the highest highs and lowest lows in the club history, going back to before VHS was invented!
A list of over one hundred different lists of stats � from player info such as debuts, top goalscorers and scoring ratios; team stats such as biggest wins and defeats, bogey teams and best seasons; and new in August 2010, opposition players� records against STFC.
Other bits and pieces that don�t fit anywhere else � a couple of games and links to other STFC sites.
The place to discuss all matters STFC � match reports etc are posted here.
Big thanks go to Paul Plowman and John Young for their help in making this happen � Paul for supplying and allowing me to use endless amounts of information, John for his superb research, particularly into matches played in the Southern League.
To achieve this, I have used many sources of information � books, magazines, programmes, fanzines, websites, TV programmes etc � I do not hold the copyright for some of the resources used. In posting this information, it is not my intention to infringe anyone else�s copyright � the information is provided as a service to STFC�s and other football fans � if you find something on the site that you would prefer was removed, please contact me and I will remove as soon as possible. Please note that I do not, nor will ever, make any financial gain out of this website � in fact it costs me hundreds of pounds every year to run and maintain.
Also, please note that this is not the official club site, so any views or opinions expressed on this site do not represent the views of Swindon Town Football Club. Also, if you are from Nigeria or wherever looking for a trial with the club, I�m afraid I can�t help you � please contact the club through the official site at http://www.swindontownfc.co.uk.
The first incarnation of Swindon-Town-FC.co.uk began in 1999, and started as a result of a work project � I was trying to learn HTML to create an intranet site, and so decided to do a bit of investigation in my spare time. The original site was posted on my personal webspace at http://website.lineone.net/~rbanyard/swindontown/index.html - and started off with ten seasons� worth of results copied out of my old Rothmans books, profiles of some players past and present, and pictures of South Park characters and the Simpsons in Swindon shirts, all set in a frankly embarrassingly bad design. It also got me my first emailed letter of complaint, when a professor at a university took exception to my STFC Donor Card (I would like to help someone live after my death.... as long as they don�t support Oxford), an idea shamelessly stolen from an old satirical magazine �Sweet FA�.
About a year later, I bought the domain name http://www.swindon-town-fc.co.uk. Yes, yes.... I know.... I know.... not exactly the best choice � my dull selection even gets a mention in the superb Grimsby website Cod Almighty (see, that�s how you do it). In my defence, I purchased it way back when there was very little STFC content on the web, and before there was an official STFC site � just before I launched with the domain name, the club announced their new site at http://www.swindonfc.co.uk. Since then, I have toyed with changing the name of the site on a few occasions, possibly to www.theidesofmarch.co.uk as a tribute to the most successful day in the club�s history, and I was considering www.townenders.com (like EastEnders, but the story is about STFC....) just weeks before the TEF was launched.
After a bit of a make-over, the new site was launched over the summer in 2000 � with a bit more historical information, and the introduction of my own �editorial� section. At this point, the site was getting an update around once a month, and after another minor revamp early in 2001, more and more historical data was being added � but with the site still running off static HTML pages, it was getting a bit big for its boots. Then, over the close-season in 2002, after gathering together all of the Town�s league and cup results, all of the content was moved over to an SQL database with ASP webpages, which enabled the gradual addition of more and more data. By the end of the 2002/03 season, there were around 700 ex-Town players and staff in the database, all of the final league tables, and almost every Town result (though the pre-1920 dates and goalscorers were mostly missing). I�d also started capturing the match lineups, though at this point only for the current season.
Over the course of the next few years, and after many visits to Swindon Library, the missing dates and goalscorers were added, and I started to add some of the older match lineups, again from my Rothmans books. It was about this time that I had a conversation with my wife:
�You�re not going to enter all of those match lineups, are you?�
�No way, it would take ages.�
But.... after managing to get hold of Paul Plowman�s excellent publications from the 1980�s on eBay, with his permission I quickly added all STFC lineups back to 1920 � and by 2006, pretty much every STFC lineup was recorded. Over that summer, the site took on another revamp, and Stat Attack was launched, allowing easier access to some of the data, all built from the match lineups. Another eBay purchase - this time of a series of old videos -brought the introduction of the video library in 2008, and though 2009 was a slow year for updates on the site, behind the scenes loads of work was taking place, this time to add the opposition lineups. This was a major undertaking � finding out and entering the lineups, then painstakingly cross-referencing the players � this cross-referencing alone took almost a year to complete, the database now has over 14,500 opposition players in it. This was finally launched in time for the start of the 2009/10 season, along with another new look.
So, what next?
Well... as mentioned above, the site is always going to be a work in progress, current ideas for future developments include:
Completing the opposition lineups for Southern League games prior to 1920
Improving the Achievements section � adding more details
Enhancing the video archive � I have 250+ STFC DVD�s with loads more footage � need to document what is available, and post more
�Season review� for every season
Better written details on historical player profiles
Programme pictures for each game
Newspaper reports for each game
Any other suggestions gratefully received.
Well.... if you got to here you�re either incredibly bored or expected the link at the top to take you to the homepage. This section explains the different straplines that appear in the site�s title � for the homepage, click the �badge history� logo, or here.
A history of the 56th best team in the country
A little bit controversial.... one afternoon I had too much time on my hands and worked out that the average position that STFC finished in the League since 1920 was 56th (taking into account points gained in both the Third Division North and South from 1921-1958). That puts us exactly half-way up League One in today�s money � not surprising considering that STFC has spent the vast majority of its time at this level, with only brief flirtations with the level above and below. The highest position ever was of course in 1993/94 (22nd in the Premier), the lowest in 1955/56, when the Town finished bottom of Division Three (South), and therefore 91st out of 92, with Crewe Alexandra yielding two less points in Division Three (North). The Town also finished bottom of Division Three (South) in 1933, with only 88 teams in the League, they would have been positioned 87th.... so we've never been the worst team in the League!
Of course, there are loads of other ways to work this out... the RSSSF shows the all-time league table here, which puts the Town in 48th place: http://www.rsssf.com/tablese/engprof-alltime.html. Interestingly, if you made the same table of matches in the FA Cup, up until recently the Town were in the top 10.
The Spartans, the Railwaymen and the Robins
This one simply refers to the Town�s nicknames over the years � the �Spartans� was the name that the original Swindon AFC team changed their name to back in the early 1880�s, the �Railwaymen� obviously came out of the town�s links with the GWR, and the �Robins� first began to appear after the club changed to red shirts in the early 1900�s. Other nicknames seen in print are the �Signalmen� (another railway reference), the �Moonrakers� (from the famous Wiltshire tale), and the �Quartermasters� (seen in the early Southern League days, when the Town wore red and black quartered shirts).
Salubritas et Industria
The Latin motto of the town of Swindon, meaning �Healthy and Industrious�, that first appeared on the arms of the Borough of Swindon in 1900, after the unification of Old and New Swindon � STFC�s original badge was closely modelled on the Town�s arms, and the motto also became a part of the club.
�For the first time, suddenly I became aware of all the Swindon fans sitting around us....�
An excerpt from arguably the best football book of all time - Fever Pitch, by Nick Hornby � in which Hornby describes his life as an Arsenal fan, and is obviously indelibly scarred as a young boy by the defeat to the Town in the 1969 League Cup Final, to which a chapter of the book is dedicated. The full paragraph is as follows:
For the first time, suddenly, I became aware of all the Swindon fans sitting around us, with their awful West Country accents, their absurd innocent glee, their delirious disbelief. I hadn't ever come across opposing fans before, and I loathed them in a way I had never before loathed strangers.
The book is a superb read � and a lot of what Hornby says I see in myself � if you haven�t read it, do!!
Beware, the Ides of March!
The �ides of March� was the name of March 15 in the Roman calendar � and the day that Julius Caesar was assassinated, beforehand he was told to �beware, the ides of March�. This was also the headline in the Evening Standard on the day of the Town's first ever visit to play Arsenal in the 1969 League Cup Final... with most expecting an easy win for the Gunners, as if you didn't know already... it was Swindon who took home the silverware. March 15 is also a day that the Town has a surprisingly good record on � in 1986, Swindon beat Burnley 3-0 to set a club record of 14 consecutive home wins.
�Why the f*** didn�t they put the effort in every week, then maybe they wouldn�t be playing for f***ing Swindon.�
An excerpt from Roy Keane�s autobiography, when he talks of his frustration with other teams upping their game for the matches against Manchester United � the full passage goes as follows:
I welcomed the intensity of every United road game. There was no danger of becoming complacent and I felt this would help me become a better player. But the extra effort made by players from clubs like Norwich, Swindon, Crystal Palace, Oldham and Wimbledon usually led to trouble. Confronted by tackles that were high, late and sometimes crazy, our only option was to meet fire with fire. Eric, Incey, Mark Hughes and myself led the resistance. It was no coincidence that Eric had been sent off at Swindon and identified as the villain after the Norwich cup tie. Taking him down a peg or two seemed to be objective number one for the opposition hard men. Perhaps part-time hard men would be a better description. For what really bugged us was the thought that these guys were out to make a name for themselves by sorting us out. Why the f*** didn't they put the effort in every week, then maybe they wouldn't be playing for f***ing Norwich or Swindon. So there was no rolling over when faced with this stuff. Meet aggression with aggression, then ability would make the difference at the end of the day.
�If the Swindon team could only have more practice in shooting at goal, any club in the South of England would have a difficult task to beat them.�
When scouring old newspapers for information, some of the comments always make me laugh � this one was a good one from the North Wilts Herald, after the Town had drawn 0-0 in a friendly against Maidenhead in 1887.
I�ve often been asked what the success rate percentages relate to � basically, for a win, a team is awarded 100%, a draw each team gets 50% of the success rate, losses 0%. When a match is decided by a penalty shoot out, both teams� rates are adjusted, so the winning team would get 75% and the loser 25%.
There are many other methods of doing this, this was my preferred option because both teams add up to 100% - so, as of August 2010, Swindon�s success rate against Oxford was 62.7%, Oxford�s against Swindon 37.3%. Other methods don�t do this � and although this method gives the impression of using two points for a win, this isn�t the intention; I thought it preferable to �% of points won� which would result in different percentages after three points for a win was introduced to before (and teams don�t get points in cup games), or �% matches won� which doesn�t assign anything to a drawn game.
As always, if you do have any ideas or suggestions for improvement, if you would like to contribute to the site in some way, or just if you would like to get in touch, please contact me on richard@swindon-town-fc.co.uk.
Richard Banyard


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Transportation >
Walk Bike Columbia
Priority Investment
How we look at density, scale, and context – what types of uses are appropriate, and where?
We believe in...
High quality design of the built environment - public and private architecture, streetscapes, corridors, gateways, and edges - that distinguishes the City.
Strong neighborhoods with distinct identities and amenities within walkable distances.
A connected greenway system that links waterways and environmental corridors as well as reaches into neighborhoods.
A strong city center with increased intensity, mix of uses, and a vibrant and active public realm.
Better utilization of vacant structures and land - through infill and redevelopment - that is well-served by infrastructure and adjacent to developed land.
Greater intensity of development at strategic locations that creates a mix of uses and a critical mass required for a vibrant community.
Planning together for our future populations.
LAND USE ELEMENT DOCUMENTS
The land use element is one of the nine elements of Columbia Compass: Envision 2036.
LAND USE CHAPTER (PDF)
The land use chapter includes a discussion of the above guiding principles; a brief synopsis of existing conditions; an overview of critical components; future land use maps; and a number of recommendations for the next ten years, as well as supporting case studies.
Please note that the above is large file and may take longer to load than the other chapter drafts. If you would like to view the chapter in smaller portions, you may do so using the links below.
LAND USE CHAPTER, PART ONE (PDF) - This document contains the following: Introduction; Guiding Principles; Existing Conditions; Critical Components; Adaptive Reuse, Infill, Redevelopment, & Greenfield Development; Connections & Design.
LAND USE CHAPTER, PART TWO (PDF) - This document contains the following: Development Types; Development Types / Building Types Matrix; Building Types / Land Uses; Area & Neighborhood Plans. Please note, this document is still relatively large and may be slow to load.
LAND USE CHAPTER, PART THREE (PDF) - This document contains the following: Recommendations, Endnotes.
APPENDIX F: LAND USE EXISTING CONDITIONS REPORT (PDF)
A detailed existing conditions report was developed during the research phase of the plan, and a synopsis of this report is also included within the land use chapter.
FUTURE LAND USE MAPS
The land use element establishes development types (also referred to as future land use classifications) that share similar characteristics of function, form, and land use. You can view the plan maps on the City's interactive GIS public information viewer.
VIEW THE INTERACTIVE MAP
Once in the map, you'll need to select "Planning & Development" and "Future Land Use" in the drop down menu on the left. If you click on the color-coded future land use classification, you'll be able to click on a link to learn more about that future land use classification.
LAND USE CRITICAL COMPONENTS
The critical components set forth the underlying structure for the land use element, and the future land use maps apply these components spatially. Development types are applied citywide in a manner which reflects the community vision and an emphasis on creating the mix of uses appropriate to a specific neighborhood or corridor.
CONNECTIONS & DESIGN
The following slideshow of illustrative maps helps identify desirable opportunities for connections and design throughout the City. A discussion of the opportunities and recommendations relating to each of these maps can be found in the Connections and Design section of the Land Use chapter. Click on each image to view the image full screen.
Stay Engaged!
Meetings and events have occurred throughout the planning process, and opportunities for engagement will continue with implementation. Planning Division staff is also happy to come speak to your neighborhood or organization about the planning process or recommendations of the plan. If you're interested in having staff come speak to your neighborhood or organization about Columbia Compass, please send us an email.
Sign up for our newsletter to receive the latest updates about the plan.
Columbia Compass is the update to the City of Columbia, South Carolina's Comprehensive Plan. To learn more about the City's other planning efforts, please visit the City's website.
Copyright 2023 Columbia Compass. All rights reserved.


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On the Campus Board adds six alumni members
Six alumni have been named to the University's Board of Trustees. They are:
KATHRYN HALL '80 of San Francisco, co-chairwoman, co-chief executive officer, and chief investment officer at Offit Hall Capital Management LLC. She is a director of the Princeton University Investment Co. (Princo) and previously served as a University trustee from 2002 to 2006.
JANET L. HOLMGREN *74 of Oakland, Calif., president of Mills College. After working as a faculty member and administrator at other institutions, Holmgren returned to Princeton in 1988 to serve as associate provost and vice provost. She has been president of Mills since 1991.
FRANKLIN MOSS '71 of Weston, Mass., director of the Media Lab and the Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been an Annual Giving volunteer and has served on advisory boards for Princeton's computer science department and engineering school.
SONIA SOTOMAYOR '76 of New York City, a U.S. Circuit Court judge. She was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University in 2001 for her "wisdom and judgment that cross cultural boundaries."
WILLIAM WALTON III '74 of Jacksonville, Fla., managing member and co-founder of Rockpoint Group LLC, a global real estate investment-management firm. Walton is a director of Princo and the president of the Princeton University Rowing Association.
JIM WILLIAMSON '07 of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., who was president of his class from his sophomore through his senior years and chairman of the University Honor Committee last year. Williams, a young alumni trustee, will be working at McKinsey & Co. in Philadelphia.
Hall was elected to a 10-year term as a charter trustee, while the other five new trustees will serve four-year terms on the 40-member board.
The making of a thesis/dissertation: Five stories
Wilson '03 injured in Iraq


By further destabilising Yemen, the US risks turning a fragile state into a failed state.
Marginalised by regional developments and intimidated by Washington's Cold War and Gulf War victories, two Yemenis - so goes the joke - wondered if their country should declare war on the US, force it to occupy Yemen and care for it.
"But what if we won?" wondered one. "We would have to care for America!"
As the US and Britain prepare for covert war on Yemen, and following on their failures in Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan, Yemenis might wonder if the joke is becoming a reality.
Over the last few days, London has called for an international conference on Yemen (after it called for another on Afghanistan) under US-British auspices to see how best to support the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni president, against al-Qaeda.
One does not have to be a Yemen expert to tell you that further destabilising Yemen along the lines of Pakistan or Somalia is not sound policy, and that Yemen's proximity to the Gulf and the Horn of Africa does not bode well for regional stability.
But that is exactly what will happen if the US/UK "counterterrorism" policy focuses on providing military support to a three-decade-old government that presides over an unstable and decentralised country.
By offering more military training, arms, naval patrolling, intelligence sharing and possibly shared offensive operations, the West might help prolong and sustain an autocratic regime that faces secessionist movements in the North and South.
Mostly, though, it will aggravate a fragile state of Yemen into a failing state.
Even if estimates are exaggerated (Yemen's interior minister in 2002 put the number of guns at 60 million), Yemeni tribes are better armed than any other in the region and will not surrender their weapons quietly to the central government, especially in light of the declared foreign intrusion into their country's affairs.
But the US military presence, like that of al-Qaeda, is hardly new. In the decade since the bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen in 2000, Washington has sent special forces into the country, took out suspected "terrorists" and shared in various raids against al-Qaeda targets in the country.
But that is ignored by an ever more influential class of pseudo-experts and self-declared "terrorogists" whose careers revolve around advising the US/UK government on how to advance their interests in the Middle East through force.
They reckon Yemen has been the ignored "forgotten front" of the "war on terror" and advise much more of the same security and military solutions.
They disingenuously ignore the decade of covert American military co-operation and security operations in Yemen that utterly failed, and they dangerously advocate raising the stakes in a country that suffers from any number of tribal, religious, regional, cultural and economic tensions and conflicts that only feed into instability and violence.
Dealing with Yemen must begin with understanding why this country can serve as fertile ground for al-Qaeda and recognising the US' role in it (not to mention the old colonial British rule).
Young Yemenis were first radicalised in Afghanistan, where tens of thousands went to fight the Soviets under the auspices of a CIA covert war there. But the end of the Cold War did not mean the end of the "Arab Afghans", who later formed the core of al-Qaeda, whether in Afghanistan or in their homelands.
Thousands who came back to Yemen and joined local radical religious groups looked on with bitterness and betrayal as half a million US soldiers deployed next door in Saudi Arabia in 1991, the birthplace of the prophet.
The fact that the Yemeni government, as well as popular sentiment, opposed US military action against Iraq only empowered the newly formed radical groups.
Furthermore, Gulf regimes disappointed by Yemen's opposition to the war to liberate Kuwait, sent around a million Yemeni expats home, thus exasperating unemployment levels and reducing foreign remittances by a high margin, and in the process, fertilising the ground for extremism.
But the US role in Afghanistan in the 1980s and its role in the Gulf in the 1990s are only two examples of how US military interference has had major political repercussion in Yemen.
US support for Israel and its occupation of Arab Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian lands, and Washington's intervention in neighbouring Somalia have also led to direct and indirect hostility towards the US.
A soldier and savvy political operator, President Ali Abdullah Saleh was not exactly innocent or idle as international and regional events affected his country.
Although Saleh has made serious attempts to strengthen the state's unity, economy and institutions since taking power in 1978, his main concern has been the stability and primacy of his regime.
In the first of three decades in power, Saleh the military man secured his position in then North Yemen by playing off the tribes, some of which were supported by Saudi Arabia.
In the 1990s, he secured national unity with South Yemen, merging the two into one state, first through political process and establishing partnership, and later by winning the war (1994) against the Southern leaders who tried to secede once again. But most importantly, he achieved unity by solidifying his power and boxing in his potential adversaries by playing off Northern-led Islamists against Socialist secular Southerners.
And over the last decade, Saleh has exploited the US "war on terror" to break his once-empowered Islamist partners turned political adversaries.
Following al-Qaeda's attack against British interests and the USS Cole in 2000, Saleh was reluctant to co-operate overtly with the US administration.
However, after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington (and an attack on a French oil tanker in 2002), Saleh agreed to co-operate with the US on all security fronts after obtaining American assurances that Yemen would not be targeted by the US in the "war on terror" as was Afghanistan and Iraq.
The US put the guru of the Yemeni Islamist movement, Sheikh Abdul Majid Az-Zindani, on its "terrorist watch list", and the Yemeni government put all the religious schools under its supervision.
However, none of this helped Saleh secure his regime. Recent clashes in the Northern region of the country with the Houthis led to Saudi military interference on the side of the government and exposed the weakness of the regime.
Likewise, Saleh's inability to reduce the unabated political and security tensions in the South, as socio-economic conditions continued to deteriorate in the rest of the country, has all but exposed and amplified the weakness of his regime and its dependency on foreign economic and military aid.
However, with half of the population illiterate or living under the poverty line and one third unemployed, any attempt at a military solution could only exacerbate an already untenable situation.
Barack Obama, the US president, would be well advised to remember the advice given to his predecessor by General Colin Powell: "If you break it Mr president, you will own it."
Paradoxically, if the US continues to fail successfully in its "war on terror", it is those local autocratic leaders like Saleh who end up caring for its security instead of their own national interests.


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Record Fine For English FA01 May 2003
The English Football Association have been handed a record fine by UEFA following the racist chanting and crowd disturbances at the UEFA EURO 2004 game between England and Turkey, played on 2 April at Sunderland. The FA was also been given a final warning as to the future conduct of England supporters.
Racist chanting
UEFA's Control and Disciplinary Body found the FA guilty of the disciplinary charges relating to pitch incursions and racist chanting. Considering all of the available evidence and the FA's track record on these issues, the Control and Disciplinary Body imposed a fine of €99,000 – the highest ever for a racism-related charge. The Control and Disciplinary Body totally condemned the offensive and racist verbal abuse of opposing fans.
Mike Lee, UEFA's Director of Communications and Public Affairs, said: "The verdict has upheld two of the most important charges and sent a clear warning for the future. The English FA's actions against racism have been taken into account and we trust that the additional steps that are being proposed will be successful".
Ironically, UEFA uses the money collected through fines to help its chosen good causes. FARE itself has previously benefited from such financial support from UEFA and works closely with UEFA to combat racism within the game. More recently, after the "Unite Against Racism" conference held earlier this year by UEFA, FARE and The English FA; UEFA is making financial aid available to national football authorities to kick start anti-racist initiatives.