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Red Ball Express
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Introduction and article extracted from
https://www.historynet.com/red-ball-express/?r
During WW II, advances toward the enemy often ran allied troops painfully short of supplies. Armies without food to feed the soldiers or medical supplies to mend the injured as well as guns without bullets would soon bring the best trained Army to its knees. To ensure that the Americans and the allies were well supplied with everything they needed to advance against the enemy, the Red Ball Express was created.
The Red Ball Express was a large convoy of trucks filled with supplies. The name originated from the idea of announcing someone very important. A white flag with a red ball centered on it indicated a vice admiral's ship. Later, the name "red ball" referred to perishables in rail cars that needed to have the right of way to prevent spoilage. Thus, "red ball" attached to any type of transport meant that it was important and vital that it reached its destination quickly.
Of the drivers of this trucking convoy, 75% were of African American descent. This was in part because during WW II, the general idea of the military echelon was that the black soldier was not as capable in combat as the rest of the troops. Therefore, black soldiers were routinely assigned jobs in the mess hall, the laundry, the motor pool and as drivers.
The drivers would drive at speeds no faster than 25 mph during enemy territory. Up to 140 trucks were on French roads at one time to supply General Patton's Third Army 350 miles away as well as the First Army, at a 400 mile distance. Night driving had to be done without headlights to avoid being spotted by enemies.
The program came to a halt in November 1944. By that time, about 412,000 tons of various items, including gasoline, ammunition, oil, food and other needed supplies had been delivered by the Red Ball Express.
Featured Article: The Red Ball Express From History Net Magazines
On the Road to Victory: The Red Ball Express
By David P. Colley
More than 6,000 trucks kept gasoline and other vital supplies rolling in as American troops and tanks pushed the Germans back toward their homeland.
It was dusk, somewhere in France in the autumn of 1944. A jeep carrying a first lieutenant in charge of a platoon of trucks crested a hill. Instinctively, the young officer scanned the horizon for enemy aircraft that sometimes swooped in low for strafing runs. The skies were empty. But as far as the eye could see, ahead and to the rear, the descending night was pierced by specks of white and red light–cat eyes, the blackout running lights of hundreds of trucks that snaked along the highway.
The huge convoy stretching from horizon to horizon was part of the Red Ball Express, the famed trucking operation in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) in the late summer and fall of 1944 that supplied the rapidly advancing American armies as they streamed toward the German frontier. Chances are that most Americans have never heard of the Red Ball Express. In the hundreds of films about World War II and in all the books about the conflict, it gets little mention. Yet the Red Ball may have contributed as much to the defeat of Germany as any other land operation. Certainly without the Red Ball, and its sister express lines that went into operation later in the war, World War II in Europe might have dragged on even longer, and the extraordinary mobility of the U.S. Army would have been drastically limited.
The Red Ball was created to supply the American combat units that were pushing the Germans back to their homeland. In the first few weeks after the Normandy invasion, the Allies made little progress against the disciplined and stubborn enemy. Some in the military even feared a return of trench warfare as the Germans continued to blunt each thrust the Allies launched while attempting to break out of their Normandy beachhead.
Then, in late July, the German front cracked. American forces rushed toward the Seine River in pursuit of the German Seventh Army. But the Allied high command had not anticipated the rapid German retreat. They had expected the battle for France to be a slow, steady roll-up of the enemy's divisions.
The original plans called for Lt. Gen. George Patton, Jr.'s newly formed Third Army to turn westward to clear the Brittany ports while Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley and British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery pushed the Germans eastward across the Seine. Because of the precipitous German retreat, however, Bradley gave Patton permission to wheel some of his forces eastward toward Paris.
If Patton and Bradley could outrun the Germans, the American Twelfth Army Group could trap the enemy between Normandy and the Seine. The reduction of the Falaise pocket northwest of Paris, in which some 100,000 German soldiers were surrounded, 10,000 killed and 50,000 captured, demonstrated how vulnerable the Germans were.
The key to the pursuit, however, was supplies. Modern armies guzzle gas and expend ammunition in vast amounts. As the charging Americans pummeled the Germans, U.S. forces began to run out of needed materiel.
"On both fronts an acute shortage of supplies–that dull subject again!–governed all our operations," General Bradley wrote in his autobiography, A General's Life. "Some twenty-eight divisions were advancing across France and Belgium. Each division ordinarily required 700-750 tons a day–a total daily consumption of about 20,000 tons."
Ironically, the Allies were victims of their own military successes and strategy. For months before the D-Day assault on June 6, Allied air forces had roamed the skies across northern France destroying the French rail system to prevent Field Marshal Erwin Rommel from supplying his forces on the coast after the Allied invasion came. But if the railroads were made useless for the Germans, they would be equally useless for the Allies. To add to the problem, the Germans still held the Channel ports of northern France and Belgium, notably Le Havre and Antwerp, so most of the supplies to the advancing American armies came over the invasion beaches on the Normandy coast.
Soon, Patton's tanks were grinding to a halt, not from enemy action, but because there was no gasoline. On an average day, Patton's Third Army and Lt. Gen. Courtney Hodges' First Army consumed a total of 800,000 gallons of gas. But there was no logistical system in place to deliver sufficient quantities.
It was in these desperate days of late August 1944 that the Red Ball Express was conceived during a 36-hour brainstorming session among American commanders. Its name came from a railroad phrase–to "red ball" something was to ship it express–and from an earlier Red Ball Express in Britain that rushed supplies to the English ports during the early days of the invasion. The second Red Ball operation lasted barely three months, from August 25 through November 16, 1944, but by the end of those critical months the express line had established itself firmly in the mythology of World War II. More than 6,000 trucks and their trailers transported 412,193 tons of supplies to the advancing American armies from Normandy to the German border.
What is most often overlooked about the Red Ball Express is that three-quarters of all Red Ball soldiers were African American. The U.S. Army was segregated during World War II, and black troops were most often relegated to service units–many served in the Quartermaster Corps. They served in port battalions, drove trucks, worked as mechanics, and served as "humpers" who loaded and unloaded ammunition and supplies. When the Red Ball was formed, it was the African-American troops in large measure who performed admirably and kept the express line rolling.
The need for supplies was so great that the Red Ball reached its peak performance within the first five days of operation. On August 29, some 132 truck companies, operating 5,958 vehicles, carried 12,342 tons of supplies to forward depots–a record that went unmatched during the next 14 weeks of the operation's existence. The Red Ball Express was a classic American "can-do" response to a problem that might have proved insurmountable in another army.
There were not enough trucks or drivers in the established Quartermaster truck companies to supply the advancing armies. Before the invasion, the Army's Transportation Corps estimated a need for 240 truck companies to sustain an advance across France. It also requested that the bulk of these units be equipped with 10-ton flatbed semitrailers. But there weren't enough of the flatbeds. When the Normandy assault was made, the Army had authorized only 160 truck companies for the operation, and most of those would be supplied with trusty 6-by-6s, GMC 21/2-ton trucks.
The Army had to find more trucks and drivers. Infantry units, artillery units, anti-aircraft units–any units that had trucks–were raided, and many of their vehicles were formed into provisional truck units for the Red Ball.
Any soldier whose duties were not critical to the immediate war effort was asked to become a driver. Normandy was a staging area where arriving infantry divisions bivouacked for several weeks before being sent to the front. Their ranks were combed for drivers, and many infantrymen signed up for temporary duty (normally about two weeks) on the Red Ball, rather than endure the mud and boredom of their encampments. Most of those temporary troops were white.
One of the volunteers, Phillip A. Dick, a scout corporal with Battery A, 380th Field Artillery, 102nd Division, had never driven a truck before. But that did not present a problem for the Army. Dick, like so many others, was given a few hours of instruction and told he had qualified.
"Everybody was stripping gears, but by the time we got back to the company area we could make the trucks go," Dick recalls. The motto of the Red Ball, "tout de suite" (immediately), could have come from a French phrase adopted by the Americans as they rushed to defeat the Germans. "Patton wanted us to eat, sleep and drive, but mostly drive," remembers John O'Leary of the 3628th Truck Company.
The first Red Ball convoys, however, quickly bogged down in the congestion of civilian and military traffic. In response, the Army established a priority route that consisted of two parallel highways between the beachhead and the city of Chartres, just outside Paris. The northern route was designated one-way for traffic outbound from the beaches. The southern route was for return traffic. As the war moved past the Seine and Paris, the two-way loop route was extended to Soissons, northeast of Paris, and to Sommesous and Arcis-sur-Aube, east of Paris toward Verdun.
Staff Sergeant Chester Jones with the 3418th Trucking Company remembers the story of one soldier who was missing for several days with a jeep. His excuse for being AWOL was that he had gotten on the Red Ball priority route, had been sandwiched between two 6-by-6 trucks, and could not get off the highway for 100 miles.
The story is undoubtedly apocryphal, but it contains elements of reality. All civilian and unrelated military traffic was forbidden on the Red Ball route, and the military police (MPs) and the drivers rigidly enforced that rule. The Red Ball convoys often gunned down the middle of the highway to avoid mines on the shoulders, and would stop for nothing. One Red Ball veteran recalls a small French car sneaking onto the Red Ball highway and getting trapped between two barreling trucks. The lead truck suddenly braked for a rest area, and the car was smashed when the following truck failed to stop in time.
The Army went to great lengths to establish control over the newly formed Red Ball highway. The mimeographed sheets of rules of the road are some of the most enduring artifacts of the operation. David Cassels, a warrant officer junior grade with the 103rd Quartermaster Battalion, recalls, for example, that trucks were to travel in convoys; each truck was to carry a number to mark its position in the convoy; each convoy was to have a lead jeep carrying a blue flag; a "cleanup" jeep at the end bore a green one; the speed limit was 25 mph; and trucks were to maintain 60-yard intervals.
Nevertheless, the exigencies of a fast-moving war turned everything upside down. The real story of the Red Ball Express was often more like a free-for-all at a stock car race.
"Oh boy, do I remember that Red Ball gang!" laughs Fred Reese, a former mechanic in an ETO ambulance unit. "They were a helluva crew. They used to carry ammunition boxes twice as high as the top of the truck and when they went down the highway they swayed back and forth. They had no fear. Those guys were crazy, like they were getting paid for every run."
Drivers quickly learned to strip the trucks of their governors, which sapped the overloaded vehicles of power on grades and prevented them from maintaining a steady and much higher speed. The governors were slapped back on for inspections.
The longest delays on the Red Ball usually occurred when trucks were loaded at the beachhead or at depots. If they waited for a convoy to assemble, they could be delayed for hours. Many trucks went out alone or in small groups without an attending officer to keep the vast supply line going. The men drove night and day, week after week. Exhaustion was a companion closer than the assistant driver, who most likely was asleep, awaiting his turn at the wheel. One Red Ball veteran recalls once being so exhausted he could not keep driving. But the convoy could not stop. He and his assistant driver switched seats as the truck rolled along.
Falling asleep was a major problem on the Red Ball. When trucks drifted out of the convoy, it usually meant a driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. Robert Emerick with the 3580th Quartermaster Truck Company was barreling along in a convoy when suddenly he felt a bump and heard blaring horns. He had nodded off and was careening off the roadway aimed right at a concrete electrical pole. He swerved back onto the road just in time.
At night, trucks drove with their cat eyes–white in front, red in back–to avoid detection. "You'd be watching those damned little blackout lights. It drove you blind. It was like hypnosis," recalls Emerick.
When convoys were stalled for short periods, the drivers dozed, their heads slumped over the steering wheel. A jolt from the truck in front, backing up to tap the front bumper of the truck behind, was the signal that the convoy was once again on the move.
There were commanders who went by the book. A 21/2-ton truck would carry no more than a 5-ton load and that was that. Prior to the Normandy invasion, the Transportation Corps authorized trucks to carry twice their normal load. That helped compensate for the lack of trucking, but one layer of 105mm and 155mm artillery shells put the truck over the weight limit. "People would laugh when they saw us driving with so few shells," Emerick recalls. Most Quartermaster officers, however, ignored weight restrictions and sent the trucks out overloaded.
The armies were so desperate for gasoline and ammunition that they sometimes sent out raiding parties to commandeer Red Ball trucks and "liberate" their supplies before the trucks got to a depot. Charles Stevenson, a lieutenant in the 3858th Quartermaster Gas Supply Company, remembers being stopped by a colonel on the Third Army front who demanded he turn over his truckloads of jerrycans full of gas.
"You don't move until we get those cans," the colonel barked.
"We fussed, jumped up and down and cussed that colonel and raised hell and damned everybody around," Stevenson says, but the colonel was unmoved. Ultimately, the convoy was left with only enough gas to get back to the company area.
Often the front was moving so fast that Red Ball drivers never found their destination. It was not uncommon for drivers to hawk their loads to anyone interested. They always found takers.
Most often, trucks carried supplies from one depot to the next, dropped them and returned. From the advanced depots more trucks picked up the supplies and carried them farther or to the front lines. Shortly after the breakout from Normandy, it was not uncommon for Red Ball trucks to drop ammunition at artillery positions within a few miles of the front line. One Red Ball veteran remembers driving right up to a stranded Sherman tank and passing jerrycans of gas to the crew while the Germans were within shouting distance.
If gasoline was gold, cigarettes, rations and sugar were jewels to the French. Black marketeering was rampant as some drivers delivered whole loads to anyone willing to buy. Convoys always posted guards around the trucks to prevent the war-weary French and profit-minded American troops from taking anything not tied down.
Even drivers not involved in theft took what they wanted from the loads. They sometimes took a jerrycan here and there to sell to the French. A 5-gallon jerrycan brought $100 on the French black market.
One Red Ball veteran recalls kicking ration boxes off the truck to feed demoralized MPs who had not been relieved for days and had no rations. But the MPs were always watching for pilferage. Usually they were stationed at intersections to ensure the convoys stayed on course, or they directed traffic at blown bridges or through the narrow streets of villages such as Houdan, where medieval timbered houses crowded the main, winding thoroughfare. Large, rectangular signs with huge red balls in the center kept the convoys rolling on the right roads when the MPs were not around. And convoy directors always carried maps to their destinations.
Engineers constantly patrolled the roads to repair damage. Ordnance troops manned wreckers such as the Diamond T Prime Mover, strong enough to wrestle even a disabled tank back to a repair depot. Red Ball drivers were instructed to pull over and wait for the wreckers when their trucks broke down. If the mechanics could not make repairs on the spot, they pushed or pulled the trucks to a maintenance depot.
The Red Ball trucks took tremendous beatings. Batteries dried up, engines overheated, motors burned out for lack of grease and oil, transmissions were overstressed, bolts came loose, and drive shafts fell off. In the first month of operation, Red Ball trucks wore out 40,000 tires. General wear and overloaded trucks were the biggest reasons for the heaps of truck tires awaiting rehabilitation at repair depots. Most of the tires were retreaded and recycled, and they often came back from the repair depots glued and taped together. Treads also came loose, and sometimes the inside dual tire in the rear blew out and caught fire from friction as the truck rolled on. One major cause of the damage done to tires was the hundreds of thousands of ration tins carelessly disposed of along the highways–the sharp metal edges tore into the rubber.
Red Ball trucks were often brought to a standstill by water in their gas. Proper maintenance required that the gas line filter on the fire wall between the engine and cab be purged of water at regular intervals, but few drivers paid attention to that regulation. Condensation was the principal cause of water in the gas, but sabotage was also a factor.
German prisoners of war were aware that the Achilles' heel of the 6-by-6 was water in the gas, and POWs were frequently used to load supplies in the rear areas and to gas up the trucks. More than one veteran remembers watching POWs dragging jerrycans, with caps wide open, through snow and rain in a deliberate effort to contaminate the gas.
POWs often were loaded into the backs of the trucks on the return trip from forward area depots. So, too, were expended artillery casings, jerrycans, and sometimes the bodies of American soldiers killed in action. Transporting the dead was a particularly dreadful task. Red Ball drivers remember the pervasive odor of death that took days to dissipate. The truck beds had to be hosed down, but even a thorough cleansing often failed to wash away the blood and grime that oozed down through the cracks in the wooden truck beds.
Convoys made regular stops in rest areas where trucks could be serviced, Red Cross girls served coffee and doughnuts, and cots were sometimes available for a few hours' rest, particularly if another team of drivers continued on with the trucks. The rest areas also served food, but the drivers became proficient at eating C rations on the road. Robert Emerick remembers the same bland diet of hash, stew or beans–always cold. He craved a good hot meal. Drivers sometimes wired C-ration tins to the exhaust manifolds of their trucks to heat the rations. Emerick tried this once and forgot to remove the tin–which eventually exploded. "What the hell have you been doing under this hood," roared the motor pool sergeant when Emerick returned the truck for maintenance.
Red Ball drivers seldom were involved in combat, but there was the ever-present danger of being strafed by Luftwaffe fighters that occasionally streaked overhead. First Lieutenant Charles Weko remembers being in a convoy caught by German fighters. Weko at first believed the brittle clatter of machine guns was someone flinging stones at corrugated metal. Suddenly realizing the danger, he bailed out of his vehicle and scattered with hundreds of other startled truckers. Many of the trucks had a cab emplacement for a .50-caliber machine gun, and some were equipped with the weapons. Merle Guthrie, an infantryman from the 102nd Division who drove for several weeks, was in a convoy that was strafed. The men jumped to the machine gun and brought down one German.
There were many tales of close encounters with the enemy–some rather far-fetched. One report told of 13 Red Ball gasoline tankers barging through a burning French village to get their loads to Patton's tanks, ignoring the possibility that their cargoes might explode. Another was of a nocturnal convoy slowing for MPs ahead in the road only to discover they had gone too far–the MPs were German.
The drivers were expected to wear helmets and carry rifles, but the helmets generally wound up on the floor next to the rifles. Some drivers also sandbagged the floors of their cabs to absorb mine blasts. The Germans were said to be sneaking in at night, planting mines and stringing piano wire across the roadways. Many Red Ball jeeps were equipped with angle-iron hooks designed to snag the wire before it decapitated the occupants. These hooks were needed because the jeeps and trucks sometimes drove with their windshields down, particularly near combat areas, where a fleeting glint off windshield glass could bring down a hail of German artillery fire. Also, dust was often so thick it coated windshields.
The U.S. Army tried to keep troops segregated, but there were moments of friction. One veteran remembers an African-American unit barreling down the highway and trying to pass a convoy of white drivers. A game of chicken ensued, and the white drivers whiplashed their trucks and trailers into the center of the roadway to prevent the African Americans from getting by.
Whites and African Americans were urged not to mingle during off-duty hours. "You accepted discrimination," recalls Washington Rector of the 3916th Quartermaster Truck Company. "We were warned not to fraternize with whites for fear problems would arise." The races were sufficiently separated that even today some white veterans of the Express are unaware that most of the drivers on the Red Ball were African Americans. Emerick recalls informing a soldier that he was a Red Ball driver. The soldier looked at him incredulously and asked why he was not black.
The Red Ball Express was officially terminated on November 16, 1944, when it had completed its mission. New express lines with different designations were being formed, some for specific tasks. The White Ball Express, for example, was established in early October 1944, with routes extending from Le Havre and Rouen to the Paris area.
Other routes included the Little Red Ball, which carried priority supplies from Normandy to Paris; the Green Diamond Express, which moved supplies from Normandy to railheads 100 miles inland; the Red Lion Express, which supplied the 21st Army Group in Belgium; the ABC Express Route (AntwerpBrusselsCharleroi), which carried supplies from the port of Antwerp to depots 90 miles inland; and the XYZ Route, the last long-haul trucking operation, which carried supplies across Germany in the final weeks of the war.
Although its days were few, the Red Ball never really died. Its name and mystique were so embedded in the history of World War II, even during the war, that most of the men who drove trucks, even well after the route's demise, always believed they were on the Red Ball. The other express lines became mere footnotes in history. Welby Franz, a trucking company commander who later became president of the American Trucking Association, arrived in France from Iran in February 1945. He still believes his unit was on the Red Ball. "That's what we were all told," he says. Part of the confusion stems from the fact that the Transportation Corps issued a patch that included a red ball, to commemorate the Red Ball Express, centered on a yellow shield. Franz's men were issued the patch in April 1945.
The Red Ball was successful in large part because Americans understood the strategic value of the motor vehicle that already was playing a critical role in the growth and development of their country. The U.S. Army had also learned the value of motor transport in warfare early in the century. During the 1916 punitive expedition against Pancho Villa, General John "Blackjack" Pershing's force found that the truck was vastly superior to the horse in a war of maneuvers. With minimal maintenance, trucks could supply Pershing's force 24 hours a day.
In 1919, the U.S. Army dispatched a cross-continental convoy to test the efficiency of the truck as the mainstay for supplying a fast-moving army. One junior officer on the expedition who was impressed by the potential of motor transport was Lieutenant Dwight D. Eisenhower. The tactical and strategic importance of the truck was not lost on the future supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe.
The Red Ball also was possible because of the awesome industrial might of America. During the war, the United States mass-produced millions of military vehicles. More than 800,000 21/2-ton trucks were manufactured in the United States during the war. No other army during World War II had as many trucks, and America supplied hundreds of thousands to Allied armies, including more than 395,000 to the Red Army alone.
It was the truck as much as the tank that enabled the U.S. Army to become the premier mechanized force in the world during World War II. Many believed that honor went to the Wehrmacht, but even as late as 1944 the Germans relied heavily on horse-drawn wagons. Incredibly, the Germans employed more than 2.8 million horses to supply their legions during the war. Without the truck, American tanks would have been immobilized and U.S. troops would have slogged across Europe barely ahead of their supplies.
A generation after World War II, Colonel John S.D. Eisenhower, a veteran of the European war and son of the supreme Allied commander in Europe, wrote: "The spectacular nature of the advance [through France] was due in as great a measure to the men who drove the Red Ball trucks as to those who drove the tanks." Colonel Eisenhower concluded, "Without it [the Red Ball] the advance across France could not have been made." As the saying of the day went, "Red Ball trucks broke, but didn't brake." *
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Ugandan President Begins Re-election Bid
High-spirited Museveni procession kicks off campaigning for first democratric elections in over twenty years.
By Charles Mwanguhya
Chanting slogans, blowing whistles and wearing bright yellow shirts and caps, supporters jammed the streets of Kampala on December 15 to cheer President Yoweri Museveni.
Organised by his powerful National Resistance Movement party, which has ruled Uganda for 20 years, the Museveni procession kicked off campaigning for the country's first multi-party elections in more than two decades.
This past week Museveni and five others were certified as legal presidential candidates by the national Electoral Commission from a large tent erected in the Mandela National Stadium.
Museveni said only that he was excited by his nomination for the March elections and promised to advance democracy.
Democracy will be a key issue in the election. After Ugandans voted in July to have constitutionally mandated multi-party elections, Museveni convinced parliament to remove term limits, opening the door to life-long consecutive presidencies.
Among the other candidates is Miria Obote, wife of the late Apollo Milton Obote, who was twice president of Uganda and died in exile this fall. Miria Obote will represent her late husband's party, the Uganda People's Congress.
Obote's nomination makes her the first and only woman to contest the country's presidency, though most observers give her little chance of presenting a serious challenge to Museveni.
Meanwhile, Museveni's most serious opponent, Dr Kizza Besigye, remained in jail as his lawyers argued at the Constitutional Court that the government cannot put Besigye on trial in both civilian and military courts.
Besigye faces one trial for treason and rape in the High Court and separate charges of terrorism and illegal possession of firearms in a court martial.
The lawyers made little progress, however. They accused one of the court's judges of bias because of past conflicts with Besigye when he was the chief of logistics in the Uganda People's Defense Forces and a subordinate to the man who is now a judge, Stephen Kavuma.
Lawyers argued that Kavuma was a key figure in establishing a system by which a civilian can be tried in a military court. The court left the decision to Kavuma to remove himself and adjourned until late next week, leaving Besigye in jail.
The day before, Besigye was allowed to stand for president after being nominated by his party, the Forum for Democratic Change. The certification followed weeks of political wrangling and conflicting legal opinions.
Besigye's jailing was underscored when FDC officials and his well-known wife, Winnie Byanyima, put her husband's campaign poster in an empty chair in front of the commission as his nomination papers were presented.
Other candidates include the former mayor of Kampala, Nasser Ntegge Ssebaggala, who is running as an independent candidate after he failed to secure the nomination of the Democratic Party and broke away with the support of the party's youth wing.
Ssebaggal was arrested in the US on fraud charges in 1998 and served time in jail there. In 2001, he was unable to run for president because he lacked adequate academic qualifications.
Rounding up the list of candidates are the current Kampala Mayor Ssebaana Kizito, who represents the fractured Democratic Party, and independent Abed Bwanika, who is a veterinarian.
Drama and humour were injected into what could have been strictly political affair, when a host of independents including an actor and a comedian were turned away.
Wanjara Wagobe of the Uganda Mandate Party generated some laughter when instead of handing in the required papers, he spoke out for the jailed Besigye.
Then a popular Ugandan actor, Bush Ainebyona, strode into the nomination venue sporting his long grey beard and complained to the commission that his rights had been violated.
Ainebyona said it was wrong for the Electoral Commission to require a poor man like him to raise the 8 million shilling (about 4,000 US dollars) nomination fee and to traverse the country to collect the necessary 4,600 signatures for his petitions.
Further drama came when a blind man, Shafik Mwanje Mwaura, failed to present the required signatures to approve his nomination and was led away by supporters.
Finally, professional comedian Paddy Bitama showed up wearing shades and his trademark plaited hair, then handed the commission a check instead of the required bank draft. When it was rejected, Bitama broke into fake tears and was led away by commission officers.
In an ominous sign of the coming 10-week campaign, however, crowds cheered when a notorious former commander, Major Roland Kakooza Mutale, led a marching band in the Museveni campaign launch.
Now a presidential adviser, Mutale once headed the Kalangala Action Plan, KAP, a well-known paramilitary squad that was accused of beating and terrorising supporters of Museveni's opponents.
Although Mutale denied the charges, a parliamentary probe on violence in the 2001 presidential election named him and his KAP as being responsible.
Charles Mwanguhya Mpagi is a political reporter for the Uganda Radio Network. Rosebell Kagumire, also of URN, contributed to this report.
ACR Issue 48
http://tinyurl.com/y5h6usqy
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More than 1,000 families returned to Kazakstan in the first six months of this year.
Could China Be Softening Stance on Kazak, Kyrgyz Minorities?
Tajikistan: Afghan Refugees Feel Secure - But Poor
The country's recent parliamentary elections show process of tentative change is real.
Georgia's Polarised Media Landscape
Combating Hate Speech in Bosnia

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Blog / Dev & QA Trends / Creating an Accessibility Program Requires…
Creating an Accessibility Program Requires Awareness and Empathy
Accessibility and inclusivity has been a hot topic for years, as enterprises around the world work to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards. They do this for legal, ethical and economic reasons, but there's an often-overlooked positive outcome of working toward true inclusivity for your customers and your staff: making things better for one person benefits all.
In our recent webinar, Accessibility Now Means Less Pain Later, we highlight an Applause customer, Skyscanner, and their journey to accessibility, beginning with hiring a full-time employee to oversee organizational accessibility. In this blog, we call out key pieces of our full webinar in which Heather Hepburn, Accessibility Lead at Skyscanner, covers how she progressed Skyscanner's accessibility efforts from awareness/understanding to education, executive buy-in, initiation of an accessibility plan and ongoing efforts. All with empathy at its core.
View the on-demand webinar here or continue reading excerpts from the conversation with our two speakers:
Julia Zacharias - VP, EU Delivery & Customer Success, Applause
Heather Hepburn - Accessibility Lead, Skyscanner
The transcript below has been edited for clarity and length.
Julia Zacharias: I'm very excited to be here today with Heather Hepburn from Skyscanner.
We're first going to do a short introduction and then cover some general definitions. Then we'll discuss how to build a program to advance digital accessibility and inclusive design. And now I'm very happy to introduce you to Heather Hepburn from Skyscanner. Heather, please introduce yourself and what you do at Skyscanner and what Skyscanner does.
Heather Hepburn: Thank you so much for having me today. I'm excited to be here. I'm Heather. I'm the Accessibility Lead at Skyscanner. And for those of you who don't know Skyscanner, we are an online global travel brand. We provide flights, hotels, and car hire to our travelers.
We started up in Edinburgh back in 2003. And we now have eight offices around the world and about 1,200 staff. So, I have been on a mission to improve accessibility at Skyscanner for a few years now.
Zacharias: Thank you. My name is Julia Zacharias and I'm the Vice President for Solution Delivery and Testing Services for the European market at Applause.
We're the world leader in testing and digital quality. And as for Skyscanner and some of the other companies you are seeing here at the bottom, we carry out testing across all stages of the SDLC, always with the end goal in mind that we want to provide the best possible user experience for the end users of our customers. We have more than 1 million crowd testers across all countries with thousands of different devices that can test all the time, really fast, and help our companies release faster with more confidence and higher quality.
Digital accessibility baseline
Zacharias: Today we are talking about digital accessibility and inclusive design and some definitions and relevance. The important point I want to make is that digital accessibility is sort of a subset of inclusive design. And digital accessibility is really focused on digital products and services, with the end goal of making them accessible for the widest range possible of users, including persons with disabilities (PWD).
It's often measured with the internationally accepted WCAG. But they're not legally binding. They're just a collection of best practices for what to do to make your product accessible. But essentially, you cannot do that if you cannot, on the basic level, ensure that your product functions generally. That's where you should be starting out, then building the accessibility on top of that, also making sure the products and services comply with the established guidelines on the technical level. Then take it one step further and really strive for an inclusive design, a human-centric approach. That takes into account a much wider range of aspects that affect how people interact with the product, not just technical guidelines.
I would like to bring Heather back so we can hear what has sparked her interest in these topics and why she's working in this field.
Hepburn: I started knowing about accessibility back a few years ago now when I was working for RBS. I was working in a team who were building a new online account opening system. I was a UX writer at the time and was just learning from them and including copy that would be used for screen readers, for example. We were just thinking about accessibility in our processes. And it just became very much naturally part of what we all did.
And then I left RBS and I was going through an interview process at Skyscanner for our UX writer role. I was asked to do a critique of their app. So over the weekend, I was looking at the app and trying to critique it from a UX perspective. And all of the issues I found were accessibility issues. I got the job and started at Skyscanner as a UX writer and just went on an accessibility mission from pretty much day one. From that point, it's been really important to me that when people talk about quality code, it's much more than just speed and availability and all of the things that developers tend to think. If your code is not accessible, how can someone describe it as high quality? Also, the exclusion elements, so many times you're unknowingly excluding a whole group of users. I needed to do something about that.
Zacharias: Yes, and the case we also want to make is that, at some point in our lives, probably all of us will have some form of temporary disability, because that can be as simple as having a broken arm, so you cannot use your phone with your usual hand, or maybe you are holding a baby, or you have a sinus infection, so you are hard of hearing. So any of these are also disabilities, if only temporary. We're all aging as well, and we often need more support around use of digital products and services.
To make it a bit more clear in terms of the kind of issues we're talking about when we're saying an application is not accessible, we see a lot of issues with screen readers — and this is something that companies that are first starting to address accessibility issues often deal with, since they often target users with low vision or blindness first. An example of a screen reader issue is when some kind of interactive element has not been assigned a name or role or a value, then the screen reader cannot pick it up. It might just say "button" instead of what the button does.
Color contrast issues are common too. For instance, if the text is light blue against the white background, it's hard or impossible to actually see and then understand the content.
European Accessibility Act
Zacharias: We want to look a little bit into the future as one more argument for change and why accessibility programs should be started now. And that's the legal argument. There's already lots of legislation implemented in other countries, especially in the United States and Canada. In the European Union, it's coming.
In June 2019, the EU parliament approved the European Accessibility Act (EAA) in order to remove barriers between the member states — because there was lots of different legislation in place — and make the internal market function better, with the end goal of ensuring that PWD and elderly people would have accessible products and services. This refers to everything, not just digital.
The good news is, at least from the legal standpoint, there's still three years until July 2025, when the EAA is being enforced for the products and services that are identified as most important for PWD and elderly people. But those are essentially all the services we use every day, so anything in banking, telecommunications, ebooks and the wide array of e-commerce etc. This means that for any organization doing business in the EU market, they must ensure that in the next three years they're making their digital and physical products accessible. This may seem like a long time, but it's really not, as there is a lot to do when you start on a full accessibility program.
How Skyscanner started its accessibility program
Zacharias: The first step in starting an accessibility program is to raise awareness. So Heather, when and how did your journey for building a program begin, and who was involved?
Hepburn: So it was just after I joined. I found a Slack channel called the Accessibility Guild. I set up a meeting for people on the channel and about 30 people came to the first meetup. There were about 70 people on this channel back then and we've grown that to around 300 now. That was in March 2019 and we have been meeting up every month since.
Next, I went to our leadership to say, OK, look, I think we have some work to do here. It would be really nice to have a little bit of budget so I can employ some experts to come in and maybe do an audit to begin with and then also possibly do a workshop with us. That agreement was actually relatively easy to get, because I think as soon as you start explaining what we're doing, as in we're excluding people unknowingly, and then show an example of what we're doing wrong, everyone is very keen to understand more. So I was given a little bit of funding.
The first thing we did was audit our design system. So, I guess for people lucky enough to have a design system, it's a brilliant place to start. Because if you can have accessible components and if you have a system that gives guidance on accessibility, you're halfway there. In fact, you're more than halfway there.
I wanted to understand how accessible our components were. So we did an audit on that. I also started working closely with a new project building our new mobile website. It was still in the early stages. We started there with the idea of learning and then perhaps scaling across other products. It was perfect to start small, and it's all grown from there. And it's just me in this permanent accessibility role, but we have a network of accessibility champions now, so that's a big help.
Zacharias: So awareness is first and then what did you do next?
Hepburn: Raising awareness has been my main aim over the last couple of years. Training was next. I first started talking to designers because I felt that nothing was ever going to be accessible unless it was built in from that early stage in the whole process. So getting accessibility considered from as far left as you possibly can is key. Much of this training was talking about different types of disability: the permanent disabilities and temporary, the ones that affect us all everyday just in the situations that we're in. I think this is a big realization for people and draws them in.
Next, I would talk about how to design and build in an accessible way. From that, I built a Skyscanner Uni course and then we built a Skyscanner University tool that anyone can upload a course to. We also did a project where we looked at our own accessibility for our internal staff. We got a lot of great learning from that. We did some other workshops, like one with AbilityNet on how to use screen readers. These workshops were very hands-on. This is important when it comes to people learning and gaining empathy.
Overall, we do lots of communication; we write lots of blogs, do social media, invite people to come speak to us, and we focus on accessibility for our products and for our internal staff as well. It's an on-going process. And on the technical side, we run a weekly automated audit now on our website and our mobile website, and we continue to see regular progress there, but still have a lot more to do.
Empathy labs
Testing with people with disabilities is absolutely the best thing to do. It is fascinating to see how people interact with your product. And it can be in ways that you would never imagine. I think that is a really good thing to do when you're trying to get backing from leadership. Show someone struggling. Nobody wants to see that. And you can just do a little bit of testing with someone, record it, and share it. That's been powerful for us.
Related, I'd like to mention the empathy labs that we've run. We've done a few of these. We get everyone to come in and experience disability for themselves. These labs are places where we simulate different disabilities. And we have set up a lot of technology there. So we've got laptops around the room. We've got phones. We've even got a dart board. And the idea is that our Skyscanner employees can sit down and really see things from a different viewpoint, be in someone else's shoes that they might not have ever considered before. This plays out then in how we design our products as well as how we make things more accessible for our staff. [See the replay of the webinar for a video overview of an empathy lab.]
We have a small working group of accessibility champions that helps organize these labs. It's very impactful. We have, for example, a station where people try to open a jar while wearing arthritis gloves. These types of things. These really create lightbulb moments for people.
Progressing the accessibility project
Zacharias: Fantastic. Let's move one step more now in the program. You created this awareness. People really want to do it. Maybe you've run your first audit. You kind of know where you are and what you need to fix. And the question is, obviously, where do you go from here?
Hepburn: The hardest part, in my opinion, is getting accessibility embedded into all of your processes. And we are still not 100% there yet by any means. In our requirements documents at the beginning of a project, there are accessibility requirements as a section. And I guess it's in some people's project plans, but not everybody's. So that's my challenge at the moment to get it across the board. But it's really, really nice if things are considered even before a designer is involved so that it's at least there and it can be considered then when it moves on a stage. For the designers, it's been mainly around raising that awareness, particularly around things like color and layout and font. So I feel that's in a good place.
We've created a set of accessibility annotations in Figma. So when a designer is creating a design spec to hand to the development team, they can mark up their designs with accessibility information. And that has made such a difference.
We started simply. At the moment, we've only got four different annotations, just one to mark up headings, one to mark up focus order, accessibility text - which can be anything from Alt text or ARIA labels, or anything to do with screen readers - and grouping, so when anything on a page should be read out in one go by a screen reader, but it might visually not look like that, we've got a grouping element as well.
And these are readily available in the Figma community that we borrowed, I think it was from Twitter's set of guidelines. And yes, there's loads of them out there. And we just made them work for us. I wrote some guidance on them and rolled that out to the design team.
And then, I guess, the design system, again, having accessibility embedded into our components and guidance alongside it. We're actually working on that just now. We're redoing our design systems, called Backpack. And it will be available so everyone can get in there and have a look at it. But we have an accessibility consultant who's helping us create all the component-level guidance and just making sure that all our components are properly accessible.
And in the testing phase, we have developers involved. We don't have QA in house, so we use Applause for testing, but our developers test each other's work as well. So again, it's about awareness and knowing what different tools we can use there too.
We're rolling out a tool called Cypress Axe, which has an element of accessibility testing within it. And once we get that rolled across all of our development teams, that will be a great way to catch anything that's still a problem. Developers should also be doing it at the unit testing stage to make sure that everything is good before it even gets to that end point. So there's so much to do.
Summary of key success factors
Zacharias: Let's wrap up the key success factors and the phases again for building this program. So we spent a lot of time on the first phase, understanding/awareness and committing to it, because it seems if you do that right, the rest is easier. As soon as everyone understands why it is a problem and how it feels, it becomes much easier to do everything else.
Next, communicate the vision on where you want to go. Then understand where you are with an audit. Where do you stand when you check the WCAG? Then work on executive sponsorship in your organization. That's where the technical phase starts, really doing the changes, providing these trainings that you talked about to your organization, having everyone try their own apps using a screen reader and other accessibility features, not just the design and development teams. You pointed out, you also involve, for instance, HR for also the internal processes, not just for the customers.
If possible, involve PWD in research and, later, testing. Generate and celebrate some quick wins. Keep innovating and improving, because that is not a one-time effort. It's really a long-term program that requires a lot of change management thinking. It's not just the technical part, like teaching people how to develop accessible code, but also why to do it and then continuously improve on where you are. I know this is a very high-level summary.
One last question, what is your team's success criteria?
Hepburn: You summarized that really well. That is exactly what people have to do. I think things really change when someone is made responsible for accessibility. There are a lot of companies out there with maybe small networks of interested people who are trying to do the right thing. But it doesn't seem to really start motoring properly until someone has the responsibility of making it happen. Also, developing champions is really key, as I've said earlier. You can't do it alone.
Finally, embed accessibility and inclusive design as far left in the SDLC as you can.
The sooner you start, the better
Zacharias: We recommend that firms start now with all of this. There is the legislation part, but beyond that, it's the right thing to do and it concerns all of us. It will make your products and services better for all users. It's a good argument from all perspectives, the moral one, the legal one, the financial one.
Change management is a big piece of this, because this program is not just about the technical side. It's really about also capturing people's hearts and heads and then moving this along.
Do the Right Thing Right: Make Your Website and Apps Fully Accessible
There's a lot to digest around the path to digital accessibility. Learn the key considerations for creating fully accessible digital experiences.


Don Addams Laredo promo voiceover for Laredo: "What makes this hour-long series a sure winner, is that Laredo has the same number of syllables as Bonanza." Correct, but not prophetic.
Laredo just barely cracked the top 40 at 8:30-9:30 Thursday nights in competition with Bewitched, My Three Sons" & "The Thursday Night Movie." It didn't do as well with its move to 10 p.m. Friday time in the slot vacated by "Man From Uncle," opposite "Twelve O'Clock High" & "The CBS Friday Night Movie."
Laredo had many qualities which made it watchable, but anyone old enough to have seen Peter Brown's top notch performance in four years of Lawman or fast enough to catch William Smith's melodramatic/action turn in the too-quickly cancelled 1985 series, Wildside, will realize Laredo had a lot of potential as a western action series.
Have any Laredo trivia, corrections, suggestions, pictures?


Home›News & Events›Meet APX at the Renewable Energy Markets 2015 conference in Washington, D.C.
Meet APX at the Renewable Energy Markets 2015 conference in Washington, D.C.
APX will be attending and speaking at the Renewable Energy Markets 2015 conference in Washington D.C. from October 18-20. Let us know if you want to set up a time to meet to discuss renewable energy and carbon registries, the APX Environmental Management Account or any of the Power services we offer. Lars Kvale (lkvale@apx.com) and Bryan Gower (bgower@apx.com) will be in DC attending the event.


text:
WHO Coronavirus Report Is Such Blatant Chinese Propaganda That Even The Biden Administration Admits It
By: Tristan Justice
Scientists, the Biden administration, and alumni from the Trump administration have reached a consensus on the upcoming report from the WHO: It's CCP hogwash.
Visit on Twitter @JusticeTristan
For all their differences, scientists, the Biden administration, and alumni from the Trump administration have reached a consensus that the upcoming report from the World Health Organization on the origins of the Wuhan virus is Chinese propaganda.
A team of researchers sponsored by the WHO wrapped up their six-week investigation in Wuhan, concluding in a preliminary report that the novel coronavirus had not been transmitted in humans prior to December 2019 and that it was "extremely unlikely" that the pathogen came from a lab.
Closer examination of the WHO's work, however, has provoked skepticism from scientists and prominent members of the U.S. Intelligence Community. While 72,000 deaths were reported in China from individuals who said they had COVID-like symptoms between October 2019 and the end of the year, only 92 cases were analyzed. A mere 67 of those cases were given serology tests by Chinese doctors, who concluded they all came back negative.
Chinese refusal to allow more cases to be tested, while keeping out of sight the criteria used for determining which cases to test, has sown doubt about the WHO's report. The Chinese have previously claimed the first case of human infection with the coronavirus occurred on Dec. 31.
"The fact that there were multiple cases in Wuhan at the start of December 2019, together with the fact that there were multiple origins — market-related and non-market-related — indicates that the virus entered humans before the start [of the month]," Dr. Richard Ebright at Rutgers University told the Daily Caller.
Maureen Miller, an infectious disease expert at Columbia, told the Wall Street Journal the WHO's findings gloss over an issue that is "so politically fraught."
"It was probably circulating much more widely than they believed. … Doing antibody tests now, it's too late. The ship has sailed," Miller said.
President Joe Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has also thrown cold water on the report, faulting the Chinese for their lack of transparency. Sullivan, however, refused to say that the WHO had been strong-armed by China in its findings.
"What I am going to say is that the only way to have a scientifically based investigation is to have access to all of the data," Sullivan said on CBS on Sunday. Sullivan also abstained from comment on earlier State Department evidence that points to military lab experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology giving birth to the virus.
White House National Security Adviser @JakeJSullivan tells @margbrennan that @WHO and #China "should both step up," on the international investigation into the origins of the #Covid19 pandemic. pic.twitter.com/evqoOFmTNV
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) February 21, 2021
"I'm not in a position to say how COVID-19 came into this world. All I'm in a position to do is to call upon the WHO to do its job to the fullest extent possible," Sullivan said.
Former President Donald Trump's deputy national security adviser, Matt Pottinger, also told CBS the report from the WHO was not to be trusted.
"If you weigh the circumstantial evidence, the ledger on the side of an explanation that says that this resulted from some kind of human error, it far outweighs the side of the scale that says this was some natural outbreak," Pottinger said immediately after Sullivan's interview. "We have very strong reason to believe that the Chinese military was doing secret classified animal experiments in that same laboratory, going all the way back to at least 2017."
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.
chinese coronavirus
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Q: Inclusion - Exclusion Problem - Suppose that a person with seven friends... Can someone please explain to me how to approach this problem:
Suppose that a person with seven friends invites a subset of three friends to dinner every night for one week (seven days). How many ways can this done done so that all friends are included at least once?
I can't think of a good way to break this down into cases. Thanks for the help.

A: For each set of $k$ friends ($k \ge 3$), the number of ways to invite three of these friends each night (thus excluding the remaining $7-k$ friends, and maybe more) is ${k \choose 3}^7$.  The number of ways excluding at least one friend is
$$ \sum_S (-1)^{|S|} {|S| \choose 3}^7 = \sum_{k=3}^6 (-1)^{k} {7 \choose k} {k \choose 3}^7$$
where the sum is over all subsets $S$ of at least $3$ friends.  The number of ways where nobody is excluded is then $$\sum_{k=3}^7 (-1)^{k+1} {7 \choose k} {k \choose 3}^7$$

A: For $d$ days, you want to invite $f$ friends $n$ at a time.  There are
$$T = {f \choose n}^d$$
ways to make this choice.  Except that you might not have invited everyone.  Let $E_g$ be all the invations arrangements where friend $g$ is excluded.  Doing the same calculation as above with the friend missing you get:
$$|E_g| = {f \choose n - 1}^d$$
And $|E_{g_1} \cap E_{g_2}| = {f \choose n - 2}^d$, further $|E_{g_1} \cap E_{g_2} \cap E_{g_3}| = {f \choose n - 3}^d$, etc.
You want to compute $T - |E_{g_1} \cup E_{g_2} \cup \dots E_{g_f}|$.  Applying inclusion exclusion you get:
$$\begin{array} {rl}
%
|E_{g_1} \cup \dots \cup E_{g_f}|  = &|E_{g_1}| + |E_{g_2}| + \dots \\
%
 - &|E_{g_1} \cap E_{g_2}| - |E_{g_2} \cap E_{g_3}| - \dots \\
%
 + &|E_{g_1} \cap E_{g_2} \cap E_{g_3}| + |E_{g_1} \cap E_{g_2} \cap E_{g_4}| + \dots \\
%
 \vdots
\end{array}$$
which is :
$$|E_{g_1} \cup \dots \cup E_{g_f}| = f~|E_{g_1}| - {f \choose 2}~|E_{g_1} \cap E_{g_2}| + {f \choose 3}~|E_{g_1} \cap E_{g_2} \cap E_{g_3}| - \dots$$
where the last term will be $(-1)^{f - n}~{f \choose f - n}~E_{\{1,~\dots,~f-n\}}$ because there are zero ways to exclude more than $f-n$ friends if you are inviting $n$ each time.  So the count is
$$\sum_{k=0}^{f - n} (-1)^k ~ {f \choose k} {f \choose n - k}^d$$

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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ScenarioImagine that you are the vice president of operations at a production or service organization. You have noticed that your organization's current operations strategy is not supporting the challenges the organization is presently facing.
Imagine that you are the vice president of operations at a production or service organization. You have noticed that your organization's current operations strategy is not supporting the challenges the organization is presently facing. In order to maintain a competitive edge, you must address these challenges with your chief executive officer immediately.
Note: You will assume this role of vice president of operations at a production or service organization
Select an existing production organization. Analyze the organization's current vision, mission, business strategy, operation strategy, supply chain, total quality management, just-in-time philosophy, forecasting method, statistical technique, facility location, work design, project life cycle, and project management.
Write a 3 page paper in which you:
Evaluate key elements of the selected production or service organization's operational efficiency with its operational strategy. Determine three tasks that do not align with the operational strategy. Determine the weaknesses that are evident in each task.
Formulate a new operations strategy for the selected organization based on the four competitive priorities (cost, quality, time, and flexibility).
Analyze both the structure of the competitive priorities and infrastructure of the production process. Develop three new enablers that are aligned with the long-term plan of the selected organization. Evaluate three pros and three cons of the new enablers.
Use three sources to support your writing. Choose sources that are credible, relevant, and appropriate. Cite each source listed on your source slide at least one time within your assignment.


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Dialectical behaviour therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder after childhood sexual abuse in patients with and without borderline personality disorder: a randomised controlled trial
Psychother Psychosom. 2013;82(4):221-33. doi: 10.1159/000348451. Epub 2013 May 22.
Martin Bohus 1 , Anne S Dyer, Kathlen Priebe, Antje Krüger, Nikolaus Kleindienst, Christian Schmahl, Inga Niedtfeld, Regina Steil
1 Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim/Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany. martin.bohus @ zi-mannheim.de
DOI: 10.1159/000348451
Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with co-occurring severe psychopathology such as borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a frequent sequel of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). CSA-related PTSD has been effectively treated through cognitive-behavioural treatments, but it remains unclear whether success can be achieved in patients with co-occurring BPD. The aim of the present study was to determine the efficacy of a newly developed modular treatment programme (DBT-PTSD) that combines principles of dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) and trauma-focused interventions.
Methods: Female patients (n = 74) with CSA-related PTSD were randomised to either a 12-week residential DBT-PTSD programme or a treatment-as-usual wait list. About half of the participants met the criteria for co-occurring BPD. Individuals with ongoing self-harm were not excluded. The primary outcomes were reduction of PTSD symptoms as assessed by the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) and by the Posttraumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale (PDS). Hierarchical linear models were used to compare improvements across treatment groups. Assessments were carried out by blinded raters at admission, at end of treatment, and at 6 and 12 weeks post-treatment.
Results: Under DBT-PTSD the mean change was significantly greater than in the control group on both the CAPS (33.16 vs. 2.08) and the PDS (0.70 vs. 0.14). Between-group effect sizes were large and highly significant. Neither a diagnosis of BPD nor the severity or the number of BPD symptoms was significantly related to treatment outcome. Safety analyses indicated no increase in dysfunctional behaviours during the trial.
Conclusion: DBT-PTSD is an efficacious treatment of CSA-related PTSD, even in the presence of severe co-occurring psychopathology such as BPD.
Copyright © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel.
Behavior Therapy / methods*
Borderline Personality Disorder / epidemiology
Borderline Personality Disorder / etiology
Borderline Personality Disorder / therapy*
Child Abuse, Sexual / psychology*
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / epidemiology
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / etiology
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / therapy*


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Total workers' compensation settlement for injured worker who suffered orthopedic injuries and additional GI injuries due to prescription medications.
Settlement for bilateral wrist injuries caused by the negligent operation of a tractor-trailer.
Settlement for statutory cap of $500,000 for wrongful death of a worker who was killed when struck by a government-owned vehicle as well as policy limit for underinsured motorist coverage.


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Session fees are non refundable. In exceptional circumstances sessions can be re-scheduled once. 24 hours notice is required else the fee is forfeited.
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Scotland manager Gordon Strachan admits he felt sorry for his players after they ended their World Cup qualifier against Belgium empty-handed.
Goals in either half from Steven Defour and Kevin Mirallas saw the Red Devils claim a 2-0 victory at Hampden.
Strachan felt several of his own players excelled on the night, despite the defeat, but concedes the Scots were simply up against a far superior side.
He said: "If you get six really terrific performances from individuals, you would think that would be enough to get you something from the game.
"And I thought I got six terrific performances. I got 14 performances from the heart, which is fine, I don't have a problem with that.
"I got as much as I think I could have got. There were points where we stumbled a few times and slipped a few times and gave the ball away in areas that cost us a couple of times.
"But I do feel a bit sorry for them for putting so much work into that against probably one of the best international teams in the world just now."
The win allowed Belgium to increase their lead at the top of Group A to five points, while Scotland's own hopes of qualification for Brazil next summer are long gone.
Strachan added: "The physicality of them is just incredible, which made it harder for our players. It was like a flyweight versus a heavyweight.
"It's very hard to keep taking these knocks and shoves but they kept at it.
"There was a point in the second half where we thought we were going to get an equaliser with just a wee bit of magic.
"At the moment we have to put in 20 passes to get an attempt at goal. We have to do a lot of passing and a lot of work so it's very hard for us to score goals at the moment.
"They are in a right good place and we are in a place where we are trying to get better. Technically, they are better than us, with their strength.
"We've got big hearts and I do believe we had some terrific performances as individuals."
Asked if Scotland can ever reach the level of the Belgians, Strachan said: "What do we do about genetics?
"You stand in that tunnel and you look at the size of them, with their pace and strength. We have hearts as big as them.
"But it's like playing at the rugby where you have a pack that's two or three stone heavier and you have to be clever to get through."
Scotland defeated Croatia in their last qualifier and produced a decent display in a friendly against England at Wembley last month.
But, on the Belgians, Strachan said: "I think they are the best team we have played in the last three games.
"In international football, it's one of the best teams I've seen, played against, managed against - they are one of the best teams I've seen."
Reflecting on his own side's victory, Belgium coach Marc Wilmots said: "I'm very proud of my group, with the quality of play they have shown.
"We were very stable in the first half. The second half was a bit different but our stability was our strength against the Scots."
Belgium also defeated Scotland 2-0 when the two nations last met in Brussels in October 2012.
Asked if he felt there was a difference between their opponents in this match, compared to the previous encounter, Wilmots said: "We deserved the victory.
"It's difficult for me to judge the Scots' play. We did our work beforehand.
"We used our own strong weapons. I prefer to look at my own team rather than other teams."
The win at Hampden sparked wild celebrations as the Belgians took another massive leap towards qualification for the World Cup.
Wilmots said: "We took a big step towards qualification for Brazil but we are not there yet.
"We haven't got our ticket yet. It's still open.
"We are five points clear with a good goal ratio and that's why we enjoyed this moment with the fans and the players.
"But we cannot have a party yet because we have not qualified yet."


text:
Q: Complex form design in Sharepoint I'm trying to build a form for WSS 3.0 which has the following two characteristics:

*

*Have several sub-records in each records which contains few specific fields.

*Can export to HTML or something similar which can be viewed in every browser.

I realize (unless I'm mistaken) I can achieve 1 only by using InfoPath and RepeatingSection/RepeatingTable/etc.
As for 2, I see InfoPath is only capable for exporting to MHT/PDF/XLS, none ideal for me, since the goal is to create a something that can be published to the web.
Any hints about better way to achieve this?
Correction for 2: I meant that the InfoPath form should be editable within our intranet, but exported as a read-only-web-page for our web site. So I meant "exporting" and not "publishing".

A: Perhaps creating a custom fieldtype is a possiblity. Create a fieldtype that has some kind of collection as value.

A:
As for 2, I see InfoPath is only
  capable for exporting to MHT/PDF/XLS,
  none ideal for me, since the goal is
  to create a something that can be
  published to the web

That's not right, InfoPath forms can be published to the web. When publishing the form to the SharePoint via the InfoPath client, you can select an option saying that this form should be editable within a browser. But beware that some form features of InfoPath are not available when you do that.
Or do you have a different understanding of "can be published to the web"? For me it means, creating a new item in the library to which the InfoPath form is attached to --> Form is opened in the browser --> user fills in the form --> user klicks the save button --> info path document is saved to the library and closed.

A: Just an idea:
If InfoPath (along with MOSS) is not an option, then perhaps you could mimic its behaviour through a custom edit form, if you want the data to be outputted into a SP list. I'm thinking about a custom edit form with dynamic html controls (for the sub-records), and you can achieve this by dynamically inserting objects into the DOM as your tree structure requires. Then, on form submit, an event handler on the list would parse the data submitted by the form and store it as you see fit (in an xml serialized in a custom field, for example).
If it's not going the be a custom edit form for a list, then the same functionality above can be stored in a site page with code-behind (beware of customizations) and use a hidden SP list as your data storage.
As for the exporting section, perhaps an application page linked in the ECB menu of that list would get the above mentioned xml and display it nicely.

A: One way to do this would be to use a database as the primary data source for your forms, so that all form data is saved there.  You could then build a website that queries the database for all info.
Another alternative would be to take the infopath form data (saved as an xml file) and publish it on a web server with an XML Style Sheet to define its format.  You could do this via an XML control in ASP.net.
These solutions might require more elbow grease than some other solution, but I believe either would work.


Someone, somewhere would enjoy this picture. Because it's them! This photo is yet another from Hurricane Sandy. I know Sandy caused horrific destruction on the northern coast, but it generated a few days of great surf here, on Amelia Island.
This particular wave, like many that I took, was shot early in the morning, into our Eastern sun rise.
Secondhand Surfer now has a Facebook page and this is my photo entry for the day.
I plan to post one a day this year.
I received a Happy Anniversary note from Word Press today. It was a year ago, that I first signed up for this gig. I had no idea where it was headed and I still don't. This year has seen its ups and downs, with my blog being a steadfast anchor. Thanks to everyone who has supported me and encouraged my photography and writing.
And thanks to all the awesome surfers, who have added a colorful element to my existence, while traveling on this rock.
Bradley Dunham is a team surfer for Pipeline Surf Shop.
I met Jeremiah and his girlfriend on the beach a few days before the hurricane swell.
The H.S. is for Hurricane Sandy. Ryan Hammers is the surfer.
I ran into Ryan and his friend, visiting surfers from Jacksonville Beach, Big Saturday. They were two of the few people, here on the Island, that ventured out into the waves, that morning.
I got to show Ryan the pictures on the camera screen and he was smiling. Surfing is such a rush. You experience it and then it's gone. I'm glad I happened to be there, and capture that barrel.
In my photography, now, I can bring some joy to others, by sharing my time and my talent. It helps me to connect with people and challenges me on many levels.
This is an example of Day 3 of Hurricane Sandy, here on the island. The entire day looked like this. It was a good day for drinking coffee. The next morning, Rooster and I headed out, after watching the weather, to circle Main Beach ~ the end of the road that crosses the island. We were going to get coffee and cruise around ~ our favorite, island past-time. I was shocked to see two surfers passing by at a high rate of speed. I dashed to the house for my camera, vowing never to be without it AGAIN! I caught up with them at the Log Cabin. Locals will know where that is. All surfbreaks have names. Nice bottom turn. Exciting take-off.
There's that nice wipe-out I was talking about.
Sandy's gone~but the photos I have just go, on and on.


With fall in full swing, women everywhere are trying to stay up on the latest fall fashion trends. Amongst one of them is full and dark looking eyebrows. However, most women aren't naturally blessed with these types of eyebrows and so this trend can seem a bit impossible to obtain. Luckily, by following some of the tips below, you can stay current with this eyebrow trend and get the look that will have all of your friends feeling jealous.
In order to get started with the perfect, full looking brow, you need to get the perfect shape. We at Twin City Plastic Surgery provide our patients with the best brow waxing services possible so that you can get the shape of eyebrows that you have always wanted. During your waxing treatment, one of our expert aestheticians will not only get rid of straggly eyebrow hairs but will help to give your eyebrows a shape that will enhance your overall appearance.
The next step is to pick either a brow pencil, powder, or gel that is in the right color. When shopping for a color, you are going to want to go simply 1 or 2 shades darker than your natural eyebrow— make sure that you don't go too dark because it can look overly dramatic. Additionally, you want to go darker than your natural color because you want your eyebrows to be a stand-out feature on your face.
Once you have the right shape and color for your eyebrows, you are going to want to fill them in with your pencil, powder, or gel. When starting out, simply take your tool that you are using and start towards the inner part of your eyebrow (the part that is closest to your nose) and start to gently fill in the area between the hairs working your way outward towards the outside area of your eye. Once you fill in the area between the hairs, then you can start adding a bit more to the skin if you still want a more voluminous look.
Get the perfect brow this season from the experts at Twin City Plastic Surgery. To learn more about our waxing services or to schedule an appointment, contact our Twin City Plastic Surgery office today!


text:
Malaysian vanishes during working trip to India
Tuesday, 4 Jun 2019
by nalinie meganathen
KUALA LUMPUR: A 67-year-old man who went on a working trip to India in March has not returned home.
According to his family, Hamidi Abdullah, a manager with a legal firm in Butterworth, Penang, went missing in Kochi in the southern state of Kerala.
His family, who made numerous attempts to locate him but to no avail, sought help from MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Seri Michael Chong.
"Hamidi's trip to India was for business and ayurvedic treatment," he told a press conference at Wisma MCA yesterday.
Hamidi was originally supposed to travel to India with a land broker to seek settlement with the owner of a land in Malaysia, said Chong.
The broker later informed Hamidi that he was unable to make the trip but would send his employee instead.
Both Hamidi and the employee departed Kuala Lumpur for Kochi on March 13.
When the latter returned on March 16 without Hamidi, his son Roslee got worried, said Chong.
To Roslee's shock, he was told that the two had travelled to Kochi on the same flight, but in different coaches.
"Hamidi's children called him many times but the calls went unanswered," Chong said, adding that Hamidi has three sons and a daughter.
On March 19, Hamidi's daughter Dr Nur Jawahir received a text message from her father saying that he was detained at a police station in Karaikudi on suspicion of being a terrorist.
"In the message, the dad also mentioned that his passport had been taken away and he could not be contacted through his mobile phone," Chong said.
He said Hamidi's niece, N. Saraswathi, then called the Karaikudi police station that day and was told that no such arrest was made.
She also tried to contact her uncle via the handphone but the call was answered by a police officer who claimed that the phone was found near the police station with all the data in the phone deleted.
"Saraswathi then lodged a report online with the Kochi police station on March 23," said Chong.
He added that the family later heard from the Indian police that Hamidi had taken a taxi to an ayurvedic centre in Pandalam on March 14.
The family was further confused when Saraswathi contacted the ayurvedic centre, only to be told that someone had attempted to use a photocopy of Hamidi's passport to enter it.
Chong said since March 24, Hamidi's family and his colleagues had lodged 14 reports with Malaysian police.
"We hope the police will help them as the family can only depend on them since Hamidi went missing there.
"Though his sons are willing to go to India to track down their father, they have been advised by the local police against doing so," he said.


text:
Q: Is it possible to use Python, AJAX & CGI together I want to have a web page where you click a button, by using AJAX I get a string from a python script, then display that string in a paragraph HTML element.
I know I can do this by using Python, WSGI & AJAX (theoretically I can do it this way) but its waaaay too difficult. I am experienced with CGI & python.
So can I do the above using CGI?
If I can how do the python script work, exactly the same as when serving a page using CGI?
This doesn't work:
import cgitb; cgitb.enable()
import cgi
import os

print "Content-Type: text/html\n"

input_data   = cgi.FieldStorage()
print "hello"

When I click my button in my page, nothing happens & my CGI server (which works fine for cgi page requests) gives me a http 501 error.
My html & javascript:
    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

 abcdef

        Click it

A: Here are 3 files [my.html, myCGI.py, myPyServer.py]. In windows XP I put them all in the same directory and double-click on myPyServer.py and things work very well.
my.html is the same as your html except:
yours: Click it
mine:  Click it

myCGI.py is pretty close to yours
import cgitb; cgitb.enable()
import cgi
import os

input_data  = cgi.FieldStorage()
if input_data:
    print "Content-Type: text/html\n"
    print "hello"
else:
    f = open('my.html', 'r'); s = f.read(); f.close()
    print "Content-Type: text/html\n"
    print s

myPyServer.py
import CGIHTTPServer
import BaseHTTPServer
import sys

class Handler(CGIHTTPServer.CGIHTTPRequestHandler):
    cgi_directories = ["/"]         #make sure this is where you want it. [was "/cgi"]

PORT = 8000

httpd = BaseHTTPServer.HTTPServer(("", PORT), Handler)

# see effbot http://effbot.org/librarybook/thread.htm
def runserver():
    print "serving at port", PORT
    httpd.serve_forever()

import thread
thread.start_new_thread(runserver, ())

print "opening browser"

import webbrowser
url = 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/myCGI.py'
webbrowser.open_new(url)

quit = 'n'
while not(quit=='quit'):
    quit = raw_input('\n ***Type "quit" and hit return to exit myPyServer.*** \n\n')

print "myPyServer will now exit."

sys.exit(0)

A: Of course you can use plain old CGI if you want. Your code works fine for me. (The "abcdef" turns into "hello" when the link is clicked.)
You must have some simple error in your setup. I'd check file permissions on your test scripts (a+rx), which might have been overlooked. Also I assume you've got a "#!/usr/bin/env python" (or equivalent) at the top of your cgi script (it is omitted in your example above).

A: Check out sajax:
http://www.modernmethod.com/sajax/
There's a python library and example in the download. You can have one CGI script that can handle your view and implement any AJAX call.

A: Here is one simple example using Python CGI and ajax.
http://www.ssiddique.info/writing-your-first-python-cgi-ajax-script.html