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NATO Remains Committed to Afghan War, Despite Setbacks
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the military alliance remains committed to restoring peace in Afghanistan, despite rising Afghan casualties and repeated delays to begin peace talks.
'Together we reaffirmed our commitment to Afghanistan's long-term security and stability,' Stoltenberg told reporters Wednesday after the two-day NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels.
NATO assumed the lead role in providing international security in Afghanistan 15 years ago, but a senior U.S. general warned recently the death was becoming unsustainable.
Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie, who has been nominated to command the U.S. forces who oversee the Afghan war, told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this week Afghan forces were still unable to neutralize the Taliban.
The Taliban, a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist political movement, made steady gains in recent years and now number about 60,000 in Afghanistan. NATO has some 16,000 troops in the country, advising and assisting local forces.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said last month nearly 30,000 local troops had been killed since they took control of security from NATO in 2015, far more than previously acknowledged.
Stoltenberg stressed the importance of improving the election process before next year's presidential elections 'because successful elections will reinforce Afghanistan's path towards stability and peace.'
The Secretary-General also said the Taliban must understand that 'continuing to fight is pointless and only causes more suffering.' He added: 'They should sit down at the negotiating table. We are committed to supporting Afghanistan.'
Stoltenberg acknowledged the rising death toll, saying in conflict situations there are sometimes 'an increase in violence because different parties try to gain the best possible position at the bargaining table.'
'So it may actually become worse before it becomes better in Afghanistan,' Stoltenberg warned.
Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani said at the news conference his country is eager to collaborate with NATO and other global partners to end the conflict.
'In the broader context, we look forward to continuing our partnership with NATO and other international partners for Afghanistan's stability and, more broadly, to enhance global security,' he said.
After the talks in Brussels, foreign ministers from countries participating in NATO's Resolute Support mission again called for direct talks between the Taliban and the government.
Iran Defeats Thailand at Indoor Hockey Asia Cup


You may have heard of the term 'gut stasis' before, or had a rabbit with this problem in the past. It is a common and potentially fatal condition affecting rabbits, so as a bunny owner it is important to have a good understanding of this disease. The term 'gut stasis' literally means a 'slowing of the gut' – that is, the normal contractions and movements of the gut that carry food through the digestive system are bought to a standstill, leading to a very sick and uncomfortable bunny!
Rabbits have a very unique digestive tract that predisposes them to this condition. They are strict herbivores, and have a very high requirement of fibre for their gut to function properly. Rabbits on a poor diet are most at risk of this condition. Anything that causes your rabbit to stop eating can trigger an episode of gut stasis – this may be a stressful event such as moving house or introducing a new bunny, or disease in other parts of the body such as dental disease, respiratory disease, liver or kidney disease.
How will I know if my rabbit has gut stasis?
Because the gut isn't moving, rabbits with gut stasis will have a decreased appetite and decreased faecal production. They may gradually go off food over a period of several days to a week, and you may notice that faeces are small and dry or completely absent. Bunnies may seem to be otherwise okay, but many will look generally 'sick'.
What do I do if I think my rabbit has gut stasis?
If you suspect that your rabbit may be sick, then he or she should be seen by a vet as soon as possible. If left untreated, this condition can lead to shock and even death. The vet will start by doing a thorough physical examination of your bunny. When feeling the bunny's abdomen the vet may noticed that the contents feel firm or doughy, and when listening with a stethoscopes the normal gurgling gut sounds may be reduced or absent. Often rabbits will be dehydrated, which the vet can detect by checking the rabbit's gums and checking the elasticity of the skin ('turgour').
Further testing such as x-rays of the abdomen may be needed to make a diagnosis or to rule out other conditions.
How will my rabbit be treated?
Hydration. By giving fluids this will help to rehydrate and soften the stomach contents. If your bunny is severely dehydrated then it may need injections of fluid under its skin, or even to be in hospital on a fluid drip. Usually giving water by mouth or with food is sufficient.
Nutrition. Providing good quality food will help to get the gut moving again. 'Critical care' formulas are available that will allow you to syringe feed a slurry of nutritious, high fibre food whilst the rabbit is unwell and may not want to eat on its own. This is critical for a rapid recovery.
Pain relief. If the vet feels that your rabbit is in anyway uncomfortable, then they will be provided with pain relief either given as an injection or as medication that you can give at home by mouth.
Medications. Often injections of medications that increase the contractions of the gut ('pro-kinetics') will help rabbits in their recovery together with the above treatments.
If your bunny has any other underlying conditions, then these will need to be treated too. If treated appropriately then most rabbits recover and start to respond to treatment within 3-5 days. The earlier you seek medical treatment, the better the outcome!
10-20% dark leafy greens and herbs such as bok choy, brussel sprouts, parsley and spinach. A total of around 1 cup of veggies for an average 1.8kg rabbit is a good amount.
Since gut stasis can be caused by other conditions, we also recommend rabbits have an annual health check with the vet for a full examination so any health concerns can be picked up before they start to cause a problem.
If you are concerned that your rabbit may have gut stasis, or if you have any questions about this condition then give us a call on 9878 3033 today!


Shows great intensity, with aromas and flavors of orange peel, grapefruit, clove and dried apricot. This is vibrant and tangy, offering a long aftertaste that introduces smoke and mineral elements.
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In 1992, the National Barrel Horse Association (NBHA) revolutionized the barrel racing industry by forming and utilizing the divisional format. For the first time, winning was in reach for the beginner through the advanced racer. What was once the very large district of NC01, was geographically divided in half and NC07 was formed in the spring of '98. Fred Smith was named District Director.
District NC07 typically averages just under 100 members, but those members are 100% dedicated to barrel racing at it's finest. Our district is very family oriented and it's not uncommon to have several generations of the same family participating, supporting each other and all their friends. NBHA offers a chance to compete for all age groups; we have a Pee Wee division, Youth division, Senior division, and an Open division. We would welcome you to come out and join us.
Champions are made, not born. And NBHA is an organization where "beginners can be winners"! If you would like to know more about NBHA and NC07, I would encourage you to call or email us. Should you make the decision to join NBHA and be part of our team, you can join online here, or a membership form can be downloaded here and mailed directly to the NBHA Headquarters. If you're not sure which district you should be in, click here and you can find out.
We know that once the excitement gets under your skin, you too, will want to be a part of the fastest growing barrel racing organization in the world! Whatever you decide, check out our show schedule and come visit. Feel free to bring your horse along. Whether you're a member or not, there's always room in one of our classes for you!
Thank you for checking us out and we hope that you enjoy your visit to our site. We would love to meet you at the next horse show!
Congratulations to all NC07 Members who placed in the goes and the finals.


"When you look at the industry as small as network equipment providers, excluding Huawei will have a big impact on the industry. If I am going from three major vendors to two major vendors, competition decreases, prices will increase as a result. A lot of countries, including specific telcos, are looking at Huawei as a better-cost option," Batra told CNBC on Thursday.
"Traditionally, Huawei has been playing a lot on the cost in terms of being competitive versus the other two major players," Batra added.
"If you have deployed Huawei as your 4G network, Huawei is not allowing interoperability to 5G — meaning if you are 4G, you are stuck with Huawei for 5G," Stephenson said.
"If that much of infrastructure will be attached to this kind of technology, do we want to be cautious about who is the underlying company behind that technology? We damn well better be," Stephenson said.


Founded in 1984, Blue Sky is a young multi-disciplined design firm with global accounts producing design outcomes that are human centered and focused on solutions that create growth and strengthen relationships.
Blue Sky uses Design Thinking to strengthen your relationship with both customers and stakeholders. We identify new ways to serve and support people by uncovering latent needs, behaviours, and desires. We envision new solutions and we design the products, services, spaces, and interactive experiences that bring them to life.
Blue Sky thinking incorporates the whole user experience starting with the first contact right through to establishing of a long term relationship.
Our expertise lies in the practice of designing products, processes, services, events, multichannel journeys, and environments with a focus placed on the quality of the user experience and culturally relevant solutions.
Blue Sky has won many Australian and international design awards including Red Dot, iF and Good Design Awards dating back as far as 1989.
Blue Sky operates internationally with clients in Hong Kong, USA, UK and China. The scope of the firms work includes high traffic retail environments, Airports and transport hubs. The company has undertaken projects in the fields of airline check-in systems, next generation banks and wayfinding systems for government and public infrastructure projects.
A complete development service is provided to clients including, market analysis, end-user research, concept design, feasibility studies, mechanical development, prototypes and production documentation. We believe in developing environments starting with innovation and sound planning, progressing through to quality documentation and aftercare.
The work of the studio is directed by Henri Spaile who together with senior designers establish design policy for each client and project. The team believes in personal service and maintains a hands on approach to design. For each project, a team is assembled with the appropriate balance of skills and disciplines. The interaction of these disciplines is a stimulus to creativity and the resultant design output gives a competitive advantage to our clients.
Blue Sky is a diverse group of professionals with a wide range of backgrounds and experience.
The team believes in personal service and maintains a hands on approach to design. For each project, a team is assembled with the appropriate balance of skills and disciplines. The interaction of these disciplines is a stimulus to creativity and the resultant design output gives a competitive advantage to our clients.


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How Old Companies Survive and Thrive: 6 Lessons for Longevity and Success from IBM
https://sicm.mitpress.mit.edu/blog/how-old-companies-survive-and-thrive-6-lessons-longevity-and-success-ibm
by James W. Cortada
These are challenging, life threatening times for iconic multi-national corporations that have been around for a century or more. GE is struggling to right its balance sheet and regain its mojo; Sears is on its deathbed, J.C. Penny is being wheeled into intensive career; and Wells Fargo, while healthy, could die of misbehavior. Historians have written obituaries of centenarian companies no longer with us: the original AT&T "Ma Bell" phone company (not today's media and telecommunications firm using that name), and Burroughs Corporation come quickly to mind. IBM, around for well over a century, was also predicted to soon fold in the 1910s, 1930s, 1960s, 1990s, but it didn't. Today, it remains an iconic firm with a healthy balance sheet that still pays dividends. Meanwhile, the majority of companies barely survive one generation, let alone two or three, in any industry.
Why do some companies survive and thrive generation after generation, while most do not? Historians and business management professors have been addressing that question for decades. Most of their responses center on such arguments as survivors produce great products, focus on the long term, employ visionary leaders, hold onto oligarchic market control, or are lucky, as in being in the right place at the right time with the right offerings. All these answers are true and necessary, but they are insufficient when looked through the lens of actual cases.
IBM's may be one of the most relevant at the moment because of the crises faced by other firms. GE is trying to figure out what businesses it should be in, while GM and Ford have an answer to that puzzle but are making the dangerous transitions required. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook are being accused of being a privacy security problem and politicians are asking if it should be regulated like a utility. Amazon and Google are being seen as monopolies that need to be broken up. All share, too, that the technologies underpinning their success are continuing to change rapidly while the world order is also undergoing a gloomy transformation from one that encouraged globalized trade to one filled with protectionist tariffs and trade barriers. All these challenges are life threatening to multinational corporations.
Briefly visiting IBM's experience is informative. Created out of three small firms formed in the 1880s, consolidated into one in 1911, IBM expanded around the world, selling punch card tabulating equipment for its first half century, then large mainframe computers during its second half century. Two-thirds of the way through that second era, it began selling software and IT services. Today it still does that, but its software and services bear little resemblance to its offerings of the 1980s and 1990s as new forces come into play: cloud computing, open source software, artificial intelligence, new tiny computerized devices, and the security mess currently plaguing the Internet. Yet it stands, generating nearly $80 billion in revenue and employing some 370,000 people. What can this company teach us?
Recent research on the company's history spun off many lessons, a half dozen of which were crucial to its longevity. They sound simple, perhaps obvious, but they are true nonetheless. These are the six lessons from IBM that other multinationals and wannabe major corporations should learn and should take seriously, because the presence or absence of these behaviors is a strong indicator for corporate longevity.
Let's start with the most important point: corporate culture determines the success or failure of a company. Get that right and you are well on your way to multi-generational success. The corporate culture must motivate employees to give their all to the firm and to its customers, aligned with the strategies of the enterprise. It is a full-time job for the management of the company. When IBM deviated from this principle it faltered.
Sales Matter
Nurture and support an outstanding sales force and sales culture and the company will be productive and successful. GE is too engineering centered, Wells Fargo too focused on squeezing as much revenue out of its customers as possible, Facebook leaves its users exposed to malicious information. Make sure outstanding sales exist and protect your customers.
Remember the customer pays the bills and determines a firm's future, so treat them well. Listen to what they say and make sure they get what they need. That does not mean always giving them what they want. Steve Jobs was partially successful because he did not just listen to customers, he brought them products that he thought they would need, most notably the smartphone.
Don't Overvalue Shareholder Value
A cautionary tale from the past two decades: shareholder value is turning out to be a cancer. For almost a century IBM's senior executives simply ignored the advise of stock analysts and instead listened to customers and played the long game. Companies succeed when they sell products that customers want, when management nurtures employees, and that contribute to the general welfare of society. Profitable revenues fund dividends and bolster stock values.
Don't Undervalue Employees
IBM did well when it had its employees' back. It did not always do this—in recent years laying off employees its senior executives called "resources" and criticizing sales operations on analyst teleconferences—but without productive motivated employees, you have no company. Success is earned, not inherited. Employees produce more value than investors, because it is organic, new, and real.
Make the Global Local
Sixth, successful firms learned how to succeed in a globalized economy that was always plagued by political, military, and economic dangers. Using a unifying corporate culture tailored to local conditions was central to that success.
Over the course of 130 years, IBM employed roughly a million people and generated over a trillion dollars in revenue, tens of billions in profits, too, relying on sales from nearly 180 countries. IBM underpinned the information technologies that made the Second Industrial Revolution possible and that may, finally, bring AI to practical uses in health, finance, and public administration. There are a lot of new multinational corporations. Most will probably not last much past a generation. For those that are serious about building a company that will last well into the 22nd century, IBM's experience has much to teach them.
James W. Cortada is Senior Research Fellow at the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota. He worked at IBM for thirty-eight years in sales, consulting, managerial, and research positions. His book IBM: The Rise and Fall and Reinvention of a Global Icon will be available in March 2019.
A Lunch BIT from Eco-Business by Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister
Balancing Green

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


These are the best and easiest cinnamon buns I've ever made! The dough is so soft and fluffy. They can easily be prepared Saturday night and popped into the over for a quick Sunday morning breakfast. I found slicing them with waxed dental floss was the easiest way to cut the rolled up buns without squishing it or having it falling apart!
Place above ingredients in the listed order in your bread machine pan. Before you put the yeast in, make a slight well into the dry ingredients to make sure the yeast doesn't come in contact with any of the wet ingredients.
Use the dough setting on your bread machine. Once the dough is finished, sprinkle flour onto your counter and roll the dough into a rectangle until it's about 1/4" thick.
Melt butter in small sauce pan over stove. In separate bowl combine sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Spread melted butter over your rectangular dough. Sprinkle your sugar mixture evenly over the melted butter.
Roll your dough tightly starting with the narrow side. Once your dough is rolled into a cylinder, cut slices about a 1" thick. I found it helpful to use dental floss to slice the roll.
Place last little bit of melted butter into the bottom of your 9 x 13 pan. Place your rolls into the pan on top of the butter so the don't stick to the pan.
Bake at 350 for 13-20 minutes depending on your oven until golden - just keep an eye on them to make sure they don't burn.
I don't preheat the oven as I like them to heat up and rise with the temperature.
In small sauce pan combine milk, sugar and vanilla over low heat.
Stir until all the ingredients are combined and the glaze is runny.
Spread over top of your freshly baked cinnamon buns.
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The first stages of my own artist's journey were lived out in a town called Carmel Valley, California. Carmel Valley is not far from Big Sur. The presence of Henry Miller was vivid there. I had friends who knew him (I never did myself). People told stories about him. He was in the air in that part of the state, as was John Steinbeck a few miles north, who came from and wrote often about Salinas and Monterey and Cannery Row. I've quoted Henry Miller three or four times in The Artist's Journey because nobody I've ever read articulates so well that crazy passage from the real-life "hero's journey" to the inside-your-own-head "artist's journey." I used to copy passages out of Tropic of Capricorn by hand, just to brand Henry Miller's stuff into my brain. His books are not as popular today. They should be. They're bibles for all of us on that same journey. Here are links to previous posts in this serialization, in case you missed them and want to go back: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8. Part 9. Part 10. Part 11. Part 12. Part 13. Part 14. And Part 15. And Part 16.
In City of Angels (screenplay by Dana Stevens based on the film Wings of Desire, screenplay by Wim Wenders and Peter Handke), human characters go about their lives, oblivious of the cohort of angels—all handsome, male and female, dressed in stylish, duster-length coats—who attend upon them and are present about them at all times, often standing invisibly directly at their shoulders.
When an individual "gets saved" (or when an alcoholic or addict makes the decision to get sober), the ground of her being shifts.
Her identity no longer centers itself in her ego. It packs up and moves to a different quadrant of her psyche.
I didn't dare to think of anything then except the "facts." To get beneath the facts I would have had to be an artist, and one doesn't become an artist overnight. First you have to be crushed, to have your conflicting points of view annihilated. You have to be wiped out as a human being in order to be born again an individual. You have to be carbonized and mineralized in order to work upwards from the last common denominator of the self. You have to get beyond pity in order to feel from the very roots of your being.
I see my awareness (another phrase might be "platform of effort") shuttle back and forth, like the subway between Times Square and Grand Central Terminal, from my conscious mind to my unconscious, my superconscious.
The Stargate image is very close to what it feels like. Sometimes I stick just my hand through, sometimes my whole arm. Most of the time my whole body goes through.
The process is to me one of those everyday miracles, simultaneously mindbending in its implications and common as dirt. Like the act of giving birth, it is at the same time miraculous and everyday.
Another image I like is of a child sitting beside a shallow stream. You, the artist, are the child. The words you will write, the pictures you will paint, the photos you will take … those are the bright, pretty pebbles sitting right there before you at the bottom of the stream. You reach down, through the surface of the water (you can't see exactly what the pebbles look like because of the refraction of the light), and you pull up a handful.
The stream bottom is one reality.
Sunlight and air is the other.
One is mysterious, the other matter of fact.
One requires faith, the other reason.
We plunge our hand through the surface, not sure what we'll find.
We pull our hand back and examine what we've got. Good? Bad? Worth keeping? To be put where? Utilized how?
In a four-hour working day, the writer shuttles between realities a thousand times, two thousand, ten thousand. So does the choreographer, the editor, the software writer.
This shuttling is her primary skill.
It's her bread and butter.
Angels and alternate realities – this series gets better and better. The book is out next month?
The "tension" you are creating by sharing the book through your blog is enormous; but you already knew that!
As I am going through the crazy passage from the real-life "hero's journey" to the inside-your-own-head "artist's journey right now, I am immensely grateful for sharing your work and for writing this book. You "timing" works perfectly with my own journey and helps me keep my sanity, as you explain so eloquently what happens inside our head!
Love it when I comprehend and understand what Steve has written. For me, it falls in the same genre category of the GET REAL foundation I have written about that is on my vision board.
Thank you for putting all this information together, it's like a big huge flashlight that shines the light into the artist darkness.
The shallow stream is perfect! Haven't we all done that?
Good strong post, Steve. I easily relate and know Carmel Valley, having lived in Carmel for three months. And who can roam Big Sur without thinking of Miller?
Steven, I was part of the Domino Project Street Team with Seth and the highlight of that experience was working with you. I'm grateful now to get reconnected through this serialization. I plan to do one sometime later this year and think it's a wonderful way to stay connected to your readers.
Loving this. Wish I'd written it! Wings of Desire is my favourite film – the follow up, Far Away So Close is brilliant too. I first found your blog about 7 years ago when I was researching writing a workshop for Art students called Wooing the Muse. Thanks for inspiration and help through your books and blog over the last few years – brilliant!
Yes, angels 'standing invisibly directly at their shoulders' that sounds right. It feels right.
That angel world is mine as well Steve. Brings me to tears to read how damn beautiful this is. Thank you.
I love the "Stargate" portal imagery – that's what it feels like for me too. When I have enough courage on any particular writing day it feels like I run straight at the portal and hurl myself through!
Do you think that when you go from conscious awareness to subconscious (or super-conscious or unconscious) that you are experiencing a different reality?
Are you using the word 'reality' in a poetic sense?
I lived and worked in Carmel Valley and Big Sur in the years after my own life was crushed. Returning to the spiritual center of my universe seemed like the way, or at least the place, to sort out the broken pieces. I'd wander the grounds of the Henry Miller Memorial Library, taking solace and looking for answers in the pages of my old Steinbeck and Kerouac paperbacks.
We all plant trees we'll never sit under. Miller, Steinbeck and Kerouac certainly did! I wish I could have thanked them when they were alive for the seeds they planted in my imagination. Luckily, I have an opportunity to tell you. Thank you for welcoming me into the world of artists, introducing me to The Muse, and making me feel like I belong here. It's both joyful and terrifying!
OMG! Are you still doing this?
I started a blog on goddess archetypes in the movies. So far Hera (Greer Garson's Mrs. Miniver) and Persephone/Aphrodite (Marilyn Monroe). I plan to hit 7 goddess archetypes and see what happens.
Without you I could not have done this.


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Lázaro José de Carvalho, ou apenas Lázaro de Carvalho, (São Sebastião do Paraíso, 17 de dezembro de 1924 – Rio de Janeiro, 29 de março de 2000) foi um advogado, contador e político brasileiro, outrora deputado federal pelo Rio de Janeiro.

Dados biográficos
Filho de Elpídio de Paula Carvalho e Alice Polastri Carvalho. Começou sua vida profissional em em 1954 como secretário da Associação Comercial e Industrial de Duque de Caxias, onde foi fundador, tesoureiro e vice-presidente da companhia telefônica. Eleito vice-prefeito caxiense via PSD em 1962, optou pelo MDB quando o Regime Militar de 1964 impôs o bipartidarismo no ano seguinte através do Ato Institucional Número Dois. Primeiro suplente de deputado estadual pelo Rio de Janeiro em 1966, chegou a ser convocado para exercer o mandato, sendo eleito em 1970 e 1974. Nesse interregno, formou-se advogado pela Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro em 1972, trabalhando antes como contador.

Eleito deputado federal em 1978, atendeu ao convite do governador Chagas Freitas para ingressar no PP quando restauraram o pluripartidarismo em 1980. Devido à incorporação de seu partido ao PMDB no final de 1981, permaneceu por um curto período na legenda até mudar para o PDS, reelegendo-se em 1982. Ausente na votação da Emenda Dante de Oliveira em 1984, votou em Tancredo Neves no Colégio Eleitoral em 1985. Filiou-se ao PFL nesse mesmo ano e candidatou-se a um novo mandato no ano seguinte. Derrotado, foi assessor jurídico da Secretaria de Esporte e Lazer do Rio de Janeiro no governo Moreira Franco, cargo ao qual renunciou após dois meses por questões de saúde, encerrando sua vida pública.

Naturais de São Sebastião do Paraíso
Deputados federais do Brasil pelo Rio de Janeiro
Deputados estaduais do Rio de Janeiro

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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The fifth installment in Fox's popular Ice Age franchise arrives in theaters this week, but this time around, there's more to the adventure than the prehistoric antics of Manny, Sid, and Diego. In Ice Age: Collision Course, Manny's daughter Peaches is set to wed her love Julian — despite an impending apocalypse — and to celebrate, we've got a gallery of the whole affair, from the engagement announcement to the wedding party. Oh, and lest we forget, you can also check out their official wedding pages on The Knot and Pinterest.
The Engagement Announcement #HappilyEverMammoth
The Ring #HappilyEverMammoth
Save the Date #HappilyEverMammoth
The Bachelor Party #HappilyEverMammoth
Groomsman Diego #HappilyEverMammoth
Ushers Roger and Gertie #HappilyEverMammoth
Mother of the Bride Ellie #HappilyEverMammoth
Matron of Honor Granny #HappilyEverMammoth
Father of the Bride Manny #HappilyEverMammoth
Officiant Shangri Llama #HappilyEverMammoth
Bridesmaid Shira #HappilyEverMammoth
Best Man Sid #HappilyEverMammoth
The Groomsmen #HappilyEverMammoth
The Registry Announcement #HappilyEverMammoth
The Title Card #HappilyEverMammoth
The Ceremony Details #HappilyEverMammoth
The Venue #HappilyEverMammoth
The Reception #HappilyEverMammoth
The Rehearsal Dinner #HappilyEverMammoth
Fox's got a new Ice Age and it's set on collision course for theaters this Friday. Animation at the studio has weaved a winding line through Saturday morning cartoons, adult fare, and studio closures before lifting Fox as one of Hollywood's major animated players decades later, alongside Disney/Pixar and Dreamworks. In this week's gallery, we look at 24 films and TV shows highlighting the history of Fox Animation.
Return to the Planet of the Apes
During the 1960s and '70s, 20th Century Fox Television gave the Saturday morning treatment to popular films out of their studio stable, including Fantastic Voyage and Journey to the Center of the Earth.
Tomatometer: 61%
Fox distrubited a half-dozen animated movies to theaters starting in 1977 (with two from Ralph Bakshi, including this and 1983's Fire and Ice) up until establishing their own in-house theatrical process during the '90s.
Year: 1989-present
Three years after launching their flagship network channel, Fox premiered America's greatest dysfunctional family, changing the sitcom and TV animation landscape for decades to come.
FernGully
FernGully,which commodified enviromentalism as was de riuguer during the '90s, was Fox's only notable financial success during their time as feature animation distributor.
The Pagemaster
This live-action/traditional animation hybrid starring Macaulay Culkin and extolling the virtues of reading (blech) was the last film Fox would distribute before founding their own animation studio the same year.
Fox Animation Studios, continuing the same auteur-type collaboration that the larger studio began with Bakshi in the '70s, hired Don Bluth (The Secret of N.I.M.H., The Land Before Time) to create this opulent musical torn from Russian history.
The Simpsons not only helped put Fox network on the map (and eased the painful task of scheduling content between X-Files and 300 hours of Cops every week), but also transformed Sundays into a haven for new realms of American animated comedy…that were always under threat of being preempted by the Cowboys.
The most influential animated comedy since The Simpsons with its fast timing and absurdist cutaways, creating a mini-Seth MacFarlane empire that included American Dad! and The Cleveland Show.
Matt Groening and David X. Cohen took the overeducated, nerd humor that always existed on the fringes of The Simpsons and gave it its own show.
Traditional animation was already falling out of favor when Bluth's Titan A.E. dropped into a market that would sink other similar sci-fi products (WB's Iron Giant, and Disney's Atlantis and Treasure Planet). Fox Animation Studios would close soon after, six years after its inception.
In 1997 Fox bought Blue Sky Studios, whose employees had been cutting their teeth on commercials and visual effects since Tron. Ice Age was a global hit (finally establishing Fox Animation as a key player) and the third movie to become a franchise (following Toy Story and Shrek) in the once brave new world of CG animation. And the rest is history.
Critics Consensus: Robots delights on a visual level, but the story feels like it came off an assembly line.
Ice Age: The Meltdown
Critics Consensus: Despite its impressive animation and the hilarious antics of the saber-toothed squirrel Scrat, The Meltdown comes up short on the storytelling front.
Critics Consensus: The Simpsons Movie contains the hearty laughs, biting satire, and honest portrayal of an American family that makes the show so popular.
Horton Hears a Who!
Critics Consensus: Horton Hears A Who! is both whimsical and heartwarming, and is the rare Dr. Seuss adaptation that stays true to the spirit of the source material.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Critics Consensus: Dawn of the Dinosaurs boasts some excellent animation — in particular, the dinosaurs are wonderfully realized — but its story is tired and monotonous.
Critics Consensus: Fantastic Mr. Fox is a delightfully funny feast for the eyes with multi-generational appeal — and it shows Wes Anderson has a knack for animation.
Critics Consensus: This straightforward movie reaches great heights thanks to its colorful visual palette, catchy music, and funny vocal performances.
Ice Age: Continental Drift
Critics Consensus: Ice Age: Continental Drift 3D has moments of charm and witty slapstick, but it often seems content to recycle ideas from the previous films.
Critics Consensus: Though its narrative themes are all too familiar, Epic is beautifully animated and crafted with just enough flair to make for solid family entertainment.
Critics Consensus: Like most sequels, Rio 2 takes its predecessor's basic template and tries to make it bigger — which means it's even busier, more colorful, and ultimately more exhausting for viewers outside the youthful target demographic.
Critics Consensus: The Book of Life's gorgeous animation is a treat.
Critics Consensus: The Peanuts Movie offers a colorful gateway into the world of its classic characters and a sweetly nostalgic — if relatively unambitious — treat for the adults who grew up with them.
Blue Sky Studio's next offering arrives this upcoming July, the story of a flora-sniffing bull based on the children's book of nearly the same name.
This week on home video, we've got the usual new releases (Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Orphan), a couple of underseen indies (Il Divo, Medicine for Melancholy) a couple of fun horror flicks (Fear(s) of the Dark, Night of the Creeps), and a couple of sci-fi fan favorites (Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, Stargate). Read on to find out about some new films and find out what the new DVD releases contain!


text:
Boards and Shareholders in European Listed Companies
Facts, Context and Post-Crisis Reforms
Part of International Corporate Law and Financial Market Regulation
Massimo Belcredi, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano
Guido Ferrarini, University of Genoa
Luigi Abete, Massimo Belcredi, Guido Ferrarini, Eddy Wymeersch, Christian Andres, Lorenzo Caprio, Ettore Croci, Daniel Ferreira, Tom Kirchmaier, Jaap Winter, Erik van de Loo, Roberto Barontini, Stefano Bozzi, Maria-Cristina Ungureanu, Luc Renneboog, Peter Szilagyi, Carmine Di Noia
With contributions by distinguished scholars from legal and financial backgrounds, this collection of essays analyses four main topics in the corporate governance of European listed firms: (i) board structure, composition and functioning and their interaction with ownership structure; (ii) board remuneration; (iii) shareholder activism and (iv) corporate governance disclosure based on the 'comply or explain' approach. The authors provide new comparative evidence and analyse its implications for the policy debate. They challenge the conventional wisdom that corporate governance in European firms was systematically dysfunctional. While proposals aimed at increasing disclosure and accountability are usually well-grounded, caution is suggested when bringing forward regulatory changes with respect to proposals targeting specific governance arrangements, especially in the fields of board composition and shareholder activism. They argue that the 'comply or explain' principle should be retained and further efforts should be exercised to enhance disclosure.
Deals with the hot topics in corporate life and in the current policy debate
Policy analysis is based on up-to-date, post-crisis pan-European data
Provides a critical assessment of EU reform proposals, which is relevant to all people involved in the policy debate, both at the national and the EU level
contains: 9 b/w illus. 47 tables
Foreword Luigi Abete
1. Corporate boards, incentive pay and shareholder activism in Europe: main issues and policy perspectives Massimo Belcredi and Guido Ferrarini
2. European corporate governance codes and their effectiveness Eddy Wymeersch
3. Restructuring in family firms: a tale of the two crises Christian Andres, Lorenzo Caprio and Ettore Croci
4. Corporate boards in Europe: size, independence and gender diversity Daniel Ferreira and Tom Kirchmaier
5. Board on task: developing a comprehensive understanding of the performance of boards Jaap Winter and Erik van de Loo
6. Directors' remuneration before and after the crisis: measuring the impact of reforms in Europe Roberto Barontini, Stefano Bozzi, Guido Ferrarini and Maria-Cristina Ungureanu
7. Shareholder engagement at European General Meetings Luc Renneboog and Peter Szilagyi
8. Board elections and shareholder activism: the Italian experiment Massimo Belcredi, Stefano Bozzi and Carmine Di Noia.
Massimo Belcredi is Professor of Corporate Finance, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan. He has written numerous books and articles in the fields of corporate finance, corporate governance, ownership and board structure, law and economics.
Guido Ferrarini is Professor of Business Law and Capital Markets Law, University of Genoa and Director of Genoa Centre for Law and Finance. Among other important roles, he was an advisor to the Corporate Governance Committee of the Italian Stock Exchange. He has published widely on the topics of corporate governance, financial law, corporate law and business law.
Reshaping Markets
Economic Governance, the Global Financial Crisis and Liberal Utopia
Company Law and Sustainability
Legal Barriers and Opportunities
Government Intervention in the Reorganisation of Listed Companies in China
Capital Directive in Europe
The Rules on Incorporation and Capital of Limited Liability Companies
Perspectives in Company Law and Financial Regulation


text:
Wrongful Convictions Report
Exploring and exposing miscarriages of justice
Murder by the Prosecution – the book
← High Court grants leave for George Pell appeal
Gordon Wood back in court to press his claim of malicious prosecution →
Gordon Wood appeal in shadow of prosecutorial malaise
Andrew L. Urban.
Gordon Wood's appeal against his failed malicious prosecution bid last year begins in Sydney's Supreme Court on Monday, November 18, 2019, in the shadow of a new book by former DPP Nicholas Cowdrey (Frank and Fearless, New South) in which Cowdrey refers to the Wood case and proposes that prosecutors are 'supposed to push for convictions'.
Here in a nutshell, Cowdrey demonstrates a serious malaise in our legal system: prosecutors are NOT supposed to push for convictions. They are supposed to be officers of the court seeking the truth. That such a high profile former prosecutor has no insight into the error of this sentiment is disturbing.
Here is the context in which Cowdrey frames this sentiment, in his chapter on the Gordon Wood case, when he gets to the appeal against the murder conviction: "The Court of Criminal Appeal was convinced the prosecutor (Senior Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC) had pushed far too hard for a conviction. It was also convinced that Associate Professor Cross, the expert witness who claimed there was no way Caroline could have jumped or dived to the place she was thought to have landed, had fought inappropriately for a conviction–and expert witnesses are supposed to be impartial. That might sound like a strange complaint about the prosecutor. Aren't prosecutors supposed to push for convictions?"
And a little later in the chapter, Cowdrey contradicts his earlier statement, saying: " A prosecutor's principal role is to assist the court to arrive at the truth. It is never about winning at all costs."
When Wood took his malicious prosecution to court against the State of NSW and prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC, appeal court judge Elizabeth Fullerton also chided the prosecutor for "…his continuing inability or unwillingness to reflect upon the errors that have been revealed in his approach as a Crown Prosecutor and his continued failure to accept and acknowledge them, rather than impermissibly straining for a conviction" But she did not find it had been proven that the prosecution was malicious in the legal sense.
Wood's appeal is scheduled to last three days.
* Gordon Wood was convicted in 2008 of the murder of Caroline Byrne, whose body was found early morning on June 8, 1995, on the rocks at The Gap, a notorious suicide spot on Sydney's Eastern coast. In 2012 the Court of Criminal Appeal set aside his conviction and entered a verdict of acquittal. The Chief Justice made it clear in his judgement that even the most basic elements of the case had failed to be established. "I am not persuaded that Wood was at The Gap at the relevant time." He concluded that the verdict of the jury could not be supported having regard to the evidence.
The main witnesses for the prosecution were the investigator, Detective Inspector Jacob, and the expert witness, Assoc. Professor Rod Cross. They had worked closely with each other, and, according to the Chief Justice, they had presented evidence which was either inadmissible or unreliable.
This entry was posted in Case 04 Gordon Wood. Bookmark the permalink.
19 Responses to Gordon Wood appeal in shadow of prosecutorial malaise
There was a 50 minute interview with former DPP Nicholas Cowdrey ABC RN's "Conversations" recently. The link is: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/conversations/nicholas-cowdery/11710532
Reply to comment of Insider. I suspect that you are looking at feet first jump speed results. They can be excluded since Caroline landed head first. Nevertheless, feet first jump speeds are of interest since they show how much dive speeds are reduced, and can be compared with measured jump speeds with a 5 m runup. The measured distance from the safety fence to the tip of the ledge was 5.0 m. (It is still 5.0m, as anyone can check. The appeal judges claimed it was 6 m, but they didn't bother to check). However, a runner or jumper doesn't normally start off with both feet together. One foot is usually well ahead of the other at the start of a sprint (as opposed to a marathon race). Also, it was a cold, dark night and there was no warm-up, whereas the dive and jump tests were conducted under ideal conditions at a swimming pool, with good athletes.
Insider says:
So you think all the police cadets in your tests were good athletes? Please provide evidence. To give one example, the young woman who belly flopped into the pool in the video of your tests looked decidedly uncomfortable in her diving and jumping, and did not look at all fit, especially compared to Caroline.
Compare with Caroline. She went to the gym regularly until a few weeks before her death when her physical problem began, she grew up with a swimming pool at home, she exercised regularly, used the treadmill regularly and had all the traits of a healthy reasonably fit young woman in her early twenties. In her job at the time of her death, she lugged quite a lot of equipment from her car to the markets at Parklea etc where she worked. She looked slim, fit and healthy. There's no reason to diminish the memory of her by claiming anything else, is there?
In reply to your first line: "you suspect…" …. do you prefer not to look at the Report and instead rely on suspicion and innuendo? Why not simply look up the info? My copy of the Report is a printed copy in another country from where I am now, so I alas cannot look it up until my travels are over.
Who is Godon's legal team?
Another Peter says:
Tom Molomby is the barrister at this appeal. Bruce McClintock from Melbourne was the barrister at the malicious prosecution suit. I don't know who the other lawyers in his team are nowadays.
Way back at the appeal that freed him, Tim Game was the barrister and Michael Bowe was the hard-working solicitor. The key person for that appeal was Gordon's sister Jackie Schmidt. Jackie did a great job in the key role that lawyers usually don't have enough time for – gathering facts and data, combing through the evidence and fact-checking. Michael Bowe was the solicitor at the original two trials too, and Winston Terracini was Wood's barrister. Terracini's record against Tedeschi is not good. Admittedly, all barristers have bad records when taking on Tedeschi, except for Graham Turnbull. In my spare time a few years ago, I compiled all sorts of numerical data about how certain judges and barristers influence the outcome of appeals in NSW. The results were not what I expected.
I could never see the plausibility of someone "spear-throwing" a victim to their death as was claimed in the Wood case.
Such an achievement would need an incredible amount of strength, balance and control. And why resort to such a physically demanding (and dangerous) act when a mere push from the clifftop would give the same required result?
If a body was a significant distance away from the cliff side, I thought it would be more likely to be the result of the victim taking a run-up and launching themselves out than in an unlikely feat of strength by a murderer.
Charles P says:
Unless Carlone Byrne had a well above average athletic ability to accelerate to a speed of 16 km/hour over a run-up distance of about 4.5 meters then she didn't commit suicide. The physics of the problem is governed by Newton's Laws of motion.
The following Forensic Science article from 2014 is worth a read as it states the errors made by the Appeal Court judges in the interpretation of the scientific evidence. It also states the errors made by the defence expert witness.
"Misinterpretation of expert evidence in Wood v R"
by Rod Cross
Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences
Volume 46, 2014 – Issue 4
But of course it's rather irrelevant when there is no evidence that Gordon Wood or anyone else threw Caroline Byrne off the Gap. Prof Cross attempted to show that Wood COULD, but that is not the same thing.
Andrew. Caroline landed 11.8 m out. The evidence for that is fully discussed in several reports. Either she jumped or dived or she was thrown. She landed head first in a crevice with no injuries to her shoulders. So she didn't jump feet first since that would result in a feet first landing at high jump speeds. None of the subjects tested could dive fast enough and all but one were well above average in athletic ability. That evidence has been largely ignored by everyone.
The point I make is not to dispute your conclusions about the physical possibilities but about failing to show the jury any evidence that Gordon Wood executed the act of throwing his girlfriend off the cliff that night.
Rod – you should read Professor Cross's reports which were presented at the trial. One of the young women in Professor Cross's experiments did succeed in committing suicide with the 5.5m run-up. Someone involved in the prosecution cherry picked, removing that result. The expert at the concurrent Gilham trial cherry picked his carbon monoxide data. William McBride cherry picked his Debendox data. If you wonder how common this cherry picking of data is among scientists, look at this transcript of Jason Chin from Sydney Uni giving a Raising The Bar talk a few weeks ago: https://sydney.edu.au/content/dam/corporate/documents/about-us/community-partnerships/raising-the-bar-transcripts/2019/jason_chin.pdf.
Look at the second half of page 4 of that link. This cherry picking style of data collection is common, incredibly common. Unbelievably common. The impact of this on criminal trials is yet another overlooked factor that can lead to miscarriages of justice.
Or look at the video of that talk:
https://soundcloud.com/raising-the-bar-sydney/jason-chin-can-we-put-an-end.
My usage of the words "cherry picking" is not totally appropriate. I mean that the data presented in court is selected, not the total data.
Rod – if you can access it, please have a close look at the relevant Report by Professor Cross. Observe the number of the young woman who succeeded in committing suicide with the (unrealistically short, as it turns out, when the crime scene was independently examined) 4.5m run-up restriction. Check the number of the young woman in her early thirties, significantly older than Caroline, but who had been a champion hurdler in her high school days. See how the numbers are different? They are not the same young woman. Yet that piece of data was excluded from Gordon Wood's trial on the assumption that they were the same woman. Please check if you can, and let us know if you agree.
Unless Carlone Byrne had a well above average athletic ability to accelerate to a speed of 16 km/hour over a run-up distance of about 4.5 meters then she didn't commit suicide.
And it is more plausible that someone could run an jump much further than someone could be thrown.
What you say is intuitive but is it supported by the relevant real-world experimental data?
As pointed out by Rod, Caroline landed head first. That means that either she dived off (possibly after a run-up) or she was thrown off such that her head was falling ahead of her torso. Rod also pointed out that "she didn't jump feet first since that would result in a feet first landing at high jump speeds." There was no injury to her legs or feet that would have resulted had she landed feet first. This is significant.
Prof Cross' eperiments with female police officers, all of whom were well above average athletic ability, have shown that none of them could dive off after a run-up at the required speed of 4.5 m/s (16.2 km/hr). It was found that the test subjects were about 0.5 m/s slower in diving off after a run-up than jumping off after a run-up over the same run-up distance.
However, it was also found that a strong man (someone who could bench-press at least 100 kg) could throw a woman of Caroline's weight at the sufficient speed of 4.5 m/sec but only if he threw her in a particular way that resembled a spear-throw. The prosecution had a witness testify that Gordon had regular workouts at a gym and was bench-pressing 100 kg.
Caroline was a model not an athlete. There was no evidence to suggest that she would have had significantly above average athletic ability. It is thus highly unlikely that she would have had the necessary athletic ability to reach the necessary take-off dive speed of 4.5 m/sec (16.2 km/hr) to land head first about 11.8 m away from the base of the cliff.
The expert defence witness at the appeal used two test subjects whose athletic ability was superior to that of Prof Cross' test subjects. Prof Cross determined that the acceleration rate of one of these test subjects was comparable to that of a former Olympic 100 m sprint champion (Flo-Jo). The defence expert also had his subjects take a jump with feet-first rather than take a dive after the run-up. This was an incorrect test. Had he asked them to take a dive after a run-up then neither would have reached the necessary take-off speed of 4.5 m/sec. Experiments conducted by Prof Cross have shown that when a runner adjusts their body for a dive after taking a run-up that there is a loss of about 0.5 m/s in horizontal take-off speed.
The above mentioned experimental work by Prof Cross provided conclusive experimental data that Caroline couldn't have dived off at the required take-off speed to reach 11.8 meters away from the base of the cliff, but that a man who could bench-press at least 100 kg could have thrown Caroline in a spear-throw manner at or above the required speed of 16.2 km/hr. This scientific expert evidence proves beyond reasonable doubt that Caroline didn't commit suicide.
In 1991 when freeing Tim Anderson, Justice Murray Gleeson described Mark Tedeschi's prosecutory style: "there was an inappropriate and unfair attempt to persuade the jury to draw inferences of fact, and accept argumentative suggestions, that were not open on the evidence, and in some contrary to the evidence."
Nicholas Cowdrey, the man who made a public fool of himself by making sleazy comments about Keli Lane in a recent ABC series about the Lane case.
The fact that Tedeschi was involved in both the Wood and Lane cases should give cause for concern. In both cases Tedeschi introduced imaginative, spurious scenarios as "evidence" and got away with it.
The NSW Prosecution Guidelines can be found at
https://www.odpp.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/prosecution-guidelines.pdf.
Sections 2 and 3 are the relevant ones.
If anyone wants to go to the appeal, it's scheduled to be in Court 12A on the 12th floor of the Queens Square building in Sydney at 10:15am on Monday 18 November, continuing on Tuesday 19 November at 10:15am. The third day might not take place. The Judges are Justice Fabian Gleeson, Justice Anthony Payne and Acting Justice Carolyn Simpson.
Brian – the overturned Tedeschi prosecutions so far include Tim Anderson (Hilton bombing), Gordon Wood and to some extent Jeff Gilham (Tedeschi prosecuted only the first trial). The Tedeschi prosecutions that in my opinion should be overturned include Keli Lane, Kathleen Folbigg, Simon Gittany, Robert Xie, Manju Sam and Phuong Ngo. I might have missed a few others. Ivan Milat is not one of the ones I missed, in my opinion.
Robin Bowles says:
Mmmm. I believe there is more to the Gordon Wood case than has been published. I spent many hours with Caroline's family, friends and employers, with the plan to write a book. I abandoned that plan when Caroline's father, who had promised me full access to all his journals from when her body was found, withdrew his co-operation. Maybe he now wishes he hadn't! Also interviewed Rene Rivkin, for whom Wood drove and did other odd jobs. Sometimes these cases are not all they seem.
Brian Johnston says:
Gordon Wood's lawyer pushing for malicious prosecution was an idiotic move. To win the case he had to prove malicious. No easy task. A simple wrongful prosecution would have been hard enough and makes more sense.
Tedeschi has to be taken down.
I believe Ivan Milat to be innocent. Simple to work out. Tedeschi again.
There are many others which are questionable
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Case 01 Sue Neill-Fraser (86)
Case 02 Henry Keogh (8)
Case 03 David Szach (1)
Case 04 Gordon Wood (5)
Case 05 Derek Bromley (1)
Case 06 'Paul' (2)
Case 07 George Pell (5)
Case 08 Sarah May Ward (1)
Case 09 Joby Rowe (1)
Case 10 Steven Fennell (1)
Case 11 Robert Xie (1)
General articles (52)
Blueprint for a fairer system
Justice derailed – Part 1
Hobart vigil for Bob Chappell & Sue Neill-Fraser
Missed clues in Sue Neill-Fraser's Statutory Declaration
Khashoggi murder convictions but no transparency
andrew on Blueprint for a fairer system
Diane Kemp on Blueprint for a fairer system
Keith on Hobart vigil for Bob Chappell & Sue Neill-Fraser
Robin Bowles on Blueprint for a fairer system


Oh we forgot, you also get a limited edition tshirt from DigitalOcean and Github!!!
Remember, just look for the Hacktoberfest logo on posters and messages for important details about the event.
Don't forget to bring your laptops (No Prequisites). ODs are on us.
For more technical fun, and new learning experiences, join us (ALiAS). Visit asetalias.in and fill the JOIN Now form now. You're member, no questions asked!


Et voilà! The seeds with their feathery pods slip out! Pour seeds into a sealed bag. Return cones to pot, shake. Repeat several times to get as many seeds as possible.
Pop! You can hear them opening in tiny pops. Transfer to a lidded pot and shakes very vigorously. Remove cones into second pot.
Volunteers pick pine cones. Wear gloves!
Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida) is a hardy little tree that's native to the eastern US and coastal from the Chesapeake Bay to Acadia National Park, Maine. They thrive in a variety of harsh conditions from poor alpine scratch to low swamps. They protect dunes, stabilize shores, and feed birds and insects. These crooked and twisted trees are rarely used for lumber, but as you can imagine, they were in great demand for the resin pitch.
Physicists are fascinated by how a drop of room temperature pitch can be shattered by a hammer blow yet is experimentally shown to be a liquid (unlike ice, which is a true crystalline solid). The hardness and consistency of pitch, which is also malleable when heated, makes it extremely useful for preserving and waterproofing ships, railroad ties, and mine shaft supports. It's also used to flavor wine, and sometimes medicinally. Outdoor enthusiasts often use pitch for lamps and torches, glue and wound binding, or even to make natural plastic widgets! Now research labs are following suit.
These trees are very well protected against fire by their specialized bark. In a worst case scenario, even a stump can spring to life with new branches. Their cones also pop open when exposed to intense heat, so they not only endure the flames but help regenerate the ecosystem.
In our region, you can enjoy pitch pine forests in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, Fire Island, and Long Island's East End. But NYC parks have stands of them too, including Hunters Point South Park just blocks away from HarborLAB. We'll grow seeds gathered there at the HarborLAB GreenLaunch!
HarborLAB makes pitch pine seedballs to benefit our entire harbor. We've gathered cones with students and volunteers with Baruch College, New Jersey Institute of Technology, National Iranian-American Council, and Hunters Point Parks Conservancy. We learned our seed ball making technique from Seedball NYC, and how to get seeds from pine cones (by baking them) from the Greenbelt Native Plant Center of the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation's Natural Resources Group.
Today is the United Nations designated International Women's Day. Let's take this opportunity to recognize that where governments have failed their citizens, obtaining and protecting water is women's work.
The Women for Science section of the Inter-American Network of Academies of Science maintains an excellent Gender and Water page, providing links to relevant women's professional networks, data, issues and case studies, training manuals, and other practical resources. Another great resource for women seeking to enter water science and engineering is the Association of Women in Water, Energy, and the Environment.
Men still dominate the engineering agencies and companies that make clean and convenient water a fact of daily life in wealthier nations, but it's women who fetch and defend water for billions of others, especially in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. This work demands immense strength and daily determination for the many who must trek long distances in the search for water free or pathogens and chemical contaminants, and resourcefulness for those who must clean their water to safeguard their children from illness.
Some international agencies and nonprofits are promoting innovative ideas like micro-finance "water credits" through female community leaders and individual mothers.
In many regions the right to water for life is threatened by the taking of water for profit, for resale or use in development. industrial processes, mining, energy extraction, and agribusiness. This is especially true when those struggling for drinking and sanitation water are poor or from marginalized indigenous communities. There women must demonstrate great physical courage to confront those powerful interests.
Water justice will be achieved only when women's voices are heard inside board rooms and planning meetings. Women in water sciences are certainly making gains, and in industry and at the UN there's a growing awareness that achievers should be honored. HarborLAB encourages young women to enter these disciplines and to apply for scholarships that might help them realize their goals, this Women's Day and all days.
March 5: Habitat Planning to Honor UN World Wildlife Day!
Today, March 3, is UN World Wildlife Day and what better way to honor it this weekend than by helping create thriving habitat areas along a polluted waterway? Just yesterday HarborLAB's GreenLaunch on the Newtown Creek was designated by the National Wildlife Federation as a Certified Wildlife Habitat in recognition of our efforts to provide edible native plants for birds, milkweed for Monarch butterflies, clean water, shelter, and other support for native species. We also generate organic compost to enrich our poor soil.
This Sunday, March 5, from noon to 3PM turn sentiment into action by joining HarborLAB for an orientation at our Newtown Creek GreenLaunch (53-21 Vernon Blvd, LIC, NY 11101) and then walking over to Bricktown Bagel Cafe to plan our 2017 plantings, water systems, constructed habitat (mason bee and bat boxes to start), seedball activities, environmental monitoring lab, and more!
President Trump issued an executive order yesterday to roll back the Clean Water Rule issued by President Obama to extend 1972 Clean Water Act protections to smaller streams and wetlands that feed rivers, lakes, and estuaries. President Trump stated that this reversal reflected his emphasis on economic activity and states rights. New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is leading a coalition to litigate against President Trump's order. The New York Times published a useful article about this debate.
Imagine a common wild berry that not only feeds and protects wildlife but is potentially the next big thing in solar energy. Ah, the wonders of American pokeweed!
The song name derives from the traditional dish, "poke sallet." The lyrics offer a great description of pokeweed, except that composer Tony Joe White mistakes the species for being specific to the South. This hardy perennial grows at forest edges and in sandy beaches across all but eight of the 48 contiguous states. It thrives even in eastern Canada, far from White's home state of Louisiana. HarborLAB grows it at our GreenLaunch on the Newtown Creek, and we've encountered it on shores from Staten Island to South Brother Island. We make pokeweed seed balls and distribute them in areas where city, state, and federal park ecologists determine 8′ high bush's deep tap root can stabilize shorelines and dunes, and protect the interior from storm surge.
As a central part of our GreenLaunch habitat area, the white flowers are a favorite of beneficial insects like our favorite pollinators, bees and butterflies. The leopard moth feeds on the plant during its larval stage. Northern mockingbirds, gray catbirds, northern cardinals, mourning doves, cedar waxwings, brown thrushers, and other birds eat the berries. Our resident raccoon can enjoy noshing on a bit of pokeweed too. Few mammals are so lucky, and for some the plant is deadly. Humans must strip young stems and leaves and boil them three times and toss the water after each cycle. After boiling removes the toxins, many fry the soft greens. "Poke salad" remains part of African American and Appalachian cultures of the South, taught earlier by American Indians, who also used the plant for herbal medicine.
Pokeweed, especially its berries, should be handled with care because it causes rashes on some people, and the poison can be absorbed through skin or open cuts. Never eat the berries and roots, which cause severe vomiting and even, in rare cases, death. Infants are especially vulnerable. Crushed seeds release the greatest toxic loads. Longer-term concerns like mutations and cancer are suspected, according to the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center.
On the bright side, literally, Wake Forest University Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials Director David Carroll was inspired to test pokeberry juice as an "agrisolar dye." Purple pokeberry ink would replace the silicon normally sandwiched between the plates of a photovoltaic panel. Carroll envisions this as a cheap way for developing nations to produce solar energy hardware locally, even in poor soil. That's a prescription for either growing a solar revolution or unleashing an invasive organism.
HarborLAB volunteers (including a little one, Lily) recently spotted snow tracks at the GreenLaunch. Not our usual guard cat prints. The fingers weren't webbed. At first we thought we might have fresh evidence of our resident muskrat. The tracks led up and down our growing native habitat slope from the water to the uplands, so that made sense. Ah, but there was no tail line. That leaves us with raccoon!
Similar animal tracks. Credit: Lawrence Wade, The Old Naturalist.
Raccoon forepaw. Credit: Gaby Muler via Wikimedia Commons.
The lack of webbing is very unusual for mammals in the order carnivora. What makes raccoon paws absolutely unique, however, is their sensitivity. More than 60% of the sensory perception areas of the raccoon's cerebral cortex is given to touch. A raccoon's dexterous fore paws are covered in tiny sensory spikes. The density raccoon pressure sensitive cells (called mechanoreceptor cells) is quintuple that of most mammals, matched only by primates like humans.
The primacy of their fore paws is reflected in the species' names, including proto-Algonquin via Powhatan ahrah-koon-em ("one who scratches or rubs with its hands") and part of the Latin one given by Carl Linnaeus (lotor or "washer"). The myth that raccoons wash their hands or food is rooted in amateur observations of their actual use of water: when submerged the sensory micro-bristles soften and become even more sensitive. A raccoon dips objects in water, fully submerging its paws, to even more acutely feel its surfaces. This video of a raccoon accidentally dissolving his treat of cotton candy is for only the most stone-hearted.
Even prolonged time in cold water doesn't seem to diminish this sensitivity. Naturally this helps them to find small creatures, eggs, and some plants to eat in aquatic or muddy environments. Their fur is also well adapted to repel water.
Once raccoons have learned of food sources, they won't soon forget. In laboratory tests they remembered complex tasks for years afterward. Their ability to recall, problem solve, and think abstractly ranks them with Rhesus monkeys in evaluations of animal intelligence. So, say hello to our smart new neighbor! Maybe a furry new volunteer?
Vlad and Johna. Photo by Larson Harley.
HarborLAB incorporated in September 2012. In October Hurricane Sandy hit New York City. The communities and shores we were freshly chartered to serve and steward were devastated. We didn't have a single boat in our fleet or a home launch, but we had a core of wonderful volunteers ready to help when a call went out from battered Far Rockaway.
The first and largest donors to HarborLAB's relief work were founding science adviser Vladimir Brezina, his partner Johna Till Johnson, and their colleagues. They pooled thousands for a generator, food, water, sanitary supplies, blankets, and more that HarborLAB volunteers delivered and distributed.
Today we salute their love, and year of marriage, that began on the water. We also salute the generous spirit and fecund mind of Vlad, who passed in December after a years-long struggle with cancer. It's fitting that Vlad turned to the sea for his neuroscience research. He studied marine invertebrates to blaze trails toward a better understanding of how animals like humans move through, respond, and learn from their environments. For a fuller appreciation of Vlad, the most moving tribute is Johna's In Memoriam post.
Johna and Vlad's first day together started with a handshake at Pier 40 in Manhattan. They paddled from Manhattan to Sandy Hook, NJ. Their lunch chatter on the beach was a debate over the relative impacts of the world wars on American culture. "We never did agree," Johna says, much like their ongoing discussion about the happiness of ducks. But they did agree to more voyages.
"After a while I noticed I was always happier around him than not. After a further while I figured out why, and told him I loved him. Things progressed rather rapidly thereafter," Johna recalls.
Spreading love across the harbor is something Vlad and Johna did well together. Despite Vlad's struggle with cancer, they provided HarborLAB with a trip planning workshop (to be published online soon) and they shared their adventures, knowledge, and Vlad's beautiful photographs through their blog, Wind Against Current: Thoughts on Kayaking, Science, and Life. We're happy to say Johna is continuing the blog.
Below is one of Vlad's recent lectures, delivered when he was already deep in his chemotherapy. Still full of energy, and still sharing. No energy is lost. No ideas vanish.
As we salute Vlad, we also solute all scientists and the scientific method, humanity's surest philosophical approach to material truth and means of equipping ourselves with solutions to the challenges ahead. We HarborLAB volunteers thank you and hope to inspire young people to join your ranks. We love your pursuit of knowledge in service to humanity and ecology.


Programming note: While You Were Working will be on vacation until the end of the month. The next edition will be March 1.
The Bank for International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund announced they will be increasing their efforts to help regulators around the world implement regulatory reforms and prepare for the next crisis. This is a good thing.
One of the big lessons from the regulatory response to the financial crisis of 2008-09 is that regulators around the world need to do a better job of coordinating their actions – not only what they do, but when they do it. Regulators in the US were bold and swift with their response to the crisis. European regulators were relatively slow; and Europe and its banks suffered the consequences as their recovery was much slower (and even remains in progress for some).
Better coordination between regulators means the next global financial crisis might be met with an enhanced global regulatory response.
Speaking of the regulatory response to the global financial crisis … the market plunge this week doesn't appear to have many people worried about a repeat of the credit crisis. In fact, this New York Times analysis highlights how crisis-era regulations related to bank leverage have been very effective in keeping banks stable. That is a vindication of those leverage regulations and should be enough to justify keeping them in place. But of course, regulators are looking at rolling back those very same regulations.
It turns out the budget deal brokered by Congress in the wee hours of the morning includes a tax credit scheme that will boost investment in technologies aimed at battling climate change.
As noted above, WYWW is on hiatus for the rest of the month as I am off to visit a pair of friends serving their country at the US embassy in Namibia. The journey includes a side-trip to South Africa, so I spent the last month or so reading up on the cultures of both countries. In addition to some rather academic reading, I opted for a lighter read and picked up a copy of Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, the host of The Daily Show. It is amazing. I expected 250 pages of humor, but Noah surprises and brings more than the laughs. That dude has been through some serious stuff. He will make you laugh and he will make you cry. Give it a read and I promise you will never look at Noah as "just a funny guy" again.
Google/Waymo and Uber settled their autonomous car law suit … autonomously.
Oil finished a rough week.
The budget deal brokered in Congress supports the fight against climate change.


Lots of Books, Activities & Movies to Enjoy!
Prepare for important exams like the ACT®, SAT®, AP® Tests, and more.
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The Titanium flatware collection by Mepra exudes luxury as a lifestyle. Discover the finest high-quality titanium flatware with beautiful design, durability and craftsmanship to last a life-time.
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Camposol believes that sound corporate governance creates higher firm value, more robust growth and lower capital expenditures. Corporate governance is based on openness and equal treatment. Improving the company's corporate governance is a continuous process, and is a field that will receive increased focus from the Board of Directors and the management.
Management and control of the company is shared between the shareholders, represented in the general meetings, the Board of Directors and the Chief Executive Officer. The company has an external independent auditor.


text:
Q: Localisation English appears double I am starting to localise my app, but I run into the problem that i see English setup twice as Development language.
Not sure why this happens and if I should be worried.

A: Close your project in Xcode. In another code editor, open projectname.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj and search for knownRegions. You should see something like:

Delete the English,

A: Take a look at your file structure. I guess you have more than one
Base.Iproj folders
You should have one in
FOLDER/APPNAME Base.Iproj/Main.storyboard
(if you have an localizable.strings file used with Base Localization you also have one in
FOLDER/Base.Iproj/Localizable.strings
)
Anyway I think it dont do any harm.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The day you open your business you become vulnerable to the good and bad publicity you can get from either satisfied or dissatisfied customers. That is the price you pay to run a business. It happens to everyone regardless of what you do. Hopefully you are doing your best to please your customers and following through with the expectations you have given them. But when the unthinkable happens and you find a negative remark, blog post or complaint online there are steps you want to take.
Here are some of the "Do's and Don'ts" of Managing Your Business' Reputation Online.
Don't Panic. I know that is easier said that done but the last thing you want to do is lose your cool and try to retaliate. There is no reason for that. It often causes more damage than good.
Don't immediately focus all your attention to the negative information you have found. It is important for you to have a plan or strategy. If you focus all of your time, money and effort on clearing your name then the rest of your business will go down the tube.
Don't admit anywhere that you are wrong. Admitting any wrongdoing is not going to get your complaint removed from search results, blogs or forums. It can also cause further trust issues with existing or potential customers.
Don't take your first negative publicity as a sign that your business is a failure. People that feel that have been wronged in any way are more likely to post the negative information about your company but chances are you have got 100 happy and satisfied customers for every one unhappy customer. Remember, you can't always please everyone.
Create a plan of action. If you notice a couple of negative reports or complaints listed on the first page of search results you have got to find a way to push them off the first page and get them as far down the results as you can. A few really great ways you can do this are by submitting a Press Release to various PR distribution sites such as PRWeb.comm, PR.com and PRnewswir.com.. You can start a new blog that is about your company's products or services. Make sure you share the good information about your business such as favorable stats or testimonials. Join forums related to your niche and contribute useful, relevant information.
Use social networking as a way to build a bigger and better network. Sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon and Digg are great because they such a deep user base. If you can get some buzz going about your business it will go a long way. People love to refer sites that are useful to them so make sure you have information that appeals to your target audience.
Do your best to resolve the issue with the dissatisfied customer. Sometimes it can be tough if they make the comments anonymously but do your best to find out who they are so you can take care of their concerns. If you try to reach out to them and resolve the issue publicly it shows that you are persistent and take your customer's satisfaction seriously.
If your business is in the position to get certified through agencies like the BBB it can be beneficial to your credibility to potential customers.
In tough economic times and unemployment at a record high, people are taking the initiative and creating their own jobs or companies. The question is, are you prepared to become an entrepreneur? This is the million dollar question. Here is an excellent article from the NY Times, "10 Things to Be Clear About Before you Start a Company," that should make anyone stop and think before starting their own business.
Owning your own business is not for the fainthearted. It can be done with a well engineered business plan. As a successful entrepreneur, I would add a final point to this list: "Is your business idea simple and easy to achieve? It is always better to start a business with a single concept and a great deal of perseverance.
1. Is this your first venture?
2. Are you really an entrepreneur?
3. Does your venture involve something you understand really well?
4. Can your mother understand the value proposition?
5. Can you see the right wave?
6. What does your startup want to be when it grows up?
7. Starting a company is hard and uncertain.
8. Get a partner or fly solo?
9. Would you refuse a well-paying job to do this?
To read more: New York Times Copyright 2009 ReadWriteWeb. All Rights Reserved.


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text:
Q: Should I use Hellinger transformed species (abundance) data for NMDS if this is what I used for RDA ordination? I am conducting both constrained and unconstrained analyses on the same species abundance data. For the constrained ordination, I ran the RDA (redundancy analysis) on log x+1 and hellinger transformed species abundance data. For the unconstrained ordination, I am using NMDS. I initially did the nmds using raw (non transformed) species data:
metaMDS(SPdata, distance = 'bray',k=2, trymax=100)

This automatically applies Wisconsin double standardization.
However, I just saw an example on YouTube where they also used the hellinger transformed data for the nmds.
If I am hoping to look at both the RDA and NMDS results for comparison, should I also be using the hellinger transformed data for the nmds? like I did for the RDA.
I just tried the NMDS with the hellinger transformed species matrix and it does give slightly different results.
I am using the vegan package in R for both ordinations.
I feel like this is a very basic question, but I have a limited stats background and haven't found a satisfying answer online.
Thank you!

A: This is a good question.
To answer this let's think about the two methods (NMDS and db-RDA) a litle deeper.
NMDS is an "indirect gradient" analysis approach using ordination.  The axes are imaginary, that is, they do not represent real distances.  Unlike metric ordination approaches (MDS/PCoA, PCA), which maximize the variance between ordination site scores in the ordination space, NMDS attempts to preserve the pairwise dissimilarity between sites in a low-dimensional ordination space. It does this using species ranks (not abundance) and their variation among sites. Thus, distances between two points are relative and representative of the maximal compositional variation among sites but are not real distances (they are imaginary).  Any distance measure can be used to construct the NMDS (Bray-Curtis is advisable if you have abundance data, Sorensen if you have presence/absence)
db-RDA on the other hand is a "direct gradient" analysis approach that extracts real (i.e., known distance) variation in the response variable (community dissimilarity among sites) which can be attributed to a redundant set (i.e., collected at the same sites) of environmental predictors, using multiple linear regression. db-RDA does not use ranks but actual distances (like PCA). Hellinger transformation is warranted in many un-even community datasets, to better linearize the distances among sites (and reduce the effect of dominant species in the site dissimilarity). see Ecological meaningful transformations by Legendre: http://adn.biol.umontreal.ca/~numericalecology/Reprints/Legendre_&_Gallagher.pdf.  However, a distance measure is still used (on top of Hellinger-transformation if used).  You could use the same distance measure in both analyses for consistency (i.e., Bray-Curtis is advisable if you have abundance data, Sorensen if you have presence/absence), but because the distances are known quantities for db-RDA and imaginary quantities for NMDS they would only be qualitatively (not directly)  comparable across ordination spaces.
So, the two methods call for different treatment of the community matrix prior to their application, based on the math/assumptions of the ordination approach / fitting the linear model for db-RDA. you want to make sure you use the correct / most-justified


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"Keep Them Confused" the seventh studio album by punk rock band No Use for a Name, released on June 14, 2005. "For Fiona" was released to radio on June 14, 2005. A video for "For Fiona", a track about lead singer Tony Sly's daughter, has been released on the aforementioned record label.


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