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Topics: Environment and Climate
Politics Is Plastic
Final Response
These thoughtful responses make two main charges. First, we fail to give priority to the raw politics of redistribution posed by climate change. Second, we imagine that technical problem-solving happens independently of a clash of interests—or perhaps even substitutes for political struggle.
We plead guilty to the first charge, but for a reason that, at least so far as our intentions are concerned, absolves us from the second. We don't put politics first for the same reason that we don't put policy or problem-solving first: in a social transition as profound and uncertain as decarbonization, the two are inseparable. Citizens, firms, interest groups, and political parties can't define their interests without some view of what's actually feasible—and what potential allies regard as feasible, too—even as new possibilities emerge from these provisional commitments.
In these times especially, both politics and interests are plastic. Experimentalism seeks to make this fact both politically visible and politically productive. It entails putting developments under the direction of penalty defaults based on a thin consensus about goals. It means pressuring potential veto players to change strategy and coalition partners. It involves correcting central decisions in light of local mobilization and experience, but also challenging decisions in any locale in view of developments in other similar places and encouraging mutual correction of expert and lay knowledge. Understood this way, the experimentalist approach meshes well—perhaps even helps further define—Robert C. Hockett's vision of the Green New Deal, which, as he sees it, crucially depends on organized consultation between national centers and local communities.
Jessica Green advances the politics-first thesis most directly. "Until governments address the conflicts between the winners and losers of climate change and climate policy," she writes, "experimentalist governance will be limited in its ambition and impact." In a similar vein, Alyssa Battistoni states that "challenging the power of the fossil fuel industry is the sine qua non of climate politics." Thea Riofrancos makes a cognate claim in her canvass of Latin America: pointing to the conflicts between Pink Tide national governments and local, anti-extractivist movements, she asserts that "politics is the heart of the problem." And Catherine Coleman Flowers reminds us that although many local communities are "pursuing local climate activism . . . many are also running up against the limits of what it is possible to achieve locally when global actions by states and moneyed corporations are stacked against them." Power and politics set the limits once again.
We do not mean to minimize the importance of distributional fights or politics generally: they have an essential and in any case inevitable role to play. Still less do we mean to convey the economy will simply decarbonize itself, without active institutional development and regulatory oversight: there is painstaking work to be done. Where we disagree is with the claim that political questions have to be resolved in advance before problem-solving can begin. Our grounds are not just theoretical but empirical. Just as the effort to solve the free-rider problem has paralyzed global climate change efforts, an ex ante focus on getting the politics right could inadvertently stall domestic action.
In Green's conception, power is rooted in the ownership of assets such as factories and houses. Some destroy the climate; others are vulnerable to its destruction. The paramount political problem for climate change, as Green sees it, is preventing owners of the former type from blocking reforms that devalue their property and ultimately threaten their way of life. This veto power can be checked, Green argues, by sufficiently detailed legislation—it takes more than the "thin consensus" of experimentalism. If legislation proves too ambiguous, veto power can be limited by regulation, provided the regulator has already resolved the "fundamental conflicts of existential politics before" engaging in experimentalist problem-solving—as was the case, Green maintains, with CARB. If regulation fails, nationalization is a possibility, and so on.
We—like the overwhelming majority of Americans—have no doubt that politics can have existential stakes. Nor do we doubt that some actors tied to climate-destroying interests see any other activity as a kind of social death. Green's other claims, though, are dubious. Asset types are not set in stone; a factory that destroys the climate now need not destroy it forever. The interplay of technical innovation and constraints from politics and regulation opens new possibilities. Until a decade ago, the car industry was mostly against decarbonization. Now, many companies—not all, but enough—are competing to produce electric cars, and a great deal of new investment is aimed there. Politics—but not exclusively politics—helped to make that happen, in part with regulatory measures that encouraged new directions in technological innovation and helped shape consumer behavior. Shifts in investment have, in turn, shifted political power.
Or consider veto-stopping remedies. Green's contention that CARB had definitively resolved conflicts with car companies before engaging in problem-solving ignores decades of often contentious exchange between manufactures and regulators, when standards were proposed and revised as judgments of feasibility shifted. We doubt that the outcome—starting with the question of whether such collaboration would work—was in any sense a foregone conclusion to the participants. In any case, how can we tell when the power question is truly "settled"? Some will say: when the state expropriates the assets of the fossil fuel industries. But it is far from clear that we should place such high confidence in nationalization as a remedy. Observers often point to Equinor as a model of the "greening" of a state-owned oil company. But its success depends in large part on the culture of hyper-green Norway, on being well managed, and on its alliance with other firms—few of which are state-owned. Across most of the rest of the oil industry, state ownership is hardly synonymous with innovation or transformation. It is hard—sometimes impossible—to identify in advance a remedy that works for good.
Leah C. Stokes's recent account of state-level fights over renewable portfolio standards—which dictate the stepwise introduction of renewable energy sources to a state's power grid—cuts the same way. Stokes's central argument is that the political struggle over such standards typically continues after initial legislation, after regulatory rule-making, and indeed after any point that one side or the other might have thought settled the question once and for all. The principal reason is what Stokes calls the "fog of enactment"—uncertainty about how a decision will work out in practice that makes surprises likely. Unpleasant surprises trigger reconsideration and maneuvering for do-overs. The contest only stops (for a time) when environmentalists' successes become self-reinforcing or fossil fuel interests erect barriers to that outcome. But even in cases such as Arizona, where Stokes reports that opponents strongly influence electoral politics and regulatory decisions, dramatic reversals are still possible. As we write in early November, Arizona regulators voted just days ago to require 100 percent clean electricity on the grid by 2050: incumbent utilities, after a number of pyrrhic political victories, and seeing ways forward in the experience of neighboring states, have come to accept the inevitability of decarbonization. Interests and politics shift as facts change and as key players learn what's at stake.
Riofrancos's case study only further reveals the limits of the ex ante redistributivist approach. The leftist governments that swept power in Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, and Bolivia in the 2000s promised to redistribute the proceeds of the commodity boom to disadvantaged groups—though not the ones whose ways of life were harmed most directly by the boom itself. When those groups raised redistibutivist demands of their own, the result was the intractable conflict Riofrancos describes. The same focus on fixed but incompatible ideas of justice that made it all but impossible for compromise impeded rather than facilitated progress. When the boom passed, they were left where they had started, and economic disappointment was compounded—especially among many supporters of Pink Tide governments—by a sense of political betrayal.
Goals, and the politics to support them, emerge from a series of legislative initiatives in a decade-long process.
Seeing politics as plastic helps to explain the good news, shared by David Wallace-Wells, that many places are acting on climate—from the European Green Deal to recent plans to achieve net-zero emissions in China (by 2060) and Korea (by 2050). The groundwork in all these cases follows our logic of experimentalism. No party has focused on resolving the distributional political conflicts first. It helps that each thinks, as well, that it is building the industries of the future and that some of those firms, now able to attract more investment, are getting more powerful. Paris may play a modest role in continuing to focus political attention, but the most important drivers are the shifting politics made possible by real investments and experimentation. The reality is that centralized, consensus-oriented decision-making isn't going to drive a revolution.
Hockett's vision of the Green New Deal—however it must be rescaled in light of election results—offers an alternative approach to decarbonization that converges in many ways with our own. The goals are not fixed at the outset; neither does reform start from a comprehensive and enduring political settlement. Goals, and the politics to support them, emerge from a series of legislative initiatives in a decade-long process. A key institutional innovation, however, is designed to make goal-setting more inclusive and politics more participatory and democratic: local committees are to be established across the land to ensure that frontline voices are heard. Hockett suggests that the first task of these committees will be to agree on the best use of additional resources allocated to them.
This may well be the best way to kick-start participation. But in our view, these committees will only succeed if their connection to the center is ongoing and reciprocal: ongoing, because local understanding of local problems will change both with the experience of trying to solve them and increased awareness of what works elsewhere; reciprocal, because—as Flowers and Riofrancos observe—there are many problems that local communities can only solve in collaboration with higher levels of government.
As Hockett makes clear in his new book, Financing the Green New Deal, these local links are only one part of a structure that aims to facilitate public–private collaboration; cooperation across federal, state, and local levels; and coordination among the many diverse policy areas that meet in decarbonization. But even in isolation from this larger structure, the lattice of local–center committees illustrates just the kind of "political innovation" Battistoni calls for: "figuring out how to deploy technologies we already have to cut carbon as quickly as possible, in ways that build constituencies for further climate action." Building these innovations—those that speed accountable deployment of the technologies we have and those that speed development of those we still need to invent—is itself a political task, recasting interests and institutions together. That is the task to which we must turn to save the climate.
Please click on a name to read more about each author: Charles Sabel, David G. Victor.
Can We Stop Global Warming?
There is a lot we don't know about climate change, but what we do know should motivate us to action.
The Truth About GMOs
Genetically modified foods are safe for humans and pose no special environmental risk. Yet there are serious policy questions to consider.
Pamela Ronald
Beyond Backyard Environmentalism
The United States is in the midst of a fundamental reorientation of its environmental regulation, one that is as improbable as it is unremarked.
Bradley Karkkainen Archon Fung Charles Sabel


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Students react to University of Ottawa threat to cancel Israel Apartheid Week event
Ali Abunimah Activism and BDS Beat 7 March 2012
Students at the University of Ottawa say that the campus administration threatened to cancel an 8 March panel discussion they are scheduled to hold as part of Ottawa's Israeli Apartheid Week.
The University of Ottawa, however, has told The Electronic Intifada that the event, organized by Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), will now go ahead.
Meanwhile, students at Carleton University, also in Ottawa, found Israeli Apartheid Week posters defaced with slogans such as "This is where the Holocaust began."
University of Ottawa places Palestine event "on hold"
An action alert posted online by Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) at Carleton University, stated:
On March 6th, a member of SPHR received an email from Conventions and Reservations Services at the University of Ottawa telling her that their room booking for Thursday's Keynote IAW event is now "on hold", that SPHR "may not continue with this event for now", and that SPHR's contract was being forwarded to "Protection Service for evaluation." These heavy-handed measures are because of an unnamed "incident" that supposedly occurred at Monday's event. When members of SPHR met with the University administration, they were not told what this "incident" was (see below for full email from U of O). The very fact that the organizers were put in a situation, where their event was threatened with cancellation, is a form of intimidation from the University of Ottawa administration.
The event on Monday, 5 March that opened Israeli Apartheid Week was titled "Arab Spring, Apartheid Falls? The Egyptian Uprising and Possibilities for Palestinian Resistance." The scheduled 8 March event is titled "Legalized Apartheid and Women's Resistance in Palestine: Principled Solidarity and the Global Struggle for Liberation."
The action alert included what it said was an email from Martin Bergeron, Coordination agent of the University of Ottawa's Conventions and Reservations Service, and asked people to call or write Bergeron and University of Ottawa President Allan Rock to protest what they called an act of censorship. The email stated:
Following the incident that occurred during your event in Fauteux 147A on March 5th 2012, your event scheduled for March 8th in Hagen 302 from 18:00 to 23:00 is on hold therefore in Pending mode. You may not continue with this event for now. Also, I urgently need you to provide the name of the speaker(s) who spoke on the 5th of March as well as the ones that are scheduled to speak on the 8th of March 2012 in Hagen 302. This information needs to be provided to me no later than today. Also, I am forwarding your contract to Protection Services for evaluation. Again, you may not proceed with your event in Hagen 302 on the 8th of March until I confirm.
The email did not outline the nature of the alleged "incident." Reached by telephone this morning, Bergeron told The Electronic Intifada that the event had been given the go ahead. He refused to comment on the 6 March email warning that the event was "on hold," or to provide any other information, and quickly hung up the phone.
SPHR at the University of Ottawa also confirmed in an email that the event had now been "re-confirmed" but noted that "the University has imposed the presence of agents from the Protection Services as a condition for the event to take place, after evaluating a complaint by unknown persons regarding our event on March 5th."
The email states that, "despite repeated demands, we have received almost no information on the details and exact nature of the aforementioned complaint, leaving us entirely in the dark as to the reasons why a previously confirmed lecture event was precipitously placed in jeopardy only two days before it was due to take place."
A University of Ottawa twitter account also denied the event would be canceled, stating, that the university "has no plans to cancel this event" that it "has always promoted & defended freedom of expression."
@___Nini___ @AliAbunimah @Remroum #uOttawa has no plans to cancel this event. #uOttawa has always promoted & defended freedom of expression
— uOttawa Campus (@uOCampus) March 7, 2012
"Repression tactics"
Aidan Macdonald, a member of SAIA Carleton, told The Electronic Intifada that the threatened cancelation "is a continuation of the repression tactics. We've seen them try to intimidate and bully us, whether through the poster banning. This is just another example of attempts to repress and silence solidarity work at the university."
Macdonald was referring to a decision by both the University of Ottawa and Carelton University to ban the Israeli Apartheid Week poster in 2009 which depicted an Israeli helicopter gunship firing at a Palestinian child. The poster, Macdonald recalled, came within months of Israel's deadly assault on Gaza in which 1,400 people, including more than 300 Palestinian children were killed.
Although a student at Carleton, he said that his group, SAIA, works closely with SPHR at the University of Ottawa.
Macdonald said he hoped that people would continue to contact the University of Ottawa in response to the action alert to make clear their opposition any attempt at censorship.
Macdonald said that this morning students at Carleton found their Israeli Apartheid Week posters defaces with slogans including "This is where the Holocaust began" "Racism lives on" "Anti-Semitism lives."
Canadian politicians condemn Israeli Apartheid Week, line up behind Israel
This year, as in previous years, national leaders in Canada condemned Israeli Apartheid Week and lined up behind Israel.
Bob Rae, the leader of Canada's main opposition Liberal Party condemned students for focussing on Israel. [In an official statement], Rae said:
Israeli Apartheid Week continues to defy logic and the cause of social justice. We expect students to engage with issues of injustice, equality, and respect for international law, and we encourage respectful dialogue on these topics on university campuses. It is therefore difficult to understand why this year the focus continues to be on Israel, rather than on the appalling massacres and human rights violations that have reached intolerable heights in countries such as Syria and Iran.
Picking up a favorite theme of Israeli hasbara, Rae slammed students for "singling out and demonizing one country." Rae failed to point out, of course, that while the Canadian government is part of stiff international efforts to confront and sanction both Syria and Iran, it actively abets Israeli human rights abuses.
SPHR at University of Ottawa: Event "re-confirmed"
An email from the SPHR at the University of Ottawa received by The Electronic Intifada this morning states:
Thank you for your support. The University of Ottawa has re-confirmed the room reservation for the lecture event on Thursday, March 8th. As such, the panel discussion, entitled "Legalized Apartheid and Women's Resistance in Palestine: Principled Solidarity and the Global Struggle for Liberation" will proceed as planned at 7:00pm that evening.
However, the University has imposed the presence of agents from the Protection Services as a condition for the event to take place, after evaluating a complaint by unknown persons regarding our event on March 5th ("Arab Spring, Apartheid Falls? The Egyptian Uprising and Possibilities for Palestinian Resistance"). While we will not be contesting this decision at this point, it is our belief that such a security presence is unnecessary and does not contribute to a safe and open environment for our guests and speakers. Furthermore, despite repeated demands, we have received almost no information on the details and exact nature of the aforementioned complaint, leaving us entirely in the dark as to the reasons why a previously confirmed lecture event was precipitously placed in jeopardy only two days before it was due to take place.
As such, we encourage you to continue writing to the University of Ottawa Administration to demand transparency through the release of information about the complaint, as well as information as to how it was evaluated by the administration and how the latter motivated the decisions it took in consequence. It is both unacceptable and highly suspect that the University of Ottawa has taken such arbitrary action without any due explanation.
Israeli Apartheid Week
Ali Abunimah's blog
No "Incident"
Permalink Ottawa student replied on Wed, 03/07/2012 - 17:55
I was at the event in question where a supposed "incident" is said to have taken place. In fact, the closest thing that could be called an incident is one zionist student harassing women at an information table and sticking a camera in their faces. He basically showed up and wanted to make a speech. He used dramatic mock incredulity then started raving that people "didn't care" about the holocaust, even though he was the only one that brought up the subject, repeatedly, and outright refused to discuss anything to do with modern day Palestine. It's entirely possible this guy went to senior admin and made up some lies about how he was under attack (even though he decided to show up at an event he disagreed with to yell at people giving out pamphlets) and that's used to justify the "security" presence. Anyway the university really needs to disclose exactly what they think the "incident" was and everyone should continue to bother them until they do.
IAW in Ottawa
Permalink Jim Guild replied on Thu, 03/08/2012 - 15:05
Once again, those being attacked -- organizers of pro-Palestinian events -- are being held responsible for attackers real and imagined.
When are we going to hold
Permalink trepidationman replied on Fri, 03/09/2012 - 02:31
When are we going to hold Israel accountable for not only what they do to the Palestinians, but for the racism and repression that exists with many in Israel? Engineers and doctors are driving cabs, and many non-jews are being treated like modern day slaves, being paid substandard wages and treated horribly. I was amazed at the lack of respect or common courtesy displayed when I was on a trip to Tel Aviv. Not to mention the treatment at the airport. It is time that Israel is held to the same standard we hold other countries to. Humanity should not be selective.
The time is right...
Permalink Gary Williams replied on Wed, 03/14/2012 - 20:54
...And long overdue in fact, that people who have seen through the historical revisions that Zionism is based on, began holding to account college faculty members, politicians, or others with careers that are sensitive to public perceptions of their intellect, honesty, or integrity.
Now in my 50's, most my age in the West were raised to believe the Jews were chased out of Europe by the Germans, only to set upon by Arab savages who didn't care whether they had just survived the Holocaust or not, only that the Middle East should remain free of anyone but Arabs and Muslims.
Of course that's the general outline that right-wing extremists like Menachem Begin began pushing in western media outlets immediately upon Israel's declaration of statehood. And prior to today's high-speed internet, there were few documents around able to hint at a false narrative that WWll provided Israeli propagandists needing a way to obscure the extreme r-w ideology held by Zionism's pre-war advocates - Jabotinsky and Begin now that the post-Holocaust world held such beliefs in utter contempt.
But before a rosy picture of Zionism had taken root in the West, Einstein had called Begin a "brutal terrorist, Fascist"; Ben Gurion even referred to him as "Hitler" and wouldn't speak or use his name through the Knesset's early years. But because records even strongly hinting there must be more to the story of Israel's creation than the Zionism-friendly NYTimes was willing to say, many in the West who hadn't a specific reason to question the revisionist narrative still continue to assume it's basic points are true.
With the newspaper archives and other sources of documentation now widely available on the internet, the onus is no longer on us to disprove the hasbara, but the reverse. However many of us remain with the sense that we'll be the one's whose career is ruined should we be unable to back up what we say. No longer! It's time to hold them publicly accountable.
Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.
Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.
Zionist extremist hiding in Israel sentenced to prison in France
Ali Abunimah 13 January 2022
Watch: Palestinian liberation and resistance to US imperialism
Yes, Canada does arm and fund Israel
Ali Abunimah 6 January 2022
Palestinians pay tribute to Desmond Tutu
Ali Abunimah 27 December 2021
Finland bill would outlaw Israeli settlement goods

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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All Brits still in China told to leave due to coronavirus which has killed 425 people
4 February 2020, 12:50
All Brits in China have been told to leave urgently due to the outbreak of coronavirus. Picture: PA
By Rachael Kennedy
@rkennedy228
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has urged all British nationals in China to leave due to the coronavirus outbreak.
In a statement on Tuesday, Mr Raab said the decision was made to "minimise their risk of exposure to the virus".
He said: "The safety and security of British people will always be our top priority.
"As such, we now advise British nationals in China to leave the country if they can, to minimise their risk of exposure to the virus.
"Where there are still British nationals in Hubei province who wish to be evacuated, we will continue to work around the clock to facilitate this."
It comes after the number of deaths from the virus reached 425 on Tuesday morning, and confirmed cases surpassed 20,000.
- First death in Hong Kong as number killed by disease hits 425
- Wuhan coronavirus hospital opens after being built in just ten days
- 'Don't die, please buy' Glasgow newsagent sells out entire stock of coronavirus face masks
Health Secretary Matt Hancock later warned the UK had not seen the peak of the illness "by a long stretch".
He said: "We expect more cases in the UK.
"We have a full plan in place to treat all those who have symptoms and test positively for coronavirus and we are working with international partners both to slow the spread and also to do the research that we ned to do to find a vaccine."
Dozens of UK nationals have been flown back from Wuhan. Picture: PA
So far, 94 British citizens have been repatriated from Wuhan - the epicentre of the outbreak - and are currently being held in quarantine at Arrowe Park Hospital in the Wirral.
According to the British Embassy in Beijing, the final evacuation flights for British nationals were expected to leave later this week.
Meanwhile, 14 seats have been allocated on an Air New Zealand flight leaving China later today.
Authorities in the UK are also still working to track down 239 nationals who had flown back from Wuhan before travel restrictions were put in place.
Two people - one of whom is a University of York student - are currently being treated for the virus at Newcastle Royal Victoria Infirmary.


Top Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy resigned from his position as deputy finance chair for the Republican National Committee last week after The Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen had brokered a $1.6 million payment to quiet a woman who said Broidy impregnated her during an extramarital affair. Broidy admitted that he "offered to help her financially" as she terminated the pregnancy.
The hypocrisy of Broidy being a top fundraiser for a party that wants to make it a crime to have an abortion while paying off a woman to have an abortion is startling (if not particularly unusual). But while many politicians gave away the donations they had received from Broidy when he was convicted of bribery in 2009, it's unclear whether any self-declared "pro-life" politicians plan to return his donations in wake of his most recent scandal.
Last year, many Democrats gave away donations they had received from producer Harvey Weinstein after Weinstein was accused of widespread sexual harassment and assault. While Broidy is not accused of being coercive or violent, one would think that his paying off of a woman to have an abortion would cross a line for opponents of abortion rights, who argue, after all, that the procedure should be illegal.
Here are some of the party and campaign committees who oppose abortion rights to whom Broidy has given sizeable contributions. Donation records were accessed by Right Wing Watch via Open Secrets.
Gardner has consistently voted in favor of bills aimed at restricting abortion access and jailing abortion providers. When he was a member of the House, Gardner sponsored an anti-choice personhood bill and then lied about it when he was running for Senate.
As we wrote in 2014, "Tillis has said he would support a Personhood Amendment banning abortion in all cases and prohibiting common forms of birth control, and believes that states have the right to ban contraceptives." When he was House speaker in North Carolina, he once added abortion restrictions to a motorcycle safety bill. More recently, Tillis voted in favor of a bill aimed at criminalizing abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Cornyn received the maximum individual contribution amount of $2,700 from Broidy on May 12, 2017. Earlier this year, Coryn acted as a vocal supporter of legislation that sought to criminalize abortion procedures carried out beyond 20 weeks. Cornyn also co-filed a 2016 amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of a Texas law that severely restricted access to abortion.
Walters received the maximum individual donation amount of $2,700 from Broidy on July 14, 2017. Walters advocated for the establishment of a House committee investigating Planned Parenthood and has consistently voted with the agenda of anti-choice groups.
Cotton received the maximum individual contribution amount of $2,700 from Broidy on August 29, 2017. As a member of the House, Cotton co-sponsored "personhood" legislation that would criminalize all abortions and could even threaten some types of birth control.
Broidy donated the maximum individual donation amount of $2,700 to Mandel's campaign on September 19, 2017. Mandel reportedly signed a pledge with a Cincinnati anti-abortion group that he would oppose abortion in all circumstances, but later walked that pledge back to exclude scenarios that endanger the life of a pregnant woman.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher received the maximum individual contribution amount of $2,700 from Broidy on November 16, 2017. The anti-abortion group National Right to Life has given Rohrabacher a 100 percent rating and he has been endorsed by the California Pro-Life Council.
Rep. Jeff Denham received the maximum individual contribution amount of $2,700 from Broidy on November 16, 2017. Denham reports himself to be "pro-life" and has co-sponsored "personhood" legislation. Denham has also supported legislation aimed at restricting access to abortion procedures, including the recent 20-week ban bill.
Issa received the maximum individual contribution amount of $2,700 from Broidy on November 16, 2017. Issa identifies himself as "pro-life" and has attempted to block federal funding for abortion procedures. Issa also voted in line to support the 20-week abortion ban bill.


If you are not 100% satisfied with your purchase, you can return your unused item to our warehouse for a full refund within 30 days from the date of purchase.
IMPORTANT: All items must be returned in their original packaging and in new condition. No exceptions will be made on items worn, trained in, washed, covered in hair, or with an odd smell. Original shipping & return charges will not be refunded. We will cover only reshipping fees from our warehouse to you on exchanges within the Continental USA. Any return/reshipping fee for International orders is the clients sole responsibility.
A: Due to the quick turnaround of our collections we cannot guarantee availability of all sizes and styles at all times. We highly recommend inquiring with our customer service team at store@halfsumo.com regarding other size and style availability before returning an item.


Fancy Bingo has been the buzz of the online bingo world grapevine, and the reason for this is that this new bingo site is supposed to be launching any day now (in fact by the time you read this it might already have magically appeared) and will give the player something just that little bit different.
Of course all new online bingo sites like to make promises of something new and exciting so it is sometimes difficult to tell.
The reason why we are convinced in the office that in this case the hype might just be true, is because of the parentage. None other than Mandalay Media, the daddy to Costa, City and Sing no less!
A little bird has told us that there will be a distinctly Alice theme (as in Wonderland), though we haven't had the official word yet. A source very close to the owners has stated that there is a dream, fairytale design … and that's exactly what you get!
Now there's some very exciting news for penny bingo fans!
Fancy Bingo games will be 1p each and apparently this will be one of their main offerings. The modus operandi of the new site will be to compete with the free and cheap ticket bingo sites and as these sites are all out there for them to take inspiration from, they will likely do well in this market.
We understand this will be a standalone powered by Dragonfish (888 Holdings / Globalcom) software, therefore the pots and the games will be unlike the white labels that are currently out there. So if you Fancy Bingo, and new cheap bingo at that then you will want to keep watching this space for more news!
Wagering terms and conditions apply. All details above were correct when published on April 7, 2011.


Have You Earned Permission to Lead?
The fundamental essence of leadership is legitimacy, whose substance is based upon authority and validity. While authority is conferred, validity is earned through the development of credibility, trust and a balance of emotional standing and connections, with all key constituencies.
Legitimacy is a cornerstone of effective leadership. All of the great leaders have it. However, legitimacy is seldom discussed, if even mentioned in most leadership books. This leads to confusion as to what defines legitimacy. Its definition needs to be clarified and placed within the proper context.
Legitimacy is derived from two separate sources that give leaders permission to lead. The first source is authority or the power granted to leaders by either election, or appointment to an office. In the business setting, this is conferred by the stockholders through the board of directors.
The second source is validity. Validity is not conferred, nor is it automatically achieved once a leader is appointed to a position. It is earned and is a contributing factor to the authority granted to a leader, typically over the span of his or her career. This defines a leader as genuine and authentic in the eyes of all key constituencies.
Both sources of legitimacy compliment each other, but validity provides an enduring, yet fragile acquiescence of all the constituencies that gives a leader the tacit permission to lead. It is built upon three critical factors: trust, credibility and emotional balance. These are the hallmarks of great leaders. Without the presence of these critical factors, the leader's validity collapses. Once a leader loses his or her validity, the authority to lead is effectively undermined.


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THIEL is a marketing agency founded in 1981. Based in Milwaukee, with additional offices in Chicago, Indianapolis, and Columbus, Ohio, the team of 39 specializes in advertising, branding, and digital strategy. They primarily focus on serving midmarket clients in the business services and advertising & marketing industries.
THIEL Design worked on brand profile development for an IT company. The team created a brand profile through customer, competitor, and employee interviews. They also produced a new web design, logo, and tagline. Overall, the client was impressed with the results of the project.


The smallest growing of the avocados with a lovely weeping habit. At its best, it is possibly the finest-flavoured avocado with exceptionally rich, tasty flesh. Green, pear-shaped fruit are produced on a small tree. The best avocado for growing in pots, this is THE variety for gardeners in frosty areas as it can be protected in the winter and moved back out into the sun in the summer. A-type flowering avocado.


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Samsung (Android)
Samsung shifts 20 million SIII units in 100 days
Leigh Geary September 6, 2012
Samsung have announced that they've sold a staggering 20 million Galaxy SIII in 100 days. That's just over 3 months, or a quarter. Nokia sold 4 million Lumia handsets during Q2 of 2012.
Whilst the iPhone 4S sold 4 million units in 3 days last year, we should point out that the SIII has now become the most successful smartphone to date for Samsung, setting a new record for the company.
Get more details on the press release below.
Link – Samsung
Online shopping hits new highs as Christmas and lockdowns combine
Getting your music in your car. The easy way.


In what is likely to be their career highlight, Richie McCaw or Stephen Moore will lift the Webb Ellis Trophy at Twickenham on Saturday afternoon.
But beyond tossing the coin, politely badgering the referee and being the first victim of the banal "how does winning/losing feel" post-match interview question, just how much influence a rugby captain has on his team is open to debate.
Rugby fans tend to remember the inspirational figures of legend, around whom so many great after-dinner stories centre. Grown men go misty-eyed at the mention of the likes of Willie-John McBride, Martin Johnson, Sean Fitzpatrick, Finlay Calder, Jean-Pierre Rives or Francois Pienaar.
Wasps are trialling a joint captaincy arrangement this season, so flanker James Haskell and former-Worcester prop Matt Mullan are sharing a (presumably well-stretched) armband. The England No.6, who has plenty of captaincy experience, sees the role as being an important one, but more as being part of a wider decision-making group than someone who makes decisions in isolation.
"The captain can't just be an on-the-field mouthpiece for the coaches," says Haskell. "You need free thought and the ability to put your own messages across in your own style, although you have to broadly agree and be pulling in the same direction as the coach.
"The role of the other senior players is also important; you meet with the coach and discuss things, and sometimes the captain might not agree, but the five senior players do, so you form a group opinion.
"People overplay the role of the captain with the referee. If you have an antagonistic demeanour, and you're not respectful, you will rub the referee up the wrong way because he is a human like everyone else.
"You are never going to coerce a referee into making a decision; you can highlight the faults of the other team, but again referees are human and they will always look at a situation and give some players more leeway than others.
The World Cup has brought the role of the captain in on-field decision-making into sharper focus. As England skipper Chris Robshaw and his Japanese opposite number Michael Leitch found during the competition's group stages, the gap between hero and zero can be very small.
Haskell believes that experience teaches a good captain how to handle most situations. However, he also believes that the modern game rarely requires the captain to take big decisions alone and emphasises the role played by the wider leadership group.
"On the field, you know what's best through years of experience," he says. "Someone like Lawrence Dallaglio, when he was Wasps' captain, would know what the right decisions were in that way, but the coaches are also able to feed messages on – the support team are all mic'd-up, so everyone knows the score.
"On a day-to-day basis, the coaches allow you to make decisions during a game. It hasn't happened, but if you were about to make the wrong decision, I expect a water-boy would run on and tell you what to do.
"Sometimes I will have a chat with Dai before the game, and work things out beforehand, so if we have to make decisions late-on about bonus points or whether or not to kick at goal, we all know the score.
"In the latter part of last season, when we played London Irish, at one point a draw would have got us through, then Sale went ahead in their game, so we were going out of the European Cup.


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Super Late Models
The division that made MIS famous returns for ten events in 2014. See the high flying super late models turn laps in the 17 to 18 second range on Wisconsin's Fastest Half-Mile. These cars are built from the ground up as racing machines and can reach speeds close to 120 mph on the front and backstretch.
A quick look at past racing champions at Madison reveals a Who's Who of the best in the Midwest. The legendary Dick Trickle leads the way with 72 feature wins followed closely by the late Joe Shear with 66 and Tom Reffner at 58 victories. NASCAR champion Matt Kenseth was a track champion here in 1994 and has picked up 30 super late model checkered flags at Madison. Multiple time champions also include such short track stars as Bobby Wilberg, Dave Feiler, Conrad Morgan, Johnny Ziegler and Rich Bickle Jr.
For a complete listing of past track champions and all-time feature winners please check out the Track tab at the top of the page.


The Big Cats courses, located in beautiful Sunset Beach, offer 72 holes of premier golf with challenging layouts for golfers of all skill levels. Play Leopard's Chase, Lion's Paw, and Panther's Run and receive a free round at Tiger's Eye. Lunch is included on each day of play!


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by richard pelletier 0 Art, Books, Business, Communication, Creativity, Marketing, Photography, Storytelling, Writing Permalink
This is what magic in the day-to-day looks like, wrote Clare Dwyer Hogg, as spoken by actor Stephen Rea, on the Irish border seen through the cluster that is Brexit. Saul Leiter knew something about magic in the day-to-day, just look at these pictures. The legendary UK based lit-band, Dark Angels, has a new album out — Dark Angels on Writing. Early reviews indicate their latest is a scorcher. Since we're talking about Europe, and magic, and whether to stay or whether to go, here's Timothy Snyder with some historical context. "Imagination," said Einstein, "is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions." To the 5CT subscriber who wrote to say, 'I miss 5CT,' thank you. Me too.
Saul Leiter, photographer
{ snow, 1960 (c) Saul Leiter }
{ subway car 4435 1950 (c) Saul Leiter }
{ jean 1948 (c) Saul Leiter }
{ boy, 1950 (c) Saul Leiter }
Saul Leiter started shooting color and black-and-white street photography in New York in the 1940s. He had no formal training in photography, but the genius of his early work was quickly acknowledged by Edward Steichen, who included Leiter in two important MoMA shows in the 1950s. MoMA's 1957 conference "Experimental Photography in Color" featured 20 color photographs by Leiter. Read on here >
{ New York 1950 (c) Saul Leiter }
Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe
Patrick Radden Keefe is a New Yorker writer of uncommon instinct, talent, grace and empathy. A couple of years back, he did what many writers do; he read a whopper of an obituary (Dolours Price, Defiant IRA Bomber, Dies at 61) and followed his nose. That led him down an extraordinary path, to a murder mystery, a thicket of stories, and to the Troubles. Hard to imagine a more challenging, complicated story to tell. It's a masterpiece. Read it, you won't believe it. That's Dolours on the cover of his book. At the end of her life, she fingered Gerry Adams as the man who gave the orders. She took on Margaret Thatcher and won. And, she became the wife of the actor Stephen Rea, seen below in a Brexit video. For a good podcast on this, go to Longform>
Excerpt from Say Nothing:
Just after lunchtime, at around 2 p.m., a phone rang at the headquarters of The Times of London. A young woman named Elizabeth Curtis, who had just started working on the news desk at the paper, picked up the call. She heard a man's voice, speaking very quickly, with a thick Irish accent. At first she couldn't make out what he was saying, then she realized that he was reeling off the descriptions and locations of a series of cars. He spoke for just over a minute, and, though she was still confused, she transcribed as much as she could. Before hanging up, the man said, "The bombs will go off in one hour.
Hard Border: Clare Dwyer Hogg & Stephen Rea
To Clare Dwyer Hogg, playwright, poet and journalist, who wrote this absolutely jaw-dropping piece on Brexit, we give thanks. "We're holding our breath again, because we know that chance and hope, come in forms like steam and smoke."
Dark Angels on Writing
The UK writing collective known as Dark Angels (where does that bloody name come from?) has published a new book, Dark Angels on Writing: Changing Lives With Words, aimed squarely at the legions of companies, businesses and writers who want to write beautifully and better. This is a very special book with appearances by such writers as Michelle Nicol, Nick Asbury, Tim Rich, Rowenna Roberts, Larry Vincent, Therese Kieran, Rob Williams, Becca Magnus, Faye Sharpe, Jonathan Holt, Nick Parker, Henrietta McKervey, and many others. Get your copy here >
Timothy Snyder Speaks
Timothy Snyder is a Yale historian and one of the people I look to for help in understanding what's going on in the world. He wrote On Tyranny in 2017 after the car crash of 2016. This video — The European Union — is part of a series of 16 or so videos he's posted on YouTube. These are mini-lectures that he uses to air out ideas he's thinking through. Episode 1: Russia Defeats America.
5CT recommends his latest book, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America.
That's it. Thank you.
Established: Lessons from the world's oldest companies
by 0 Advertising, Books, Business, Communication, Marketing, Publishing, Stone Carving, Storytelling, Writing Permalink
Help us publish Established at Unbound, a crowd-funded publisher in London.
Established: 1198, 1498, 1515, 1519, 1534, 1570, 1698, 1705, 1715, 1759, 1824, 1891. An inn, a removals company, a butchers, a ferry, a printing press, a bell foundry, a wine merchants, a stone carvers, a scale makers, a brewers, an agricultural company, a gum manufacturer. How on earth have they managed that? And what are their secrets of survival?
In Established, twelve business writers set out to find the answers to these questions and to tell the stories of these companies that have survived scores of booms and busts, black sheep in the family and strange twists of fate.
But they're not your typical team of business writers. The twelve are from the Dark Angels stable, the brand that since 2004 has been encouraging authentic voices in business writers through its residential courses and workshops. Storytelling is at the heart of the Dark Angels approach. In Established you will find that each of these enduring businesses has a great story, each of which is told in an individual voice that brings range and freshness to the book and makes it quite unlike the mainstream 'how to' hardback.
But the lessons the stories contain are every bit as instructive, from the eschewal of nepotism to the generational mantra of 'humility and rebellion'. The reader will find contradictions, on questions like world domination or keeping it to the one shop. And that's the joy of this book, that readers looking for insight as well as good old entertainment will gravitate towards the business that most resembles theirs in spirit and set-up if not in actual trade.
The lesson in every instance that is closest to the writers' hearts is that the story itself is one of the greatest assets of every business – and when you've got over 500 years of records it's quite a challenge to tell it, especially in a couple of thousand words. Established does just that.
I want to supp
Poets and maps, power and language
by 1 Art, Business, Communication, Creativity, Publishing, Storytelling Permalink
His name is Mr. Wendell Berry and we need his voice now more than ever. One startup, 57 trillion squares. This subversive intellect from Atlantic City has thought deeply about you, your country, your children, and your calling. A near perfect film about journalism and power. A beautiful writer leaves home for another language. "Without imagination, love stales into sentiment, duty, boredom. Relationships fail not because we have stopped loving but because we first stopped imagining." – James Hillman
Wendell Berry, the essential voice
5CT November 2014
by 4 Books, Business, Creativity, Technology, Writing Permalink
Escape from Microsoft Word
In this season of thanks, dear readers, I send you mine. This issue — a big heart tackles big injustices, a brilliant take down of a "church", Greek philosophers and Microsoft Word, and I sign up for a handwritten note from Joan Didion. Plus, an amazing Seattle bookstore/cafe. Lastly, 5 cool keepsakes to revisit, and introducing The LIST. "I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing," said Flannery O'Connor. If you like 5CT, squint one eye and share.
5CT October 2014
by 0 Advertising, Apps, Business, Communication, Women, Women Artists, Writing Permalink
PHOTOGRAPH BY STEPHEN WEISS / COURTESY BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL
Greetings from the north coast of California where they are literally running out of water. Day after day — the sun shines on. There are cruel intermissions, clouds gather, fog rolls in, a shower floats by. But the real thing is hard to come by. In this issue, Zadie Smith unpacks a beer ad, tools for writers and creatives, a trip around the literary Northwest and…a quirky tour of England. Enjoy, and pray for rain.