Hmmm... well... on Saturday evening I went out to dinner with the sisterhood girls and we dined at the 'Buzz Cafe Restaurant'. Such a lovely restaurant with mellow music, soft lighting and a gorgeous view overlooking the water. It was so lovely to be dining in such wonderful company with great food and a relaxed atmosphere.
However, the night took a turn much unexpected when all six of the girls I was dining with suddenly pounced on me like a cat to wool, and they tied me to my chair! Before me they set the most amazing desert I'd seen, it was some kind of almond chocolate panforte with a dollop of ice cream and a drizzle of strawberry syrup. And well, they gang fed me! Spoonful after spoonful, it was just dreadful and it tasted awful.
Okay so your after the true story right? Well yes I did eat an amazing desert and no it didn't taste awful. We had all ordered our meals and all but two meals were brought to the table. Myself and a friend didn't recieve our meals with the others and after some time we brought it to the waitresses attention. By now the other girls had just about finished their meals. The kitchen staff had made an error and they were very apologetic and gave us all a free desert to make up for it. Hmmm, yes, what was I to do? Everyone was getting a free desert off the menu because I and another didn't get our meals on time and, I kind of felt like I deserved the desert. The best part was that it was free and the worse part was that I broke my detox with no good reason. Theres no excuse and I am feeling quite guilty, so much that I wasn't even going to mention it on here but I wanted to continue to be transparent on this journey of mine, and now you know my weakness! My detox continues.
Coco-nutty Granola Recipe by Sarah Wilson. Great for breakfast or an afternoon snack.
On a better note, I have otherwise been enjoying not having so much junk food in my life. As I've become more aware of the sugar content in foods I've also realized how much rubbish I had been filling my body with. On a much too frequent basis. It is such an awesome feeling to have done away with my habitual sweet-snacking. I usually make healthy substantial dinners and I can't believe that I was counteracting that by having a packet of lollies here and there! I mean, what was the point of making sure we have healthy meals if I was only going to eat lollies and chocolates in between?!
Thanks to the detox program I've been able to replace my unhealthy snacks with some wholesome ones which still taste great!
Above is a picture of some Coco-Nutty Granola that I made using [homemade] activated nuts. Granola is great for breaky or morning/afternoon tea. I like to serve it with natural yogurt and, have found it to be quite filling (hubby thinks not so much).
Now you're all probably wondering how hubby is going with the detox? Well he was doing great until Fathers Day came around and, he decided to eat the tasty celebratory foods offered at morning tea after church... he caved. I had actually thought he was doing away with the detox but on Monday he was back to the 'sugar free' ways. I didn't realize until a few days later. He's not much of a sweet tooth nor a sugar addict so even if he had discontinued detoxing he would not have hindered me. I'm a hindrance to myself as you've learnt already!
Poached Egg with Bacon. A yummy sunday breakfast.
Wow, those are some great looking photos!


Discussion in 'Academic Calendars' started by Rahul, Nov 29, 2018.
The Revised Academic Calendar of the University for the III Semester BE Lateral Entry students admitted for the academic year 2018-19 is hereby notified as enclosed. The Principals of Affiliated Engineering colleges, and A Constituent College (UBTEC, Davangere), are hereby informed to bring the contents of this Notification to the notice of all the concerned.


The Educated Negra • This entry was posted in Me, me, Me and tagged Blogging, Book Blog, Diversity, Goals, Reading. Bookmark the permalink.
Rae, the first half of February has been a blur for me. Literally. I've had vertigo and looking at the computer screen or reading are wreaking havoc with me. I've fallen behind in reading the blogs I follow. I've had to listen to audio books more than reading them on my tablet, which is a huge adjustment for me because I've never liked listening to books. I feel like someone is talking "at" me and won't shut up! LOL!
I'm enjoying writing the #TwoForTuesday posts and can't wait to see what prompts you have in mind for us for March!


Total War Thrones Of Britannia's release date is drawing closer and with that in mind, SEGA have released a couple of videos highlighting some of the new features of the game. One of the videos talks about the politic system in the game.
A few of the new features that the video speaks about is how to maintain loyalty and how to control your noble man. Individual nobles/characters have loyalty ratings which you can secure through bribery or influence. Players can increase loyalty by distributing estates. Assassinations are much more in-depth then previous games, as players are now given different scenarios of the assassin to make it successful.
Line of Succession will now have a bigger impact on how you play the game. Players need to micromanage their leaders or else it will back-fire on them. For example, the video highlights the fact that you can declare an heir, but if they are unfit to rule then it may cause a civil war. Severity of a civil war is higher than seen in previous games and can become a big threat to your empire.
Players can sabotage noble men's influence by taking away titles and estates. An improvement from a similar mechanic that was in Rome II. However, if careless the removing of titles and estates can make nobles to revolt. The last feature that is new is that players can assign governors based on their trait which can affect public order and corruption.
Depilatory from the looks of the video is still the same as past games, but this is a good thing as the mechanic works great. From the looks of it, Total War Thrones Of Britannia has become more in-depth with all the best features from previous games, but fans of the series will just have to wait and find out for themselves.


One Hot Lap: OneHotLap Contest: What's Wrong with This Picture?
OneHotLap Contest: What's Wrong with This Picture?
There are at least three things that don't look right with this picture. First one to point out all 3 of them here or on our Facebook page wins a OneHotLap t-shirt!
A few people, including the owner of the car Omeed A. of "Iron Man" fame, got 2 answers right. After careful consideration... nah screw that -- since we had some pretty good laughs at his own expense with this contest, we will break the tie in his favor. Omeed takes the OneHotLap t-shirt.
Thank you everyone for playing! What a fun, creative bunch -- that thing HAS to be offline wherever it is, LMAO!!
Number peeling, looks like the hood is going to pop open and the front wheel is too close to the lower back part of the wheel well/rocker panel.
Cutoff for submitting entries is 11 am, Jan 31. Winner will be announced at noon!
Henry H: 1. the sticker is coming off... 2. it's a mercedes... 3... it's on a track.. @_o ?!
Jamey: window is down, sticker falling off and no front license plate, or maybe headlights aren't taped?
Jessie L: That's tough. Sticker falling off, not on racing line, hood popped open a little?
Eric H.: R-comp tires on a Mercedes in RGrp2, Solo driver in RG2, no neck brace/hans/proper harnesses, no window net or right side interior net, does not appear to have seat belt on... should I go on?
Eric H. Oh wait a minute, this is an HPDE! 1) Automatic Mercedes on track is FAIL 2) car is not plastered with Blue painters tape 3) that thing HAS to be offline wherever it is.
Gary R: Looks like it is turn ten Circuit Mont-Tremblant. . . . .Left my 3 OneHotLap site. Me and Jessie agree on two.
OneHotLap: That's a good one, Gary! You and Jessie agree, so it must be right? Safety in numbers! Are you splitting up the t-shirt prize if your entry wins?
Jessica S.: That's actually a pretty sweet photo with the background blurred and the photo of the car is very sharp. Regardless, It's a great souvenir shot for whoever is driving it!
A few people, including the owner of the car Omeed A., got 2 answers right. After careful consideration... nah screw that -- since we had some pretty good laughs at his own expense with this contest, we will break the tie in his favor. Omeed takes the OneHotLap t-shirt.


Jada is an editor at Insider Picks, Business Insider's affiliate commerce team, reviewing any and all products that come across her desk while also editing a network of stellar freelancers.
Prior to joining Business Insider, Jada held editorial and branded content titles at Cosmopolitan and Refinery29. Her work has been published in The Cut, domino, and Marie Claire, and she has spoken on multiple panels about influencer marketing. She graduated from Syracuse University with a degree of magazine journalism and marketing management.
Say hello at jwong@businessinsider.com, or DM her at @jadawong on Instagram.


Small to medium size displays involving larger quantities, finer detail and complex geometries lend themselves to the advantages of lower cost and faster production cycles with injection molding. Benchmark Displays can provide a valuable start to finish assist using our worldwide resources for economic and efficient tool design and manufacture, part prototyping, production, decorating and packaging. Thermo-plastic material choices are variable, dictated by part function and appearance. We can also help in the selection of materials.


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News | General
Navigating the NPF Legal Landscape - Study
Thursday, 26th May 2011 at 3:52 pm
Australian Not for Profits believe their legal and operating environment is becoming increasingly complex with many admitting to weaknesses in bequest management, fundraising and property issues, according to a nation-wide study.
Thursday, 26th May 2011
Above: Makinson & d'Apice law partner, Bill d'Apice
In early 2011, Sydney Law firm Makinson & d'Apice commissioned independent researchers and management consultants to conduct an Australia-wide study of the legal landscape around the Not for Profit sector.
Makinson & d'Apice law partner, Bill d'Apice, says many of the results around legal issues were surprising and show a clear need for education within the sector.
Around 50% rated their organisation's ability to attract and manage bequests as very weak, and their ability to fundraise as weak or very weak. One third stated that the management of property legal issues was also weak or very weak.
Some 75% of Not for Profits however, rated their governance as strong or very strong and 60% rated their business management as strong or very strong.
The survey represents 250 responses from NFPs across Australia, with 70% from NSW and Victoria. Some 66% of organisations had DGR status, 50% had incomes over $3 million annually and just over one third of respondents had an income of under $500,000; and 19% had an income of $1 million to $3 million.
Law firm partner, Bill d'Apice says one of the interesting observations was the relationship between organisations and their legal advisers, with a majority saying it was weak or very weak.
D'Apice says a large number of respondents provided extensive commentary regarding external lawyers centring on cost, lack of NFP knowledge or understanding, communication issues around the briefing of lawyers and the timeliness, quality and appropriateness of advice on pro bono issues.
He says this highlights a need for more experienced lawyers in the sector, given the changing landscape.
What did surprise him, he says is that just under half of respondents were unaware of the then proposed National Not for Profit Regulator. Of those who were aware of the proposal:
58% believed that it would be a positive step
38% were neutral
4% saw it as a negative move.
He says an area of concern is the feedback regarding the lack of legal knowledge at Board level.
He says while senior management appear very up-to-speed on legal issues, there are gaps at Board level where members are not fully aware of their legal and fiduciary obligations.
He says there appears to be a lack of expertise at this level and an ability to risk manage.
The survey found that most rated their NFP as "somewhat sophisticated", or "sophisticated" in business terms, compared with five years ago when two thirds rated their NFP as "very unsophisticated" or "unsophisticated", indicating rapid progress in this area.
More than 90% agreed that the legal and operating environment was increasingly complex with areas needing attention spanning:
board matters
business management.
Bill d'Apice says the next big issue for the Not for Profit sector will be tax changes.
A snapshot of the survey findings can be found at http://www.makdap.com.au/docs/Snapshot%20findings%20-%20final1.pdf
The survey results will be analysed in more detail and published on the Makinson & a'Apice website at www.makdap.com.au
Tags : Governance, Legal Issues, Makinson & d'Apice,
Lessons from the banking royal commission for the NFP sector
Tuesday, 11th June 2019 at 7:40 am
ASX companies stagnating on gender equality
Wednesday, 24th April 2019 at 4:51 pm
AICD Releases Second Edition of its NFP Governance Principles
Tuesday, 5th March 2019 at 7:15 am
New Governance Principles to Address Increased NFP Expectations
Wednesday, 30th January 2019 at 6:00 pm

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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https://www.middletownpress.com/news/article/Perfect-as-captain-11899094.php
Perfect as captain
When you have one of the most dominant pitchers in the Shoreline Conference and you play on one of the top teams in the state, you're not necessarily in the forefront of the softball world.
KELLY-ANN FRANKLIN
Published 12:00 am EDT, Monday, May 21, 2001
In fact you'll probably be happy with whatever your role is on the team. Even if you just take care of everyone else. Just take Hale-Ray shortstop Jamie Parkus for example.
"She's one of my captains, and the three girls who are doing a great job ..in Florida, they were like mothers to everyone else," Hale-Ray softball coach Lou Milardo said. "She's been helping my freshman, Danielle Zemienieski at third base, she's made her transition better."
Milardo actually had to talk Parkus, who is also on the soccer and basketball teams, into playing softball in high school. He made a deal with her to come out and try softball for a couple of weeks and if it didn't work out, there'd be no strings attached.
Four years later, Parkus helps to solidify the infield behind star pitcher Brisbane Vaillancourt who doesn't give up much in the ways of groundball outs.
"She has blinding speed ..she gets on first and it's like a triple. She's a terrific player," Milardo said.
"(Defensively) in the first half she had some errors, but the second half of the season has been good, she hasn't had an error in a really long time."
Parkus understands that she is a good ball player, but feels she needs to work on her hitting in big-time situations. On defense, she doesn't see much room for improvement.
"Being a senior now, I've accomplished a lot of things ..I've evolved over the years," she said.
Parkus enjoys time away from the basketball court and the soccer field when she steps on the softball diamond.
She considers it a relaxation season of sorts, where she doesn't stress as much since the team has almost made it a habit of winning. Hale-Ray is 17-3 and 10-3 in the Shoreline Conference and will be the third-seeded team in the conference tournament this week.
There also the defending Class S state champion.
As for Parkus, she's just having a good time.
"It's awesome, I don't think I could ask for a better team," Parkus said.


I'm new here and new to Poker too. I was into Blackjack card counting but couldn't seems to find anyone to play/practice with.
Anyway, I look forward to learn a lot more about Poker and join meet up/outings.
Oh wow! BJ Card counting.. surprised to hear my kaki are also into CC.. I recalled those days a small group of our SG card counters were travelling all over casinos in Sri Lanka, Sychelles, Istanbul, Korea, Egypt for game of BJ. Ever hear that our local BJ counters are one of the world's finest?
Likely there is no suitable place now for CC anymore..
Hi Ikelos, thank you for the warm welcome.
Hi PokerChief, how was the stories during those days? Did you guys managed to break the Casino's bank?
Amo wrote: Hi Ikelos, thank you for the warm welcome.
Oh yes, most of us did well n few were black listed in some of the casinos in Egypt, Sri Lanka, Istanbul. There was a time when a group of us BJ counters cleaned out a small resort casino in Turkey with merely a US$25k winnings that night. But the casino has no cash to pay out. We somehow got a cheque instead. Another funny incident was when we were busted in the middle of the game n they actually refused to cash our chips worth US$8k. But eventually after detaining us for 2 hrs, they cash us out and warned us not to let them see us again! Funny thing is we were so warmly welcomed by them and getting VIP's treatments the first few days.
Oh! playing with 6 decks is still profitable. Some of the Malaysian BJ counters played with 8 decks at Genting those days. It will takes alot of waiting time before the deck turns to your favour. We played with 4 decks those days n usually tipped the dealers to cut the deck right to the end.


The sixth session is review (selection process, evaluation) and leaves some time to plan a presentation, or for a topic of your choice.
Inspirational video: governance on grassroots level for a whole region/country/planet. Heaven on Earth.
picture time! Take a picture of your group on a couch (a sofa!) and submit it to SoFA, please! Online group s please take a screenshot and submit it.
leader and delegate If you met without a coach, please submit your photo to elc@sociocracyforall.org and let us know whether it can go on the website. For your donation to SoFA, you can donate using the "donate" button here. If you'd like to talk about next steps for your group, contact info@sociocracyforall.org.
How do we take a screen shot (online groups)?


text:
(-) Event
What Is a Moral Foreign Policy?
Panelists discuss the influence of ethics in the creation and execution of foreign policy, and how moral choices will affect future issues like the rise of China and transnational threats.
Event by Timothy Naftali and Joseph S. Nye Jr.
Arthur Ross Book Award: "These Truths–A History of the United States"
Presider Gideon Rose celebrates the winners of this year's Arthur Ross Book Award: Jill Lepore, Andrew Roberts, and Max Hastings. Gold medalist Jill Lepore discusses why the United States needs a nat…
Event by Jill Lepore
John B. Hurford Memorial Lecture With Samantha Power
Samantha Power discusses her career in government, including her time at the United Nations and the National Security Council, and how it influenced her perspective on U.S. foreign policy and human r…
Event by Samantha Power
Pro-Democracy Protests in Hong Kong: Perspectives From the Frontlines
Since March, millions of Hong Kongers have protested their government's proposed law to allow the extradition of criminal suspects to mainland China. Although Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam rec…
Event by Denise Ho and Joshua Wong Women and Foreign Policy Program
Report Launch of CFR Independent Task Force on Innovation and National Security
For the past three-quarters of a century, the United States has led the world in technological innovation and development. The nation now risks falling behind its competitors, principally China. Inno…
Event by James Manyika, William H. McRaven, and Adam Segal
Foreign Affairs Live with George Packer
One of the most celebrated diplomats of his generation, Richard Holbrooke helped normalize U.S. relations with China; served as U.S. ambassador to a newly unified Germany and then to the United Natio…
Event by George Packer
The End of Apartheid in South Africa: The U.S. and UK Policy Perspective
Panelists present firsthand accounts of the end of apartheid in South Africa, specifically the involvement of the United States and Great Britain, and the repercussions of their policies for South Af…
Event by Chester Crocker and Robin Renwick Lessons From History
Lessons for the Future: A History of Capitalism in America
Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge discuss the seismic events and trends that formed America's economic history and the insights that can be derived for today's leaders.
Event by Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge C. Peter McColough Series on International Economics
Divinely Divided: How Christianity and Islam Coexist in Nigeria
Alexander J. Thurston, Olufemi O. Vaughan, and John Campbell discuss how Christianity and Islam coexist in Nigeria.
Event by Alexander J. Thurston and Olufemi O. Vaughan Religion and Foreign Policy Series
'The China Mission: George Marshall's Unfinished War, 1945–1947'
Daniel Kurtz-Phelan discusses his new book, The China Mission: George Marshall's Unfinished War, 1945-1947, a narrative history of a hugely consequential, but largely forgotten episode in the history…
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text:
All posts for the day June 14th, 2017
US Coalition Admits to Bombing Civilians with Chemical Weapons – Media Blackout Ensues
Posted by Lou on June 14, 2017
Posted in: Chemical weapons, Crimes against humanity, Criminology, Iraq, Military, Political science, Syria, USA, Video, War, War crimes.	Leave a comment
A general with the US-led coalition just admitted bombing populated areas with white phosphorus and the corporate media is nowhere to be found.
Source: US Coalition Admits to Bombing Civilians with Chemical Weapons – Media Blackout Ensues
thefreethoughtproject.com
By Matt Agorist
Earlier this month, multiple reports surfaced of US-led coalition forces in Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria, using the incendiary chemical weapon, white phosphorus, on civilians. For over a week, the US government and the coalition at large have remained silent on the issue — until now.
In an error that will likely get him much backlash, in an interview with NPR, New Zealand Brig. Gen. Hugh McAslan, and member of the US-coalition has admitted — for the first time — to using white phosphorus during operations in the Iraqi city of Mosul.
"We have utilized white phosphorous to screen areas within West Mosul to get civilians out safely," McAslan told NPR on Tuesday.
Instead of questioning the horrid nature of the chemical weapons use on civilians, NPR echoed the general's sentiment and noted that 28,000 civilians have managed to escape. While that may be true, countless others were injured or suffered horrifying deaths.
White phosphorus is described as an "incendiary and toxic chemical substance used as a filler in a number of different munitions that can be employed for a variety of military purposes."
The chemical was banned internationally after the 1980 Protocol on Incendiary Weapons restricted the "use of incendiary weapons as a means or method of warfare during armed conflict."
The use of chemical weapons is clearly prohibited in international armed conflicts. The International Committee of the Red Cross noted that "employing asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices is listed in the Statute of the International Criminal Court as a war crime."
While deploying incendiary weapons against residential areas is banned under Protocol III of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), the two other uses — smoke screens and signals — are not, which allows the hypocritical US, to keep such munitions in their arsenal and use them. It is through this loophole that the US claims the right to deploy these deadly weapons on towns.
On November 30, 2005, General Peter Pace stated that white phosphorus munitions were a "legitimate tool of the military" used to illuminate targets and create smokescreens, saying "It is not a chemical weapon. It is an incendiary." However, the general is wrong. As soon as white phosphorus is deployed against people, it becomes a chemical weapon.
A chemical weapon can be "any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm."
White phosphorus remains very dangerous even when not deliberately used to start fires or attack humans. Submunitions can ignite days after deployment and remain a hazard for a city. Injuries caused by the chemical can burn to the bone and are prone to reigniting if a piece of the phosphorus remaining in the wound is exposed to air when a dressing is changed.
"No matter how white phosphorus is used, it poses a high risk of horrific and long-lasting harm in crowded cities like Raqqa and Mosul and any other areas with concentrations of civilians," said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch.
The US claims of using white phosphorus as a smoke screen or signal ring hollow when assessing the damage reported on the ground in Syria and Iraq.
Just as the rights groups warned, civilian casualties were, in fact, a reality from the coalition's deployment of white phosphorus.
Xinhua News, China's state press agency, reported last week that "Tens of civilians were killed on Thursday when the U.S.-led airstrikes targeted Syria's northern city of Raqqa with white phosphorus," citing a report from Syria's Sham FM radio.
Russia's Riafan.ru reported that "Coalition forces led by the United States of America shell Raqqa and suburbs of white phosphorus munitions," citing reports on Twitter, which said the U.S.-backed coalition conducted 20 air raids.
Although the total number of civilian deaths has not been entirely confirmed, early reports suggest that nearly 50 people were killed.
"Horrific civilian harm from previous use of white phosphorus has generated public outrage and this latest use of white phosphorus underscores the urgent need for states to strengthen international law relating to incendiary weapons," HRW's Goose said.
Although NPR happened to have the general admit to them US forces are using white phosphorus, no other mainstream outlet in America has picked up this bombshell story.
Their silence shows their complicit nature in covering up the alleged war crimes of the West.
"US-led forces should take all feasible precautions to minimize civilian harm when using white phosphorus in Iraq and Syria," Goose said of the situation. However, from the reports on the ground, that appears not to be the case.
In the video below, the US-led coalition is dropping white phosphorus bombs on Western Mosul. Watch for yourself and decide whether or not it was being used as a 'tool' to allow civilians to escape.
'Staggering loss of civilian life' during US-backed siege of Raqqa – UN
Posted in: ljf, Middle East, Military, Political science, Syria, USA, War, War crimes.	Leave a comment
Go home bloody stupid Yanks! Everywhere these hypocrites go they leave a trail of horror and misery. Go home and fix your own country ye pathetic warmongers.
Source: 'Staggering loss of civilian life' during US-backed siege of Raqqa – UN — RT News
Internally displaced people flee Raqqa, Syria on May 19, 2017. © Rodi Said / Reuters
The ongoing siege by Syrian Kurdish militia, supported by airstrikes of the US-led coalition, on terrorist stronghold Raqqa has been marred by at least 300 civilian fatalities and the displacement of some 160,000 people, a UN commission says.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of militias dominated by ethnic Kurds, launched their offensive on Raqqa last week amid weapons and military hardware supplies from the US. The effort is taking a serious toll on civilian residents of the city controlled by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), chairman of the UN Commission of Inquiry into the Syrian conflict said on Wednesday.
"We note in particular that the intensification of airstrikes, which have paved the ground for an SDF advance in Raqqa, has resulted not only in staggering loss of civilian life, but has also led to 160,000 civilians fleeing their homes and becoming internally displaced," Paulo Sergio Pinheiro told the UN Human Rights Council, Reuters reports.
The chairman did not give an estimate for civilian casualties in the city, but Karen Koning AbuZayd, one of the panels' commissioners, said it has documented about 300 civilian deaths from the airstrikes supporting the Raqqa offensive.
"We have documented the deaths caused by the coalition airstrikes only and we have about 300 deaths, 200 in one place, in al-Mansoura, one village," she said.
The US troops deployed in Syria are supporting the SDF offensive providing artillery and air support on the battlefield as well as "advice and training" for the militias.
US-led coalition admits use of white phosphorus in Mosul amid mounting criticism
The Pentagon calls the deployment, which is done with no UN Security Council mandate or invitation from the Syrian government, a limited-scale operation. The Americans have attacked pro-government troops in Syria on several occasions over the past few weeks, claiming it was necessary to protect its SDF allies.
Also on Wednesday the Human Rights Watch (HRW) expressed its concern over the toll the Raqqa offensive operation is taking on civilians. The group criticized the US troops for allegedly using white phosphorous munitions as part of the offensive, saying the chemical may cause serious injuries and trigger fires when used in residential areas.
In his speech, Pinheiro also criticized Damascus for negotiating a series of evacuations of opposition fighters and their families from various areas around Syria, including the December evacuation from Aleppo. He said in some cases the residents had no choice but to leave and that their relocation may amount to a war crime.
The evacuation from Aleppo came after years of fighting for control of the city as it was split between pro-government forces and parts held by rebel. The fighting resulted in numerous deaths among residents. The evacuation was negotiated by Russia, Iran and Turkey and came as an alternative to continued street-to-street battles for Aleppo.
'Up to 150,000' Women Suffering From Genital Mutilation in Feminist Sweden
Posted in: Barbarism, Genital Mutilation, Human rights, Islam, Religion, Sweden.	Leave a comment
Sweden prides itself as a recognized champion of human rights. However, its recently imported cultural values from the developing world may eventually shatter Sweden's shining image. Tens of thousands of women have been found to be suffering from genital mutilation, despite the fact that this immensely painful procedure is illegal.
Source: 'Up to 150,000' Women Suffering From Genital Mutilation in Feminist Sweden
sputniknews.com
© AP Photo/ Sergei Chuzavkov
The number of Swedish women who have undergone genital mutilation has been estimated to be at least several times higher than previously expected, a new survey has found.In 2015, the National Board of Health estimated that there were approximately 38,000 women who have been victimized by female genital mutilation (FGM) in the Nordic country, which had for decades ranked at the top of various equality ratings.
The most recent survey, however, placed Sweden among the countries with the highest proportion of FGM sufferers, with a staggeringly morbid estimation of 150,000 in a nation of 10 million, Swedish Radio reported. Since genital mutilation is a very private and shame-laden, it remains largely unreported, with the actual number of victims potentially being still higher.
What makes matters worse, genital mutilation is being carried out among girls of immigrant descent in families that have been settled in Sweden for a long time. Despite the fact that FGM is strictly prohibited by Swedish law, tradition and religious prescriptions may sometimes overcome legal ramifications. In immigrant circles, girls are known to have been taken to their respective home countries to have this procedure performed.
© AFP 2017/ Anders WIKLUND / TT News Agency
Sweden Bracing for Another Record Year in 'Festival Rapes'
The unexpectedly large and obviously still-growing number of genitally-mutilated women in Sweden places new demands on Swedish healthcare and school system, Swedish national broadcaster SVT wrote.
"Women who come to our reception have big problems. We remove the damaged parts in the lower abdomen area. But there are many more affected women in our society today, women we have to discover and offer help," Bita Eshragi, a physician from Amelmottagningen, Sweden's only clinic for FGM victims, told SVT.
Female genital mutilation, which is also known as female genital cutting and female circumcision, is the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the external female genitalia. The practice is found in parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East and is mostly carried out for religious or spiritual reasons. According to a 2016 estimation by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), around 200 million women living today have undergone this procedure.
CC0 / /
Finns Fume Over Abduction, Forced Marriage, Gender Mutilation of Migrants
Depending on the country, FGM is carried out at various ages ranging from days after birth to puberty. The practice is rooted in ideals about women's chastity and purity, and failing to comply may result in social exclusion.The exact amount of surgery (mostly carried out in field conditions) varies from country to country, yet typically includes the removal of both inner and outer labia and parts of the clitoris. Adverse health effects may include recurrent infections, difficulty urinating, chronic pain, infertility and complications during childbirth — with no known benefits whatsoever.
Not One More Step: Putin Outlines 'Red Lines' Which US and NATO Shouldn't Cross
Posted in: Europe, Hypocrisy, Imperialism, Military, NATO, Political science, Putin, Russia.	Leave a comment
Source: Not One More Step: Putin Outlines 'Red Lines' Which US & NATO Shouldn't Cross
Russian President Vladimir Putin assured US filmmaker Oliver Stone that Russia would create an economical and effective response to US and NATO actions to preserve the global strategic balance. Asked for comment, political scientist Nikita Danyuk explained why the Russian president's message was something Western powers need to hear and understand.
Speaking to Stone in 'The Putin Interviews', a documentary series which started its broadcast on the Showtime television network this week, Russia's president explained that Moscow has the resources to respond to belligerent US and NATO policy, including attempts to ring Russia with missile defense.
© REUTERS/ Christian Hartmann
Russia to Give Suitable Response to All NATO Actions – Putin
Russia, Putin said, is now almost surrounded by US missile defense systems, from ground-based bases in Eastern European countries, to NATO ships patrolling the Mediterranean and the northern seas, and Alaska, where missile defense systems are currently being installed.
This, the president stressed, was "another big, glaring strategic mistake [by] our partners, because Russia will give a suitable response to all of these actions, and this will mean nothing else other than another phase of an arms race. Our response will be much cheaper. Its [equipment] may be rougher somewhere, but it will be effective. We shall preserve this so-called strategic balance."
Asked for comment, Nikita Danyuk, political scientist and deputy director of the Institute of Strategic Studies and Prognoses, told Radio Sputnik that Putin's remarks about Russia being surrounded by US missile defenses underscored a fundamental contradiction in US foreign policy.
"In this part of the documentary, the thesis was repeatedly expressed that the US for some reason has become accustomed to allowing itself to pursue a policy of upholding its national interests, which by definition does not give other sovereign states the right to pursue the same independent policy. Here…Putin emphasized that by and large, there are only a few states in global politics which can conduct an independent sovereign policy – with Russia being one of these states," Danyuk said.
© Flickr/ International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Putin Calls Attempts to Disturb World Nuclear Balance 'Big Mistake'
According to the observer, the Russian president was able to formulate a very important message to Russia's Western counterparts.
"In my view, the message is that Russia is not an enemy – that it is a country which is open to dialogue. But at the same time it is a country which will not compromise its national interests, which is always ready to defend its sovereignty, and which will not allow other states to encroach on our national security in any way. And particularly through answering the question on missile defense, Putin outlined certain 'red lines', beyond which he factually did not recommend for anyone to cross," Danyuk concluded.
© Sputnik/ Alexandr Vilf
RS-24 Yars mobile ground missile systems with at the military parade in Moscow marking the 72nd anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
© AFP 2017/ Kenichi Murakami / POOL
Putin Says 'Almost Nothing' Changes With Each New US President
In his interview with Stone, Putin also reminded the director that the US was the nation to unilaterally withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, under the pretext of an Iranian threat.
"We have been told for all this time that 'this move is not about you,' 'nothing threatens you,' as the move has been allegedly taken against Iran," the president recalled. "But now there are no problems with Iran, the [nuclear] deal has been signed with it. Iran has abandoned all nuclear military weapons programs. The United States agreed with it and signed the corresponding document. However, the missile defense program with its elements in Europe continues further. Against whom is it aimed? Obviously, it prompts us to respond to the situation somehow."
© Flickr/ US Army Corps of Engineers Europe District
The US Army Corps of Engineers Europe District is managing the construction of a $134 million Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Complex in Deveselu, Romania
Finally, commenting on NATO's creeping expansion into Eastern Europe, Putin emphasized that in light of the Soviet Union's demise, and Iran's decision to abandon its nuclear weapons program, there is no sense for NATO to continue to accept new members. Instead, he said, countries should instead focus on reaching agreements on security and mutual assistance if they feel threatened.
Stop Legitimizing 'Conservatism': It's Not an Ideology – It's a Goddamn Death Machine
Posted in: Ideology, Idiocracy, Political science, Sheeple, Trumpf, USA.	3 Comments
Everybody knows by now that conservatives are not too bright, they are ugly, they smell, and their mothers dress them funny.
"That this movement is a threat to Western values is transparent."
Source: Stop Legitimizing 'Conservatism': It's Not an Ideology – It's a Goddamn Death Machine
anonymous-news.com
By AnonHQ
(Common Dreams) There's no end to the maladies that ail American politics these days. It would, indeed, be far easier and quicker to identify what's working than to itemize the travails that bedevil our pathetic polity in 2017. Altogether, if this country was a piece of art it would have to combine the orderliness of Pollock with the perceptual logic of Dali, all rooted in the joyful well-being of Hieronymous Bosch, in order to do justice to our times.
For those of you who for some reason always wanted to know what it looks like when an empire cracks apart, I've got some lovely news for you: A certain North American specimen, not generally known for its generosity, is nevertheless happy to oblige you today. Truly, the full catalog of America's political woes could crash Amazon's entire array of server farms, and most of us are struggling enough with chronic nausea these days such that revisiting all these horror stories again is way too depressing to contemplate. So I won't. But there is one thing that inflames my tortured mind more than any of these items – perhaps because it is the one thing that explains them all.
Here it is: I am sickened to live in a society that treats a malignant illness as just another legitimate point of view, when in fact it's the very disease that is killing us. We don't treat a heroin epidemic as an innocuous choice that some may opt for and some may reject. We don't treat cholera as just another flavor of ice cream that some prefer while others go for strawberry. And we don't welcome Nazism as a legitimate belief system that deserves the same consideration as any other old model of race relations a society might adopt. So why do we treat 'conservatism' like some harmless cup of tea that some choose over Earl Grey or Jasmine?
I'm dead serious. And I mean like, literally, dead serious, because if we're honest about it, that which goes by the name of conservatism today is not an ideology – it's a death machine.
Maybe there was once a responsible, legitimate (if misguided and merely moderately deceitful) ideology by the name of conservatism – I don't know. Regardless, we're not talking about Dwight Eisenhower or Gerry Ford here. We're talking about societal hemlock. And it's been that way for a generation or two, but of course now the threat from this monstrosity is no longer just a moral disaster, it's a full-blown existential crisis, wrapped inside a suicide vest.
Death machine, huh? Maybe you're thinking, "Sure, those Trump idiots are completely bonkers, but calling them a willful agent of the apocalypse is little extreme. I mean, artistic license is a good thing, but c'mon man…" Sorry. I'm not kidding. I'm being quite literal. This is a belief system which is bringing death to thousands-year-old traditions of Western values, to democracy, to the country, to people's lives, to the truth, and to the planet. Because of the threat this represents, we need to stop treating 'conservatism' as just another legitimate ideological choice. It's not. It's a murder weapon metastasized to global proportions.
That this movement is a threat to Western values is transparent. Today's so-called 'conservatives' are the enemy of equality, human rights and liberty (despite their protestations to the exact contrary). They instead embody elitism, bigotry and repression. They don't stand for gay rights any more than they ever did for civil rights back in the day, or equal pay for equal work. They worship power and its use to colonize others abroad while repressing dissent at home. Five minutes at any given Trump rally last year would have made that clear enough. But in case the message was somehow lost, one look at our fearless leader and his fawning relations with the likes of Putin, Erdogan and Duterte, combined with the shattering of the Western alliance with leaders like Angela Merkel and those of other (once-)allied democracies tells you all you need to know.
And no, it's not just one buffoon we're talking about here. While a number of right-wing pundits have – to their partial credit – repudiated Trumpism, there are loads of problems with that alibi for their movement. First, a whole lot of other folks have not disowned the walking crime scene that is the Trump White House. Second, these are pundits – hardly a single Republican officeholder in Washington has found it ethically necessary to distance him or herself from the moral abyss DBA an orange-haired gorilla in a Brioni suit. Most importantly, however, Trump is far less the historical aberration from the tendencies of the last four decades than he is the expression of its logical outcome. The right has been trucking in racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, military aggression, environmental destruction and armed robbery of the 99 percent going back at least as far as William F. Buckley and Ronald (Jesus' Kid Brother) Reagan. Methinks the ladies of the conservative intelligentsia (pardon the oxymoron) doth protest too much when they seek to distance themselves from an administration whose only difference from its Republican predecessors is the grotesque overtness of its toxicity. (Especially when it doesn't take a Svengali to see that this administration is going to jail, and that its place in history will make Nixon look like Abraham Lincoln by comparison. It ain't too brave to want to make sure your name isn't associated with that particular catastrophe.)
Speaking of the rest of the GOP, they are even more liable for the destruction of American democracy than is McDonalds Stump himself. Democracies, of course, are built on such requisite features as constitutions, elections, fixed institutions with defined powers, and so on. But underlying all of that is something of even greater importance, a political culture that forms the fabric and the foundation upon which any democracy must be built. This foundation silently and implicitly stipulates the rules of the game and the boundaries of permissible behavior, and without it, there can be no functioning democracy. It is defined by elements such as a shared national identity that supersedes partisanship, an understanding that certain principles must be protected – even at the cost of one's own political fortunes – in order for the system to survive, and a basic level of trust such that one can hand over the keys of government to the other side without fearing that that new government will become a weapon used against the losers of an election, while at the same time believing that the next election will provide a genuine opportunity to return to power. These are the least tangible aspects of what sustains a functioning democracy, but they are also the most crucial. After all, you can have a formal written constitution or not, you can have a president or a prime minister, you can have two parties or many, you can have powerful states within a national government or not. In all these profound ways the British system differs from the American one, but nobody would claim that the UK is therefore not a democracy. What matters at the end of the day is the political culture of mutual respect and trust, the norms and the self-imposed restraints that form the fabric and foundation of a functioning democratic political culture.
And this is precisely what 'conservatives' have not been conserving for forty years now, but rather instead destroying. The necessity of preserving this crucial political culture is why impeaching a president for lying about a personal sexual relationship matters. It is why five conservative members of the Supreme Court breaking all their own internal rules and supposed principles in order to install their guy in the White House matters. It's why using the country's racial divide to win elections matters. It's why relentlessly employing the filibuster to block every item on the agenda of a president from the other party – even those items that you supported yourself only yesterday – matters. And why it matters when you then alter filibuster rule when it's used in the same way against you. This is why radical gerrymandering matters. This is why targeted voter suppression of the other party's base in order to prevail in elections you couldn't otherwise win matters. This is why refusing to act on a Supreme Court nomination for a year in order to get the nominee you want instead matters. And its why falsely claiming elections are rigged matters.
I have nothing particularly nice to say about the feeble and ineffectual (on a good day) Democratic Party, and especially its last two presidents. But all of the above examples of the undermining of American democracy in our time come from the Republican Party and the supposedly conservative folks who inhabit it. For all the many failings of the Democrats, there is no equivalent to any one of these items on their side of the aisle, let alone an equivalent to all of them. The upshot is that rather than conserving the Founders' democratic system that conservatives are forever cynically clothing themselves in, they are in fact destroying it. This is not death by a thousand cuts, but rather death by relentless saber slashes.
Conservatism is also death in a quite literal sense, as well. Just ask the million or so Iraqis who perished because of the right's war of choice justified by lies. Er, oops, wait a second… Turns out you can't ask them, because they're dead, killed by conservatives. But you could ask the tens of thousands Americans who are alive today because of Obamacare – which conservatives have fought relentlessly – and who may be dead tomorrow if the GOP manages to kill what skimpy health care protections Americans now enjoy. Or you can ask the workers who will be dying because the conservative movement is so determined to remove any sort of workplace safety regulations from providing them even modest protection. Or those who whose lives will be sacrificed in order to destroy the (woefully) basic environmental standards that have been built up over the last half-century. If you want to know what conservatism means for our environment and health, look no further than Flint, Michigan. The story that nobody in the media bothers to tell about that insane catastrophe is why it happened. The reason that 'Flint' has now become shorthand for environmental meltdown and lethal governmental buffoonery is that conservatives in Michigan's government – who fervently 'believe' in local control, mind you – passed legislation allowing the state to simply take over control of municipalities whenever it saw fit, despite the electoral choices of voters in those communities. That's what the conservative Snyder administration then proceeded to do in Flint, and the rest is history. By the way, their justification for doing so was that Flint was being mismanaged, so they – wait for it, now – had to come in and get it right. You can't make this shit up. And if you did, you could never find anyone in Hollywood willing to make a movie out of it, on account of its absurdly ridiculous improbability.
"By treating conservatism and conservatives as reasonable and acceptable we not only legitimize the unspeakable, we massively enhance its likelihood of successfully killing us."
But we're not done yet. Conservatism also means death to the truth. Of course, when it comes to Herr Bloated Pumpkinhead and the current administration, the scale of dishonesty is absolutely epic. It is literally no exaggeration to say that a consumer of any generic statement by this White House would be more likely to know the truth by simply assuming its opposite is the case, than he or she would by accepting any given tweet or Spicerism as fact. No wonder Orwell is selling like hotcakes these days. This is a true "2+2=5″ moment, Winston.
It's hardly surprising that a career New York City real estate developer who has spent a lifetime doing little but shameless self-promotion and fabricating scams running the gamut from bottled water to bottled diplomas would be unable to speak truthfully about nearly anything. And of course, when we say 'anything' here, we mean… anything. What's somewhat astonishing and most definitely disturbing, however, is the reaction that his compulsive tendency to lie produces among the roughly forty percent of Americans who form his political base. What has gone so wrong in the lives of these 'conservatives' that they not only tolerate being lied to incessantly, but actually crave it? This is not the place for an extended discussion of that question, but suffice it to say that conservatism's appeal among the public – including many whom it harms the most – cannot be understood outside the realm of political psychology. One might view these 'comfortably numb-nuts' as the rightful inheritors of America's storied Know Nothing tradition, but in fact that's too generous a label, since it turns out that it is actually possible in this world to know less than nothing if you're willing to work hard enough at it. When you believe that Iraq really had WMD, or that cutting taxes on billionaires will get you a sweet job, or that Donald Trump has your back, well then, graduating to the status of being a full-blown Know Nothing truly is something for which you are well-positioned to aspire.
This is where, alas, the Founders got it wrong, with their Enlightenment model of rationally calculating citizens. A good hundred million plus Americans have literally lost their minds in our time and, in order to soothe the resentments torturing their savage souls, they are taking down the country around their heads as they descend into an emotionally satisfying madness.
Or, at least it used to be the country they are taking down. Now it's the world. With the president's destruction of the Paris climate change accord, American conservatism is now bringing it on a planetary scale. Could this possibly be more jaw-dropping in its sheer stupidity? We are talking here about a phenomenon that literally threatens life on this planet, and conservatives – who are otherwise so consumed with fear so much of the time – insist on rejecting slam-dunk scientific evidence and making sure that we perish instead. Again, the pathological psychology of these folks is the only way to understand such a suicide mission, such an act of terrorism on a global scale. The president's speech was entirely laced with the rhetoric of bogus grievance – about how the United States is the laughing stock of the world because we're being duped and cheated by smarter, tougher, more cynical countries, and blah, blah, freaking blah… Apart from the sheer absurdity of this trope on the basis of any sort of actual logic or fact, there remains this outstanding question: Even if it was all true, who the hell cares? If the planet winds up being destroyed, does it really matter whether in the preceding years one country's GDP grew a half-percent slower than that of some other countries? What's that old line about deck chairs…? Could there be any other accurate term for a belief system that so jeopardizes an entire planet than 'death machine'?
We need to stop fooling around with this shit. Smallpox is not just another disease. Totalitarianism is not just another political system. Nuclear war is not just another form of conflict. And what calls itself 'conservatism' today is not just another form of legitimate, maybe-they're-right-maybe-they're-wrong, ideology.
All of these are life-threatening pathologies of epic proportion. It's bad enough that we have to expend so much energy to keep them at bay. But, by treating conservatism and conservatives as reasonable and acceptable we not only legitimize the unspeakable, we massively enhance its likelihood of successfully killing us.
Today's 'conservatism' is not an ideology – it's a goddam death machine. And we should welcome it into our homes and communities every bit as much as we would the Black Plague.
Vladimir Putin: The Most Powerful Person In The World
Posted in: Capitalism, Corporate psychopathology, Corporatocracy, Debt slavery, Globalization, Labor, Political science, Presstitutes, Putin, Russia, Unemployment, USA.	Leave a comment
Source: Vladimir Putin: The Most Powerful Person In The World – PaulCraigRoberts.org
It must be wonderful being Vladimir Putin and being the most powerful person on earth. And not even have to say so yourself. The US Democratic Party is saying it for Putin along with the entirety of the Western presstitute media and the CIA and FBI also. The Russian media doesn't have to brag about Putin's power. Megyn Kelly, the Western presstitutes, and Western leaders are doing it for them: Putin is so powerful that he is able to place in office his choice for the President of the United States.
I mean, Wow! What power! Americans are simply out of the game. Americans, despite a massive intelligence budget and 16 separate intelligence services plus those of its NATO vassals, are no match whatsoever for Vladimir Putin.
I mean, really! What is the CIA for? What is the NSA for? What are the rest of them for? Americans would do better to close down these incompetent, but expensive, "intelligence services" and pay the money to Putin as a bribe not to select our president. Maybe the CIA should get down on its knees and beg Putin to stop electing the President of the United States. I mean, how humiliating. I can hardly stand it. I thought we are the "world's sole superpower, the uni-power, the exceptional, indispensable people." It turns out that we are a nothing people, ruled by the President of Russia.
When the Democrats, CIA, and media decided to launch their PR campaign against Trump, they didn't realize how inconsequential it would make the United States appear by putting American democracy into Putin's pocket. What were they thinking? They weren't. They were fixated on making sure Trump did not endanger the massive military/security complex budget by restoring normal relations with Russia.
There is no sign that American leadership in any area is actually capable of thought. Consider Wall Street and corporate leadership. To boost share prices Wall Street forced all corporations to desert their home country and move the production of goods and services sold to Americans offshore to where labor and regulatory costs were lower. The lower costs raised profits and share prices. Wall Street threatened resistant corporations with takeovers of the companies if they refused to move abroad in order to increase their profits.
Neither Wall Street nor corporate boards and CEOs were smart enough to understand that moving jobs offshore also moved US consumer incomes and purchasing power offshore. In other words, the financial and business leadership were too stupid to comprehend that without the incomes from high value-added, high productivity US jobs, the American consumer would not have the discretionary income to continue in his role as the economy's driver.
The Federal Reserve caught on to Wall Street's mistake. To rectify the mistake, the Fed expanded credit, allowing a buildup in consumer debt to keep the economy going on credit purchases. However, once consumer debt is high relative to income, the ability to buy more stuff departs. In other words, credit expansion is not a permanent fix for the lack of consumer income growth.
A country whose financial and business leadership is too stupid to understand that a population increasingly employed in part-time minimum wage jobs is not a big spending population is a country whose leadership has failed.
It is strictly impossible to boost profits by offshoring jobs without also offshoring US consumer incomes. Therefore, the profits from offshoring are temporary. Once enough jobs have been moved offshore that aggregate demand is stymied, the domestic market stagnates and then declines.
As I have demonstrated so many times for so many years, as has John Williams (shadowstats.com), the jobs reports from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics are nonsense. The jobs in the alleged recovery from June 2009 are largely low income domestic service jobs and the product of the theoretical birth/death model. The alleged recovery from the 2007-08 financial crisis is the first recovery in history in which the labor force participation rate declined. Labor force participation rates decline when the economy offers scant job opportunities, not when employment opportunities are rising.
What we know about US jobs is that the jobs are increasingly part-time minimum wage jobs. According to a presstitute news report that might or might not be true, there are only 12 counties in the entirety of the United States in which a person can rent a one-bedroom home on a minimum wage income. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/08/minimum-wage-affordable-housing-rentals-study
In response to this report, a professor at Virginia Tech suggested that the government offer increased rental assistance and boost programs such as the National Housing Trust Fund, which invests in affordable housing.
In other words, taxpayers are to pick up the costs to Americans of US corporations deserting the US labor force. Those Americans who still have middle class incomes will be taxed to cover the lost incomes that the offshoring corporations and Wall Street have snatched away from American workers who can no longer earn enough to pay for their own housing.
In other words, capitalism has reached the point in its descent that it cannot exist without public subsidies for the people dispossessed by capitalism.
On a number of occasions I have written about how many costs of production are imposed on third parties, such as the environment. A significant percentage of the profits of capitalist corporations comes from the political and legal ability of the corporations to impose their costs of production on third parties. In other words, capitalism makes money because it can impose its costs of production on the environment and on people who do not share in the profits. I have provided many examples of this, especially in the area of real estate development. The developer is able to shift a large part of his costs to others.
This cost shifting has now reached the level of inducing Armaggedon. There is an effort to impeach Trump and put the warmonger VP Pence in the presidency. As Trump campaigned on restoring normal relations with Russia, a defeat of the attempt to reduce tensions would reinforce the recent conclusion of the Russian military high command that Washington is planning a first strike nuclear attack on Russia.
This is the risk that the entire world faces due to the dependence of the power and profit of the US military/security complex on war and enemies.
In other words, there is only one remaining rationale for the existence of the United States of America — the interests of the military/security complex — and these interests require a powerful enemy whether real or orchestrated.
Former CIA official John Stockwell wrote: "It is the function of the CIA to keep the world unstable, and to propagandize and teach the American people to hate, so we will let the Establishment spend any amount of money on arms." The hatred and distrust of Russia that the West is currently being force-fed reflects Stockwell's revelation, as does the orchestrated hatred and distrust of Muslims that has supported Washington's destruction in whole or part of seven countries and trillions of dollars in new US war debt.
Globalism, that is, labor arbitrage across national boundaries, and financialization, the diversion of consumers' incomes into interest and fees to banks, have wrecked the US economy. The "opportunity society" has vanished. Children have poorer economic prospects than their parents. The offshoring of manufacturing and professional service jobs such as IT and software engineering has collapsed the growth of aggregate demand in the US. The Federal Reserve's credit expansion was only a temporary reprieve.
Formerly prosperous areas are in ruins. States' budgets and pension systems are failing. There is no payoff to a university education. Americans' economic prospects have been erased by globalism. Getting ahead requires connections as it did in the aristocratic systems. The high concentration of income and wealth has negated democracy. The government is only accountable to the rich.
American political and business leadership not only destroyed the image of US sovereignty by placing American democracy in Putin's pocket, but also destroyed the formerly vibrant American economy, once the envy of the world.
Where can Americans find leadership? Certainly not in the Democratic Party, nor in the Republican Party, nor in the media, nor in the corporate community. How then does the US compete with Russia and China, two countries with good leadership? Is war the only answer to the question?
2017 Is Going To Be The Worst Retail Apocalypse In U.S. History – More Than 300 Retailers Have Already Filed For Bankruptcy
Posted in: Business and money, Economic collapse, Economics, Labor, Recession, Unemployment.	Leave a comment
Source: 2017 Is Going To Be The Worst Retail Apocalypse In U.S. History – More Than 300 Retailers Have Already Filed For Bankruptcy
theeconomiccollapseblog.com
By Michael Snyder
on June 13th, 2017
Not even during the worst parts of the last recession did things ever get this bad for the U.S. retail industry. As you will see in this article, more than 300 retailers have already filed for bankruptcy in 2017, and it is being projected that a staggering 8,640 stores will close in America by the end of this calendar year. That would shatter the old record by more than 20 percent. Sadly, our ongoing retail apocalypse appears to only be in the early chapters. One report recently estimated that up to 25 percent of all shopping malls in the country could shut down by 2022 due to the current woes of the retail industry. And if the new financial crisis that is already hitting Europe starts spreading over here, the numbers that I just shared with you could ultimately turn out to be a whole lot worse.
I knew that a lot of retailers were filing for bankruptcy, but I had no idea that the grand total for this year was already in the hundreds. According to CNN, the number of retail bankruptcies is now up 31 percent compared to the same time period last year…
Bankruptcies continue to pile up in the retail industry.
More than 300 retailers have filed for bankruptcy so far this year, according to data from BankruptcyData.com. That's up 31% from the same time last year. Most of those filings were for small companies — the proverbial Mom & Pop store with a single location. But there are also plenty of household names on the list.
Yes, the growth of online retailers such as Amazon is fueling some of this, but the Internet has been around for several decades now.
So why are retail store closings and retail bankruptcies surging so dramatically all of a sudden?
Just a few days ago, another major victim of the retail apocalypse made headlines all over the nation when it filed for bankruptcy. At one time Gymboree was absolutely thriving, but now it is in a desperate fight to survive…
Children's clothing chain Gymboree has filed for bankruptcy protection, aiming to slash its debts and close hundreds of stores amid crushing pressure on retailers.
Gymboree said it plans to remain in business but will close 375 to 450 of its 1,281 stores in filing for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. Gymboree employs more than 11,000 people, including 10,500 hourly workers.
And in recent weeks other major retailers that were once very prosperous have also been forced to close stores and lay off staff…
This hemorrhaging of retail jobs comes on the heels of last week's mass layoffs at Hudson Bay Company, where employees from Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor were among the 2,000 people laid off. The news of HBC layoffs came on the same day that Ascena, the parent company of brands like Ann Taylor, Lane Bryant, and Dress Barn, told investors it will be closing up to 650 stores (although it did not specify which brands will be affected just yet). Only two weeks ago, affordable luxury brand Michael Kors announced it too would close 125 stores to combat brand overexposure and plummeting sales.
In a lot of ways this reminds me of 2007. The stock market was still performing very well, but the real economy was starting to come apart at the seams.
And without a doubt, the real economy is really hurting right now. According to Business Insider, Moody's is warning that 22 more major retailers may be forced to declare bankruptcy in the very near future…
Twenty-two retailers in Moody's portfolio are in serious financial trouble that could lead to bankruptcy, according to a Moody's note published on Wednesday. That's 16% of the 148 companies in the financial firm's retail group — eclipsing the level of seriously distressed retail companies that Moody's reported during the Great Recession.
You can find the full list right here. If this many major retailers are "distressed" now, what are things going to look like once the financial markets start crashing?
As thousands of stores close down all across the United States, this is going to put an incredible amount of stress on shopping mall owners. In order to meet their financial obligations, those mall owners need tenants, but now the number of potential tenants is shrinking rapidly.
I have talked about dead malls before, but apparently what we have seen so far is nothing compared to what is coming. The following comes from CNN…
Store closings and even dead malls are nothing new, but things might be about to get a whole lot worse.
Between 20% and 25% of American malls will close within five years, according to a new report out this week from Credit Suisse. That kind of plunge would be unprecedented in the nation's history.
I can't even imagine what this country is going to look like if a quarter of our shopping malls shut down within the next five years. Already, there are some parts of the U.S. that look like a third world nation.
And what is this going to do to employment? Today, the retail industry employs millions upon millions of Americans, and those jobs could start disappearing very rapidly…
The retail sales associate is one of the most popular jobs in the country, with roughly 4.5 million Americans filling the occupation. In May, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released data that found that 7.5 million retail jobs might be replaced by technology. The World Economic Forum predicts 30 to 50 percent of retail jobs will be gone once struggling companies like Gymboree fully hop on the digital train. MarketWatch found that over the last year, the department store space bled 29,900 jobs, while general merchandising stores cut 15,700 positions. At this rate, one Florida columnist put it soberingly, "Half of all US retail jobs could vanish. Just as ATMs replaced many bank tellers, automated check-out stations are supplanting retail clerks."
At this moment, the number of working age Americans that do not have a job is hovering near a record high. So being able to at least get a job in the retail industry has been a real lifeline for many Americans, and now that lifeline may be in grave danger.
For those running our big corporations, losing these kinds of jobs is not a big deal. In fact, many corporate executives would be quite happy to replace all of their U.S. employees with technology or with foreign workers.
But if the middle class is going to survive, we need an economy that produces good paying jobs. Unfortunately, even poor paying retail jobs are starting to disappear now, and the future of the middle class is looking bleaker than it ever has before.


text:
Virtual reality visual feedback for hand-controlled scanning probe microscopy manipulation of single molecules
Philipp Leinen1,2,
Matthew F. B. Green1,2,
Taner Esat1,2,
Christian Wagner1,2,
F. Stefan Tautz1,2 and
Ruslan Temirov1,2
Philipp Leinen
Peter Grünberg Institut (PGI-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425 Jülich, Germany
Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA)-Fundamentals of Future Information Technology, 52425 Jülich, Germany
Matthew F. B. Green
Taner Esat
Christian Wagner
F. Stefan Tautz
Ruslan Temirov
1Peter Grünberg Institut (PGI-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425 Jülich, Germany
2Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA)-Fundamentals of Future Information Technology, 52425 Jülich, Germany
This article is part of the Thematic Series "Molecular machines and devices".
Guest Editor: J. M. van Ruitenbeek
Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2148–2153. https://doi.org/10.3762/bjnano.6.220
Received 31 Jul 2015, Accepted 28 Oct 2015, Published 16 Nov 2015
Controlled manipulation of single molecules is an important step towards the fabrication of single molecule devices and nanoscale molecular machines. Currently, scanning probe microscopy (SPM) is the only technique that facilitates direct imaging and manipulations of nanometer-sized molecular compounds on surfaces. The technique of hand-controlled manipulation (HCM) introduced recently in Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1926–1932 simplifies the identification of successful manipulation protocols in situations when the interaction pattern of the manipulated molecule with its environment is not fully known. Here we present a further technical development that substantially improves the effectiveness of HCM. By adding Oculus Rift virtual reality goggles to our HCM set-up we provide the experimentalist with 3D visual feedback that displays the currently executed trajectory and the position of the SPM tip during manipulation in real time, while simultaneously plotting the experimentally measured frequency shift (Δf) of the non-contact atomic force microscope (NC-AFM) tuning fork sensor as well as the magnitude of the electric current (I) flowing between the tip and the surface. The advantages of the set-up are demonstrated by applying it to the model problem of the extraction of an individual PTCDA molecule from its hydrogen-bonded monolayer grown on Ag(111) surface.
Keywords: non-contact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM); Oculus Rift; perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic dianhydride (PTCDA); scanning probe microscopy (SPM); scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM); single-molecule manipulation; virtual reality interface
The recently introduced scanning probe microscopy (SPM) technique of hand controlled manipulation (HCM) allows the operator of the SPM to manipulate single molecules on surfaces by coupling the motion of the microscope tip to the movements of the hand of the operator in 3D space [1]. The possibility to control the position of the SPM tip by hand is especially advantageous when the manipulation is performed in an environment where the forces acting on the manipulated molecule are a priori not fully known. In such cases, a hand-controlled trial and error search for successful manipulation protocols is more efficient than model-based simulation approaches, simply because in HCM tests of various manipulation protocols can be performed very quickly by execution and comparison of many alternative tip trajectories.
For its initial demonstration HCM was applied to the problem of extraction of single PTCDA molecules out of their commensurate monolayer grown on the Ag(111) surface [1-3]. Similar to the current study those experiments were performed with a commercial, combined qPlus tuning fork [4] non-contact atomic force/scanning tunnelling microscope (NC-AFM/STM) operated at 5 K under ultra-high vacuum conditions. Each extraction attempt started with positioning the tip over one of the four carboxylic oxygen atoms (marked by red circles in Figure 1) of the PTCDA molecule. The tip was then approached to the surface until the operator observed a sudden jump in the I and Δf signals. Here the oxygen atom under the tip flipped up toward the tip apex, thereby establishing a chemical bond between the tip and the molecule [5,6]. Through this bond the molecule can be lifted from the surface by pulling it with the tip as it is retracted away from the surface. When the contacted molecule rests isolated on the surface, retracting the tip on a straight line away from the surface allows for the successful lifting of the molecule [7,8]. However if the contacted molecule resides inside an ordered PTCDA monolayer, most of the attempts of pulling it straight up fail [1], because intermolecular interactions in the monolayer hold the molecules together [9]. When the force exerted by the intermolecular bonds overcomes the strength of the tip–molecule bond, the latter breaks and the molecule being lifted drops back to the surface.
Figure 1: Structural model of a fragment of the commensurate PTCDA monolayer grown on an Ag(111). Blue lines mark the expected positions of intermolecular hydrogen bonds. Red circles mark positions of carboxylic oxygen atoms that may be used for contacting the molecule by the tip. Here we only contact the oxygen atoms marked by solid circles.
Figure 1: Structural model of a fragment of the commensurate PTCDA monolayer grown on an Ag(111). Blue lines ...
Previously, we employed HCM to identify tip retraction trajectories which minimize the instances of tip–molecule bond breaking that prematurely end the manipulation procedure [1]. The task was accomplished by extracting 48 PTCDA molecules one by one. The experiment started without any prior training of the operator and lasted for about 50 working hours. In the course of the experiment an average time between successful manipulation attempts decreased from 40 to 13 minutes, which suggested that the operator learned how to move the tip in order to extract the molecule successfully. The learning was achieved by observing and intuitively interpreting the real-time I(t) and Δf(t) signals displayed during the manipulation on the screen of the oscilloscope, where a premature break of the tip–molecule contact was revealed as a simultaneous sharp drop of both I(t) and Δf(t) signal values.
While in its present form HCM is able to generate many tip trajectories in a fast and intuitive manner, it does not yet allow for a convenient visual inspection of the generated data in real time. Having such a possibility would make the analysis of manipulation trajectory data much simpler. It would also help to transfer knowledge between different users and/or experiments, thus facilitating systematic learning during which manipulation protocols are refined and corrected in multiple steps. Visualization of the manipulation trajectory data should therefore greatly increase the effectiveness of HCM and extend the range of its possible applications. Here we introduce a system that visualizes HCM data in real time by displaying the actual tip position as well as the history of its movements in 3D using Oculus Rift DK 2 (ORt) virtual reality goggles. A scheme of the set-up is shown in Figure 2. As before we use two VICON Bonita cameras for 3D tracking of the position of the operator's hand. In contrast to our previous work [1] where we tracked a single reflective marker we now use a VICON Apex device. Due to its shape and multiple active sources of infra-red (IR) light on its surface, tracking of the Apex device is more reliable [10]. Moreover, it allows for the implementation of additional service functions that help the operator to perform manipulation experiments without the use of a PC keyboard.
Figure 2: Scheme of the set-up used for HCM with a visual feedback using Oculus Rift virtual reality goggles (ORt). VICON 3D tracking system with two IR cameras follows the position of the VICON Apex device. VICON Apex has a dodecahedral shape, on the surface of which multiple sources of IR light are installed. The emitted IR light is registered by the cameras that compose an image from which the VICON software reconstructs the position and the orientation (not used in the experiment) of the Apex device in 3D space. The obtained coordinates x,y,z are used to set the position of the AFM/STM tip. The same coordinates are used to plot 3D trajectories in the virtual space of (ORt).
Figure 2: Scheme of the set-up used for HCM with a visual feedback using Oculus Rift virtual reality goggles ...
3D trajectories of the tip are visualised in ORt by intercepting the coordinates of the Apex device that are sent to the SPM electronics to position the tip [1] and forwarding them to ORt where a dot is plotted at each , thus generating a 3D image of the tip trajectory. In addition, each dot is coloured to exhibit values of or as obtained from the SPM. Switching between the log(I) and Δf color-codes can be performed by pressing a custom-defined action button on the Apex device.
We begin the discussion of our results by characterising the precision of the implemented visual feedback system. The characterisation was performed in the following manner: First, a circle with a diameter of 7 Å oriented arbitrarily in 3D space was visualized in ORt. The operator, wearing ORt, tried to follow the drawn circle by moving the Apex device held in their hand. Four of such attempts are exhibited in Figure 3. Superimposing the original circle with a torus of minimal volume that encloses all hand-drawn trajectories we find that the maximum error of trajectory tracking was approx. 0.4 Å. The accuracy of the manual trajectory tracking depends on the movement speed of the operator's hand and thus can be improved further. Note, however, that the oscillation amplitude of the NC-AFM tuning fork sensor (approx. 0.4 Å) directly adds to the error of the trajectory tracking and thus limits the achievable accuracy.
Figure 3: Precision of an arbitrary trajectory tracking in HCM with the visual feedback. The operator followed a circle with HCM for four times. Each attempt took one minute and the maximum deviation from the cycle was approx. 0.4 Å. Further details in text.
Figure 3: Precision of an arbitrary trajectory tracking in HCM with the visual feedback. The operator followe...
Further, we applied the extended HCM set-up to our model manipulation problem of [1], i.e., extraction of PTCDA from a monolayer adsorbed on Ag(111). First, by averaging all the successful tip trajectories from [1] we composed a single 3D trajectory. The averaged trajectory that is shown in Figure 4 was then plotted in ORt to serve as a guide for the operator. The plotted trajectory was rotated around the z-axis (perpendicular to the surface) to match the ORt view to the real azimuthal orientation of the chosen PTCDA molecule on the sample surface. As shown in Figure 4, in the correct orientation the projection of the averaged trajectory roughly follows the diagonal of the rectangular molecular backbone (for 3D images see Supporting Information File 2).
Figure 4: Manipulation trajectories recorded using HCM with the visual feedback. The inset in (a) shows three manipulation attempts (numbered by the sequence of their appearance) performed by the operator in the search of the kinked trajectory shown in (a) and (b). Top and side views of a) log(I(x,y,z)) and b) Δf(x,y,z) trajectories recorded by pulling a single PTCDA molecule out of the PTCDA monolayer grown on Ag(111). Orientation of the molecule is shown in Figure 1. A section of the averaged trajectory obtained from [1] is shown in gray. Seven attempts following the averaged trajectory fail due to a premature loss of the tip–molecule contact. In contrast, eight attempts following a newly found kinked trajectory lift the molecule far from the surface without loosing the tip–molecule contact.
Figure 4: Manipulation trajectories recorded using HCM with the visual feedback. The inset in (a) shows three...
After the alignment of the ORt image, the manipulation process was started. First, using the standard options of our SPM software, we parked the tip directly above the oxygen atom of the PTCDA that was chosen for contacting (Figure 1). After the tip was stabilized, the STM current feedback loop was opened and the control over the tip position was passed to the operator. The operator contacted the molecule by moving the tip in a strictly vertical trajectory (x,y tip coordinates frozen) until a sharp jump of the I and Δf bar indicators in the ORt display indicated establishing of the contact between tip and PTCDA (see Supporting Information File 1). After the contact was established the tip control was switched from the 1D (only z) to full 3D (x,y,z) HCM mode.
Using HCM the operator made seven attempts to follow the average trajectory. As Figure 4 shows, in all cases the contact to the molecule was lost after about r = 5 Å of tip retraction. The breaking of the contact was recognized by an abrupt simultaneous drop of the I and Δf signals, which could be directly observed in the ORt display (see Supporting Information File 1). The early rupture of the tip–PTCDA contact indicated that the chosen tip trajectory was not optimal. The deficiency of the averaged trajectory can be explained by the fact that it was generated by averaging the datasets obtained by the extraction of PTCDA molecules that had different numbers of nearest neighbours [1]. Since we expect the intermolecular interactions in the monolayer to play a significant role, the tip trajectories that extract molecules from different intermolecular configurations most likely deviate from each other substantially. Thus, averaging them could produce a trajectory that is not optimal for any particular configuration, such as the one chosen in our present experiment (Figure 1). Another argument for a poor performance of the averaged trajectory may be supplied by assuming different tip structures. In other words, the tip used here could form a weaker bond to the molecule than the tip employed in [1]. However, the fact that the failure of the averaged trajectory occurred also after several tip-forming procedures, makes the second argument less convincing.
The failure of the averaged trajectory challenged us with the problem of identification of a new tip trajectory that is able to extract a PTCDA molecule from the chosen configuration. We show that HCM with ORt visual feedback allows the operator to identify the necessary tip trajectory very efficiently, making only a few manipulation attempts. The inset of Figure 4a exhibits three steps of the search process: In the first attempt (trajectory 1) the operator deviated laterally from the unsuccessful averaged trajectory. The first attempt failed and the contact to the molecules was lost rather early. The second attempt (trajectory 2) however took a different direction and there the contact to the tip was kept longer. In the third attempt (trajectory 3) the operator first followed trajectory 2 but then made another twist which finally enabled further lifting. Following trajectory 3, the operator sequentially lifted the molecule eight times, each time retracting the tip by up to 12 Å from the surface without a single failure of the tip–molecule bond.
It is important to note that in the course of the manipulation experiments in Figure 4 the molecule was never fully detached from the surface in order to prevent a tip structure change from happening, e.g., due to a jump of the extracted molecule onto the tip apex. After retracting the tip by 11–12 Å it was approached back to the surface and the tip–molecule bond was cleaved by carefully raising the junction bias to 0.1–0.5 V. In all cases after this voltage increase the molecule was re-deposited back to the substrate, precisely into its previous configuration within the monolayer. Using the described procedure we were able to contact and lift the same molecule with the same tip which, as Figure 4 shows (see also the interactive 3D models provided in Supporting Information File 2), resulted in a highly reproducible behaviour of I(x,y,z) and Δf(x,y,z).
In summary, we have extended our SPM HCM set-up by adding a visual feedback system based on Oculus Rift virtual reality goggles. Visual feedback helps the operator performing HCM to control their actions in real time by directly observing the executed tip trajectory in 3D. The system also allows the operator to follow any arbitrary preset 3D trajectories and execute controlled deviations from them. The typical error of the trajectory following was found to be about 0.4Å. The extended SPM HCM set-up was applied to the model problem of extracting of a single PTCDA molecule out of a PTCDA/Ag(111) monolayer. We demonstrated that the added visual feedback facilitates the systematic search for optimal manipulation trajectories. The kinked manipulation trajectory that was found in this work aided the uninterrupted lifting of the molecule from the surface. The stability of the established manipulation protocol resulted in the collection of a very reproducible I(x,y,z) and Δf(x,y,z) data set that clearly exhibits interesting signatures of the molecular manipulation process and which opens up the prospect for systematic studies.
Supporting Information File 1: Screenshot Oculus Rift movie showing different stages of manipulation (watch subtitles for additional information).
Format: MP4 Size: 30.1 MB Download
Supporting Information File 2: Interactive 3D models of the data shown in Figure 4. In order to view it unpack and open either 'df.html' (frequency shift) or 'I.html' (logarithm of the current) file.
Format: ZIP Size: 302.8 KB Download
Green, M. F. B.; Esat, T.; Wagner, C.; Leinen, P.; Grötsch, A.; Tautz, F. S.; Temirov, R. Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1926–1932. doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.203
Return to citation in text: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
Rohlfing, M.; Temirov, R.; Tautz, F. S. Phys. Rev. B 2007, 76, 115421. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.76.115421
Kraft, A.; Temirov, R.; Henze, S. K. M.; Soubatch, S.; Rohlfing, M.; Tautz, F. S. Phys. Rev. B 2006, 74, 041402(R). doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.74.041402
Giessibl, F. J. Rev. Mod. Phys. 2003, 75, 949. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.75.949
Temirov, R.; Lassise, A.; Anders, F. B.; Tautz, F. S. Nanotechnology 2008, 19, 065401. doi:10.1088/0957-4484/19/6/065401
Toher, C.; Temirov, R.; Greuling, A.; Pump, F.; Kaczmarski, M.; Cuniberti, G.; Rohlfing, M.; Tautz, F. S. Phys. Rev. B 2011, 83, 155402. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.83.155402
Fournier, N.; Wagner, C.; Weiss, C.; Temirov, R.; Tautz, F. S. Phys. Rev. B 2011, 84, 035435. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.84.035435
Wagner, C.; Fournier, N.; Tautz, F. S.; Temirov, R. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2012, 109, 076102. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.076102
Kilian, L.; Hauschild, A.; Temirov, R.; Soubatch, S.; Schöll, A.; Bendounan, A.; Reinert, F.; Lee, T.-L.; Tautz, F. S.; Sokolowski, M.; Umbach, E. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2008, 100, 136103. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.136103
Using ORt we found that it interfered with operation of the VICON system: In case a single point-marker is used with the VICON system and because ORt also uses multiple sources of infra-red light (fixed at a surface of the goggles) for positioning, the correct determination of the marker's position becomes complicated. To overcome that problem we used VICON Apex device that is recognised by the VICON software as a 3D object with a unique shape which allows the VICON software to distinguish it clearly from the shapes created by the light sources installed on ORt.
1. Green, M. F. B.; Esat, T.; Wagner, C.; Leinen, P.; Grötsch, A.; Tautz, F. S.; Temirov, R. Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1926–1932. doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.203
References 7,8
7. Fournier, N.; Wagner, C.; Weiss, C.; Temirov, R.; Tautz, F. S. Phys. Rev. B 2011, 84, 035435. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.84.035435
8. Wagner, C.; Fournier, N.; Tautz, F. S.; Temirov, R. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2012, 109, 076102. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.076102
Go to references 7,8
5. Temirov, R.; Lassise, A.; Anders, F. B.; Tautz, F. S. Nanotechnology 2008, 19, 065401. doi:10.1088/0957-4484/19/6/065401
6. Toher, C.; Temirov, R.; Greuling, A.; Pump, F.; Kaczmarski, M.; Cuniberti, G.; Rohlfing, M.; Tautz, F. S. Phys. Rev. B 2011, 83, 155402. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.83.155402
4. Giessibl, F. J. Rev. Mod. Phys. 2003, 75, 949. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.75.949
2. Rohlfing, M.; Temirov, R.; Tautz, F. S. Phys. Rev. B 2007, 76, 115421. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.76.115421
3. Kraft, A.; Temirov, R.; Henze, S. K. M.; Soubatch, S.; Rohlfing, M.; Tautz, F. S. Phys. Rev. B 2006, 74, 041402(R). doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.74.041402
9. Kilian, L.; Hauschild, A.; Temirov, R.; Soubatch, S.; Schöll, A.; Bendounan, A.; Reinert, F.; Lee, T.-L.; Tautz, F. S.; Sokolowski, M.; Umbach, E. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2008, 100, 136103. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.136103
10. Using ORt we found that it interfered with operation of the VICON system: In case a single point-marker is used with the VICON system and because ORt also uses multiple sources of infra-red light (fixed at a surface of the goggles) for positioning, the correct determination of the marker's position becomes complicated. To overcome that problem we used VICON Apex device that is recognised by the VICON software as a 3D object with a unique shape which allows the VICON software to distinguish it clearly from the shapes created by the light sources installed on ORt.
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© 2015 Leinen et al; licensee Beilstein-Institut.
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Leinen, P.; Green, M. F. B.; Esat, T.; Wagner, C.; Tautz, F. S.; Temirov, R. Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2148–2153. doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.220


I'm embarrassed to tell you how old I was the first time I didn't cry when I saw the results of a haircut. Let's just say I wasn't a teenager anymore. No matter how emphatically I said "just a trim," yards of curly hair lay scattered around my feet at the end.
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