text:
If senate republicans had any shame, they'd die of it.
Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.
Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.
My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.
Not all heroes wear capes.
Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.
Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?
Let there be snark.
I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.
Usually wrong but never in doubt
Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?
Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.
Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.
It's the corruption, stupid.
In my day, never was longer.
We still have time to mess this up!
Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.
You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 287: Man and Spirit of the Year
War for Ukraine Day 287: Man and Spirit of the Year
by Adam L Silverman | December 7, 2022 5:48 pm | 44 Comments
I have something I have to do tonight, so I'm going to keep these on the short side.
President Zelenskyy was selected as Time's person of the year. It was not without some small controversy:
I'd better suggest a Ukrainian soldier as the real person of the year 2022 pic.twitter.com/AR7lYjPEFX
— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) December 7, 2022
Here's President Zelenskyy's address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:
Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!
Today was a long and hard day.
The Kherson region – four policemen died during stabilization measures… Russian mines.
Among the dead was Mykhailo Kuratchenko, chief of police of the Cherkasy region. He was helping colleagues in the south. EOD technician Ihor Melnyk. Dog trainer Serhiy Nenada. Assistant duty officer of the Uman district police department Vadym Perizhok. Doctors are currently saving the lives of four more policemen.
Police forces along with all the defense forces of our state are now on the frontline. And together with everyone they protect Ukrainians, together with everyone they suffer losses… My condolences.
The Donetsk region – today the Russian army carried out a very brutal, absolutely deliberate strike at Kurakhove. Precisely at civilians. At ordinary people. At the market, elevator, gas station, bus station, residential building. The list of the dead so far includes ten people, there are many wounded.
My condolences to relatives and friends… Eternal memory to all victims of Russian terror!
I've held a meeting of the Staff today. Commanders' reports, analysis of the situation in specific directions.
First of all, regarding the Donetsk region, Bakhmut districts and other hottest spots. A very fierce confrontation is ongoing there, every meter counts.
I thank all our guys who destroy the enemy right there – every day, every night, every hour.
Of course, due attention was paid to the Luhansk region and Kharkiv region at the Staff's meeting, there were reports on the situation in general and on the borders.
Energy sector is a permanent item on our agenda – both at the Staff and government levels.
I've also held a meeting on the stabilization of the energy system and the protection of our power plants.
We are constantly increasing the generation and supply of electricity – we are adding more volume almost every day. But we should not forget – and everyone should not forget – that it is now impossible to restore 100% of the energy system as it was before the beginning of the Russian energy terror. We need time. That is why shutdown schedules remain in most cities and districts.
As of this evening, the biggest number of shutdowns is in Kyiv and the region, Lviv region, Zhytomyr region, Khmelnytskyi region, Poltava region, Vinnytsia region and Zakarpattia. And I thank all our energy workers, repairmen, businesses, utility workers and local authorities who are doing everything they can to make things easier for people.
By the way, today is the Day of Local Self-Government. This is a holiday for all those who work with people directly and on whom almost everything in communities depends.
As in any government, in local self-government there are different people of different personal qualities and views. And today I thank all those who, at their level, really protect their communities. Who can be trusted and to whom people come for help. Who really takes care of the defense – within their responsibility – and who prepares everything so that his or her community can get through this winter more easily.
Thank you and congratulations on your professional day.
Today we have a very important result in France. The Supreme Court of France upheld the decision on recovery in favor of the Ukrainian Oschadbank from the aggressor state. The amount with accrued interest is almost 1.5 billion dollars.
This legal process has been dragging since 2015. More than six years of struggle, tens of thousands of pages of legal documents, many hopes and no less skepticism expressed by some… But there is this victory for Ukraine. Russia will be held to account for all stolen assets of the Ukrainian state and companies.
This is the first victory for a state-owned company in the legal cases against Russia concerning the seized property in Crimea, and I thank each and every one who secured this result.
Today, representatives of the Office and the government took part in a conference in America – a conference dedicated to the creation of a special tribunal for the crime of Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Similarly, not everyone in the world agrees now that this tribunal will work. But no matter what they say, we will do our part and will definitely achieve a result for Ukraine and Ukrainians.
We are already preparing for the events of the second half of the week – at the international level. There will be important decisions for our defense.
We do everything to make them stronger.
I am grateful to all partners of our country!
Glory to all who work for the victory!
Zelensky says Russian forces attacked Kurakhove. "A market, a bus station, gas stations, and residential buildings came under fire. At least six civilians were killed, five were wounded." The city's home to a large power plant and has been a gateway to Mariinka in Donetsk Oblast. pic.twitter.com/DoGGJW3zXY
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) December 7, 2022
Bakhmut:
Бахмут. 07.12.2022. Місто під щоденними постійними обстрілами. pic.twitter.com/9pGu7LGl2i
— Kostiantyn & Vlada Liberov (@Liberov) December 7, 2022
The caption translates as:
Bakhmut. 07.12.2022. The city is under constant daily shelling.
Putin made a televised address today.
Putin says 150,000 mobilized Russian soldiers are now in the "zone of operation" –in Ukraine. Of that number, half are involved in active combat, he says. pic.twitter.com/1W5UhENdKq
— Mike Eckel (@Mike_Eckel) December 7, 2022
Putin says Russia "has no need" to do a second wave of mobilization, despite fears the draft will come back after the new year. That's aimed at calming people: reluctance to fight and reports of horrible conditions for the draftees have sapped support for his invasion of Ukraine.
— max seddon (@maxseddon) December 7, 2022
Putin says Russia won't do a nuclear first strike and isn't planning to use tactical nukes. "We haven't gone crazy – we know full well what nuclear weapons are."
But: Russia "considers nuclear weapons as a means of defense." Fears of nuclear war are the fault of…Liz Truss!
The War Zone's The Drive reports informed speculation that Russia may be out of Iranian Shaheed drones:
As of Tuesday, Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones had not appeared over the skies of Ukraine since the middle of last month and the reason is that Russia likely ran out of them, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
"It's been three weeks" since Ukrainian air defense forces have seen "the loitering drones of the Shahed-type," Yuri Ignat, spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, said during a press conference Tuesday at the Ukrainian Media Center. "There are different thoughts and factors which indicate probably that the first shipment received by the occupiers is over [and] they ran out of them."
Russia initially ordered about 1,700 of the Shahed-136 drones, said Ignat, with only about 400 arriving in Russia so far. Of those, he said about 350 were shot down by Ukrainian air defense forces. Those that managed to make it to their targets caused tremendous damage and terrorized Ukrainian civilians.
Here's the video of the press conference with English subtitles.
Known Russian intelligence asset and Rudy Giuliani accomplice Andrii Derkach was indicted today:
"active russian agent"…when the indictment press release is really, really trying to speak https://t.co/K60abyHL5O
— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) December 7, 2022
Did Nabuleaks put out anti Hunter Biden stuff that correlates to that which was trafficked via the laptop story in 2020, and again, now?
Here's the announcement of the indictment from the DOJ:
Eastern District of New York
Russian Intelligence Agent Charged with Fraud and Money Laundering in Connection with Purchase and Use of Luxury Beverly Hills Real Estate
Defendant Was Sanctioned in 2020 for Attempting to Interfere in the U.S. Presidential Election
A seven-count indictment was unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn charging Andrii Derkach with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Acts (IEEPA), bank fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and four counts of money laundering in connection with the purchase and maintenance of two condominiums in Beverly Hills, California. Derkach allegedly purchased the properties in violation of new U.S. sanctions imposed earlier this year and concealed his interest in the transactions. Derkach remains at large.
Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Michael J. Driscoll, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office, and Andrew Adams, Director of Task Force Kleptocapture announced the charges.
"The conduct of this Kremlin asset, who was sanctioned for trying to poison our democracy, has shown he is ready, willing, and capable of exploiting our banking system in order to advance his illicit goals. The U.S. will not be a safe haven where criminals, oligarchs or sanctioned entities can hide their ill-gotten gains or influence our elections," stated United States Attorney Peace. "This Office, together with our law enforcement partners, will use every tool available to prosecute those who evade sanctions and abuse the U.S. financial system, and we will identify, freeze and seize criminal proceeds whenever and wherever possible."
"Kremlin-backed Ukrainian politician and oligarch, Andrii Derkach, was sanctioned for his efforts to influence the 2020 U.S. Presidential election on behalf of the Russian Intelligence Services. While participating in a scripted Russian disinformation campaign seeking to undermine U.S. institutions, Derkach simultaneously conspired to fraudulently benefit from a Western lifestyle for himself and his family in the United States. The FBI will continue to use all the tools at its disposal to identify Russian intelligence operations, disrupt Russian information laundering networks, and bring to justice those who seek to engage in criminal conspiracies to undermine the integrity of U.S elections and evade U.S. sanctions," stated Assistant Director-in-Charge Driscoll.
"Attempting to enjoy the safety, security, and freedoms of an open society, while secretly working to undermine that very society, is a hypocrisy that runs through every sanctions charge announced by the Task Force. It is a particularly egregious hypocrisy in the case of Andrii Derkach – sanctioned for attempts to undermine American democracy, while corruptly seeking to benefit from its protections," said Task Force KleptoCapture Director Andrew C. Adams.
Since 1998, except for a hiatus from November 2006 to November 2007, Derkach was a member of the Verkhovna Rada (Rada), Ukraine's Parliament. During his time in the Rada, Derkach was a member of the Party of Regions, a pro-Russia political party, which was the ruling party in Ukraine from 2010 until the 2014 Ukrainian Euromaidan Revolution. On September 10, 2020 the United States Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) sanctioned Derkach and several companies he controlled pursuant to Executive Order 13848, calling him "an active Russian agent for over a decade, maintaining close connections with the Russian Intelligence Services" who "waged a covert influence campaign" to undermine the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
As alleged in the indictment, beginning in 2013, Derkach and a co-conspirator devised a scheme to purchase and maintain two luxury condominiums in Beverly Hills while concealing his interest in the transactions from U.S. financial institutions. Specifically, Derkach used the services of a corporate nominee, a multi-tiered structure of California-based shell companies, and numerous U.S. bank and brokerage accounts. Using this framework, Derkach wired approximately $3.92 million to the nominee from overseas accounts in Latvia and Switzerland belonging to companies registered in the British Virgin Islands. The money was then used to pay $3.2 million in cash in the name of a corporate entity set up by the nominee, with Derkach having no visible affiliation with the purchase. The remaining $800,000 was invested in a brokerage account maintained by the nominee for Derkach's benefit and used to pay expenses on the condominiums, including taxes, homeowners' fees, and utilities. Because Derkach had fraudulently obscured details about his identity and involvement from the financial institutions holding the aforementioned bank and brokerage accounts, he prevented those financial institutions from moving funds into blocked accounts, and instead caused those financial institutions to engage in transactions involving blocked funds and transactions for the benefit of the condominiums, which were blocked property pursuant to the sanctions.
A parallel civil forfeiture action has been initiated to seize the condominiums and the remaining funds in the U.S. brokerage and bank accounts that Derkach controls.
If convicted, Derkach faces a maximum of 30 years' imprisonment. The charges in the indictment are allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
The government's case is being handled by the Office's National Security and Cybercrime Section. Assistant United States Attorneys Artie McConnell and Jonathan E. Algor are in charge of the prosecution, with assistance from Trial Attorney Adam Small of the National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section and Litigation Analyst Ben Richmond. Assistant United States Attorney Madeline O'Connor of the Office's Asset Recovery Section is handling forfeiture matters.
The investigation was coordinated through the Justice Department's Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency law enforcement task force dedicated to enforcing the sweeping sanctions, export controls, and economic countermeasures that the United States, along with its foreign allies and partners, has imposed in response to Russia's unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine. Announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland on March 2, 2022 under the leadership of the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the task force will continue to leverage all of the Department's tools and authorities to combat efforts to evade or undermine the collective actions taken by the U.S. government in response to Russian military aggression.
The Defendant:
ANDRII DERKACH
Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine
E.D.N.Y. Docket No.: 22-Cr-432 (DLI)
There are links to the indictment and the civil complaint at the link above.
I will remind everyone that it was Derkach that provided Giuliani with the hacked material from Hunter Biden's Apple products. It was most likely his iPhone and the hack was most likely done with NSO Group's spyware.
pic.twitter.com/6uHLcmNdvc
Laura Rozen also brings us remarks from NSC Spokesperson John Kirby:
missiles: that we know there's been some interest in that, but we cannot say at this point that we've seen the transfer of Iranian ballistic missiles. We have seen continued provision of Iranian drones from Iran to Russia..You can see those drones continuing to hit civilian
targets & kill innocent Ukrainians nearly every day. So we know that they're involved in the efforts that Mr. Putin has been expending lately to try to bring the Ukrainian people to their knees with respect to power and water and other resources.
This is just another example of the degree to which Iran is directly assisting Russia's desire to brutalize, quite frankly, to brutalize the Ukrainian people.
Kirby: afraid I don't have accurate inventory data for you for how many more drones or cruise missiles that the Russians have available to them. Clearly, by reaching out to Iran, they're trying to supplement shortages that they have, specifically with UAVs.
Kirby: We know that their [Russian] defense industrial base is being taxed by trying to keep up with the mere pace at which Mr. Putin's military is firing cruise missiles into into Ukraine…We know that he's having trouble replenishing specifically precision guided munitions
… "We know that Mr. Putin is struggling again to keep up with the pace that he and his military are demonstrating in Ukraine…That's why he's reaching out to Iran. For obviously the continued provision of drones, but even the potential provision of ballistic missiles…
"All of those are strong indicators that he's got…not only inventory problems, but replenishment problems as well."
Finally, the Germans began rolling up a massive neo-NAZI, neo-Fascist, anti-democratic extremist network today. The best backgrounder on the network is this English language reporting from Der Spiegel from 2020. It is a deep dive, long form report by German journalists who know the human geography they are covering. It is long, but well worth the read.
You can't spend all of your time preparing for the apocalypse. Sometimes, as was the case on the first Monday in August, the lawn needs to be mowed.
That lawn was in front of a brick home outside northern German city of Schwerin. A bumper sticker on the mobile home in the driveway read: "God bless our troops, especially our snipers."
At first, the man pushing the mower – dressed in olive-green pants and a camouflage baseball cap – showed no interest in talking. But he ultimately turned off the mower, came over to the fence and discussed natural catastrophes, power outages and other emergencies Germans should be preparing for. With the country phasing out nuclear and coal energy, Marko G. said, the country's energy supply is in danger and a huge blackout may occur. As a patriot, he explained, he is prepared to defend his homeland, no matter what the crisis, "and I will risk my life to do so."
In the group Marko G. founded five years ago – called Nordkreuz, or Northern Cross – his intentions didn't always sound that honorable. He sent one of his comrades an image, for example, showing soldiers pointing their weapons at a man lying on the ground, captioned, "Asylum application rejected." On Adolf Hitler's birthday, he shared a photo of the dictator with the words: "Happy birthday." He referred to German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas as "scum."
Nordkreuz once counted around 40 members, preppers getting ready for "Day X," a mythical moment when all public order breaks down. The group remains active today, Marko G. says.
When police launched a criminal investigation against Marko G., they found an Uzi submachine gun in his possession along with a silencer and 40,000 rounds of ammunition. State prosecutors charged him with violations of the War Weapons Control Act – marking a man who had once sworn an oath to protect the German constitution as a possible danger to the state.
Marko G. served as a soldier in the German armed forces, the Bundeswehr, for eight years. He then spent 20 years in the police force. He was a sniper and a member of the Special Deployment Commando (SEK) belonging to the state criminal police office of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Today, he is a free man, having been handed a suspended sentence for his weapons possession charge. The regional court in Schwerin ruled that it was "a one-time lapse – if extensive in both time and substance." Prosecutors appealed the ruling and Marko G. was suspended by the police. "Everyone does stupid shit at some point," he says, and insists that he is not a right-wing extremist.
Beyond Isolated Incidents
A one-time lapse? An isolated case? Politicians have used such arguments for decades to play down right-wing activity in the police and Bundeswehr out of concern that the large majority of upstanding soldiers and police officers might suddenly be viewed with suspicion.
But it has become difficult to ignore that the number of isolated cases is growing, or at least that this is the impression among the public. More and more right-wing extremist incidents are becoming widely known, in particular within the elite Special Forces Command (KSK). In Frankfurt, meanwhile, officials have been trying for two years to determine which public servant passed along sensitive addresses from the police computer – addresses that later received horrifying threats signed with "NSU 2.0", a reference to the National Socialist Underground, the neo-Nazi terror cell responsible for a series of racist-motivated murders between 2000 and 2006.
DER SPIEGEL research found that German states and the federal police force have recorded at least 400 suspected incidents of right-wing extremist, racist or anti-Semitic activity in recent years among police officers or trainees. It is, on the one hand, not a large number. But any member of the public service who does not firmly believe in the German constitution is a problem.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has demonstratively thrown his support behind the police in recent weeks. "Our security agencies are a jewel," he said in late July in comments to the Munich newspaper Münchner Merkur. The statement followed weeks of debate in Germany over racism in the country's police force, a discussion triggered by the Black Lives Matter protests that had spilled over from the U.S. Seehofer decided that it was unnecessary to carry out a study on how often police officers stopped Black citizens for no reason. "The officers have my absolute support," he said.
Yet even Seehofer, from the conservative Bavarian party Christian Social Union (CSU), appears to realize that simple expressions of loyalty are no longer sufficient. In February, following an attack in Hanau in which a right-wing terrorist shot up two shisha bars, killing nine and wounding five, Seehofer called right-wing extremism "the greatest threat facing our country." Last year, he asked the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, to investigate right-wing activities among civil servants. The initial focus was on security agencies, with results expected following the summer break.
Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer — of the Christian Democrats (CDU), the CSU's sister party — also told parliamentarians in June that she will "not tolerate right-wing extremism or any other form of extremism in the Bundeswehr." Following several right-wing incidents in the KSK, the minister summarily disbanded the unit's 2nd Company.
Nightmare Scenario
There have simply been too many disturbing reports in recent months from Germany's security apparatus. It has led to growing concerns that the incidents that have been publicized may just be the tip of the iceberg. Stephan Kramer, president of the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Thuringia, is one of those harboring such concerns. "When special forces units in the military and police call the state into question and perhaps even establish right-wing networks, that should make us extremely worried," he says.
An attack on the state perpetrated by those trained to defend it – security personnel trained in the use of weapons – would be a nightmare scenario for Germany.
In a confidential report, an expert commission later pieced together that Marko G., the former SEK member from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, began drawing concern many years ago. Other police officers were put off by the slogans uttered by Marko G. during a training event just east of Schwerin in 2009. A memo to his commander noted that he was conspicuously interested in National Socialism and especially in the SS, "without exhibiting the necessary distance." But the memo went nowhere.
Marko G.'s fondness for the Nazis apparently didn't bother anyone in his SEK unit, which was primarily made up of former elite soldiers from the Bundeswehr. According to the special investigators, there was "little knowledge and sensitivity" in the unit for statements and symbols from the right-wing extremist scene. They found that this led to the development of problematic "subcultural tendencies."
Marko G. set up a chat group for the Nordkreuz prepper group in January 2016 that quickly began attracting others with radical beliefs. In testimony provided to the Federal Criminal Police Office, one witness said that two members of the group, a lawyer and a criminal investigator, discussed "collecting and killing" left-wing supporters of refugees on "Day X."
Lists of enemies, including the names and addresses of regional politicians, were also discovered. The German Federal Public Prosecutor has initiated a terrorism investigation into the lawyer and criminal investigator, but it has not yet been completed.
Much, much, much more at the link!
I think that's enough for tonight.
A new video from Patron's official TikTok!
Ех, сумно…😒 #песпатрон #патрондснс
♬ original sound – Jake
Eh, sad…😒 #PatrontheDog #PatronDSNS
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So this is an abbreviated, sorry-for-so-little-content post? Good heavens, Adam, there's a wealth of information here! I hope you find or create some genuine down time for yourself soon. Thank you again for an excellent effort.
dr. luba
That's on the short side?
Patron: "When Michael doesn't take me to work with him."
As to the Time cover: it will be interesting sorting out all the other figures on the cover. 2nd figure on the bottom is chef Ievgen Klopotenko.
It seems like a serious omission to not have soldiers in that TIME cover – if they didn't want it to be overtly war-like, how about soldiers being welcomed home by their children, or being hugged as they liberated villages?
Story that didn't make much of a splash today (or was it yesterday) was about how doctors in occupied Kherson would falsify medical records for children in their care, indicating they were too ill to travel, in order to prevent their being kidnapped into russia.
Strawberry Kleptocapture Elevators is my psychedelic tribute band's new name.
Adam, thank you for the Der Spiegel link.
Maybe we can discuss the German plotters, and this type of action seeded throughout western democracies, later this week. Once more details shake out.
Reader commenters on the WaPost and FTF NY Times threads see Russian interference and encouragement behind a lot of this. Not to mention the usual thugs, like Bannon.
Bakhmut situation concerns me; losing that hundreds of mobniks a day to gain a few meters seems like a trade Putin and his (surviving) generals are willing to make. UA is taking the mobniks out but losing ground. Can the Russian succeed?
@West of the Rockies: The sort of good news is what I was supposed to do got cancelled. So I'm having a smoothie and then I'm going to walk the dogs, get cleaned up, and rack out.
@Another Scott: Are you okay? Do you smell burnt toast?
@Anonymous At Work: mobik
@Elizabelle: There was one Russian woman arrested. She's the partner of one of the German ringleaders. I've seen nothing so far to indicate she was a Russian operative, but given Russia's support for these types of groups throughout the EU it wouldn't surprise me if they do discover Russian involvement.
@Anonymous At Work: If they do it will be quite the Pyrrhic. Strategically they will have gained nothing at the cost of practically all their offensive capability. Russia is running what's left of its army into the sand
@Anonymous At Work: I don't think so.
@kalakal: It's not like Russian will run out of mobiks before UA runs out of troops. I think that's the calculus too.
I wish Patron would be on that TIME cover too. He can be a tiny little being, in the background. But he and his crew are masters at social media.
@Anonymous At Work: I wouldn't be too sure about the number of Russian canon fodder. The frontline in Ukraine stretches for 2,500 km and they don't have enough manpower to hold that let alone advance. The attrition rate in Bakhmut seems to be extremely one sided, just like their grinding advance earlier in the year around Luhansk where they committed everything and ended up losing Kherson, not to mention 6,000 sq km around Kharkiv in under 2 weeks. The Russian army is barely functioning, I don't think they're going to succeed at Bakhmut.
I think you're right, that is their calculus, I think they're delusional
Aziz, light!
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the Valley of Death
Rode the Two Hundreds.
Slow news day, eh?
The photos from Bakhmut, as well as other photos and videos, are horrifying. If you didn't know better, you'd assume they were stills from a movie. I can't begin to imagine living through this day after day for months, nor the trauma that will result from it and ripple for years.
Zelenskyy gave brief (English language) remarks to the Robert Kennedy Foundation, and I liked how he hammered home that supporting Ukraine is not about politics. One can imagine which side of our Congressional aisles he's directing those comments to, ahem.
I understand the inclination to want soldiers included in the Time honor, and I think that they are in the "spirit of Ukraine" – but considering what the honor is meant to signify, Zelenskyy certainly makes sense as an honoree to me.
Thank you as always, Adam.
@kalakal:
(stripping hashtag links)
December 6 Assessment Highlight:
#Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) recruiters have reportedly begun recruiting prisoners from occupied #Ukrainian territories and deploying them to the frontlines without training. https://t.co/fiP5DegWcX
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) December 7, 2022
Accurate? No idea.
Maybe the monsters are thinking that they'll send everyone they can round up to the front, hoping the Ukrainian army slaughters them, then using that for some future propaganda if/when they have to withdraw. Or hoping that the Ukrainian army depopulates the area itself. Or who knows what monstrous thing.
Grr…,
@Anonymous At Work:
Bakhmut situation concerns me; losing that hundreds of mobniks a day to gain a few meters seems like a trade Putin and his (surviving) generals are willing to make.
Assuming they can maintain that trade, I think it's one Ukraine would take. A few hundred casualties to gain a few meters on one part of the front would mean hundreds of thousands of casualties to gain a few kilometers on that same part of the front. It's not a rate of casualties the Russians can sustain, and while they're trying they're pulling resources away from defending somewhere Ukraine wants to attack.
Andrya
@Anonymous At Work: My take is, there will be a serious cost to the putin regime (due to high KIA) long before they run out of mobiks. A probably apocryphal statement attributed to Abraham Lincoln went "you can fool some of the people all of the time, and fool all of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time". If the russian army continues to feed to mobiks into a meat grinder, people are going to notice. Even if the regime doesn't declare the dead to be dead, families will know they have stopped answering their cell phones. And that will accelerate the number of young men running for the exits. I don't see a credible way for putin to be got rid of, but it seems credible to me that the russian military could become a hollow shell.
@Roger Moore:
There is also the very real possibility that the Russian army votes with its feet to quote Lenin. Last time that happened it didn't end well for a Russian government
As an extra drain on Russian resources Putrid & Co seem to be increasingly losing whats left of their grip on the old Republics such as Kazakhstan. They are getting to the point where they can't prop up their puppets and fight their war.
Grumpy Old Railroader
I don't suppose the Jan 6 committee could have Secret Agent Man place a copy of TFG's tax returns onto Hunter Biden's alleged laptop for when the House GOP wants to explore the contents . . .
@Grumpy Old Railroader: lol!
@kalakal: I think it goes beyond the putin regime "can't prop up their puppets". Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan have to be as worried as Poland, the Baltic states, and Finland are- and if they are not, they are seriously short sighted. (I highly doubt they are that short sighted.) Putin has openly said that he aims to claw back all the territory which formerly belonged to the Russian Empire/USSR- which all these countries at one time did. Since they are not NATO members, they are obvious targets to be re-absorbed into russia.
@Andrya: You're absolutely right. I think however that, from their point of view, Putin is becoming a self solving problem. He's rapidly destroying any credible military threat that he possessed.
NutmegAgain
Regarding the German neo-fascists getting arrested etc–my daughter has been telling me for a number of years that elements in the military and the various police forces are known to be extra-fashy (just like the US, alas). Also, of course, AfD is an outright fascist political party, perhaps in sheeps clothing, but obvious enough if you follow news & current events there. I'm glad the powers that be have taken some action. I wonder how much it's like folks in the US waiting and wondering when Merrick Garland or whomever will start indicting people. When I next talk to my kid I will ask her what the view from the ground is.
@Andrya:
there was a interesting translated phone call intercept on Dimitri (War Translated) twitter yesterday, between a Contract soldier and his wife. Both the Contract soldier and his wife noted that only a few of the "#200's" ,(Russian dead), were coming home, and those who were, were for "showpiece" funerals. The Contract soldier noted that many of the dead were simply abandoned, on the battle field or in areas in the rear. (Brings the Kherson dump story into focus). The wife noted that many of the "#200" from their village, whom her husband had told her about, their families were never told by the FSRU of their fates and still believed they were alive somewhere in Ukraine or Russia.
@Anonymous At Work:Bakhmut situation concerns me; losing that hundreds of mobniks a day to gain a few meters seems like a trade Putin and his (surviving) generals are willing to make. UA is taking the mobniks out but losing ground. Can the Russian succeed?
It's not just mobniks they are losing in Bakhmut. It is enormous number of tanks, APCs, artillery launchers, helicopters, and monstrous amounts of artillery shells.
They are having to turn to sources like North Korea for artillery shells because they are wasting so many of them in places like Bakhmut
That doesn't sound like a tradeoff that is to the benefit of the Russian war effort.
Who had 'attempted coup in Germany by an aspirational Emperor ' on their 2022 bingo card? https://t.co/uzsx8HV3o9— Sir Humphrey (@pinstripedline) December 7, 2022
Putin doesn't seem to feel the need to control the whole Soviet empire directly. The Soviets made extensive use of puppets, and he's happy to do the same. That's a big reason why countries like Armenia and the 'stans have been willing to stay in Russia's orbit even though they haven't been as dominated as Belarus and Ukraine were. Playing junior partner to the biggest bully around has long been a way for smaller countries to preserve some kind of independence. Similarly, with Ukraine, Putin was willing to let it be a nominally independent Russian puppet; he only started directly annexing Ukrainian territory when they kicked the puppet out.
That the 'stans are starting to show some independence is a sign they don't take Russian threats as seriously now. Russia obviously has its hands full in Ukraine, so they can blow Putin off if they feel like it. I assume part of the reason their leaders feel like it is that showing some independence is popular and should counterbalance some of the increased threat of a revolution now that Russia can't help prop them up.
@Kent:
Not just mobliks, Contract soldiers, (Marines, Airborne, Spetnaz) and Wagner. Moblik's are apparently the "day shift" while Wagner, Marines, Airborne and Spetnaz are the "night shift".
Russia's war is not only killing civilians, but also damaging wildlife. Thousands of dolphins died in Black Sea. This is why one of ten elements of @ZelenskyyUA's Peace formula is 'Protection of nature'. We urge partners to join us in countering Russia's ecocide. @United24media pic.twitter.com/OC4zBf3erp— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) December 7, 2022
Bill Arnold
A twitter thread today on the German roundup, with a threadreader link for no-twitter people. I will not vouch for its accuracy; it has a lot of details and fun links:
THREAD I see that many of those who don't live in Germany, are not aware of the "Reichsbürger" (Imperial Citizens) far-right movement, as its members were arrested today for the alleged preparation of a coup. Let me start this thread on the details of this conspiracy theory 1/x
— Sergej Sumlenny (@sumlenny) December 7, 2022
trnc
Lincoln was right about not fooling all the people all the time. But Republicans haven't given up trying.
It was most likely his iPhone and the hack was most likely done with NSO Group's spyware.
Another possibility is that an unattended (e.g. in a hotel room in an area with active hostile intelligence agents/criminals) macbook had its drive bitwise cloned. This can be done pretty quickly (and is one reason why a power-on password can be helpful, if a machine is not just suspended). Even when drives are whole-drive encrypted, the password/phrase is often pretty short. (mine are typically 30-40 characters, which is "good enough") and can be cracked with low-end technical means, and if the machine is powered on but suspended, the memory can be captured if the laptop is stolen and more resources are devoted.
Something like a phone (with encrypted storage), which is more secure (at least newer iPhones) if powered off.
Note; I don't work with macbooks, or digital forensics (except as an occasional amateur), so details may be a little off.
@kalakal: Your analogy between Bakhmut and Luhansk—and to Severodonetsk before it—is exactly correct.
It doesn't matter if the Russians eventually take the rubble of Bakhmut, and the Ukrainians know this. The UA has noticed that the Russians have made an idiotic political commitment to a strategically senseless objective, which costs them a butcher's bill at a prohibitive rate of exchange. Very sensibly, the UA has accepted the Russian invitation to the encounter, and is efficiently butchering their troops, just as they did at Severodonetsk. That's all that's happening here.
It may happen that eventually the Russians may "conquer" Bakhmut, and call it a victory. They are cretins. Severodonetsk was a Ukrainian victory.
@Bill Arnold: I'm an old-skool UNIX hacker, been installing Linux on my machines for decades. I used to use "debootstrap" and eschew the installers, for the first decade or so of Linux. That sort of hacker.
And lately, I've come to appreciate Chromebooks: they come with encrypted SSD by default, and in general just good security, taken care of by Google. It's not a terrible trade: I still run a Linux container in which I do most of my hacking, but the browser, email, offce stuff, is all taken care of by Google. I could do all the work of properly securing my own Linux install. But boy it's a lotta work these days, and keeping up with the latest recommendations (wasn't so long ago, just hard drive & power-on passwords were enough, right?) is work and attention I could be spending on other things.
UK MoD today. Bold mine; Russians deserve the insult:
(1/6) Russia has recently started extending defensive positions along its international border with Ukraine, and deep inside its Belgorod region. On 6 December 2022, the governor of Belgorod announced he was establishing local 'self-defence units'.
(2/6) Trench digging has been reported in Belgorod since at least April 2022, but the new constructions are probably more elaborate systems, designed to rebuff mechanised assault.
(3/6) There is a realistic possibility that the Russian authorities are promoting defensive preparations within internationally recognised Russian territory to burnish patriotic feeling.
(4/6) However, it probably illustrates some Russia decision-makers' genuine (but false) belief that there is a credible threat of invasion by Ukrainian forces.
(5/6) Paucity in strategic assessment is one of the critical weaknesses in the central Russian government architecture: as highlighted by Russia's original decision to invade Ukraine.
(6/6) Impartial official analysis is almost certainly frequently undermined by a tendency toward group-think and politically expedient conclusions.
And lately, I've come to appreciate Chromebooks: they come with encrypted SSD by default, and in general just good security, taken care of by Google. It's not a terrible trade:
I've been told that some organizations have people travel with Chromebooks for that reason; that they're harder to compromise and can be more easily wiped on return.
Personally, I use Debian laptops with whole-drive encryption, with some applications jailed (+apparmor, and sometimes a full VM), script (and tracker and ad) blocking in browsers, and no (or ssh) ports open (and tor for some things. Also, always a VPN.). Middling level of paranoia.
You know, this is one of those head-slap moments for me. It really should have been obvious. We complain about Ukraine firing too many M-31 rounds from its HIMARS units and running down NATO munition inventories, because our supply chains can't keep up with the frenzied firing rates of modern war. Why would we not have seen immediately that the Russians would have the exact same issue with Iranian-supplied drones, especially because Iran isn't exactly a modern industrialized state?
So OK, then maybe the model is this: Iran makes these things at some rate, sends them to the warehouse, whence they are either stored or dispatched to the field for use. A pool of them is available at the time of the original deal with Russia, and the fraction felt not necessary for Iran's own military needs is sold off, and within a short time crashes and explodes in Ukraine.
But now the inventory of years is gone, and there's only current production, which cannot possibly keep up with Russian demand, particularly since the Iranians have inventory requirements of their own. So long-term the Russian firing rate drops to the Iranian production rate minus the Iranian consumption rate. Which should be a lot lower than what they were able to fire initially, when they were emptying the original warehouse stock.
Hangö Kex
@Carlo Graziani: Indeed. Plus, sourcing parts is more difficult now that the drones being used has brought attention to the fact that sanctions have been circumvented to build them.
Thanks to Adam (& commenters) for keeping us so conveniently informed. :)
@Adam L Silverman: can't we give Ukraine more and more to speed up the process. Putin thinks he can outlast the western support. I want to prove how wrong he is.
Even if the regime doesn't declare the dead to be dead, families will know they have stopped answering their cell phones. And that will accelerate the number of young men running for the exits. I don't see a credible way for putin to be got rid of, but it seems credible to me that the russian military could become a hollow shell.
If it happens at all, I would guess the beginning of the end of the Putin regime would be a "mothers of the disappeared" sort of thing: older women who've lost their sons to the meat grinder, whether or not the regime has acknowledged their deaths or returned their bodies. There are other ways to freedom than having nothing left to lose, but there is a power there.
Jackie on 'Actuarial Arbitrage' (Open Thread) (Jan 30, 2023 @ 1:03pm)
Sister Golden Bear on Monday Morning Open Thread: Rise and… Feed the Beast! (Jan 30, 2023 @ 1:01pm)
Cameron on 'Actuarial Arbitrage' (Open Thread) (Jan 30, 2023 @ 1:01pm)
Brachiator on 'Actuarial Arbitrage' (Open Thread) (Jan 30, 2023 @ 12:59pm)
eclare on 'Actuarial Arbitrage' (Open Thread) (Jan 30, 2023 @ 12:57pm)


text:
Most wearing uniforms on 4th of July have served honorably, but not all...
Fraud Hunters Unmask Military Imposters
Most wearing uniforms on July 4th have served honorably, but not all
VOA - Ted Landphair
If you were to attend a parade or musical celebration of the 235th anniversary of Americans' declaration of independence today, you'd likely see lots of men and women in the uniforms of the United States military.
Almost all of them are serving their country honorably and well. But a tiny percentage aren't servicemen and women at all, or are wearing medals and other decorations that they did not earn. "Stolen valor," some call such behavior.
Even prominent men and women have lied about their military service or decorations. And a good many of them have been exposed by a cadre of veterans who keep a look-out for imposters - particularly at holiday gatherings such as those on the 4th of July.
One of the most determined military fraud hunters is Larry Bailey of Mount Vernon, Virginia. He is a retired Navy captain and SEAL. That's the same elite Navy parachute and demolitions unit that swooped down and killed al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in May.
Over several years, Bailey, who regretfully concludes that military fakery is rampant, has exposed a rogues' gallery of military masqueraders that has included corporate executives and members of Congress.
Some fakers did serve their nation honorably but could not resist dressing up their records with claims of battles they never fought, medals they never won, or tortures they never endured.
For example, Bailey points to Joseph Ellis, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who admitted embellishing his resume by claiming to have served as a platoon leader in Vietnam. In truth, he spent the war at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, teaching history.
And a few years ago, Los Angeles, California, Superior Court Judge Patrick Couwenberg was removed from the bench after falsely claiming to be a decorated Vietnam War veteran who worked undercover in Laos for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Bailey says men often make up heroic war stories to impress women, to puff up their job credentials or because they think it will inspire youngsters such as Boy Scouts and military recruits. He says some people have lived their falsehoods so long that they could pass lie-detector tests about their stories.
Labels: July, War

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Atlus Teases P5R, More Details Coming in March
by Alex Fuller · Published December 30, 2018 · Updated December 31, 2018
Atlus has officially teased P5R, an upcoming project related to 2017's Persona 5. The details of the project are currently unknown; the available information consists of a thirty-second teaser trailer and the p5r.jp teaser website, with both promising that more details will be released in March 2019.
In other Persona 5-related news, Atlus revealed that the final part of the animated adaptation of the game will be broadcast in Japan in March 2019. Persona 5 the Animation: Stars and Ours is a special animation that follows the 26-episode animation broadcast earlier this year and Persona 5 the Animation: Dark Sun… special that was broadcast today. Finally, Atlus' 2019 Persona-themed music concert has been officially titled "Persona Super Live P-Sound Street 2019: Welcome to No. Q Theater!" and will take place on April 24 and 25, 2019, at Ryougoku Kokugikan in Tokyo.
Persona 5 is the latest title in Atlus' spin-off to the Shin Megami Tensei series. The game was released in North America and Europe for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 in 2017 and was heavily featured in RPGamer's 2017 Awards, winning Game of the Year.
Tags: AtlusPersonaPersona 5Persona 5 RoyalPS4
Cat Quest Pawsome Pack Dated
by Alex Fuller · Published April 8, 2020 · Last modified April 9, 2020
Assassin's Creed Odyssey Episode 3 DLC Available Now
Persona 5 Scramble Releasing in Japan in February
mooserocka says:
January 1, 2019 at 7:39 pm PST
Ug another 1000 spinoffs of beating a dead horse which is persona 5 then we will get 6 10 years later. Im really over how they do this ; /
Krull says:
January 5, 2019 at 12:28 am PST
Is Persona 5 a dead horse already? For me, this is only an issue if it stays on PS4. If P5R comes to other platforms, whether that's Switch, PC, Xbox, 3DS or Atari 2600, then it's a lively, bucking bronco.
I agree that 10 years is too long to wait for Persona 6 – but it does the series no service if Atlus starts pinging them out every year or two. A refresh like this is a good way to keep Persona top of mind for another couple of years while they work on P6. Before then, we at least should get Shin Megami Tensei V on Switch. Yay!


text:
package com.wevey.selector.dialog;

import android.app.Dialog;
import android.content.Context;
import android.support.annotation.ColorRes;
import android.support.v4.content.ContextCompat;
import android.view.Gravity;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.Window;
import android.view.WindowManager;
import android.widget.AbsListView;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.LinearLayout;
import android.widget.TextView;

import com.weavey.utils.ScreenSizeUtils;
import com.weavey.utils.UiUtils;

import java.util.ArrayList;

/**
 * Created by Weavey on 2016/9/3.
 */
public class NormalSelectionDialog {

    private static Context mContext;
    private Dialog mDialog;
    private View dialogView;
    private TextView title;
    private Button bottomBtn;
    private LinearLayout linearLayout;

    private Builder mBuilder;
    private ArrayList<String> datas;
    private int selectPosition;//最后一次选择的位置

    public NormalSelectionDialog(Builder builder) {

        this.mBuilder = builder;
        mDialog = new Dialog(mContext, R.style.bottomDialogStyle);
        dialogView = View.inflate(mContext, R.layout.widget_bottom_dialog, null);
        mDialog.setContentView(dialogView); // 一定要在setAttributes(lp)之前才有效

        //设置dialog的宽
        Window dialogWindow = mDialog.getWindow();
        WindowManager.LayoutParams lp = dialogWindow.getAttributes();
        lp.width = (int) (ScreenSizeUtils.getInstance(mContext).getScreenWidth() * builder
                .getItemWidth());
        lp.gravity = Gravity.BOTTOM;
        lp.height = WindowManager.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT;
        dialogWindow.setAttributes(lp);

        title = (TextView) dialogView.findViewById(R.id.action_dialog_title);
        linearLayout = (LinearLayout) dialogView.findViewById(R.id.action_dialog_linearlayout);
        bottomBtn = (Button) dialogView.findViewById(R.id.action_dialog_botbtn);
        bottomBtn.setText(builder.getCancleButtonText());
        bottomBtn.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {

            @Override
            public void onClick(View arg0) {

                mDialog.dismiss();
            }
        });
        mDialog.setCanceledOnTouchOutside(builder.isTouchOutside());
    }

    //根据数据生成item
    private void loadItem() {

        //设置标题
        if (mBuilder.getTitleVisible()) {

            title.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
            title.setText(mBuilder.getTitleText());
            title.setTextColor(mBuilder.getTitleTextColor());
            title.setTextSize(mBuilder.getTitleTextSize());
            LinearLayout.LayoutParams l = (LinearLayout.LayoutParams) title.getLayoutParams();
            l.height = UiUtils.dp2px(mContext, mBuilder.getTitleHeight());
            title.setLayoutParams(l);

            if (datas.size() != 0) {
                title.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.selector_widget_actiondialog_top);

            } else {
                title.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.selector_widget_actiondialog_single);
            }
        } else {

            title.setVisibility(View.GONE);
        }

        //设置底部"取消"按钮
        bottomBtn.setTextColor(mBuilder.getItemTextColor());
        bottomBtn.setTextSize(mBuilder.getItemTextSize());
        LinearLayout.LayoutParams btnlp = new LinearLayout.LayoutParams(AbsListView.LayoutParams
                .MATCH_PARENT, mBuilder.getItemHeight());
        btnlp.topMargin = 10;
        bottomBtn.setLayoutParams(btnlp);

        //设置数据item
        if (datas.size() == 1) {

            Button button = getButton(datas.get(0), 0);
            if (mBuilder.getTitleVisible())
                button.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.selector_widget_actiondialog_bottom);
            else button.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.selector_widget_actiondialog_single);

            linearLayout.addView(button);

        } else if (datas.size() > 1) {

            for (int i = 0; i < datas.size(); i++) {

                Button button = getButton(datas.get(i), i);
                if (!mBuilder.getTitleVisible() && i == 0) {
                    button.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.selector_widget_actiondialog_top);
                } else {
                    if (i != datas.size() - 1)
                        button.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable
                                .selector_widget_actiondialog_middle);
                    else
                        button.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable
                                .selector_widget_actiondialog_bottom);
                }
                linearLayout.addView(button);
            }
        }

    }

    private Button getButton(String text, int position) {

        // 动态生成选择按钮
        final Button button = new Button(mContext);
        button.setText(text);
        button.setTag(position);
        button.setTextColor(mBuilder.getItemTextColor());
        button.setTextSize(mBuilder.getItemTextSize());
        button.setLayoutParams(new LinearLayout.LayoutParams(AbsListView.LayoutParams
                .MATCH_PARENT, mBuilder.getItemHeight()));
        button.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {

            @Override
            public void onClick(View arg0) {

                if (mBuilder.getOnItemListener() != null) {

                    selectPosition = Integer.parseInt(button.getTag().toString());
                    mBuilder.getOnItemListener().onItemClick(button, selectPosition);

                }
            }
        });

        return button;
    }

    public void setDataList(ArrayList<String> datas) {

        int count = linearLayout.getChildCount();
        if(count>1){
            linearLayout.removeViewsInLayout(1,count-1);
        }
//
        this.datas = (datas == null ? new ArrayList<String>() : datas);
        loadItem();
    }

    public boolean isShowing() {

        return mDialog.isShowing();
    }

    public void show() {

        mDialog.show();

    }

    public void dismiss() {

        mDialog.dismiss();
    }

    public static class Builder {

        //标题属性
        private boolean boolTitle;
        private int titleHeight;
        private String titleText;
        private int titleTextColor;
        private float titleTextSize;
        //item属性
        private DialogOnItemClickListener onItemListener;
        private int itemHeight;
        private float itemWidth;
        private int itemTextColor;
        private float itemTextSize;
        //取消按钮属性
        private String cancleButtonText;

        private boolean isTouchOutside;

        public Builder(Context context) {

            mContext = context;

            boolTitle = false; // 默认关闭标题
            titleHeight = 65; // 默认标题高度  dp
            titleText = "请选择";
            titleTextColor = ContextCompat.getColor(context, R.color.black_light);
            titleTextSize = 13;

            onItemListener = null;
            itemHeight = UiUtils.dp2px(context, 45); // 默认item高度
            itemWidth = 0.92f;
            itemTextColor = ContextCompat.getColor(mContext, R.color.black_light); // 默认字体颜色
            itemTextSize = 14;  //默认自体大小

            cancleButtonText = "取消";
            isTouchOutside = true;
        }

        public boolean getTitleVisible() {
            return boolTitle;
        }

        public Builder setlTitleVisible(boolean isVisible) {
            this.boolTitle = isVisible;
            return this;
        }

        public int getTitleHeight() {
            return titleHeight;
        }

        public Builder setTitleHeight(int dp) {
            this.titleHeight = dp;
            return this;
        }

        public String getTitleText() {
            return titleText;
        }

        public Builder setTitleText(String titleText) {
            this.titleText = titleText;
            return this;
        }

        public int getTitleTextColor() {
            return titleTextColor;
        }

        public Builder setTitleTextColor(@ColorRes int titleTextColor) {
            this.titleTextColor = ContextCompat.getColor(mContext, titleTextColor);
            return this;
        }

        public float getTitleTextSize() {
            return titleTextSize;
        }

        public Builder setTitleTextSize(int sp) {

            this.titleTextSize = sp;
            return this;
        }

        public DialogOnItemClickListener getOnItemListener() {
            return onItemListener;
        }

        public Builder setOnItemListener(DialogOnItemClickListener onItemListener) {
            this.onItemListener = onItemListener;
            return this;
        }

        public int getItemHeight() {
            return itemHeight;
        }

        public Builder setItemHeight(int dp) {
            this.itemHeight = UiUtils.dp2px(mContext, dp);
            return this;
        }

        public float getItemWidth() {
            return itemWidth;
        }

        public Builder setItemWidth(float itemWidth) {
            this.itemWidth = itemWidth;
            return this;
        }

        public int getItemTextColor() {

            return itemTextColor;
        }

        public Builder setItemTextColor(@ColorRes int itemTextColor) {

            this.itemTextColor = ContextCompat.getColor(mContext, itemTextColor);
            return this;
        }

        public float getItemTextSize() {
            return itemTextSize;
        }

        public Builder setItemTextSize(int sp) {
            this.itemTextSize = sp;
            return this;
        }

        public String getCancleButtonText() {
            return cancleButtonText;
        }

        public Builder setCancleButtonText(String cancleButtonText) {
            this.cancleButtonText = cancleButtonText;
            return this;
        }

        public boolean isTouchOutside() {
            return isTouchOutside;
        }

        public Builder setCanceledOnTouchOutside(boolean isTouchOutside) {

            this.isTouchOutside = isTouchOutside;
            return this;
        }

        public NormalSelectionDialog build() {

            return new NormalSelectionDialog(this);
        }
    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Home » Interview: buildingSMART International's Richard Petrie
EventsFeaturedPeople
Interview: buildingSMART International's Richard Petrie
Courtesy of buildingSmart International
by Daniel Allen
March 15, 2022 7 minsUpdated on March 14, 2022
Ahead of buildingSMART International's upcoming Virtual Summit Spring 2022, ArchiExpo e-Magazine caught up with the organization's Chief Executive, Richard Petrie, to discuss the event and the latest developments in the smart building space.
March 28 – April 1, 2022—UK-based, no-for-profit organization buildingSMART International leads the development of open digital information flows across the built asset industry and is hosting a virtual summit on the digital transformation of the built asset industry. The community of visionaries working to transform the design, construction, operation and maintenance of built assets can expect to hear discussions on openBIM, sustainability, digital twins and more during the summit.
ArchiExpo e-Magazine: Can you tell us a little about the upcoming summit?
Richard Petrie: This summit is one of a series of summits – we generally have two a year. The theme of our spring summit is "Helping clients and users control their digital destiny". For me this is a very important message in the context of the digitalization of the construction sector. Having control of your data, fundamentally, shouldn't be taken for granted – most users and clients typically receive data in the format that their contractors or designers are using. Regardless of whether the supply chain relates to design or client-driven facilities management, those involved at the top end invariably need to amalgamate that data with data from other projects or transfer it somewhere else for analysis.
A shift towards open neutral formats for storing, using and managing data is therefore essential if users are to flexibly and seamlessly control their flow of information. At buildingSMART we have labeled this collaborative, vendor-neutral process openBIM. OpenBIM extends the benefits of BIM (Building Information Modeling) by improving the accessibility, usability, management and sustainability of digital data in the built asset industry. It enables clients to manipulate and manage data on their own terms.
ArchiExpo e-Magazine: Can you tell us about the latest innovations in the smart building sector? What will the major trends be in 2022?
Richard Petrie: From a buildingSMART perspective we are now using service platforms to help vendors access and use our solutions much more easily – one example is our Data Dictionary (bSDD), which is close to a new release. The bSDD gives modelers easy and efficient access to all kinds of standards to enrich their model. We are also introducing a platform to help users involved in projects record and share their particular use cases. On a wider level there is an increasing focus on bringing IoT-type smart building capability and the BIM world into closer alignment. This means taking advantage of what is already assumed and built in to technical standards and making that available to support IoT much more fully in the design stages of buildings.
READ: Digital Innovation Reshapes the Construction Industry
ArchiExpo e-Magazine: What benefits are these innovations delivering to clients and society in general?
Richard Petrie: I think we will see efficiency benefits across the supply chain, depending on the use case. Having specified an object or a wall in a design process, for example, designers might then be able to see a particular product that can fulfill their needs, almost in real-time through their software tools. When people start to specify their needs in open standards, it's far better to have the product manufacturers also working to the same open standards – then the cross-linking is much easier.
A move towards open digitalization will also make the material passports that are due to be introduced under the European Green Deal far easier and tracking those requirements through the whole lifecycle of a product being used in a building. Sustainability and low carbon strategies are two of the topics emphasized in our sustainability session in the upcoming summit.
ArchiExpo e-Magazine: How is smart building technology and the trend towards smarter buildings influencing architectural practice?
Richard Petrie: There are two sides to this. For high-profile practices that are designing very sophisticated buildings, these new technologies offer greater flexibility and support. And for the great mass of the fragmented industry, I think we're reaching a point where we can lower the entry barrier for smaller architects to use more advanced methods and tools. These will be more accessible through openBIM, rather than the architects and architectural practices being tied into expensive licenses on platforms. For me, this breaking down of barriers is a huge opportunity and just as exciting as what's happening at the top end of the architecture industry.
ArchiExpo e-Magazine: Are there any particular smart building projects that stand out for you in 2020-2021? What makes them stand out?
Richard Petrie: The brand new Siemens Campus in Zug, which is one of the first new projects to use Building Information Modelling (BIM) for design and construction, is really exciting. The campus complex is equipped with building automation, security and fire safety technology and particular emphasis was placed on sustainability and energy efficiency. It's a real reference project for smart buildings that demonstrates how to use open standards and overcome sustainability challenges.
ArchiExpo e-Magazine: How do you see the smart building sector developing over the next decade?
Richard Petrie: I think there's going to be a congruence of IoT, openBIM and digital twins. I think all of these different agendas are going to be seen to be much more part of a whole. There will be much more recognition of the value and importance of the open digital ways of working – of the tools and services that we're trying to provide at buildingSMART. Quality assurance schemes and validation services will also develop to give users the confidence to work with these new technologies.
Richard Petrie. Courtesy of buildingSmart International.
READ: Interview. Digital Twin Platform SmartWorldOS Transforms New York's Historic Brooklyn Navy Yard
ConstructionsmartSmart City


text:
Something Going On Todd Terry Feat. Jocelyn Bro
Experts claim working week should be slashed to just FOUR days
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) have said working weeks should be cut to just four days due to technology making workplaces more efficient.
The working week should be just FOUR DAYS long claim union bosses.
Employees across Britain should be paid more and have longer weekends according to TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady.
She claims too many companies are using technological advancements to treat their staff unfairly, and that more employees should benefit from shorter weeks to improve work-life balance.
Ms O'Grady is set to address congress in Manchester on Monday and believe we should be fighting for better working conditions to ensure staff remain motivated at work.
Read more: Women should 'work less hours than men' to prevent emotional burnout
Credit: Getty
"In the 19th century, unions campaigned for an eight-hour day. In the 20th century, we won the right to a two-day weekend and paid holidays," she will say.
"So, for the 21st century, let's lift our ambition again. I believe that in this century we can win a four-day working week, with decent pay for everyone."
She added that technology should mean that people are working less, not being exploited more.
"It's time to share the wealth from new technology. Not allow those at the top to grab it for themselves," she said.
"We need strong unions with the right to go into every workplace - starting with Amazon's warehouses here in the UK."
TUC polling identified stress and long hours as workers' biggest concerns after pay.
A New Zealand boss recently revealed that putting his staff on a four day week boosted productivity and positively affected his business.
And we revealed that having less than three weeks of holiday a year can shorten your life.
See more More Lifestyle
Chemists required to tell fat customers they should lose weight under new NHS rules


Everest University Online is also known as Everest Online.
Everest University is not regionally accredited.
Everest University is a private, for-profit university.
Find out if Everest University offers in-state tuition by visiting their website or getting in touch with the school directly. It never hurts to check if you can save a great deal of money on your education.


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This is a really great product at a really good price. The tan is even and easy to work with. The color is believable and not orangey a tall. This is great if you have to look tan quick!
I am really impressed with this sunless tanning, it works great, easy on, nice smell, I do not look orange, and its a good price and it is a name we know and trust.
I love this foam! I have tried several sunless tanners, as I love the look of healthy bronzed skin. However, I hate the unhealthy and aging effects of the sun. Therefore, I picked this up on a whim to try. The foam is easy to apply and truly lifted my fair olive toned skin to a natural golden hue. It was light enough to remain natural, but still effective enough to see a change. My skin looked bronzed, sleek, and carried an oh-so-subtle glow. The problem I have with other tanners is that they can sometimes be greasy, turn my skin orange, or smell funny. I did not have a problem with any of these issues here. The foam also really applies easily and develops beautifully after a quick dry time, too.
I am very light skinned and don't spend a lot of time in the sun so I have tried many many of the "fake" tans currently available on the market. I liked this one because you could tell where it had been applied. It was easy to apply. The color was a little too dark on me using the light/medium color, but it wasn't bad. It didn't turn orange and the scent was fine. This is an affordable choice. I like the micromist application method a bit better, but this was easy to apply. It wasn't greasy and lasted well.
This product gives you a lot of bang for your buck. It's cheap but still worked amazingly. It's not uncomfortable to apply, nor is it a hassle. Great item for its price.


A big thanks for making Shira and Brian's day so special! A wonderful day with such a sweet couple..
Invitations and Seating Scroll- Celebration Creations Shira highly recommends them!
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 7th, 2011 at 12:28 pm	and is filed under Brides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.


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Ville Virtanen, aka Darude, is best known for his 2000 hit single Sandstorm. He has sold over five million records. For the past decade, Ville has been touring the world, doing DJ sets in more than 40 countries. Ville has been ranked as one of the top 100 DJ's in the world. He has moved to Georgia with his lovely wife Michelle. They have a 2 year-old child. The family lives in an Atlanta suburb, Georgia, where Ville works in his home studio and collaborates with artists around the world with modern techniques.


text:
Q: Getting weird Spleeter error and how to address it I'm trying to use Spleeter to get a dictionary of the separate tracks (vocals, bass, etc.) from a wav file and the following is my code:
def seperator():
    separator = Separator('spleeter:4stems')
    file = "test.wav"
    audio_loader = AudioAdapter.default()
    sample_rate = 44100
    waveform, _ = audio_loader.load(file, sample_rate=sample_rate)
    prediction = separator._separate_librosa(waveform, file)
    print(prediction['vocals'])

def do_seperation():
    __name__ = '__main__'
    if __name__ == '__main__':
        seperator()

However, I get the following error message
RuntimeError:
    An attempt has been made to start a new process before the
    current process has finished its bootstrapping phase.

    This probably means that you are not using fork to start your
    child processes and you have forgotten to use the proper idiom
    in the main module:

        if __name__ == '__main__':
            freeze_support()
            ...

    The "freeze_support()" line can be omitted if the program
    is not going to be frozen to produce an executable.

This seems to be a common error in Spleeter as I've gotten this error message before but have been able to resolve this by using if __name__ == '__main__': as a wrapper for my function but this time it isn't working. Is there any way to resolve this weird error? Any help appreciated, thanks!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


This edition marks a forward step in standardizing the paging of the book in forthcoming English-language printings. With no change in the text, but with a format, spelling, and capitalization in keeping with the times, this little compendium of devotion will continue on its mission, but now in such form, regardless of the size of the type or page, as to conform to the new Index to the writings of Ellen G. White.
The Trustees of the Ellen G. White Publications .


Series editors John A. Booth and Patricia Bayer Richard invite proposals on key topics of interest to area specialists and a wider audience about Latin America. The Ohio University Press produces well-edited and accessibly written books by both new and established authors. The editors seek manuscripts that elucidate national or regional history and contemporary life, politics, democratization, civil conflict, the environment, crime and corruption, violence, women's rights and status, gender identity, poverty, economics, race and ethnicity, and religion.
For details on submitting a proposal, see the Submission Guidelines page. Inquiries should be directed to the series editors.
The mobilization of militant indigenous politics is one of the most important stories in Latin American studies today. In this critical work, Kenneth J. Mijeski and Scott H. Beck examine the rise and decline of Ecuador's leading indigenous party, Pachakutik, as it tried to transform the state into a participative democracy.
Two tropical commodities—coffee and sugar—dominated Latin American export economies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When Sugar Ruled: Economy and Society in Northwestern Argentina, Tucumán, 1876–1916 presents a distinctive case that does not quite fit into the pattern of many Latin American sugar economies.
The Carnivalesque Defunto explores the representations of death and the dead in Brazil's collective and literary imagination. The recurring stereotype of Brazil as the land of samba, soccer, and sandy beaches overlooks a more complex cultural heritage in which, since colonial times, a relationship of proximity and reciprocity has been cultivated between the living and the dead.
In many Latin American countries, guerrilla struggle and feminism have been linked in surprising ways. Women were mobilized by the thousands to promote revolutionary agendas that had little to do with increasing gender equality. They ended up creating a uniquely Latin American version of feminism that combined revolutionary goals of economic equality and social justice with typically feminist aims of equality, nonviolence, and reproductive rights.
During the last two decades, a decline in public investment has undermined some of the national values and institutions of Costa Rica. The resulting sense of dislocation and loss is usually projected onto Nicaraguan "immigrants." Threatening Others: Nicaraguans and the Formation of National Identities in Costa Rica explores the representation of the Nicaraguan "other" in the Costa Rican imagery.
What is the relationship between history and fiction in a place with a contentious past? And of what concern is gender in the telling of stories about that past? Writing Women in Central America explores these questions as it considers key Central American texts. This study analyzes how authors appropriate history to confront the rhetoric of the state, global economic powers, and even dissident groups within their own cultures.
In Taking Root, Latin American women of Jewish descent, from Mexico to Uruguay, recall their coming of age with Sabbath candles and Hebrew prayers, Ladino songs and merengue music, Queen Esther and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Rich and poor, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, Jewish immigrant families searched for a new home and identity in predominantly Catholic societies.


Check the labelling on your skin and beauty product to check how to recycle or whether the retailer has a program in place. & Other Stories will take an empty container for a 10% voucher off your next purchase!
Care for your clothes by washing at 30 degrees instead of 60 to reduce the energy being used and your money, air clothes naturally where possible instead of using dryers, and buy vintage pieces/take your unwanted clothes to charity shops.
Recycle your unwanted clothes with sustainable retailers such as H&M who take thousands of tonnes of clothes that can be reused, re-worn or recycled.
Take cute canvas/reusable bags with you on shopping trips instead of getting new plastic bags that end up in that cupboard in the kitchen!
These are more relevant to the fashion and beauty world, but there are so many other small changes you can make; turn off lights that don't need to be on, use less paper at work and walk where possible instead of driving!


text:
10 years and counting: Updating scientific discoveries from the past
Whatever happened to...? Go ahead. Fill in the blanks with one of the highly publicized scientific advances of the past. It's a question that can puzzle and perplex almost everyone who follows science news, as major discoveries get headlines and are then forgotten.
Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society (ACS), provides answers for a group of scientific advances in the cover story in its current edition. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society.
A decade ago, in its annual Chemical Highlights feature, now called Chemical Year In Review, C&EN looked at some of 2001's key research advances in chemistry and the multiple fields of science that involve chemistry. C&EN reporters have revisited several of those highlighted discoveries to see what became of them. The topics range from self-healing plastics (materials embedded with tiny capsules that rupture and release a healing agent that repairs cracks) to a new genre of electronic devices built with tubes of carbon so small that 10,000 would fit across the width of a human hair.
The American Chemical Society is a non-profit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society contact newsroom@acs.org.
Related Chemistry Articles from Brightsurf:
Searching for the chemistry of life
In the search for the chemical origins of life, researchers have found a possible alternative path for the emergence of the characteristic DNA pattern: According to the experiments, the characteristic DNA base pairs can form by dry heating, without water or other solvents.
Sustainable chemistry at the quantum level
University of Pittsburgh Associate Professor John A. Keith is using new quantum chemistry computing procedures to categorize hypothetical electrocatalysts that are ''too slow'' or ''too expensive'', far more thoroughly and quickly than was considered possible a few years ago.
Can ionic liquids transform chemistry?
Table salt is a commonplace ingredient in the kitchen, but a different kind of salt is at the forefront of chemistry innovation.
Principles for a green chemistry future
A team led by researchers from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies recently authored a paper featured in Science that outlines how green chemistry is essential for a sustainable future.
Sugar changes the chemistry of your brain
The idea of food addiction is a very controversial topic among scientists.
Reflecting on the year in chemistry
A lot can happen in a year, especially when it comes to science.
Better chemistry through tiny antennae
A research team at The University of Tokyo has developed a new method for actively controlling the breaking of chemical bonds by shining infrared lasers on tiny antennae.
Chemistry in motion
For the first time, researchers have managed to view previously inaccessible details of certain chemical processes.
Researchers enrich silver chemistry
Researchers from Russia and Saudi Arabia have proposed an efficient method for obtaining fundamental data necessary for understanding chemical and physical processes involving substances in the gaseous state.
The chemistry behind kibble (video)
Have you ever thought about how strange it is that dogs eat these dry, weird-smelling bits of food for their entire lives and never get sick of them?
Read More: Chemistry News and Chemistry Current Events


text:
Europol: Cyberattack 'unprecedented' in scale
Responding to cyberattack will require a complex international investigation, Europe's police agency said.
A message informing visitors of a cyber attack is displayed on the NHS website on May 12, 2017 in London | Carl Court/Getty Images
By Kalina Oroschakoff
The cyberattack that hit companies and organizations around the world Friday is "unprecedented" in its scale, Europe's police agency Europol said Saturday.
The attack will "require a complex international investigation to identify the culprits," the European law enforcement agency said. Its cybercrime center "is working closely with affected countries' cybercrime units and key industry partners to mitigate the threat and assist victims," it added.
The cyberattack has disrupted hospitals and companies across Europe, Asia and the U.S., with Russia reported to be among the hardest-hit countries. The tool used by the attackers, a type of ransomware, locks up a company's networks and holds files and data hostage until a ransom is paid.
Experts say the criminals behind the global ransomware cyberattack appear to have raised just $20,000 so far, according to the Guardian.
According to European officials in several countries, targets were hit by a modified version of what's known as the WannaCry toolkit, which was dumped online in April by the group ShadowBrokers and which they claim are hacking tools built by the U.S. National Security Agency.
The malware was spotted in tens of thousands of incidents in close to 100 countries, according to the cyber firm Avast, and has forced some hospitals to stop admitting new patients and driven other companies to shut down their networks, leaving valuable files unavailable.
The global spread of the attack was reported to be slowing down on Saturday thanks to a U.K. cybersecurity researcher tweeting as @malwaretechblog, who found and inadvertently activated a "kill switch" in the malicious software, the Guardian reported. The researcher, however, has warned the attack could be rebooted.
The U.K.'s National Health Service (NHS) was hit by the infection, forcing vital services to be shut down, a spokesperson for the NHS confirmed Friday.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd on Saturday said Friday's cyber attack had affected 48 of the 248 NHS trusts in England, with all but six now back to normal, the BBC reported.
Earlier on Saturday, British Prime Minister Theresa May said there was "no evidence that patient records have been compromised."
The U.K. government emergency Cobra committee met on Saturday afternoon to discuss the attack. "We've talked about how we can make sure the NHS remains robust, that patients are put first," Rudd told the BBC.
Among the companies affected were Spanish telecom giant Telefónica, Spanish energy companies Iberdrola and Gas Natural, Portugal Telecom, the U.S. delivery company FedEx, Germany's national railway company Deutsche Bahn and French carmaker Renault.
Also on Saturday, finance ministers of the G7 club of rich nations called for closer cooperation to fight cybercrime, saying "cyber incidents represent a growing threat for our economies and that appropriate economy-wide policy responses are needed."
More from ... Kalina Oroschakoff
1 UK sending anti-tank weapons to Ukraine
2 Novak Djokovic leaves behind Australia's 'white torture'
3 Roberta Metsola cements rise to European Parliament presidency
4 Russian test for Scholz: Ukraine crisis exposes divisions in Berlin
5 Roberta Metsola elected European Parliament president
UK's NICE to launch sweeping changes to drug assessments to be faster, more agile
The health technology assessment body has been under pressure from drugmakers and patient groups for years to modernize its decision-making processes.
Polish leader under fire over Pegasus hack scandal
Watchdog chief wants to summon Jarosław Kaczyński to testify about alleged spying on the opposition.
Police take down VPN service used by cybercriminals
Europol says the service was 'a popular choice for cybercriminals.'
Moderna hopes to market combined COVID and flu booster in 2023
Booster would also protect against RSV in single shot that would be administered before winter.
By Helen Collis
By Wojciech Kość
By Laurens Cerulus
By Douglas Busvine
Cybercrime	Cybersecurity	Financial Services	Health systems	Technology


text:
Standards For Civil And Criminal Contempt: C.N.M. V. J.D.D.
C.N.M. v. J.D.D., [Ms. 2160863, Feb. 9, 2018] __ So. 3d __ (Ala. Civ. App. 2018). This opinion by Presiding Judge Thompson (Pittman, Thomas, and Donaldson, JJ., concur; Moore, J., concurs in the result), affirms the Madison Juvenile Court's order finding the mother in contempt for refusal to comply with court orders regarding the father's visitation.
The opinion contains the following helpful discussion of the distinction between civil contempt and criminal contempt:
"In general, civil contempt seeks to compel compliance with a juvenile court's judgment or order, while criminal contempt imposes punishment for failure to obey a judgment or order of the court. Rule 70A, Ala. R. Civ. P.; see also State v. Thomas, 550 So. 2d 1067, 1072 (Ala. 1989). An essential element of a finding of criminal contempt is that such a finding is intended to punish the contemnor, while a finding of civil contempt seeks to compel future compliance with court orders. See generally Chestang v. Chestang, 769 So. 2d 294 (Ala. 2000). Sanctions for criminal contempt are limited by statute to a maximum fine of $100 and imprisonment not to exceed five days. See Ala. Code 1975, § 12-11-30(5). On the other hand, sanctions for civil contempt may exceed those limits and may continue indefinitely until the contemnor performs as ordered.
"... In Chestang v. Chestang, supra, our Supreme Court reviewed the provisions of Rule 70(A), Ala. R. Civ. P., the rule that governs contempt in civil cases. The Supreme Court noted that Rule 70A(a)(2)(C) defines two types of criminal contempt:
(1) misconduct that obstructs the administration of justice and (2) willful disobedience or resistance to a court order or judgment '"where the dominant purpose of the finding of contempt is to punish the contemnor.'" Chestang, 769 So. 2d at 297-98."
In Davenport v. Hood, 814 So. 2d 268 (Ala. Civ. App. 2000), this court explained that
"'[t]he question of whether [an action involves] civil contempt or criminal contempt becomes important ... because a contemnor must be in a position to purge himself from the contempt. Mims v. Mims, 472 So. 2d 1063 (Ala. Civ. App. 1985). In order to purge himself in a criminal contempt case, the contemnor must pay the fine imposed, serve the authorized time, or do both. Kalupa v. Kalupa, 527 So. 2d 1313 (Ala. Civ. App. 1988). In order to purge himself in a civil contempt case, the contemnor must comply with the court's order. Rule 33.4(b), A[la]. R. Crim. P.'"
814 So. 2d at 272-73 (quoting Hill v. Hill, 637 So. 2d 1368, 1370 (Ala. Civ. App. 1994)).
Ms. *10-11. The court affirmed the finding of contempt, even though the juvenile court's order did not specify whether the mother's contempt was criminal or civil. The court noted that "according to the mother's own testimony, she refused to allow the father to exercise [] visitation, even after the father pointed to her that the December 1, 2016 order specifically ordered her to allow him to visit the children at that time." Ms. *12.


Did you know that the scent of red wine can seduce a woman?
Or that watermelon can work like a little blue pill?
The sequel to critically acclaimed Fork Me, Spoon Me, this spicy cookbook is your manual to romance whether you're in the kitchen or the bedroom. From defining and demystifying aphrodisiac foods to illustrating the many ways in which aphrodisiacs can work for you, Romancing the Stove will have you falling deeply into love… with food!
Written by Master of Gastronomy Amy Reiley, the leading American authority on sensual foods, Romancing the Stove is your field guide to cooking with the ingredients of desire.
Of the four cookbooks I've written on aphrodisiac foods, this is hands down my favorite. I truly could eat the foods from this book every day for the rest of my life–it is a compact manual of deliciousness. I'm so incredibly proud of the book's award-winning design. The combination of photography and salacious cartoons with the mouthwatering collection of recipes brings together my concept of the gift book that keeps on giving.


With us Safety is not frozen, its constantly breathing, moving, changing!!!
We provide solutions, there is no challenge we cannot meet.
Work safety in the construction industry requires professionalism, knowledge and years of experience. Our safety projects have been all successful. Our company's professional knowledge and capabilities are a fundamental element in providing solutions to companies, factories and institutions.
Safety training in all areas, accompanied by presentations with a with a professional level of design and content. We prepare the safety management plan, risk surveys, field files, accompanied by teaching, support, and guidance.
We provide services in Hebrew and English.
Working with foreign companies that accompany projects in Israel, we have the ability to instill methods and work plans that enhance safety awareness within their plants and organizations.


Captain Tom McLaughlin of Another Keeper Charters offers the very best in Venice Florida fishing charters. Local, full-time, professional fishing guide, Captain Tom specializes in deep sea fishing charters, near to shore fishing charters, Boca Grande tarpon fishing, and family fishing trips.
Even fishing for the entire family.
The Captain understands there are just as many types of anglers as there are types of fish. Don't hesitate to ask questions or provide any useful information so we are able to customize your trip and meet your highest expectations on the water.
Venice, Florida, located a about 10 miles to the South of Sarasota, offers some of the most productive year-round waters found anywhere in the US. This breathtaking scenic area offers everything a beginning or advanced angler could want including freshwater and brackish river mouths, mangrove lined salt creeks, expansive grass flats, miles of oyster bars, many deep water passes, holes and even offshore wrecks, reefs and other structure.
To reach our location from Venice, it is very simple and quick drive. For directions to Cape Haze Marina from Venice Florida, please follow this link.


ABU DHABI (UAE): Oman's Al-Faisal Al-Zubair opened his account at the fourth round of the Porsche BWT GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi with a hard-earned third place in the 10th race of the season.
The result maintains the Walter Lechner Racing star's comfortable lead at the top of the Drivers' Championship standings, although closest rival Berkay Besler of Turkey did finish second in the night race behind Dylan Pereira and was able to reduce the Omani's series lead from 41 to 39 points.
Khalid Al-Wahaibi qualified in seventh for the Abu Dhabi race opener and delivered an impressive racing display to climb to fifth at the chequered flag behind fourth-placed Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer. The performance enabled Al-Wahaibi to close to within two points of Simmenauer's fourth place in the point' standings.
The joint performances by Al-Zubair and Al-Wahaibi ensures that Team Oman head into the 11th of the season's 16 races with a massive 160-point lead over Team Sweden in the Team Championship.
Al-Wahaibi said: "It was a massive improvement for me from Dubai, where we really struggled with the race pace. The race pace was stronger here. We were quick towards the end and I am happy. With a few more laps, I think we could have made P4. We just need to qualify a bit better for the second race. I am pretty happy to start seventh and finish fifth.
Teams were permitted to carry out a free practice session before the first of the qualifying stints for Friday afternoon's opening race.
A returning Dylan Pereira called upon all his Porsche Mobil 1 Super Cup experience to edge Al-Zubair out of pole position with a best lap of 2min 11.023sec during his six laps of the Abu Dhabi circuit. Al-Zubair was a mere 0.38 seconds behind in second place and his title rival Berkey Besler qualified in third. Al-Wahaibi settled into seventh on the starting grid with a best run of 2min 12.623sec.
The second of the qualifying sessions and race two were scheduled for Saturday.


In the mid-1970s, Southern California Edison and Western Energy Supply and Transmission (WEST) Associates created the WEST Solar Monitoring network, which included 52 stations in six Western states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming).
The network operated from 1976 to 1980, collecting 15-minute global horizontal and direct normal solar irradiances and dry-bulb temperatures. Not all stations were in operation all five years, nor did all stations collect all three data parameters.
For information about these data, see the WEST Associates Online Manual.


We are very happy to announce that the NBA board of directors has appointed Christian Joas as new director of NBA. Joas will start in the position on 1 September 2017. He was previously Assistant Professor in the History of Science at the Historical Seminar of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany.
Joas received a doctorate in physics from Freie Universität Berlin in 2007, and has worked as Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (2007–2009) and as Research Scholar at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society (2009–2012). From 2015 to 2016, he was Postdoctoral Research Fellow at NBA with support from the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Joas has substantial experience with archival research and as a teacher. He has published extensively in the history of physics, notably on quantum mechanics and solid state physics.
The former NBA director, Finn Aaserud, who has served in the position since 1989, has decided to retire, yet Aaserud and Joas will overlap for three months after the new appointment in order to ensure continuity. We welcome Christian Joas and look forward to his continuing the development of NBA during exciting times, both as an international research center and as an outreach institution.