The Garage Door Shop are a 100% Australian owned and operated business trusted by households all over Melbourne. With a clear focus on client service and dependability, we offer on the spot service, repair work and setup of all major brands of garage door openers and remote controls.
Our service technicians and highly trained, experienced and expert tradespersons with the understanding to deal with any kind of garage door issue.
Setup and service of all major brands, expert advice from a qualified professional, fully guaranteed service and products. We're ready to help you in any way possible.
Like many mechanical devices that are used on a daily basis, garage door motors will ultimately require some kind of upkeep or repair and ultimately replacement.
We will assess your requirements and select the best garage motor replacement depending upon whether you have a single or double spaced garage and how old your garage door is. We will also examine your individual requirements when choosing a proper garage door opener to make sure you get the best outcome.
As soon as we have actually done our preliminary examination we will advise you whether or not we have to replace the motor or if we can just fix your existing motor, potentially saving you money if replacement is not necessary. All new products come with full maker warranty.
The most typical problems that accompany garage doors include: roller door ballooning, jamming, stuck closed or open, opens by hand not automatically, emergency release stuck, lock/key damaged, door heavy to raise, door dropping and not remaining in open position, push-button control not working, motor running but door not moving, roller door loud or squeaking, unwanted sound, light not working, damaged springs, hinges damaged, wheels bent.
If you have a garage door that has to be opened by hand, you will understand all too well how inconvenient it is. When it's dark and cold, it's drizzling or you're just merely tired from a long day at work, an automated garage door is both practical and practical in all situations. An automatic garage door likewise supplies you with added security along with convenience at the push a button, enabling you to open the door, get in the premises and close the door without leaving your car.
We have a large range of garage door motors to choose from and setting up an automated garage door opener makes a great present for your parents, grandparents, partner or hubby, or even your kids!
Call us on 8592 7954 to find out how much to set up a garage door opener. We equip various models garage door opener systems to match your budget plan and requirements.
Call us on 8592 7954 to discover just how much to set up a garage door opener. We stock many different designs of garage door opener systems to match your budget and requirements.
An on-site visit to inspect your garage door is required to precisely price estimate just how much to install a garage door opener from The Garage Door Shop. The factors that we take into consideration include things such as:.
Garage door remotes have come a long way. What was once| the size of a cigarette pack now has the benefit of a little remote connected to your key rings. Remote control security has stepped up with rolling code and tri code innovation which cant be duplicated, copied or cloned. If you are using separate remote controls for you garages and gates we can have your garage doors and gate remotes function all from the one push-button control. Push-button controls have 4 buttons, and each button can trigger a gadget individually providing you that comfort of carrying that a person remote which does it all.
We stock the entire series of garage door openers as well as all garage opening accessories such as remote controls, wireless wall buttons as well as upgrade kits for obsolete push-button controls.
Accessory devices are handy when it concerns extending the functionality and functionality of your garage door opening system. We offer key ring type push-button controls, security pin code access pads, standby power systems and even long variety antennas to enhance signal strength.
We can have your existing gate and garage remotes replaced or upgraded to the brand-new style newest variation remotes without altering your garage door or gate motor.
There is a solution to any remote control issue you have. Call us on 8592 7954 for a fast response for replacements or upgrades to your existing garage remote controller. Alternatively, call us to discover just how much to set up a garage door opener.


text:
Q: Setting HikariCP configuration by passing an XML file Am currently using BoneCP in my application and we add our configurations to 'https://github.com/wwadge/bonecp/blob/master/bonecp/src/main/resources/bonecp-default-config.xml' XML file. This was being done to take advantage of comments in the XML, which will help production support team when there is a need to change the configuration.
Now that am planning to switch to HikariCP, I do not see a way to set configurations in an XML file and send the same to HikariCPConfig. Is there really a way to set all configurations in XML file and pass to HikariCP?

A: HikariCP does not support loading from an XML file.  However, it can load a Java properties file, which does permit comments (lines starting with # or ! characters).
EDIT: In case I wasn't clear, the Properties class in Java contains a loadFromXML() method.  Once properties are loaded, they can be passed into HikariCP for configuration.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Click on the links for full details on recommended products.
Recommended for baskets and planters to give sustained season-long feeding.
High quality water-soluble fertilisers for normal, hard and soft water types.
To prevent and or correct trace element deficiencies.
Foliar fertilisers to directly boost leaf colour.
Promotes rooting and bud development, boosts the plant's natural defence systems.
Reduces drought, disease and pest stress.
Aids water infiltration and percolation through the growing media increasing growth and reducing watering costs.
Click on the links for full details on recommended products. In addition to these standard ranges, Hortifeeds is able to custom manufacture specific formulations to meet individual requirements.


text:
July 12, 2016 Bromsgrove relocation [opened] / News / West Midlands
New railway station opens at Bromsgrove
Bromsgrove's new multi-million pound station opened to passengers today (12 July).
Passengers will benefit from a range of improved facilities which includes a staffed ticket office, passenger waiting room, toilets and 350 onsite car parking spaces. An external concourse will link passengers to the car parking areas along with new bus stops, a taxi rank, pedestrian footpaths and a cycle store.
In addition, the new station facilities and better integration with local bus services make it easier for passengers to use the train to travel between Bromsgrove and Birmingham and Worcester. It will also reduce congestion and carbon emissions and make it easier to access the town, making the local area more attractive for businesses and encourage job creation in the Bromsgrove area.
The station is fully accessible to all users and has the capacity to handle 800,000 passengers per year. In addition, the longer platforms will allow additional rail services to stop at Bromsgrove in the future.
Further improvements are scheduled as Network Rail's electrification and resignalling programme continues. Once complete, there will be four trains per hour between Bromsgrove and Birmingham.
The new railway station has been developed by Worcestershire County Council, the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) and Network Rail, with construction contractor Buckingham Group. It has cost £24m to design and build.
Councillor Ken Pollock, Worcestershire County Council's cabinet member with responsibility for economy, skills and infrastructure, said: "Improving transport links in our county is a key priority. The substantial investment in this important improvement project, as well as other transport programmes across Worcestershire, is a reflection of our commitment to stimulating and securing future economic growth. It also ensures Worcestershire, which boasts the fourth fastest growing economy in the country, is very much 'open for business'."
Councillor Roger Lawrence of the WMCA, said: "I am delighted that the new Bromsgrove station is now open. It is a superb new facility for the town that provides so much more than passengers have been used to, enabling increased frequency of trains to and from Bromsgrove and better access to rail services across the region."
Martin Ball, area director for Network Rail, said: "The new Bromsgrove station provides a significant boost to passengers and the wider area, providing better facilities and a much-improved first impression of the town. We have worked closely with Centro and Worcestershire County Council to deliver the station, which supports our national Railway Upgrade Plan to provide a better railway for passengers.
"This is the first of a series of upgrades through Bromsgrove. A more reliable signalling system is being installed and the line between Bromsgrove and Barnt Green will be electrified which will provide passengers with better, more frequent and reliable services."
London Midland's head of regional services, Steve Fisher, said: "The new station is all about making travel simpler for our passengers. It brings a range of extra benefits, including a staffed ticket office, additional parking and easier connections to local bus services. With further investment in signalling and electrification, passengers can also look forward to four trains per hour between Bromsgrove and Birmingham."
The newly-formed WMCA replaces Centro, the delivery arm of the former West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority (ITA), which jointly funded the new station in partnership with Worcestershire County Council, to improve access to the wider West Midlands transport network.
Source: Network Rail
Tavistock extension progress update – July 2016
Honeybourne line could relieve congestion
Pingback: Bromsgrove officially opened - Proposed Railway Schemes

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Tucumcari, NM, population 5,247, is located in New Mexico's Quay county, about 107.1 miles from Amarillo and 153.4 miles from Lubbock.
Through the 90's Tucumcari's population has declined by about 12%. It is estimated that in the first 5 years of the past decade the population of Tucumcari has declined by about 11%. Since 2005 Tucumcari's population has declined by about 3%.
Tucumcari's property crime levels tend to be New Mexico's average level.


Around 3,000 people took to the streets of Chester on Good Friday last year – and what drew them there is making a spectacular return this Easter.
Crowds experienced an entertaining, evocative and moving performance, the first ever Chester City Passion - produced by Chester Mystery Plays working with Theatre in the Quarter.
It's back by popular demand this Good Friday (April 14) and promises to be even better. Commissioned by Churches Together and Link Up this extraordinary performance will be directed by Matt Baker, the music director and composer for Chester Mystery Plays since 2003, working with a community cast of around 100 people.
Despite the huge crowds in the city centre last year, you could have heard a pin drop during the Crucifixion scene which moved young and old through the power of theatre.
The Chester City Passion is a major collaborative effort with professional and community artists working with the churches to celebrate and tell the Easter story.
Chester City Passion is a free performance, suitable for all the family. It starts at the Eastgate clock at 10.30am on Good Friday, moving through the city streets to finish at the west door of the Cathedral.
Audience members will have the opportunity to find out about an exclusive ticket offer for the 2018 production of the Mystery Plays which will take place in the nave of the Cathedral in June/July next year.
For more information see chestermysteryplays.com.


text:
85 posts from July 2006
Sefat, North Hit Again
Ellen Silman writes:
Shmarya,
Rabbi Kaplan [the Chabad shaliach] was injured in the first Katusha attack [Thursday]. He is back home now. Also I heard that Rabbi [Shaul] Leiter [from the Ascent Institute] had all his windows blown out.
Another one landed near Chaim [Clorfene's] yesterday. ( I guess that Chaim is on their hit list ). I heard it come in and knew that it was going to be close!
I was sleeping in Chaim's basement. Everyone decided that it was safer in the basement. I am not sure what was worse the snoring or the Katusha rockets!
Another two hit near Tsfat today. One flew right over Kiryat Chabad but I did not hear it land.
Posted at 11:13 AM in Israel | Permalink | Comments (0)
The War Against Iran
Writing in the New Republic, Yossi Klein HaLevi makes a strong case that Israel's war is against Iran. Iran is the sponsor of both Hezbollah and Hamas and, according to Israeli intelligence agencies, may be within months of having a usable nuclear weapon. He further asserts the cause of this latest flare up is not Israel's withdrawal from Gaza – rather, HaLevi argues, it is the tepid reaction of the government to aggression from Gaza after the withdrawal.
HaLevi also notes:
The ultimate threat, though, isn't Hezbollah or Hamas but Iran. And as Iran draws closer to nuclear capability--which the Israeli intelligence community believes could happen this year--an Israeli-Iranian showdown becomes increasingly likely. According to a very senior military source with whom I've spoken, Israel is still hoping that an international effort will stop a nuclear Iran; if that fails, then Israel is hoping for an American attack. But if the Bush administration is too weakened to take on Iran, then, as a last resort, Israel will have to act unilaterally. And, added the source, Israel has the operational capability to do so.
HaLevi's brief but cogent piece is must reading. Take five minutes and read it now.
[First seen on Hirhurim.]
KETUSHAS HIT SEFAT – 20 INJURED
I just received a call from Sefat. 7 ketusha rockets struck the city at about 2:40 pm. 16 people have been injured, 2 seriously. The rockets hit Bar Ilan's extension center, the area surrounding the central bus station, the absorption center and at other points in the city. My friend was in the home of Simply Tsfat violinist Jonathan Lipschitz when the first rocket landed. The entire house shook. That rocket landed about 100 feet from Chaim Clorfene's home. My friend thinks most of the injuries were in the absorption center.
[Hat tip: Ellen Silman.]
UPDATE: I spoke with Chaim Clorefene. He and his family are fine, thank God. He says that 20 people were injured. He also says five of the ketushas hit near his house. Ellen Silman now tells me more ketushas hit near Carmiel.
UPDATE 2: The Jerusalem Post is reporting one fatality from the Sefat attack. [The fatality was in Nahariya.] It also reports residents have been ordered into shelters, but none of the residents I spoke with were in shelters or planned on entering them.
Posted at 08:54 AM in Israel | Permalink | Comments (13)
FBI, Federal, State Govts Investigate Lakewood Racial Bias – Haredim Discriminate Against Blacks, Latinos
The Forward reports:
LAKEWOOD TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Officials in this multi-ethnic town of 66,000 have been under investigation on several fronts for allegedly discriminating against racial minorities and favoring the growing ultra-Orthodox population.
The New Jersey attorney general's office is currently investigating the Lakewood police department's handling of a case in which a group of Orthodox men assaulted a black teenager, according to local officials. The local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has said that the Orthodox assailants should be charged with bias, due to racial slurs allegedly yelled during the incident. So far, only one Orthodox man has been arrested and charged with simple assault.
News of the attorney general's probe comes a month after the New Jersey Department of Education announced the results of a separate investigation, which found that the Lakewood School District had discriminated in favor of ultra-Orthodox children — and against local black and Latino children — in the administration of special education programs.
In a third matter, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development completed an investigation last week, which found that a local Jewish apartment owner had given preferential treatment to Orthodox tenants at a housing complex that receives locally-administered housing grants.
One local official, who asked to remain anonymous, said that in addition to the separate individual investigations, the FBI and the state attorney general had been looking more broadly at the situation in Lakewood — a town that has become a living symbol of the growing size and clout of the ultra-Orthodox community in America. Other prominent local figures confirmed that wider investigations of municipal authorities are taking place.…
The US Justice Department is also investigating price fixing and collusion in the haredi-controlled kosher meat and supervision industries and are is also said to be looking at other crimes, as well. Haredim often believe they are above US law, that they can do whatever they wish to whomever they choose. Despite the snake oil Marvin Schick and Rabbi Avi Shafran try to peddle, crime runs rampant in the haredi world. A brief list:
Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin's felony bank fraud and other suspicious activity, including byzantine title arrangements for his failed Allentown, PA Montex Mill, and the suspicious fires that finally destroyed it.
Rabbinic abuse and rabbinic coverup of abuse, including the Kolko, Tendler, Bryks and other cases. These cases all allegedly involve intimidation of witnesses by rabbis, along with active coverups run by rabbinic leaders.
Welfare fraud, including 18 year old girls marrying in religious ceremonies without a legal marriage license at the direction of rabbinic leaders, then, at the direction of those same leaders, claiming to be unwed mothers, thereby collecting more welfare.
Haredi schools getting money from government to provide hot lunches but providing no lunch – except on the day the government inspectors come.
The bait-and-switch digital camera scam.
The three crimes mentioned in the Forward article.
Other NYC housing scams.
Alleged worker abuse at Rubashkin's Postville Agriprocessors plant.
As one connected source told me yesterday, nobody in government, not the police or social workers or program heads, thinks of Williamsburg, Crown Heights, Boro Park, Flatbush, Monsey or Lakewood as holy communities. When you mention haredi, the first thought is not holy – the first thought is fraud. That, more than anything else, may turn out to be the legacy of today's Orthodox Judaism.
Posted at 05:37 AM in Crime, Litigation, etc., Haredim | Permalink | Comments (5)
Tendler v. Jewish WhistleBlower, et al
The Forward has the lowdown on disgraced rabbi Mordechai Tendler's pathetic attempt to unmask the identity of the anonymous blogger who helped bring him down, including JewishWhistleBlower. Tendler will likely lose his case. If he should somehow win, the anonymous bloggers will surely win on appeal. To win, Tendler has to show special malice on the part of the bloggers and real defamation – in other words, the gist of their charges must be false, and it must be proved the bloggers knew those charges to be false or that they recklessly disregarded credible information that would have found Tendler innocent. Tendler was expelled from the RCA in late 2005 because the rabbinic body found those charges to be credible. The RCA hired investigators who spoke with Tendler's victims and examined his story in detail. The results of that investigation, along with other copious evidence, did Tendler in.
Posted at 03:40 AM in Crime, Litigation, etc., MO & Chardal | Permalink | Comments (0)
Has The Exodus Been Proved True? Has Mount Sinai Been Found? Has The Exodus Been "Decoded"
My old friend Simcha Jacobovici, the investigative journalist and award-winning documentary filmmaker has teamed up with James Cameron, the award-winning director of Titanic, to a make a $3.5 million documentary that purports to prove the Exodus from Egypt actually happened. In the process, the two filmmakers also find what they believe is the true location of Mount Sinai.
The basic idea is that the Exodus happened earlier than scholars now accept, and that evidence to support this claim has in part been suppressed by the Government of Egypt.
The Exodus Decoded is showing now at the Jerusalem Film Festival. The last time I spoke with Simcha, I forgot to ask him for the US information – if it will be on the Discovery Channel like much of his other work, or if this is opening first in theaters. I have an email out to his assistant, an hope to have an answer later today.
Nu, GodolHador – maybe this is the emunah fix your skeptics (me included) have been looking for. Then again, maybe it will turn out to be another Bible code fiasco.
UPDATE: The American premiere is August 20, 8 PM (EDT), on the History Channel.
Posted at 03:08 AM in Outreach, Religion, Religion & State, Science, Torah & Science | Permalink | Comments (2)
As many of you noted, we and every other blog hosted by TypePad were down most of today. This time the outage lasted more than 9 hours. TypePad has yet to post an explanation. Its so-called "Status Blog" at first failed to show any outage at all. It then showed service as "degraded," a step less than down, even though no blogger could post and no comments could be left. Bloggers could also do no other blog related work. It was updated to "down" a few minutes later. This is the second TypePad outage where I have had to call and tell TypePad that they were down. (The person I spoke with said, "No! Really? No, we don't know that! I'll tell [the tech crew] right away.") This may be acceptable for a free service like Blogger, but not for a paid service, which is what TypePad is. If you're thinking of upgrading from Blogger, beware. Why companies as large as NBC use TypePad is beyond me.
Posted at 12:12 AM in Blogs | Permalink | Comments (0)
Death To Gays?
Haredi pamphlet distributed in Jerusalem calling for the murder of homosexuals. The pamphlet shows how to make molotov cocktails and other lethal weapons and offers 20,000 NIS (about $4000) to anyone successfully murdering a homosexual.
Matthew Wagner of the Jerusalem Post called Edah Charedit head Rabbi Moshe Shternbuch to ask him about the above poster and Edah Charedit's position on violence against homosexuals. Rabbi Shternbuch replied:
"We must protest the desecration of the Holy Land," said Sternbuch in a phone interview. "But we must do it nonviolently." Sternbuch was responding to a pamphlet distributed in Jerusalem that promised a NIS 20,000 bounty for killing a homosexual. In addition to the bounty offer, the two-page pamphlet also provided directions complete with hand-drawn diagrams how to construct weapons that could be used to attack homosexuals.
The three preferred weapons were a Molotov cocktail, a rock-filled sock and a nail-studded stick. The Molotov cocktail was nicknamed a "Schlissel Special" and the stick was called a "Schlissel Spike." Both were named after Yishai Schlissel.
During last year's gay pride parade, Schlissel, a haredi resident of Jerusalem, used an 18-centimeter knife to stab three people, two 18-year-olds and one 50-year-old man. One was moderately wounded and two were lightly wounded.
Let's examine Rabbi Shtrernbuch's statement. As Matthew Wagners notes, Edah Charedit, the chief organization of haredim in Jerusalem, issued several notices as wall posters (pashkevillim) calling for the haredi public to:
"do everything in your power" to stop the march. However, Sternbuch denied that this implied the use of violence.
Often, the wording of the notices is not done by the rabbis. Rather, they sign a general statement that is later expanded into a detailed notice by aides or functionaries, explained an Eda Haredit source.
What we have here is an attempt at "plausible deniability." The "gedolim" issue statements that are clearly understood to be calls for violence. The second tier puts out the notices, and adds its own wording. The haredi street takes these even further.
Haredim base their views of homosexuality and homosexuals on the Torah, not on modern medicine, genetics and science. The Torah calls for the death of homosexuals. To issue notices calling on the haredi population to "do everything in your power," but not to warn in those same posters against using violence, is clear incitement to murder.
It is time for Israel to treat Rabbi Shternbuch and his cohorts like the criminals they truly are.
[Hat tip: The Beadle.]
Posted at 01:01 PM in Crime, Litigation, etc., Haredim, Israel | Permalink | Comments (9)
Aron Tendler "No Longer A Rabbi"
Luke Ford is reporting that Aron Tendler, Mordechai's brother, has sent a letter to his former congregation "where he served as a rabbi for about eight years until he resigned earlier this year over charges of sexual misconduct, announcing that he was no longer a rabbi and should not be asked to decide halakhic questions." Both rabbis Tendler stand accused of various forms of sex abuse.
Posted at 12:06 PM in Crime, Litigation, etc., MO & Chardal | Permalink | Comments (1)
NYPD Hires Haredi Cop
Today's New York Post: The New York Police Department has hired its first haredi cop, a Satmar hasid. Ynet reports …
UPDATE: Vos Iz Neias is reporting the hasid is 4 credits shy of the 60 college credits needed for hire and has been passed over. He can reapply after completing the 4 credits.
Posted at 05:09 AM in Haredim | Permalink | Comments (7)
Temple Grandin Interview #3 – Rubashkin's Spokesperson's Statement "NOT True!"
I spoke with Dr. Temple Grandin, the noted animal welfare expert who recently went to Postville and inspected AgriProcessors (Rubashkin). What follows is a summary of that interview:
Dr. Grandin said the plant would now be able to pass audits. Cattle prods were used on fewer than 25% of cattle, and there were few vocalizations.
She saw approximately 50 head of cattle slaughtered. All were allowed to bleed out and become insensate before being hung on the rail and dressed.
She also saw the yard and the new building.
Dr. Grandin only reviewed the slaughter. She did not inspect chicken growing facilities and other operations, like the Gordon plant, owned by Rubashkin.
She will only be able to get to the plant once or twice per year, because the travel time (especially air connections) make this a three day trip.
The Truly Outrageous
I asked her about this quote from Rubashkin spokesperson Mike Thomas:
"Dr. Grandin has been to AgriProcessors before; she consulted with AgriProcessors shortly after the plant opened in 1989. We had been asking her to consult with us again for a number of years, and three months ago we were finally able to settle on a date."
"That's not true!" Dr. Grandin said forcefully. "That's ridiculous!" Dr. Grandin said her first post-PETA-revelations contact from Rubashkin was three months ago, about the time subpoenas were issued in the Justice Department's anti-trust probe and as the Forward was working its worker abuse story. (This confirms what I wrote here.)
I asked her why it took three months for her to go in? She said the problem was the travel time (as noted above). She also confirmed that she and noted kosher and food processing expert Joe Regenstein had offered just after the PETA video broke to go to Postville for free to help Rubashkin get the plant in order. Rubashkin never called her.
Dr. Grandin said, "I told the Forward, and this is very important, that they have to learn to keep their process good so they don't slip back."
She also told me she believes all of Rubashkin's customers, from the smallest kosher butcher shop up to the largest chain of supermarkets, should be allowed free, unannounced access to the plant to make sure that standards now achieved are held to.
Subpoenas And Worker Abuse
I asked Dr. Grandin if she was aware of the price fixing and collusion charges and the subpoenas issued by the US Department of Justice before visiting the plant. She said she was not, and was only marginally aware of the allegations of worker abuse. She was clearly troubled by the timing of her visit, and what that implied.
My previous interviews with Dr. Grandin: #1, #2.
Posted at 06:49 PM in Kosher Business?, Kosher Scandal | Permalink | Comments (17)
New Hasidic Scam?
From a guest post on UnOrthodoxJew:
I recently became aware of this scam: In a certain Chasidic community, a major girls high school has done away with 12 th grade. Why? See if you can follow this: Many of their girls get married at 18. They marry religiously, and not civilly. When they give birth to their children, they file for welfare as unwed mothers. They recently found out that unwed mothers who did NOT graduate high school are entitled to a greater stipend than those who did graduate. To make sure their girls avoid the temptation of getting a diploma, this school did away with 12th grade.
Readers? Have you heard about this? Is this New Square? Satmar? Another sect? Many sects?
Posted at 05:08 PM in Crime, Litigation, etc., Haredim | Permalink | Comments (20)
Aish.com Misrepresents Shechita
Aish.com explains kosher slaughter:
Besides being from a kosher species, kosher meat requires that the animal/bird be slaughtered in the manner prescribed by the Torah (Shechita). (Fish do not have this requirement.) In this procedure, a trained kosher slaughterer (shochet) severs the trachea and esophagus of the animal with a special razor-sharp knife. This also severs the jugular vein, causing instantaneous death with no pain to the animal.
Of course, the Rubashkin scandal has taught us all a very important lesson. The last, bolded and italicized sentence is in fact peripheral to kosher slaughter.
One can, according to today's rabbis, take a meat hook and rip out the throat of an animal within mere seconds of kosher slaughter, in order to slash at the carotids and jugulars with a less-than-surgically-sharp knife. And the animal can writhe in pain, try to rise, even get up and run away, throat dangling, and that animal is still kosher. In fact, you probably ate meat from an animal slaughtered in exactly that fashion. It came in a package with an OU, KAJ, Crown Heights Beis Din, Wiessmandal, UMK, or other rabbinic imprimatur. It was even glatt kosher (unless you ate David's or other UMK output).
Now why is it that Aish.com did not tell its readers, readers it tries to recruit to haredism, the truth about kosher slaughter?
Posted at 09:00 PM in Jewish Leadership, Kosher Business?, Kosher Scandal | Permalink | Comments (6)
Haredi Body Snatchers Explained
Who stole a haredi baby's corpse? Why did they really steal it? Read the details of the theft of Malka Sitner's body and the lengths haredim will go to "protect" the Torah – and to shield community members from potential criminal charges. Please read Larry Derfner's Jerusalem Post report.
Posted at 06:04 AM in Crime, Litigation, etc., Haredim, Israel | Permalink | Comments (14)
Child Sex Abuse And Orthodox Jews
As many of you already know, UnOrthodoxJew – the anonymous blogger who successfully outed accused pedophile Rabbi Yehuda Kolko – is in the process of outing another well-placed, well-known alleged haredi pedophile.
A question is repeatedly raised: In this new case, in the Kolko case and in others, the abuse was known for many years. Rabbis and community leaders knew of the allegations but dismissed them, and worked to silence – and often intimidate – alleged victims and their families. Why? Why would Torah leaders act this way? On the surface, it seems counter intuitive.
Here are what I believe to be the underlying causes of this situation:
Today's gedolim and rabbinic leadership have little to no advanced secular education. (In fact, many have no secular education at all.) They do not have the wherewithal – or the desire – to understand complex issues rooted in science and medicine. In fact, these rabbis distain the secular world and its science because in many areas – like genetics, archeology, anthropology and physics – it clashes with these rabbis' understandings of what the Torah says.
After the Holocaust, rabbinic leadership views rebuilding the lost Torah world of Europe to be priority one. Everything that can be done is done to achieve this and sacrifices are made to this end.
Often abusers are very talented rabbis and teachers. Their loss to the rebuilding effort would be very great.
Most of these man-on-boy abuse cases do not involve penetration and, as Rabbi Chaim Pinchas Schienberg, one of the gedolim mentioned above, is alleged to have told Kolko's victims and their families, "The was no penetration. Therefore, according to Torah there was no abuse." Rabbi Scheinberg is also alleged to have told the families that, because there was "no abuse according to the Torah," going to police or the media was mesira, informing – a crime punishable by death in Jewish law – and lashon hara, forbidden speech. The idea is that lack of penetration means no harm, and no harm means no foul. But, as any expert in the field will tell you, the presumption of no harm is simply incorrect. Indeed, great harm is done, whether or not penetration occurs.
Haredi societies do not teach sex ed to middle school or high school students. Most parents and grandparents are woefully ignorant of the scientific and medical aspects underlying reproduction and reproductive activity. And deviance and deviant behavior is, while despised, not at all understood. Therefore a molester can be viewed as a monster or as a man who had a weak moment. Most often, the monster will be from a non-presdigous family without good rabbinic connections, and the man who had a weak moment will be wealthy or a famous rabbi.
Ignorance helps make abuse possible. Haredi media is tightly controlled by the same men who protect abusers. Haredim are strongly discouraged from reading non-haredi media, listing to non-haredi radio and from watching TV of any type. And the Internet? It is under a ban, a ban instituted by? The same rabbis protecting abusers.
Haredi society is tightly controlled. Deviants – in this case meaning whistle blowers and independent thinkers – are quickly pushed out or cowed. Abuse victims and their supporters face ostracism. It is not uncommon for victims' elderly grandparents to be threatened or for victims' children to be denied school placements and shidduchim.
Simply put, in a society like this, rooting out abuse is very difficult if not impossible; the only viable method for doing so involves what some would term a tremendous hilul haShem, a tremendous embarrassment to the community, its leadership and God.
Indeed, a common haredi complaint against UnOrthodoxJew has been that, even if Rabbi Kolko is guilty, the damage done by UOJ to the community, to Yiddishkeit, and to God is far worse a crime than Kolko's fondling of little boys. Within this argument is the clear implication that Kolko's alleged victims past and future should be somehow sacrificed on the altar of rebuilding haredism.
The Torah to which haredim pledge fealty both condemns and bans child sacrifice. Just as one may not offer his child to the fire of Molech, one may not abandon him to the fondling of rabbinic abusers, no matter how talented, charismatic or well-connected those rabbinic abusers may be. God does not want children sacrificed on an altar of abuse, even if that altar has a rabbinic hechsher (imprimatur).
Posted at 04:40 AM in Crime, Litigation, etc., Haredim | Permalink | Comments (17)
Housing Discrimination And Orthodox Jews
The owner of an apartment complex separates the tenants by income and race. He maintains the sections differently and has different rules for the tenants based by section. The owner? An Orthodox Jew. The tenants treated preferentially? Haredim. The ones treated poorly? Blacks and Hispanics. The location of the apartment complex? Lakewood, New Jersey. The Asbury Park Press reports:
Federal housing officials have charged an embattled realty company here with discrimination, alleging a pattern of racial and religious preferences at Cottage Manor Apartments that benefited the Jewish families who lived there while neglecting minority tenants.
Triple H. Realty LLC of Lakewood and two employees — former apartment manager Vincent Ortiz and current managing property agent Harry Kantor — are accused of violating the Fair Housing Act by attempting to segregate non-Jewish black and Hispanic tenants at the 104-unit, six-building complex on Woehr Avenue, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reported Wednesday.…
HUD's current allegations include:
Non-Jewish tenants were forced to transfer to buildings at the back of the property so that Jewish families could move to the better-maintained apartments at the complex's front end.
Non-Jewish tenants received little to no maintenance compared to the service provided to Jewish tenants.…
The building, home to many Jewish families, has a well-manicured lawn in the front courtyard enclosed by a white picket fence. The buildings with a majority of black and Hispanic tenants have little or no lawn. Their courtyards are not enclosed by a picket fence.
Non-Jewish tenants were told they could not leave toys or personal items on the lawns, but Jewish tenants were permitted to do so.…
HUD's charge of discrimination was issued against the company, Ortiz and Kantor. No phone numbers could be found Wednesday night for Ortiz and Kantor. Shlomo Kanarek, listed on the property's 2003 mortgage filing as the managing member of Triple H. Realty, also could not be reached.…
The maximum civil penalty for a first offense charge of discrimination is $11,000, in addition to actual damages for each complaint.
"Providing unequal living facilities based on religion, race, color and/or national origin is simply inconceivable," said Kim Kendrick, HUD's assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity. "We are committed to ensuring these families have an equal opportunity for housing in their community."
It seems haredim are keeping the enforcement arms of the US government quite busy. We also have the price-fixing and collusion investigation against the kosher beef industry, humane slaughter violations (please read from the bottom of the linked page upward), and various EPA violations. We also have the Rubashkin family's current and past mistreatment of workers.
As this and so many other stories indicate, Judaism is broken. Judaism used to be a moral light in a depraved, cruel world. But now, under the management of Orthodoxy, it has become a key part of the problem, not a solution to it, a vapid, empty shell lacking in moral substance. Can Judaism be saved? I doubt it.
[Hat tip: Nigritude Ultramarine.]
Doctors Testify Against Vales - Baby Was Severely Shaken, Blinded
Ynet is reporting that several doctors testified at the haredi baby murder trial yesterday, citing massive evidence that the baby was blinded and shaken to death, presumably by the father, Yisrael Vales.
Meanwhile, look for our friends over at CrossCurrents to continue alleging police conspiracy, medical incompetence and secular hate for haredim. What other choice do they have? Certainly they cannot accept the uncomfortable truth that haredim – including some of Israel's biggest haredi rabbis – have rallied around a man who murdered his infant son simply because the baby cried and had a birth defect. That is far too uncomfortable a truth to be embraced.
Posted at 05:26 AM in Crime, Litigation, etc., Haredim, Israel | Permalink | Comments (4)
Uganda 30 Years Later
This July 4th marked the 30th anniversary of the Entebbe rescue. Sadly, it also marked the 30th yartzeit of Yonaton Netanyahu, the commander of that mission.
I mentioned this to a Ugandan-born nurse (this is a different nurse than the one mentioned in the post below this). She said, "We had a crazy man who ran the country." Then she asked me many questions about the rescue and about Idi Amin, the Ugandan dictator who sheltered the hijackers and enabled the hijacking.
She told me she heard a group of Ugandans went to Jerusalem some years ago to pray because "God says, those who bless you will be blessed …" They did this to "remove the curse" they believed was on Uganda because of Entebbe and Idi Amin.
Posted at 03:50 AM in History | Permalink | Comments (0)
Hasidut Breslov
I was visiting a patient in a healthcare facility last night and was asked by a non-Jewish nurse about the various spellings (in English) and pronunciations (in English and Hebrew) of a certain Hebrew word she had heard on television and seen in print. I explained the differences were due to Ashkenazic and Sefardic pronunciations. We spoke for a moment about Jewish history and then she said, "But soon you'll all go back there, won't you?" She then went on to say that the more Jews in Israel, the easier it will be for us to control the land.
But her reference was to the messianic era, and we returned to that. I briefly explained the Jewish point of view regarding Geula, going back to Israel, et cetera, including the hope that illness and death will be no more.
That spun into a deeper conversation in which I noted that, after the Holocaust, it's difficult to believe much of this. So much suffering, so much death …
She responded that we all need more faith. I indicated my less than perfect faith. And then she said, "You move away and then come back, move away and come back again. You always come back. You always will come back. You come from good stock and you'll always return to your source."
The essence of Israel's situation and of Breslover Hasidut explained in a few brief moments by a kindly non-Jewish nurse. Amazing.
Posted at 03:34 AM in Divre Torah | Permalink | Comments (8)
Temple Grandin Endorses Rubashkin Slaughter – For Now
The Forward's Nathaniel Popper reports Temple Grandin, the renowned expert on animal handling and the slaughter process, has given Rubashkin's reformed process a thumbs up – of sorts, for now:
Temple Grandin, an animal science professor, issued her endorsement last week, after visiting the AgriProcessors slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa. The plant, owned and run by Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidim, has been the subject of criticism since 2004, when an animal rights group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, released video footage from inside the slaughterhouse that showed cows going to a loud and violent death. When Grandin initially viewed the video, she said it was the "most disgusting thing I'd ever seen."
After her June 27 visit to Postville, Grandin stood by her original statements but said that AgriProcessors appears to have improved its slaughter process.
"What I saw there today was working very well," she told the Forward after her full-day visit, for which she was paid as a consultant by AgriProcessors.
"They have to learn to keep their process good," she added.…
Grandin said that at the end of her visit, she recommended that the plant internally audit its slaughter process every week. "They've got to have that kind of auditing control — otherwise they have a tendency to slip back," she said.
PETA had been pushing for Grandin to visit the plant – they did so even before making their undercover video of Rubashkin abuses publiic – and Rubashkin had consistently refused.
For her part, Dr. Grandin told me last year that, as I had been told by several highly placed sources in the animal welfare and food processing communities, she had indeed offered to go to Postville for free and work with Rubashkin to improve the process. She had also agreed to work with the rotating pen that so many, including Dr. Grandin, oppose. Rubashkin continued to refuse.
Another highly placed source in the animal welfare and food processing communities has told me that the OU's Rabbi Genack worked very hard to convince Rubashkin to allow Dr. Grandin to inspect the plant, and that only in the last few weeks was the decision made to allow her in. (This roughly corresponds to the time the US Department of Justice served subpoenas on Rubashkin and other kosher meat providers as part of an investigation of anti-trust, price-fixing and collusion, and the time the Forward's story broke on Rubashkin's abuse of workers. A cynical person might think letting Grandin in was a PR stunt meant to take pressure off the OU and Rubashkin.)
But how does Rubashkin's official spokesman describe the visit? Like this:
"PETA's efforts to further their extreme political agenda at the expense of religious freedom have never been a factor in AgriProcessors' thinking," Thomas said. "Dr. Grandin has been to AgriProcessors before; she consulted with AgriProcessors shortly after the plant opened in 1989. We had been asking her to consult with us again for a number of years, and three months ago we were finally able to settle on a date."
A far cry from what Grandin and others have consistently claimed for the last 18 months.
And then we have this curious doublespeak from the OU's Rabbi Genack and PETA's response:
Menachem Genack, the rabbinic administrator of the Kashrus Division of the O.U., said that he was glad the plant had been able to fix its problems; however, he was hesitant to give credit to PETA, which first brought those problems to light.
"Do I think PETA represented things accurately and appropriately? I don't," Genack said. "Do I think there were mistakes there that had to be corrected? I do."
Although a spokesman for PETA, Bruce Friedrich, said he was happy that the plant had taken corrective steps, he questioned whether the O.U. has taken sufficient measures to ensure that similar problems do not crop up in the future at AgriProcessors and at other kosher plants.
"It shouldn't require a PETA investigation and three years of hand wringing to ensure that the Jewish commitment to compassion is part of the O.U.'s standard operating procedure," Friedrich said.
Friedrich is correct. The sad thing is that so few Jews understand this.
Posted at 02:40 AM in Kosher Business?, Kosher Scandal | Permalink | Comments (24)
Rabbi Mordechai Tendler Jerusalem Lecture Cancelled After Groundswell Of Protest
Ha'aretz reports a Jerusalem lecture by disgraced rabbi Mordechai Tendler was cancelled after a groundswell of protest generated in part by a call to action from the Awareness Center:
Mordechai Tendler, a scion of a prominent rabbinic family, was expelled unanimously last year by the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) after the organization decided that he had "engaged in conduct inappropriate for an Orthodox rabbi." In March, he was also suspended by the board of Kehillat New Hempstead, the New York synagogue that he founded. Tendler, who is currently in Israel, was scheduled to speak tonight in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Har Nof. A protest was scheduled to take place outside the event. "This is definitely a victory," said Leah Marinelli, a former congregant from New York, Wednesday. Marinelli was one of the first community members to speak out against the rabbi and convinced some of his alleged victims to come forward publicly to the RCA.
"We put out a call for action on Tuesday morning and the next day it was cancelled and so I am pretty convinced that there is a connection," said Vicki Polin, founder of the U.S.-based Awareness Center, the Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse and Assault."We didn't want him to recreate in Israel what he had done in Monsey [in New York]."
Posted at 01:57 AM in Crime, Litigation, etc., Haredim, MO & Chardal | Permalink | Comments (3)
The Truth About Rabbis
A woman who heads an Orthodox women's organization is told by a university student that a rabbi on the university's staff has molested her. The student says:
"I was broken, and I cried day and night," the student, who wishes to remain anonymous, says. "I had reached out for help, and I was thrown into a deep, dark pit. I had never touched a man before that, and no man had ever touched me."
The organization offers a deal to the rabbi – remove yourself and we will stay silent, if not we go public. The rabbi does not answer. Soon the rabbi's lawyer sends a letter threatening to sue for libel. In addition, a long list of public figures, professors and rabbis, come out in support of the accused.
Nevertheless, an investigation ensues and the rabbi is dismissed. Later, a prominent rabbinic supporter of the fired rabbi becomes dean of a college at which the woman who heads the women's organization has taught for 12 years. Her hours are immediately cut and she is threatened with dismissal. It seems to be clear retaliation. The case winds up in court, and is yet to be decided. The woman has this to say about the ordeal she has been through:
"The message for women is: Next time, don't confront a rabbi, because if you do, you'll pay a price. Over the years, I have lost many good friends. Neighbors who were like family no longer speak to me. This is a war in the religious world."
The first university? Bar Ilan. The second? Orot Yisrael College. The message? Rabbis often behave like thugs.
Posted at 01:29 AM in Crime, Litigation, etc., Jewish Leadership, MO & Chardal | Permalink | Comments (9)
60th Anniversary Of The Kielce Pogrom
60 years ago, Poles murdered Holocaust survivors in a vicious pogrom. Ha'aretz reports:
… The police and army were able to push back the mob for a short while, and to take the dead and wounded to the municipal hospital. Despite the impression that the situation had calmed down, crowds in other parts of the city continued to beat and kill Jews, and the outbursts of hatred worsened. At around 12:30 P.M., when there was a lunch break at the Ludwikow steel mill not far from the Jewish house, about 500 workers broke through the factory gate and headed for Planty Street. The workers, who were armed with knives, wooden sticks and iron bars, were easily able to make their way through the crowds and enter the Jewish house. The pogrom, which had started dying down, was set aflame again and another 20 Jews lost their lives. That same day, attackers beat Jews on a train. The engineer slowed the train intentionally, and all the Jews were pulled out of the coaches and beaten to death. The attackers left with the victims' watches, clothes, shoes and money.
That afternoon, army units from Warsaw arrived in Kielce and dispersed the mobs. The Jewish dead and wounded were taken to St. Alexandra Hospital and the survivors were sent to the local sports stadium and the offices of the security forces. That day, at least 50 Jews, including women and children, lost their lives in Kielce, and more than 50 others were injured.…
The report is incorrect. One Jew on that train, my friend Avrum Aybish Mastbaum, miraculously survived. The mob was beating Jews and then throwing them off the train to the ground where they were beaten to death. The leader of the mob stopped Mastbaum and asked if there were any more Jews on the train. Mastbaum said no. The thug thanked Mastbaum and then left, believing Mastbaum was a Pole.
Mastbaum is the most "Jewish-looking" person I know. For Polish thugs not to recognize this man as a Jew can only be described as miraculous.
Haredim Censor Feldheim Catalogue, Feldheim Agrees – Female Baby Pictures Censored As Well
Haredim censor female baby pictures and Feldheim's newest catalogue. No joke - the JPost's Matthew Wagner reports:
… Hamodia insisted that Feldheim blur female faces appearing on pictures of its book covers, including cartoon caricatures, before agreeing to distribute Feldheim's catalogue as a supplement in its weekend edition.
Books published by Targum Press that appeared in the same catalogue were also blurred.
Hamodia also removed two books from the catalogue, one dealing with female adolescence called The Wonder of Becoming You and another on dating called The Magic Touch.
Feldheim and Targum censor themselves according to their own religious sensibilities. This apparently was not enough to meet Hamodia's more stringent standards.…
Ya'acov Feldheim, owner of Feldheim Publishers, told The Jerusalem Post that Hamodia's censorship was "legitimate."
"Maybe people at Hamodia somehow balance the horrible immodesty that we see on our streets," said Feldheim. "For me, women walking around half naked is a million times worse than being a little over stringent."…
Not surprising from the coward who willingly censored Rabbi Natan Slifkin's books, acquiescing to extremist pressure almost without protest. But there is more:
[Haredi advertising specialist Aryeh] Frankel said that pictures of baby girls are prohibited in both Hamodia, which is owned by Gerrer hassidim and connected to the Agudat Yisrael party, and Yated Ne'eman, controlled by the Lithuanian Degel Hatorah party. Agudat Yisrael and Degel Hatorah together form United Torah Judaism.
"About three years ago both papers disqualified an ad for Kimberly diapers that featured a four-month-old female infant," said Frankel.
These people are the leaders of the haredi world. What more needs to be said?
Posted at 05:14 AM in Haredim, Israel, Jewish Leadership | Permalink | Comments (9)
New Jewish TV Network
Jewish Life TV is up and streaming live on the Web. Sources expect JLTV to be running in several cable test markets shortly with national coverage by sometime next year. SIW has basically the same report but from different sources – so this looks like the real deal. Jews finally have a TV network to call our own.
Posted at 02:22 AM in Jewish Leadership | Permalink | Comments (4)
Rubashkin, OU, KAJ, UMK Rebranding To Avoid Consumer Wrath?
Stephen Mendelsohn writes:
I was in ShopRite this evening and noticed in their circular that they were offering their own new brand of glatt kosher hot dogs, certified by the OU and KAJ. In the kosher hot dog section, there were also packages of another new brand, Nathan's (the Coney Island folks), which was non-glatt and certified by R' Zeilingold's UMK. It seems to me that Rubashkin is trying to get around the boycott of his products by marketing them under private labels with no mention of AgriProcessors on the package. One wonders whether the OU or UMK may have recommended this deceptive practice to keep consumers from knowing where their meat was shechted. Watch for more grocery stores, especially in the Northeast, to sport private-label kosher meat to cover for Rubashkin.
Rabbi Saul Berman Unfit To Lead?
Steven I. Weiss writes:
Rabbi Saul Berman's move to Yeshivat Chovevei Torah as the director of rabbinic enrichment so soon after the revelations about Mordechai Gafni raises obvious questions about Berman's suitability for the position. He defended Gafni not simply repeatedly and outspokenly, but on the offensive — attacking individuals trying to get Gafni removed from clergy positions, such as Rabbi Yosef Blau — and ultimately creating an environment in which Gafni was allowed to remain unchecked, where he has been found to have sexually exploited several women.…
Berman hasn't made any significant apology for his conduct, and when I left repeated messages for him seeking comment on Gafni, he did not return my calls. If he'd made an effort to immediately and fully apologize for his conduct after the recent Gafni revelations, and had made a full accounting of where he'd gone wrong and how he'd hope to avoid such missteps in the future, one could argue that this episode shouldn't factor into an assessment of his ability to "enrich" dozens of future rabbis, but that simply hasn't happened. At this point, the question for those concerned about clergy abuse is more about why Berman should be allowed in this position than why he shouldn't be.
I can't say it better than that. Until otherwise demonstrated, Rabbi Saul Berman is unfit to lead.
Baruch Dayan HaEmet: Dutch Designer Who Saved Hundreds During Holocaust Passes Away
Jaap Penraat, the architect and industrial designer who saved hundreds of Dutch Jews during the Holocaust has passed away:
He was a young architect and draftsman when Nazi occupiers took escalating measures against Jews. First, they were prohibited from being air-raid wardens, then barred from the civil service, then made to register.
A secret resistance formed to help them. Mr. Penraat, then in his 20's and a nonpracticing Christian, marshaled his design talents to make fake identity cards. A friend married to a German gave him copies of official papers and stamps for models. He was soon discovered and went to prison for several months, [where he was tortured but refused to give up other members of the resistance].
The situation for Jews worsened, and resistance cells raced to make false travel papers. But escaping the country was hard, because Germans controlled countries and seas bordering the Netherlands.
Mr. Penraat and his friends devised a plan to disguise Jews as construction workers for the wall that Hitler was building along France's Atlantic Coast. He forged travel documents, using a real construction company's letterhead.
He took the Jews to Lille, France, where he presented them to the French underground for transport to neutral Spain. He made about 20 trips, accompanying about 20 Jews each time.
Once, he approached German guards outside a school and told them his laborers needed lodging. He complained about the food, but called this "one of the first times a German Army played host to a bunch of Jews."
Only one of the men moved by Mr. Penraat died, and that man was accidentally hit by a train. But Mr. Penraat trembled whenever he handed papers to a clerk.
"You're there, a woman walks away and either she comes back with papers or she comes back with soldiers," he said in an interview with The Poughkeepsie Journal. "And they would shoot you right then and there, so other people could see what happens when you do anything against the German Army."
An American Patriot
An American patriot – something to think about this July 4th.
Posted at 03:53 AM in History, Jewish Leadership | Permalink | Comments (0)
Another Circumcision Illness?
At this point it is only an unconfirmed rumor, but GrossBlogger is reporting (and also by email correspondence with me) that another case of metzitza b'peh-transmitted illness, presumably neo-natal herpes, has been spotted in haredi Brooklyn. According to GrossBlogger, the family and community are covering up the illness. If true, this again shows why any agreements reached with haredim are worthless.
UPDATE: I asked GrossBlogger via email how he knew about this. He told me he:
"I heard it from a chosuve mohel who performed the bris" of a relative this morning. "I don't want to give his name," GrossBlogger writes, "but he is also extemely upset" with the state's new circumcision protocol and the way it was brokered. GrossBlogger adds the mohel warned the father against doing MBP, but the father, who GrossBlogger describes as a "naive" soul, insisted on MBP. The mohel replied, "fine if you want it done you will have to do it yourself."
Posted at 01:35 PM in Circumcision, Crime, Litigation, etc., Haredim | Permalink | Comments (14)
Superman The Jew
What do Birthright Israel and the planet Krypton have in common? Superman the Jew.
Posted at 12:16 PM in History, Israel | Permalink | Comments (1)
Menachem Mendel is reporting Rabbi Louis Jacobs passed away over Shabbat. Baruch Dayan HaEmet.
UPDATE: Paul Shaviv notes in the comments below and on AJHistory that Rabbi Louis Jacobs was the expert witness retained by Chabad during its fight with the family of the 6th rebbe to prove gifts given to a hasidic rebbe become the property of the hasidic movement and not of the rebbe himself.
It so happens that Rabbi Jacobs was wrong – hasidic history, including Chabad hasidic history, is full of examples where gifts to a rebbe became the private property of that rebbe. Furthermore, the 6th rebbe had privately purchased most of his library, and most of those purchases were of secular books, including titles like Sherlock Holmes in Yiddish.
That aside, Baruch Dayan HaEmet.
Posted at 03:00 AM in Chabad History, Jewish Leadership | Permalink | Comments (24)
Russian Nationalist Antisemite Finds His Jewish Father With The (Partial) Help Of Chabad
Ha'aretz reports Vladamir Zhirinovsky, the Russian nationalist politician and noted antisemite, has found his Jewish father's grave – in Israel, and with some help from Chabad. Zhirinovsky has Jewish cousins in Israel who he met and befriended while visiting his father's grave. This is a must read article.
[Hat tip: Tzemach Atlas.]
Posted at 02:25 AM in Chabad, Israel | Permalink | Comments (3)
Un-Orthodox Jew On The State Of Today's Haredi World
Un-Orthodox Jew, the anonymous blogger who successfully outed accused pedophile Rabbi Yehuda Kolko and his protectors Rabbi Lipa Margulies and 'godol' Rabbi Pinchas Schienberg, addresses the state of the haredi community:
The answer my friends, is the pass we gave to our rabbis that are no more than mortal humans. They have the same temptations that all of us have, and many of them, not all, fall victim to their humanity. They steal, they cheat, they are corrupt. You know why? There is no system of checks and balances that all humanity requires. They are the rabbis/gedolim...who is going to keep them in check?
We have erred. We have turned our rabbis into Gods..they are not, not at all. They are influenced and corrupted by money and power just as we are. We are scrutinized by our peers, they get a pass.…
No Chassidic rebbe or any rabbi has Godly powers, they are mere mortals. Remember we are Jews NOT Christians; there are NO intemediaries in our religion. WE have a direct line to God, not one bit less than a person who is wearing eighty pairs of tzitzis, fur hats, round hats, square hats, velvet ones, silk jackets, white Kabbalah coats or any of the cult-like dress that we have succumbed to like children lost in a store full of toys and costumes.
We have let the Pied-Pipers flute us into a generation of meaningless rituals and chumras that are nothing more than the works of dangerous and foolish power grabbers.
Some rabbis do this intentionally, and some are led to this madness by a circle of their leidegayers; people who are human parasites..eating off the flesh of the naive and trusting.…
UOJ points out the following:
Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman refused to let his students and followers flee Europe because Yeshiva University was "worse" than Hitler. "Rabbi Gedalya Schorr and Mike Tress obtain hundreds of visas for [Rabbi Wasserman's] talmidim and [Rabbi Wasserman] tells them, NO THANKS!?"
Rabbi Ahron Leib Shteinman, widely considered the number two 'gadol' in the haredi world, condemned NYC's health department as "Goyim out to destroy Judaism" but when asked, Rabbi Shteinman did not know anything about the herpes virus, including its existence and methods of transmission.
"Moderate" haredi 'gadol' Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetzky argued that, with regard to alleged pedophile Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, we must assume Kolko did teshuva (repented) unless a recent victim victimized in the last few months came forward. [The clear implication being if Rabbi Kolko did teshuva, we are not allowed to punish him for his actions. Indeed, going to the police or media would be crimes under Jewish law, and victims or their supporters who did do would be worse criminals than Kolko.]
UOJ promises to go public Thursday with another potentially high profile case of rabbinic abuse.
Posted at 01:28 AM in Circumcision, Haredim | Permalink | Comments (8)
Sister Theresa's Orphanage
Ynet reports:
About a year ago, when Professor Daniel Engelhard entered the Mother Teresa Orphanage in Addis Ababa for the first time, he saw a wall drawing of Jesus hugging dead children. So moved was he by the great despair evident in the picture, along with the acceptance of cruel fate, that he decided to take action and to turn the orphanage, which houses 400 HIV-positive children, into his project.
Since then Engelhard, Head of the Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and AIDS at Hadassah University Hospital, has been to the orphanage many times, and today he works with a staff of dozens of volunteers—students and medical residents at Hadassah—who go all the way to Ethiopia to give the sick children the most devoted care.
"When we first came to the orphanage one child a week was dying," said Engelhart in a phone call from Addis Ababa. "In the last four months, since we started working here intensively, only one girl has died. This is an enormous achievement for us."…
"We have no money. I have dozens of medical students, doctors, and nurses who want to come to help the children, but there is no budget. This is the largest obstacle I'm facing right now."
The project would not have been started without Dr. Amit Dotan, the first to come to the orphanage. He recently returned to Israel with his fiancee, Dr. Idit Wachsberg, after spending four months there. In three months they are getting married, and they have already adopted two children from the orphanage.
"We adopted two, but all 400 of the children are mine," says Dotan. "The time I spent with them made me fall intensely in love with them."
Another Jewish doctor, the JDC's man in Addis Ababa Dr. Rick Hodes, also is on staff at Sister Theresa's and has adopted five Ethiopian children.
If you're looking for a place to invest some tzedaka money, both doctors and their projects are very good choices.
Posted at 12:39 AM in Hessed | Permalink | Comments (0)


text:
Q: Makefile multi line variable, single command I would like to have a makefile which compiles all my .svg files, one variable into command line at a time. What if have tried so far is:
FIGS_SVG= \
fault_region.svg \
fault_region2.svg

all:
inkscape -z -D --file=$(FIGS_SVG) --export-pdf=$(FIGS_SVG:.svg=.pdf) --export-latex

When this is run the variable is set into the command one after the other as so:
inkscape -z -D --file=fault_region.svg fault_region2.svg --export-pdf=fault_region.pdf fault_region2.pdf --export-latex

A: Usually with Make, you give a rule for turning one kind of file into another, then tell it the files you want it to build, and Make takes care of it for you:
FIGS_SVG = \
    fault_region.svg \
    fault_region2.svg

all: $(FIGS_SVG:.svg=.pdf)

%.pdf %.pdf_tex: %.svg
    inkscape -z -D --file=$< --export-pdf=$@ --export-latex

The special variables $@ and $< are documented in the Automatic Variables section of the manual.
This will run the two commands
inkscape -z -D --file=fault_region.svg --export-pdf=fault_region.pdf --export-latex
inkscape -z -D --file=fault_region2.svg --export-pdf=fault_region2.pdf --export-latex

but only if the .pdf file is nonexistent or has an older file modification time than the corresponding .svg file.
Note that Make has been told that a tex file is created too, so that if you delete one of those, Make will know how to regenerate it.


text:
package org.apache.deltaspike.test.jsf.impl.scope.window.beans;

import org.apache.deltaspike.core.api.scope.WindowScoped;
import org.apache.deltaspike.core.spi.scope.window.WindowContext;

import javax.inject.Inject;
import javax.inject.Named;
import java.io.Serializable;

@Named
@WindowScoped
public class WindowAccessBean implements Serializable
{

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    @Inject
    WindowContext windowContext;

    public String getId()
    {
        return windowContext.getCurrentWindowId();
    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Purpose and Scope:
Edmonton Regional Airports Authority (the "Airport Authority", "we", "us" and "our") respects and upholds an individual's right to privacy and to protection of his or her personal information. The Airport Authority is committed to ensuring compliance with applicable privacy legislation.
This policy describes our practices with respect to the collection, use, storage and disclosure of personal information which we collect from individuals who are customers of the Airport Authority. It does not apply to information collected, used, or disclosed with respect to corporate or commercial entities.
"Personal information" for the purposes of this policy means information about an identifiable individual, including, for example, an individual's name, home address, telephone number, social insurance number, sex, income and family status. It does not include aggregate information which cannot be associated with a specific individual and it does not include information that would enable an individual to be contacted at a place of business, for example an employee's name, title, business address, or business telephone number.
"Customer" for the purposes of this policy is any individual who uses or applies to use the Airport Authority's products, services, or facilities, including the website.
"Third party" for the purposes of this policy is an individual or an organization other than the Airport Authority and the customer.
Our Responsibilities:
Section 1: Accountability
The Airport Authority is accountable for the personal information under its control. The Airport Authority has a designated person (Compliance Officer) who is responsible for the corporation's compliance with this Policy.
Section 2: Purposes for Collection, Use, and Disclosure
The Airport Authority collects and uses personal information that is voluntarily provided by you. This information is collected and used for the following purposes:
To develop, enhance, or provide products and services
For example, we may collect and use your home address, email or other social media information in order to mail or send you rewards program information or information on other savings at the Airport.
To process payment for the use of our products, services, and facilities
For example, we collect and use financial information to process payment for your use of our parking facilities.
To comply with legal and regulatory requirements
For example, we may collect and use personal information in response to a court order or to fulfil government reporting requirements.
To enhance safety and security
For example, we may use cameras to monitor access, egress and use of public and restricted areas.
In order to improve the products, services and facilities we provide
For example, we administer customer satisfaction surveys. The Airport Authority is dedicated to providing superior customer service and we may use information voluntarily provided on customer satisfaction surveys in order to improve our products, services and facilities.
In order to understand and respond to questions
For example, where inquiries are emailed to us through the "contact us" page on our web site, we collect and use information you provide to us for the purpose of understanding your inquiry and responding to it.
For identification purposes
For example, we may require personal information such as a photograph to issue passes which enable individuals to be identified in restricted areas and to obtain access to these areas.
For direct marketing purposes
For example, we may use your contact information to provide you with information about new products, services, and facilities.
To enhance your online experience
For example, we may use per-session cookies, which are data files sent to your browser and stored on your hard-drive when you visit our website. These per-session cookies track your usage on our website and can be deleted by clearing your browser history. We also use log files, which record the IP address of your computer, to track the number of hits to our website.
Edmonton Airports may use remarketing tactics such as Google's Adwords tracking to tailor advertisements based on a user's web traffic.
Google and third party vendors, may place cookies on users' web browsers in order to track visits to Edmonton Airports' website (Flyeia.com) and use this information to direct Edmonton Airports advertisements to users using various methods online, including but not limited to: Facebook ads, YouTube ads, and Google search ads.
A cookie will not disclose any identifiable information about a user. It only uses the information about a user's web traffic to direct specific advertisements to that user.
Users may opt out of Google's use of cookies by visiting Google's Ads Settings.
The only circumstances under which personal information may be disclosed to third parties is for the fulfillment of any purposes identified above, as required by law, or with customer consent. Where personal information is disclosed to a third party for the fulfillment of any purposes identified above, the Airport Authority will make all reasonable efforts to ensure that the third party has appropriate security procedures in place for the protection of the personal information transferred to it.
Section 3: Consent
When you provide us with your personal information, you consent to the use of your personal information as identified in this policy, and as may be further identified at the time of collection. Sometimes you will be asked to give your express consent, such as by checking a box to indicate your consent to receive marketing communications. Other times, we may obtain your consent implicitly when we can reasonably conclude that you have given consent by some action you have taken or an action you have decided not to take. Generally, this occurs where the purpose for use of your personal information would be reasonably apparent to you.
Unless we hear otherwise from you, your use of the Airport Authority's products, services, and facilities constitutes implicit consent for the Airport Authority to collect, use, and disclose personal information for the purposes stated in this policy.
You may refuse or withdraw consent at any time, subject to legal and contractual restrictions and reasonable notice. Refusal or withdrawal of consent may prevent the Airport Authority from providing to you a product, service, or access to certain Airport Authority facilities.
You may refuse or withdraw your consent by contacting us through the contact us portion of our website. Our staff will explain your options and any consequences of refusing or withdrawing consent, and will record your choices.
Section 4: Limiting Collection
We collect personal information only for the purposes identified above.
Section 5: Limiting Use, Disclosure, and Retention
We do not use or disclose personal information for any purpose other than those for which it was collected, except as required by law, or with consent.
Personal information is retained only as long as is necessary for the fulfillment of the purposes for which it was collected, or as required by law.
Section 6: Accuracy
The Airport Authority will make all reasonable efforts to ensure that personal information is as accurate, complete, and current as required for the purposes for which it was collected. In some cases, the Airport Authority relies on individuals to ensure that certain information about them, such as their home address and contact information, is current, complete, and accurate.
Section 7: Storage and Safeguards
The Airport Authority will make all reasonable efforts to ensure that personal information is protected against such risks as loss, theft, unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use, modification, or destruction. Safeguards include physical, administrative, and electronic security measures.
The Airport Authority may process and store your information in Canada or other countries (U.K.), and therefore Canadian governments, courts, or law enforcement or regulatory agencies (or, by treaty, foreign countries) may be able to obtain disclosure of your information through Canadian laws. By consenting to the information practices set out in this policy, you specifically consent to your information being processed and stored in Canada or other countries.
We may use third party service providers (for example, web hosting providers and/or payment processers) to manage one or more aspects of our business operations, including the processing or handling of personal information. When we do use an outside company, we use contractual or other appropriate means to ensure that your personal information is used in a manner that is consistent with this policy. Some of these operations may result in personal information collected by us being stored or processed outside of Canada and, as a result, your personal information may be accessible to law enforcement and regulatory authorities outside of Canada, as well as Canadian laws.
Section 8: Openness Concerning Policies and Practices
The Airport Authority will make available specific information about its policies and practices regarding the management of personal information. To contact us to obtain further information regarding our policies and practices, please refer to section 11 below.
Section 9: Access
Customers have the right to access their personal information under the control of the Airport Authority. Access requests should be made, in writing, to Edmonton Airports, at 1, 1000 Airport Road, Edmonton International Airport, AB T9E 0V3 or by email through the contact us portion of our website. This includes:
identification of personal information under our custody or control;
information about how personal information under our control may be or has been used by us; and
the names of any individuals and organizations to which the individual's personal information has been disclosed.
In certain exceptional situations, further to privacy legislation, the Airport Authority may not be able to provide access to certain personal information that it holds about an individual. Examples of where the Airport Authority may not provide access include, but are not limited to, the following:
where provision may reveal personal information about another individual;
where provision would reveal confidential commercial information;
where the information is subject to solicitor-client privilege; or
where the information was collected in relation to the investigation of a breach of an agreement or a contravention of a federal or provincial law.
If access cannot be provided, the Airport Authority will notify the individual making the request, in writing, of the reasons for the refusal.
Where access has been provided and where the information is demonstrated to be inaccurate or incomplete, the Airport Authority will amend the information as required. Where appropriate, the Airport Authority will transmit the amended information to third parties having access to the information in question.
Section 10: Revisions To This Privacy Policy
The development of the Airport Authority's policies and procedures for the protection of personal information is an ongoing process. Due to changes in technology and legal requirements we may revise this policy from time to time. Please ensure that you refer to the current version of the Airport Authority's Privacy Policy. The current version will be posted on our web site at www.flyeia.com.
Section 11: Questions or Concerns Regarding The Airport Authority's Compliance
Individuals may direct their general questions regarding privacy practices at the Airport Authority, as well as any questions or concerns regarding the Airport Authority's compliance with this policy, to the Compliance Officer, at 5th Floor Central Tower, Main Terminal Building, 1, 1000 Airport Road, Edmonton International Airport, AB T9E 0V3, or by email through the contact us portion of our website.
The Compliance Officer will investigate any complaints received in writing. If a complaint is found to be justified, the Compliance Officer will take appropriate measures to resolve the complaint including, if necessary, amending its policies and procedures. A customer will be informed, in writing, of the outcome of the investigation regarding his or her complaint.
Each year the Compliance Officer will report to the Airport Authority Board of Directors on the number, nature and disposition of complaints received in the previous year.
For general questions regarding privacy regulations, or to obtain a copy of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at 112 Kent St., Ottawa Ontario, K1A 1H3, or visit the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's website at http://www.privcom.gc.ca/
If you have any questions or concerns with respect to this privacy statement, please send an email at info@flyeia.com.
The Authority reserves the right to change this privacy statement at any time. Such changes will be posted on this page and in compliance with applicable federal privacy laws.


text:
Palm partners for enterprise rollouts
Georgina Swan (ARN) 05 February, 2002 10:47
Recognising the need for system integrators in successful handheld adoption at the enterprise level, Palm has partnered with global players PwC Consulting, CSC and IBM Global Services as part of its Enterprise Alliance Program (EAP).
The program is an Asia-Pacific initiative aimed at bringing integrated handheld solutions based on the Palm OS into the enterprise space. Palm dominates the retail PDA market, but its enterprise offerings face strong competition from Windows products. The vendor hopes the consistency of its platform and standards-based hardware will help it maintain and build market share.
For EAP partners, Palm will provide the training, roadmaps and joint sales and marketing activity.
PwC Consulting partner Fred Balboni said he believed the power of wireless is beginning to come into fruition in the handheld market.
"This year PwC will be doing more than $100 million in consulting and integration work in mobile applications around the world. This isn't toy stuff anymore."
In Australia, PwC has dedicated a Web development contingent to wireless solutions known as Determinate.
"The action is clearly at the device level," Balboni said. "To that end, the value proposition driving mobile computing is cost reduction. It's not revenue, it's not greater sales. We have done a lot of research and without doubt the two greatest applications are in the mobile field force and sales people. This is in stark contrast to the knowledge worker."
Cofense™ MSSP program: Focused on stopping evolving phishing attacks
More from Cofense™
A VAR's Guide to Efficient Quoting | Why You Should Make the Switch from Spreadsheets to CPQ


text:
readnlove
Business Content Writing Services
The Omnipotent and A Smiling Naked Virus
By readnlove April 25, 2020
Leave a Comment on The Omnipotent and A Smiling Naked Virus
Now is not the time to be critical of the human glory built on a foundation that is too fragile. But for sure, now is the time to ponder upon the worldviews, scientific and religious, both glorifying Homo sapiens, a member of the species that obliterated its brethren groups to claim a superiorly dominant status on this planet; an obsessive, God-like status that flaunts the power of extraterrestrial invasion and clamours how special human beings are, both on the premises of science and religion.
The revelling journey is interrupted by a naked virus that laughs at our egos while we wash our hands.
Glorification of Homo sapiens
Planet earth was home to thousands of other species that were rendered inferior to Homo sapiens and wiped out from the face of the earth. The cognitive excellence bestowed upon us by pure chance of evolution- with larger brains and social skills- encouraged the species of our kind to make choices that elevated themselves as the supreme being on the planet, exterminating the co-habitant species.
Fast forward, the birth of religions made human beings sacrosanct putting the plant at the center of the universe; the emergence of humanism argued the sapiens species is gifted with an unique ability unlike other living beings and should be the primary beneficiary of all actions and events on the planet by law.
Some religious views even go further to consider their bodies as holy temples and reject the idea of vaccines that inject external impurities into their biological system. They argue as special creatures of God, their bodies carry the divine power to heal themselves.
The living beings that were considered inferior to our abilities were either annihilated or ill-treated for rearing benefits. Our cognitive excellence created an illusion in our head that like any other living beings human species is not a complex structure of molecules, just like the novel COVID-19.
Our Unpreparedness For Catastrophic Pandemics
Despite all the staggering innovation that puts human beings at the epicenter, reports suggest that the human community is not prepared for global pandemics, until it is too late. A report titled 'A World At Risk' published in September 2019 by Global Preparedness Monitoring Board quotes "Countries, donors and multilateral institutions must be prepared for the worst ". The report even warns against a "a rapidly spreading, lethal respiratory pathogen pandemic".
COVID-19 seems to be a nemesis for the global community fastly spreading across national boundaries. SARS-COV-2, the single-stranded RNA virus, that causes COVID-19 is the new member of the Coronaviridae family along with six other members, four of them (HKU1, OC43, NL63, and 229E) that cause common cold and the other two, SARS and MERS, causing more serious illnesses.
Evolution is not unique to human beings but to viruses as well!
Even though the virus is identified as a novel one recently 3 months before, the most common ancestor of the coronaviruses date back to 8000 BCE or even 55 million years ago, according to two different researches.
The threat posed by such pandemics to the survival of our species is underestimated by international scientific communities and political leadership.
The Smiling Virus!
What we know about us is a minuscule in the timeline of our history! Our evolutionary trait of being reckless and less empathetic to other living beings remains unchanged! The virus outbreak has made us realize our position in the universe that we are not unique and special ones! We are just another complex structure of molecules.
Our indifferent attitude towards other species in history has resulted in massacre. Channelize your energy to help evolution bring positive changes on this planet. Let us evolve beautifully; more wisely.
As the virus smiles at us while we wash our hands, let us cleanse our self-centered egos too!
Image Source: FierceBiotech
If you find this article useful, please Share!
Published by readnlove
Currently a Masters student of Journalism and Mass communication, Amity University, graduated from Anna University in Bachelor of Instrumentation and Control Engineering. Interested in International relations and World economyView all posts by readnlove
Previous Entry How Rational Are You While Shopping?
Next Entry Smoking Conspiracy- Treachery of Greed


text:
Home » Headlines » The process to remove Rousseff from office
The process to remove Rousseff from office
By Adam Kreller / Monday, 18 Apr 2016 09:34PM
Brazilian Parliament, Rio de Janeiro – On Sunday, 367 lawmakers in the Brazilian parliament's lower house voted to impeach the country's first female President Dilma Rousseff. Now the impeachment motion will go right to the Brazil's Senate, reported CNN.
Rousseff will be forced to step down for a maximum 180 days to defend herself against corruption accusations in an impeachment trial if the upper house approves the impeachment motion, which could be in May.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff speaks against his impeachment after the vote on Sunday. Credit: International Business Times
Meanwhile, protests of those who are in favor of the government and those who don't are splitting the country in two. And there's still a long way to come before Rousseff fate can be decided, so the tumults might continue in the country until the final vote it's made, which should be set by the end of this year at the latest.
The schedule of the impeachment motion against Rousseff
The process was sent to Brazil's upper house on Monday and it will be read on the Senate floor the next day. On Tuesday will be announced a committee formed by 21 parliamentarians and the list of alternates to evaluate the matter. The identity of the senators that will be part of the committee will be announced next Monday. The committee will have to nominate its president and speaker in 24 hours.
The committee will have 10 days to discuss and recommend whether to continue with the impeachment process, which will be voted on by simple majority. Whatever the results are, the recommendation must be considered by the whole Senate.
In early May the Senate might decide whether to take on the case and, if it proceeds, Brazil's president will be notified and will have to step down from office while the Senate evaluates the case. Vice-President Michael Temer would assume the presidency for the interim.
The temporary succession may be problematic for Temer, whose party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, it's also implicated in the corruption scheme, so impeachment proceedings may be applied to him as well.
It's expected that by early November, at the latest, the committee will proceed with the investigation phase. After Rousseff presents her defense, in a maximum of 20 days, the committee will have to examine the documents and all the evidence consigned by Rouseff and her foes. This phase has no deadline defined by the law.
If the impeachment motion gets approved by the committee too, then the next step is to schedule the date for the final vote, which will be chaired by the president of the Supreme Court at the Senate. To remove the president from office, two-thirds majority will be needed.
Phillips Exeter Academy deals with sex abuse accusations
Two buses burned up in Israel due a terrorist attack


text:
Michael Desanto (born 1953) from Victoria is an Australian Paralympic athlete.  He competed without winning any medals at the 1984 New York/Stoke Mandeville Paralympics. At the 1988 Seoul Paralympics, he won a silver medal in the Men's 4x100 m Relay 1A–1C event and a  bronze medal in the Men's 4x200 m Relay 1A–1C event.

References

External links
Michael Desanto

Paralympic athletes of Australia
Athletes (track and field) at the 1984 Summer Paralympics
Athletes (track and field) at the 1988 Summer Paralympics
Paralympic silver medalists for Australia
Paralympic bronze medalists for Australia
Living people
Medalists at the 1988 Summer Paralympics
1953 births
Paralympic medalists in athletics (track and field)
Australian male wheelchair racers

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
<?php
$dbDebug = array(
	'log'   => array(),
	'time'  => array(),
	'rows'  => array(),
	'total' => 0);

$db = mysqli_connect('p:' . DB_ADDR, DB_USER, DB_PASS, DB_NAME);

if (mysqli_connect_errno()) {
	die("Could not connect to database server.\n");
}

mysqli_set_charset($db, 'utf8');

function fetchArray($result, $result_type = MYSQLI_NUM) {
	return mysqli_fetch_array($result, $result_type);
}

function fetchAssoc($result) {
	return mysqli_fetch_assoc($result);
}

function affectedRows() {
	global $db;
	return mysqli_affected_rows($db);
}

function insertId() {
	global $db;
	return mysqli_insert_id($db);
}

function numRows($result) {
	return mysqli_num_rows($result);
}

function fetchRow($result) {
	return mysqli_fetch_row($result);
}

function query($query) {
	global $db, $dbDebug;

	$db_start = microtime(true);
	$result   = mysqli_query($db, $query);
	$db_end   = microtime(true);

	$db_time          = round(($db_end - $db_start) * 1000, 6);
	$dbDebug['total'] = $dbDebug['total'] + $db_time;

	array_push($dbDebug['log'], $query);
	array_push($dbDebug['time'], $db_time);
	array_push($dbDebug['rows'], affectedRows());

	return $result;
}

function es($str) {
	global $db;
	return mysqli_real_escape_string($db, $str);
}


The facts about London's environment are quite chilling.
Each year around 10,000 Londoners face an early grave due to the capital's appalling air pollution. London's roads are far too dangerous, especially for pedestrians and cyclists. In 2014, 432 cyclists were seriously injured or killed. London only recycles 34 per cent of its waste, compared with 43 per cent in the rest of the country. Much of the capital's housing stock is poorly insulated and one in ten households suffers from fuel poverty. Incredibly, the capital has the smallest amount of installed solar for any English region. And, while the issue of flooding has largely received attention around the rest of the country, we must not forget that 1.25 million Londoners are at direct risk from flooding.
Tackling these issues has never been more important.
We need to get real about the challenges of London's growing population. In just 14 years time, it is expected that London's population will have grown from its current population of 8.6 million to almost ten million.
One thing that is abundantly clear to me is that while this growth in people can be managed we simply can't cope with a million more cars on our roads. Road building and tunnelling is not the answer. It is not being 'anti car' to simply recognise that serious changes need to take place.
To start with, we need to actively deter daily commuting by car into central London. I advocate a workplace levy of £3,000 per annum for each parking place provided, with the levy covering employers in central London and Canary Wharf (with exemptions for Blue Badge holders and emergency services).
City Hall itself is actually a good role model. Despite being a workplace for hundreds of people it only has four workplace parking spaces, which are largely used for deliveries or by disabled drivers.
Changes are also needed to the Congestion Charge. I advocate the base charge increasing to £14 but with an additional charge of £6 for anyone entering in peak times.
And we shouldn't wait until the introduction of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to start tackling diesel vehicles. One immediate step I advocate is a further additional charge of £2.50 for diesel vehicles entering the Congestion Charge Zone.
I see no case for the Silvertown Tunnel being built. The top priority must instead be improvements in public transport, walking and cycling links across the Thames. I propose a new pedestrian and cycle bridge linking Rotherhithe to Canary Wharf, an extension of the Bakerloo Line to Lewisham and then onto Bromley, and ensuring the London Overground is extended to cross the Thames at Barking Riverside.
The other big change that is needed on London's roads is a switch to electric vehicles. We need a substantial increase in their use, coupled with the expansion of the trial of electric double decker buses.
Taxis also need to go electric. I advocate TfL driving down the price of electric taxis by bulk purchasing a fleet of electric taxis which are then sold or leased to taxi drivers and garages. This, coupled with a rapid charging infrastructure and a scrappage scheme, will provide the opportunity for a rapid switch to electric taxis.
Making London a far more attractive place for walking and cycling is also vital and I have no hesitation in advocating the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street. Cycling investment needs to be stepped up too if London is to reach at least three per cent of TfL's budget by 2020.
With these policies in place it will also be possible to speed up the introduction of the ULEZ by two years, starting in 2018 rather than 2020.
Of course much more needs to be done to tackle air pollution and to protect London's environment. I hope you will take a look at my manifesto this week to find out more.


Our event planning team is ready to make your next event extra special, simply fill out the form below or contact us by phone or email.
For over three decades, we've responded. Along the way, the only thing that hasn't changed is our commitment to be of service to our clients and community, focusing on delicious food, warm hospitality and creative flair.