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Non-Reportable ≠ Non-Reviewable: Antitrust Insights for Smaller US Mergers
Mike Cowie, Blair Kuykendall
Dechert LLP
Acquisitions of U.S. companies that fall below the $80.8 million Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) reporting threshold may pose unique risks to buyers. Unlike HSR reportable transactions, non-reportable transactions typically do not allow for contractual allocation of antitrust risk. The buyer is left shouldering the risk. A recent Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforcement action confirms that the risk taken by buyers includes not only the possibility that the acquired assets will have to be divested, but also the possibility that the buyer will be forced to disgorge profits earned after the acquisition. For Mallinckrodt, the subject of the most recent consummated merger challenge, the disgorgement remedy was $100 million, on top of divestiture of part of the acquired assets.
Disgorgement as a remedy remains controversial and relatively infrequent, and may become even less frequent in the new administration. Nonetheless, antitrust investigations and challenges to consummated mergers are likely to continue at a steady pace. These investigations may increase if the volume of reportable transactions declines and agency staff in turn gains more capacity to investigate consummated mergers.
A study by Dechert shows that the FTC and Department of Justice (DOJ) have brought consummated merger challenges in each of the last five years, thirteen in total. Two of these challenges were litigated to a decision on the merits, with the remainder settled by consent; all resulted in remedies being imposed. Dechert is aware of other consummated merger investigations that the agencies closed without challenge, but has no way to systematically measure them. This study suggests a number of implications for companies considering competitively-sensitive non-reportable deals in the U.S.
Horizontal Mergers with High Combined Market Share Are Targets. All of the consummated merger challenges in the last five years involved horizontal mergers. While the same Merger Guidelines apply to review of reportable and non-reportable deals alike, consummated merger challenges have focused disproportionately on deals with high combined market shares—often 2-to-1 mergers. Dechert's analysis shows that the average combined firm market share for consummated merger challenges, for which share information is available, is 86%.
FTC and DOJ Need Not Prove Price Effects. The agencies take the position that the absence of price effects or other anticompetitive effects is not a defense to a consummated merger and the courts have adopted that view. In the majority of their consummated merger challenges in the last five years, the FTC and the DOJ alleged that the buyer had gained an enhanced ability to raise price, rather than that it had actually implemented a price increase.
Merger Remedies May Extend Beyond Divestiture. Remedies in consummated merger challenges over the last five years include disgorgement and behavioral relief, as well as divestiture. By a large margin, the preferred remedy has been divestiture: 77% of the matters studied ended with divestiture as a remedy. Disgorgement and behavioral remedies arise in a comparatively small portion of consummated merger challenges.
In the most recent matter, Commissioner Ohlhausen, a Republican recently appointed as Acting Chair, opposed the use of disgorgement and in a later speech reiterated her concerns about the lack of clear standards for when to apply disgorgement as a remedy. Under her leadership, the FTC may yet develop new disgorgement standards. While this might suggest that disgorgement remedies would be imposed less frequently, companies engaging in competitively-sensitive, non-reportable acquisitions should not be overly comforted. Because the FTC believes divestiture remedies are less likely to succeed when businesses are integrated, the new standards may retain disgorgement as a credible deterrent to truly anticompetitive, non-reportable deals.
There is No De Minimis Exemption. Dechert's analysis of consummated merger challenges over the past five years shows that the agencies will challenge small deals. 55% of the consummated merger challenges for which valuation information is available involved deals valued at below $30 million.
There is No Statute of Limitations. There is no statute of limitations barring antitrust challenges to consummated mergers. Although Dechert's analysis shows that most enforcement actions occur less than three years after deal closing, the agencies have shown a willingness to challenge some relatively old mergers: 38% of challenges were more than 3 years after consummation and 23% were more than 4 years later.
Time Period After Closing
When Reportable Transactions Drop, Consummated Merger Investigations May Rise. The agencies brought consummated merger challenges in each of the last five years, but more than a third of those challenges were brought in 2013—the year that had the lowest level of significant reportable transactions as reported by the Dechert Antitrust Merger Investigation Timing Tracker (DAMITT). A slow-down in reportable merger investigation activity could result in increased scrutiny of consummated deals.
Conclusion. Whether a transaction is HSR reportable has an important impact on procedure and timing. But non-reportable deals continue to be investigated and challenged, as shown recently by the FTC. Mergers leading to very high market shares, including ones that are relatively small in value, may be at risk of an FTC or DOJ challenge and a resulting cumbersome divestiture remedy for the buyer. Caveat emptor.
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Financial Services Quarterly Report - Fourth Quarter 2019: New Limited Partnership Regime for Private Equity Funds in Hong Kong
U.S. and China Sign Phase 1 Trade Deal – A Large Purchase Agreement, While Tariffs Remain in Place
No Futility Exception: Where Transferee is on "Inquiry Notice," No Good Faith Defense to Fraudulent Transfer Clawback Absent Inquiry
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Mike Cowie
Blair Kuykendall
Disgorgement
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act
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It has been long recognised that illicit drug traffickers can and do trade in multiple drugs. For example, more than ten years ago, Australian law enforcement agencies highlighted the "convergence of criminal networks and, concomitant to this, poly-drug trafficking" and the challenges this may bring to drug law enforcement and the broader community (Gordon, 2001, p. 22). Yet, research and policy tend to focus on single illicit drug markets alone. Yet, the extent, nature and implications of an inter-connected marketplace are not well understood. In light of increasing evidence that in comparison with their mono-drug counter-parts, poly-drug traffickers may be more resilient, adaptable and harmful, this project starts to examine Australia's poly-drug and poly-crime traffickers.
It has been long recognised that illicit drug traffickers can and do trade in multiple drugs. Yet, for a range of reasons, both methodological and conceptual, the extent, nature and implications of poly-drug trafficking are not well understood. The lack of attention to poly-drug trafficking within Australia is of concern as international agencies have identified an apparent rise in drug traffickers (particularly high level drug traffickers) choosing to deal in multiple different drugs and it is conjectured that this may make such traffickers more profitable, dynamic, and resilient to changes in drug supply and drug law enforcement (EMCDDA, 2014; Europol, 2011, 2013; National Drug Intelligence Center, 2012; United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2014a). This project sought to provide the first detailed examination of poly-drug and poly-crime trafficking in Australia, focusing on the actions of high level traffickers (importers and wholesale distributors).
Three distinct but complementary lenses were used to examine these issues.
1. Trend analysis of Australian Federal Police (AFP) seizure data on all commercial poly-drug and mono-drug importations from 1999-2012. In this component we examined whether there was growth in the number of poly-drug importations from 1999 to 2012. We then examined trends in poly-drug as compared to mono-drug commercial seizures from 1999 to 2012 on indices including drug type(s), seizure weight, drug transport mode and state of importation.
2. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of profiles of poly-drug and mono-drug traffickers. In this component we supplemented the traditional analysis of seizure data alone using a sub-sample of AFP drug trafficking cases and linked-cases. We then compared commercial poly-drug and mono-drug cases and linked-cases to see whether as hypothesised poly-drug traffickers pose more harm on indices including the total quantity and value of drugs seized, size of criminal networks (number of identified offenders and suspects), and extent of involvement with other forms of criminal activity (such as money laundering, fraud and other crime).
3. Social network analysis of three Australian poly-drug and poly-crime trafficking networks. In the final component three networks were selected in conjunction with law enforcement advisors. Network maps were then constructed using judges sentencing comments and media reports to identify the number of people involved in each poly-drug network, drug flows, management structures, key brokers and benefits/limitations of engagement in this form of criminal behaviour.
All analyses have been completed and a report has been submitted to the National Drug Law Enforcement Research Fund (NDLERF).
Hughes, C., Chalmers, J., Bright, D., & McFadden, M. (under review) Trafficking in multiple commodities: Exposing Australia's poly-drug and poly-crime networks, NDLERF Report.
This will provide the first systematic examination of the extent and nature of poly-drug and poly-crime trafficking in Australia and the implications of this form of trafficking for drug law enforcement and other agencies.


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Natural Capital Update: AD tie-up with dry ice business highlights innovation in net-zero carbon push
Farmer tells Poppy Baggott how green energy plant boosts food and pharmaceutical sectors.
I can't be alone in having reservations as to the solid clean green credentials of anaerobic digestion ('AD').
Just AD dry ice: the plant at Haugh of Urr
As a sustainable source of energy, AD has many merits, providing renewable power and bringing valuable income for those who own and operate them. It also ensures land is kept in top agricultural working order to provide silage and agricultural matter for the 'concrete cow' – the purpose-built structure that works like a bovine digestive system to produce methane for fuel and/or digestate slurry for fertiliser production.
The carbon dioxide produced as a by-product is part of the natural cycling of carbon between biomass and the atmosphere, unlike the additional emissions from oil refining or fertiliser production which cause climate change. As the material fed into the process would emit the greenhouse gas whether used this way or not, AD is seen as a net-zero technology.
However, the fact remains that there is still an emission, so I was intrigued and delighted to find ingenuity and innovation at work in the use of AD in the ongoing fight against climate change.
In the course of my work as a land agent in Dumfries and Galloway, I spoke to Stewartry-based beef farmer Richard Barbour, who co-owns an AD plant at Crofthead Farm, Haugh of Urr, just outside Castle Douglas.
Richard and his partner in AD, Mark Callander, can produce enough power in the form of 'green gas,' for around 8,000 houses when the system is working at full capacity. The AD is mainly 'fed' not with slurry or farmyard manure ('FYM') but hen and cow dung, producing a nutrient-dense fertiliser as digestate. But while the anaerobic digester generates renewable power with a quality fertiliser as a by-product, it still emits CO2.
This would normally be released into the atmosphere. However, Richard informed me that Richard Nimmons and his brother Ed, owners of the Perthshire company, Dry Ice Scotland, have devised a method whereby they utilise waste CO2 from AD to produce food-grade dry ice for use by industries such as pharmaceuticals and food distribution. Dry Ice Scotland is investing around £4m in a new facility at the AD plant site at Haugh of Urr.
The principle and innovation involved are inspirational – an advertisement for collaboration and thinking outside the box. Adding to the arrangement's green credentials, Dry Ice Scotland not only buys and utilises the waste CO2, making its own business carbon net-zero, it also purchases power direct from the AD plant.
The AD business runs totally independently from the farming side, with a 21-year lease in place for the site.
Ed Nimmons, in an article published by Daily Business, described the project as a "landmark" in its bid to decarbonise the dry ice industry. His brother Richard added: "This is a major step forward for the UK to be 100 per cent reliable on domestic sources of food-grade CO2 for dry ice manufacture, reducing transportation carbon footprint and insulating our customers from future CO2 shortages."
• Natural Capital: The expert advisers at Galbraith guide our clients in realising value in all land uses – by assessing and measuring natural assets, furthering opportunities in biodiversity net gain, and ensuring stakeholders are rewarded fully for their investment in and contribution to delivering ecosystem services and net-zero outcomes.
Poppy Baggott
Poppy is part of our rural team, based in Castle Douglas. She has previously worked as assistant factor on the Isle of Bute; in our Stirling office managing a number of estates around Glasgow and Argyll, and with the rural team in our Edinburgh office.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Congratulations to Christopher D. Kelley, Esq. senior partner at Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelley, Dubin and Quartararo or being honored at Long Island Business News Corporate Citizenship Awards.
The Corporate Citizenship Awards recognize companies and individuals who believe that by being a good corporate citizen we contribute to the economic and social well-being of our employees, businesses and the community. Honorees consistently prove that true community stewardship evolves through building strong partnerships with nonprofit organizations and others that strive to meet the critical needs of our community.


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Pacers lose All-Star Victor Oladipo to season-ending injury
By Michael Marot
Indiana All-Star guard Victor Oladipo is out for the season with a ruptured quad tendon in his right knee.
Oladipo was injured during Wednesday night's 110-106 victory over Toronto and left the court on a stretcher with 4:05 left in the first half.
Team officials acknowledged during the game that the injury was serious but waited until after the results of Thursday's MRI returned to announce how much time he would miss. Coach Nate McMillan said he was unsure when Oladipo would have surgery or whether he would be ready for the start of next season.
"It's unfortunate. He's a special player and a special person," McMillan said. "It will be tough but we have to continue to move on."
[Related] Williamson 'never should've played' in summer league, Krzyzewski says »
Losing Oladipo is an enormous blow to the Pacers' postseason hopes. He led the Pacers in scoring at 19.2 points per game, was a first-team all-NBA defensive selection last season and is a co-captain of the team
Indiana currently holds the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference but the Pacers face a more challenging second half of the season.
They surprised the league last year when many projected them to be a lottery team after trading All-Star Paul George to Oklahoma City for Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis. Instead, the Pacers made the playoffs as one of the season's biggest surprises.
Oladipo's teammates are convinced they can do it again.
"The season's not over," Darren Collison said a few minutes after players were told the extent of Oladipo's injury. "They don't know our mindset in the locker room. They don't know what we have."
[Related] Sun spoil Taurasi's season debut, beat Phoenix 79-64 to snap five-game skid »
Indiana went 7-4 when Oladipo missed 11 games earlier this season with a sore right knee. McMillan said he had not been told whether the previous knee problem had any relationship to the new injury.
"I haven't talked to the trainers about it, but he wasn't complaining before last night," McMillan said, though Oladipo appeared to be favoring the knee as recently as last week.
Oladipo was hurt as he scrambled back to defend an outlet pass to Toronto's Pascal Siakam and crumpled to the floor awkwardly. Trainers quickly draped a towel over the leg and players from both teams surrounded Oladipo while he was down. Oladipo received a standing ovation as he was wheeled away and responded by waving to the crowd.
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"We kind of knew last night," McMillan said. "But we got the word this morning."
McMillan said Tyreke Evans will replace Oladipo in the starting lineup and first-round draft pick Aaron Holiday will get more playing time off the bench. In addition, the Pacers intend to promote Edmond Sumner from the G-League to the playing roster.
They could still make a move before the Feb. 7 trade deadline.
"We will talk about that," McMillan said. "We will talk about where we go from here."
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<Jeff Klingman>
Where the Crowds No Longer Gather: A Look Back at 12 Years in the Brooklyn Music Scene
by Jeff Klingman
No one who moved to Brooklyn after 2000 has a legitimate claim to getting in on the ground floor of anything. Still, in 2002, the degree to which New York City's music scene was still carried out across the river from here is maybe difficult for more recent transplants to picture. Upon my arrival here that year, a club called Northsix lived where the Music Hall of Williamsburg now sits, and acts rolled through there often. Quiet corners supported tiny folk music hangouts like the now-dead Zebulon and the still-living Pete's Candy Store. (Pete's picked the corner that would stay quieter longer, it turned out.) Union Pool wasn't set up for live music, yet; The Knitting Factory still took up three floors in Manhattan. The pool of regulars who could support something as relatively specific as the metal shows playing nightly at Saint Vitus was still years and years away. The stray DIY show in a decrepit loft space was a welcome surprise but hardly an expectation.
In 2002, the candy-colored, new wave, coke-fantasia that was Williamsburg's electroclash nightclub Luxx was the nightspot of note. It only lasted a couple of years before switching into the just-closed punk dive Trash Bar, which will now become a Smoothie King or some such corporate enclave, probably. People who may claim the current environment is filled with pretentious kids playing dress up really have no idea of the level of skinny-tied commitment Williamsburg once commanded. (I expect it to pop up as a throwaway gag as soon as early 2000s Brooklyn becomes the setting for a prestige cable drama.) It was alternately terrible and amazing, and deeply memorable either way. But even then it felt somewhat disposable, something that'd be outgrown if it wasn't shut down. I don't think anyone there thought that stuff could, or should, last forever.
Since then the story of live music in Brooklyn has been one of almost continual growth. Though individual spots have come and gone, we've steadily amassed more clubs, more bands, and more variety of everything, including more options for how to consume music. The biggest single disruption of that otherwise steady climb happened last year, which had the most funereal feel of any I can remember in Brooklyn's post-millennium music scene. As was exhaustively documented, debated, and fretted over, VICE's multi-million dollar headquarters expansion ate a bunch of Williamsburg's music venues, permanently closing 285 Kent, Death by Audio, and Glasslands, leading many to mourn the idea that this city could nurture art in a genuine way. And the irony of a media empire built on hip culture, bulldozing weird, cherished spots with investment capital money was too richly symbolic to feel anything other than blatantly gross.
But now, just a year removed from that much-lamented reaping, it's clear that farther off places like Palisades, Silent Barn, Alphaville, and Aviv have continued the spirit that those rooms used to nurture, and have done it more or less seamlessly. Going to shows out there is to be surrounded by people whose whole idea of music and culture in Brooklyn is now being formed with those spots at their center. There's more precedent now to suggest that if, or even when, those places close, they'll be replaced too, and quickly. If it happens to be in Queens or deep Harlem or under the roller coaster on Coney Island, the feel inside those sweaty rooms of the future will probably be the same. So containing the rise and fall of Brooklyn's music culture to the past decade or so (or even just to Brooklyn) feels counterfactual, and even kind of arrogant: "If our thing gets blown up, there may never be another thing!" Not likely. In fact, there are more places to see music now than there were when the L started printing, more stylistic diversity in the sorts of stuff being made, and more people just itching to make it. If the prohibitive expense of living in 2015 Brooklyn hasn't killed the primal urge for expression yet, a further, truly apocalyptic annihilation just over the horizon seems pretty unlikely.
It's true that the city doesn't care about us as much as we care about it. It won't make a preserved historical site out of the particular room where you saw your new favorite band, or the place where you got gloriously drunk and did something romantic, or flat-out stupid. Our own personal histories are marked with spots that no one else can visit, where crowds no longer gather. And that's sort of great. But while those things are important to us, and while they make our identities and our memories dependent on the city, the city isn't reliant on us—it won't click on our pained farewell essays. And that's sort of great too. If you spend enough years here and the main truth you're out to prove is "everything dies," you'll be given ample evidence to back that up. But you've missed the overwhelming, sorta scary, yet ultimately reassuring idea that everything is reborn too.
Ingrained impermanence is culturally healthy, if not personally flattering. And there's still a minor, undeniable thrill to leaving your footprints in the sand, then standing back to watch the ocean erase them.
The Best 15 Songs 4 2015 So Far
Sleater Kinney "Price Tag"
The iconic rock warriors wouldn't have descended from Mt. Olympia without planning a strong first strike. The leadoff track from Sleater-Kinney's comeback record keeps double-jumping to new levels of intensity. Janet Weiss' precise drum blasts—like controlled explosions used to trigger ski-slope
avalanches—provide their perpetual spark.
Colleen Green "Deeper Than Love"
An unexpectedly vivid concept album about twenty-something ennui, Colleen Green's I Want to Grow Up is deeply funny and totally fucked up. Its neurotic peak is this slinky kraut-pop epic, which departs from her usual hooky alt-rock to let conflicting fears of loneliness and intimacy dance a dead-eyed tango.
Rabit "Bloody Eye"
The metal shard landscape and ray-gun zips that make up this Texan version of British "grime" production suggest a laser tag duel that's a little too real. (Its startling gun shot percussion is the sound of at least one player who isn't playing.) This is experimental electronic music at it's most
physically jarring.
Prurient "Greenpoint"
The Brooklyn neighborhood, home to bougie gift shops and boiled pierogi, is recast as an existential nightmare by Dominick Fernow's long-running noise project Prurient. It starts with unexpected acoustic strumming, dangling something pretty for the coming dread to swallow whole. The drone builds slow behind Fernow's sober narration of an alcoholic in ruin. It's not rage-red but ice-cold; a poison frost freezing a flower from its roots.
Blanck Mass "Dead Format"
Ben Power's other band, Fuck Buttons, are too often adrift in their own psychedelic fantasmagoria to make dance-floor fillers as straight as this solo jam. And even this is just a hair more propulsive than it is creepy. "Doom rave" is on the rise! (more…)
Déjà Vu All Over Again: On Giorgio Moroder's return record, Déjà Vu
Upon hearing Donna Summer's "I Feel Love," Brian Eno famously guessed that the single would "change club music for the next 15 years." That bit of fortune-telling, recounted countless times since spoken in 1977, ended up being an understatement. Electronically produced dance music hadn't even sniffed its cultural peak by 1992. It's since become youth culture, major festival fodder, and blockbuster mainstream entertainment on a scale that Eno wouldn't have claimed on his fourth lager. Club walls can no longer confine it. And now, Summer's iconic producer, Giorgio Moroder, returns as an elder statesman to a pop culture he had a strong hand in shaping. (more…)
Party in the USA: Shamir, Ratchet
In early LCD Soundsystem singles, the kids were not alright. They annoyed James Murphy with their inability to dance, hook up, or fall in love properly. All they could do was borrow nostalgia and send out irksome mailers, inviting him to parties he thought were lame. LCD's whole schtick centered on the viewpoint of an old guy who thought he knew better, who'd heard all the great records when doing so required real effort and was forced to interpret their lessons for the masses since none of these lousy kids could be trusted. It'd be interesting to hear his reaction now to something like Ratchet. The debut album from 20-year-old Las Vegan Shamir Bailey grows like a flower from creative soil he tilled a decade ago. "They say I am a big party machine!," Shamir tells us, quite plausibly. Murphy's side-eye might be unavoidable, but "the saddest night out in the U.S.A." this is not. (more…)
On Neon Wings: Sufjan Stevens
With hindsight, Arcade Fire having long-ago begetten a legion of po-faced men in pork-pie hats, the blockbuster victories of mid-00s indie-rock seem unfortunate. For grown 90s teens, the idea of once-modest college rock winning Grammys and topping shrunken Billboard sales charts was briefly validating. But any series of events that leads to songs by The Lumineers or Edward Sharpe being played at the gym requires a touch of regretful reflection. Of peak indie's best-known artists, Sufjan Stevens, especially lost something in scaling up. His claim to be working on 50 separate albums tailored to the details of each of our united states was a goof taken too seriously by the press, but also a definitive example of personal music strangled by sort of arbitrary ambition. Though the songs from that period were often beautiful, there's something off-putting in revisiting them now, a certain unintended smugness in the superhuman size of the task Stevens took on. His strengths as a songwriter are intimacy and empathy. Throwing himself into speculative historical fiction undercut them, suggesting that a stroll through a municipal record or Wikipedia page could provide all the inspiration he'd ever need. Leading orchestras in neon wings and crowding the stage with players, his delicacy was trampled underfoot. (more…)
Friend of Drake: iLoveMakonnen
Last year, Drake broke his clearly stated "no new friends" policy by buddying up with iLoveMakonnen. When he remixed and featured on the Atlanta rapper's loopy weeknight party anthem "Tuesday," he slingshot the song from beloved Internet oddity to marginal mainstream hit. Gracing a DIY producer with a touch of his regal scepter isn't unusual for the rap superstar; in fact it's one of the things Drake's made his reputation on. But where another protege like The Weeknd shares his oversexed yet depressed vibes and Toronto zip code, Makonnen Sheran is a stranger choice. A psychedelic crooner, possibly on mushrooms, is not the most natural night-club wingman? Bringing an exponentially increased number of ears to something as weird as "Tuesday" without altering its basic form might be the most benevolent thing Drake's done in his mega-famous imperial phase. But it's easy to see why it might flatter his ego to pal around with Makonnen, the singer is a reflection of a bunch of things Drake continually assures us he is: a hustler, an outsider, an underdog who clawed his way to fame. (more…)
friend of Drake, iLoveMakonnen
Outside the Box: On Waxahatchee, Courtney Barnett, and Colleen Green
One of the cooler aspects of alternative rock in the 1990s was its notably better representation for female musicians than previous rock n' roll eras. Media coverage still tended to be a bit condescending then, thick with "Women Who Rock?!" style novelty pieces. In 2015, the wry, hooky fuzz-bomb style of alt-rock persists, and at this point young women dominate it almost completely. This year has already been thick with superficially similar but subtly varied albums supporting that claim. New Courtney Barnett and Colleen Green records provide charm and crunch in equal measure, while high-profile indie-rock dudes currently seem sequestered in the emotive piano bar of 1970s singer-songwriter roles. (See: Father John Misty, Tobias Jesso, Jr., Sufjan Stevens.) Ivy Tripp, the third record by Brooklyn-via-Philadelphia-via-Alabama band Waxahatchee adds to the mounting mountain of evidence. (more…)
Colleen Green, Courtney Barnett, Ivy Tripp, Katie Crutchfield, Matador, Waxahatchee
Godmode Records Presents… American Music
At the end of 2014, a limited-run cassette from a small local label cracked this magazine's top-5 records of the year. That tape was Common Interests Were Not Enough to Keep us Together, a collection of songs from Godmode, the Brooklyn imprint run by producer, musician, and ex-critic Nick Sylvester. Where their earliest releases focused on brooding, bad-natured noise rock, this one let in house, pop, and left-field disco, suddenly announcing Godmode as the most tasteful and varied imprint in the neighborhood.
American Music is the label's follow-up compilation tape. Again it's filled with un-hyped bands making weird sounds that draw from many eras of pop and experimental music, without leaning too heavily on any single flavor of nostalgia.
A few artists provide repeat highlights. There are two tracks from the wildly under-appreciated locals Courtship Ritual: an old one that reasserts last year's LP Pith as motel pillow levels of slept on, and a new one that continues to sound like Young Marble Giants as a cabaret act. Then there's the first new song from local noise duo Yvette since their vicious 2013 record Process. "I Don't Need Anything From Anybody" smartly resists the shoe-gaze impulse to swallow vocal clarity with guitar fuzz, allowing a song with almost zero empty space to feel weirdly wide-open. It closes on a lovely remix of "I Know It's a Good Thing" by Shamir, which cranks up the synth squeals and surrounds his voice with faux-holy ambiance like "Like a Prayer"-era Madonna, making it an elegy for an act who blew up too quick to ever be a label mainstay. (His first album will come out on the bigger XL this spring.)
There's killer stuff from bands you've never heard of, too. Breeding Program's "No Time for 69" is an overt electroclash revival that's appropriately dumb, fun, and trashy. ("I bet computer guys invented 69," it claims, dubiously.) The disco cuts feel in the moment rather than in quotes, present instead of hiding at a hazy middle distance. House tracks work into their grooves so relentlessly that eventual acid-rave freakouts feel like stress hallucinations from concentrating too hard. When that starts to feel a little formulaic, we get a song like Malory's "Dah"—so dedicated to minimalism that its increasing intensity comes not from from loosening up but contracting tighter. The dance music is typically very carefully controlled, making brief noise snippets from Excepter, Manikr, and especially Kill Alters so crucial in context. They represent rare, necessary slips into chaos.
American Music's varied, but mostly dance-adjacent, sounds closely mirror those that DFA Records made such a huge impact with in the early 2000s, sometimes to the point of distraction. But the similarities come from overlapping taste and and eclectic philosophy, rather than conscious emulation. It doesn't resemble the sustained, pill-regulated mood of Johnny Jewel's After Dark compilations either, structured more like a mixtape made by some clever, moody, more-earnest-than-he-thinks college kid. It top-loads with accessible material, earning credit for the wilder selections that follow. It's over long, but as a function of its intended format. There's space to fill, so why not fill it? It's all pretty great, besides.
American Music, Common Interests Were Not Enough to Keep us Together, Courtship Ritual, Exceptor, Godmode Records, Kill Alters, Manikr, Nick Sylvester
On Tantric Sex as Metaphor: Talking with Jana Hunter of Lower Dens
Jana Hunter's career has already contained multitudes. She started playing lo-fi folk "either twelve or like, thirty" years ago, a by-gone time when being a Beck devotee was unimpeachably hip. Since 2010, Hunter's been fronting Lower Dens, a band who can execute her songwriting on a grand psychedelic scale. On 2012's Nootropics they were mid-transformation, becoming a sulking krautrock behemoth.
"It Doesn't Feel Like Playing": Perfume Genius Brings Too Bright to NYC
Mike Hadreas, the Seattle songwriter who's drawn great acclaim for the beautiful and pained records he's recorded as Perfume Genius, is in a "frazzled" pre-tour state. He's about to leave for a second U.S. swing in support of last fall's Too Bright, his third and best record. It will bring him to Manhattan's Stage 48 on Thursday, March 19th, ahead of dates supporting big-deal Matador Records labelmates Interpol and Belle and Sebastian. I caught up with him by phone, shortly after his return from Rite Aid, where he "somehow spent like a hundred bucks" in cautious preparation. ("It makes me feel better to have various cremes and serums.")


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Henry R. Luce, April 3, 1898 - February 28, 1967
Place_Pub: New York: Time, Inc., 1967. 28 cm, 51, portrait. More
Newseum Visitors Guide: Map and Information
Washington, DC: Newseum, 2008. Brochure. 19 pages. Wraps, color illus. and maps, guide folded in half, membership information and admission ticket laid in. More
Washington, DC: Newseum, 2008. 19, wraps, color illus. and maps, guide folded in half, membership information and admission ticket laid in. More
Aamoth, Robert J., Henderson, Frederick B., Kwerel, Evan R., Pitsch, Peter K., and Uhlir, Paul F.
American Enterprise, the Law and the Commercial Use of Space, Volume II: Remote Sensing and Telecommunications
Washington, DC: National Legal Center, 1986. First Paperbk? Edition. First? Printing. 152, v.2 only of the 3-vol. set, wraps, illus., footnotes, covers somewhat worn/soiled, ink name and pencil erasure on title page. More
Abbott, Lyman
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1923. Later edition (first published in 1915). First printing thus. Hardcover. xxxvii, [1], 509, [1] pages. Frontis Illustration. Bibliography. Occasional footnotes. Illustrations. Index. Some wear and soiling to boards Some pages uncut. Some chips at index pages. Ink notation on fep. Introduction by Ernest Hamlin Abbott. Lyman J. Abbott (1835 – 1922) was an American Congregationalist theologian, editor, and author. Abbot worked variously in the publishing profession as an associate editor of Harper's Magazine, and was the founder of a publication called the Illustrated Christian Weekly, which he edited for six years. He was also the co-editor of The Christian Union with Henry Ward Beecher from 1876 to 1881. Abbott later succeeded Beecher in 1888 as pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. He also wrote the official biography of Beecher and edited his papers. His son, Lawrence Fraser Abbott, accompanied President Roosevelt on a tour of Europe and Africa (1909–10). Abbott was expelled from the American Peace Society because military preparedness was advocated in the Outlook. More
Adler, Renata
Reckless Disregard: Westmoreland v. CBS et al., Sharon v. Time
New York: Knopf, 1986. First Edition. 22 cm, 243, front DJ flap price clipped, DJ stained. More
Adler, Ruth, ed.
The Working Press: Special to the New York Times
New York: Putnam, [1966]. 22 cm, 287, index, DJ worn, soiled, and small tears, ink notation on front DJ flap. Foreword by Theodore M. Bernstein. More
Algeo, Matthew
The President is a Sick Man; Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth
Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press, 2011. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. x, 255, [7] pages. Illustrations. Cast of Characters. Sources. Bibliography. Index. Minor soiling on fep. When he's not writing his own biography in the third person, Matthew Algeo writes about unusual and interesting events in American history. His most recent book is "Abe & Fido: Lincoln's Love of Animals and the Touching Story of His Favorite Canine Companion." Algeo is also a journalist. He has reported from four continents, and his stories have appeared on some of the most popular public radio programs in the United States. In addition to reporting and writing, Algeo has held jobs as a convenience store clerk, a gas station attendant, a Halloween costume salesman, and a proofreader. He also worked in a traveling circus. More
American Association for Public Opinion Research
Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 50, Number 3, Fall 1986
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1986. 24 cm, 173, wraps, footnotes, figures, tables, references, pencil erasure residue on table of contents Topics covered include Lyndon Johnson and the public polls, reinterpreting the gender gap, the influence of exit polls on voting behavior, television's impact on high school achievement, education and the quality of life in Korea and the United States, types of political attitude structure, economic partisan advantages in Congressional contests 1938-1978, response effects in the electronic survey, and polls on medical care in the United States. More
Arnett, Peter
Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad. 35 Years in the World's War Zones
New York: Simon & Schuster, c1994. First Printing. 25 cm, 463, illus., index, slight wear to DJ edges. More
New York: Simon & Schuster, c1994. First Printing. 25 cm, 463, illus., index. Inscribed by the author to noted journalist James Fallows. More
Live from the Battlefield; From Vietnam to Bagdad. 35 Years in the World's War Zones
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. First Printing. Hardcover. 25 cm, 463, [1] pages. Illustrations. Index. Damp stains and wrinkling in bottom margin (no pages stuck). Inscribed by the author. The author has won the Pulitzer Prize, the George Polk Memorial Award, and at least three Sigma Delta Chi awards. Peter Gregg Arnett, ONZM (born 13 November 1934) is a New Zealand-born journalist holding both New Zealand and US citizenship. Arnett worked for National Geographic magazine, and later for various television networks, most notably CNN. He is known for his coverage the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his work in Vietnam from 1962 to 1975, mostly reporting for the Associated Press. CNN CNN sent Arnett to Baghdad because of his experience in covering military conflicts. Arnett was part of the live coverage beginning on January 17th, 1991, the start of the Gulf War air campaign, where he and colleagues Bernard Shaw and John Holliman kept broadcasting from their Al-Rasheed Hotel room amid extensive aerial bombing by the Western Coalition forces. In 1994, Arnett's book Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones was published. In March 1997, Arnett interviewed Osama bin Laden. The journalism school at the Southern Institute of Technology that was named after him closed in 2015. He retired as a field reporter in 2007. He now lives in Los Angeles and teaches journalism at Shantou University in China. More
Live from the Battlefield; From Vietnam to Baghdad. 35 Years in the World's War Zones
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. First Printing. Hardcover. 25 cm, 463, [1] pages. Illustrations. Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Nice, long inscription by the author on fep. to Kimberly Lenz, perhaps the educator and human rights activist and Amnesty International volunteer. The author has won the Pulitzer Prize, the George Polk Memorial Award, and at least three Sigma Delta Chi awards. Peter Gregg Arnett, ONZM (born 13 November 1934) is a New Zealand-born journalist holding both New Zealand and US citizenship. Arnett worked for National Geographic magazine, and later for various television networks, most notably CNN. He is known for his coverage the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his work in Vietnam from 1962 to 1975, mostly reporting for the Associated Press. CNN CNN sent Arnett to Baghdad because of his experience in covering military conflicts. Arnett was part of the live coverage beginning on January 17th, 1991, the start of the Gulf War air campaign, where he and colleagues Bernard Shaw and John Holliman kept broadcasting from their Al-Rasheed Hotel room amid extensive aerial bombing by the Western Coalition forces. In 1994, Arnett's book Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones was published. In March 1997, Arnett interviewed Osama bin Laden. The journalism school at the Southern Institute of Technology that was named after him closed in 2015. He retired as a field reporter in 2007. He now lives in Los Angeles and teaches journalism at Shantou University in China. More
Ashby, Lynn
As Your Acknowledged Leader: The Best of Lynn Ashby
Austin, TX: Texas Monthly Press, c1983. First Printing. 25 cm, 280. More
Atkinson, Brooks
Tuesdays & Fridays
New York: Random House, 1963. First Printing. Hardcover. 274 pages. Index, newspaper obituaries taped ins boards, DJ soiled: small tears, sm chips missing. Presentation copy signed by the author. More
Auletta, Ken
The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Superhighway
Place_Pub: New York: Random House, c1997. First Edition. First Printing. Hardcover. 25 cm, 346 pages, index, acid-free paper, tear in front endpaper at spine A collection of essays earlier published in The New Yorker, with new "postscripts" added to each chapter. A struggle is taking place--not just among corporate titans, but among entire industries. At stake is control of the world's fastest-growing industry: communications. The contestants are Hollywood studios, television networks, and cable, telephone, computer, publishing, and consumer-electronics companies. All are vying to collect a toll on the information superhighway. And as they jockey for control, they tread on volatile ground, as one fixation after another (cable, interactive TV) is dumped in favor of the next (satellite, the Internet). More
Place_Pub: New York: Random House, c1997. First Edition. First Printing. Hardcover. 25 cm, 346 pages. Index, acid-free paper, some creasing to DJ edges, sticker residue on rear DJ. Signed by the author. More
Bai, Matt
All The Truth is Out; The Week Politics Went Tabloid
New York: Vintage Books, 2015. First Vintage Books Edition [stated]. First printing stated. Trade Paperback. xv, [1], 263, [3] pages. Illustrations. A Note on Sourcing. Index. Inscribed by the author on the title page. Inscription reads For Jason--Thanks for serving in government--hope this resonates with you! Matt Bai. Preface. Chapters cover Troublesome Gulch; Tilting Toward Culture Death; Out There; Follow Me Around; "I Do Not Think That's a Fair Question"; All the Truth Is Out; Exile; and A Lesser Land. Matt Bai is an American journalist, author and screenwriter. Matt Bai is the national political columnist for Yahoo News. For more than a decade he was a political correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, where he covered three presidential campaigns. He is the author of The Argument: Inside the Battle to Remake to Remake Democratic Politics, named a notable book by the New York Times. His cover stories in the magazine include the 2008 cover essay "Is Obama the End of Black Politics?" and a 2004 profile of John Kerry titled "Kerry's Undeclared War". In May 1987, Colorado Senator Gary Hart--a dashing, reform-minded Democrat--seemed a lock for the party's presidential nomination and led George H. W. Bush by double digits in the polls. Then, in one tumultuous week, rumors of marital infidelity and a newspapers stateout of Hart's home resulted in a media frenzy the likes of which had never been seen before. All the Truth Is Out is a tour-de-force portrait of the American way of politics at the highest level, one that changes our understanding of how we elect our residents and how the bedrock of American values has shifted under our feet. More
Baillie, Hugh
High Tension: The Recollections of Hugh Baillie
New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1959. First Edition. Hardcover. 300 pages. Illus., index, some soiling & scratching to fore-edge. DJ worn and soiled: small chips missing. Signed by the author. More
New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1959. 300, illus., index, some soiling to fore-edge, DJ worn and soiled: sm chips missing, sm rough spot fr DJ, fr DJ flap price clipped. More
Baker, Robert K., and Ball, Sandra J.
Mass Media and Violence, Vol. IX; A Staff Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence
Washington DC: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1969. Presumed First Edition, First printing thus. Trade paperback. xxii, 614 pages. Tables. Footnotes. Cover has some wear and soiling. Includes Preface; Acknowledgments; Part I The Historical Perspective Chapter 1--The Printed Medium; Chapter 2--From Medium to Media; Part II: The News Media; Chapter 3--Functions and Credibility; Chapter 4--Intergroup Communication; Chapter 5--The Marketplace Myth: Access to the Mass Media; Chapter 6--Coverage of Civil Disorders; Chapter 7--Journalism Education; Chapter 8--Media Practices and Values; and Chapter 9--Conclusions and Recommendations. Also contains Appendices on How the Mass Media Work in America; Contemporary Functions of the Mass Media; Media Codes, Guidelines, and Policies for News Coverage; The Canons of Journalism; Code of Broadcast News Ethics; Broadcast Guidelines for Coverage of Civil Disorders; and Employment Date. Part III broadly addressed Television Entertainment and Violence. More
Barghoorn, Frederick Charles
The Soviet Cultural Offensive: The Role of Cultural Diplomacy in Soviet Foreign Policy
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960. First Printing. 25 cm, 353, footnotes, index, usual library markings, foxing to text, some wear & soiling to boards & spine, bd corners somewhat bumped. More
Barnes, Kathleen
Trial by Fire: A Woman Correspondent's Journey to the Frontline
New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1990. First Edition. First Printing. 230, index mentioned in table of contents is not present, some soiling and creasing to rear DJ. More
Place_Pub: New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1990. First Edition. First Printing. 230, scuff at top of rear DJ flap. More


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You are here: Home ∼ Super Rugby goes back to the future
Super Rugby goes back to the future
Published on June 12, 2019 | Leave a response
Sanzaar has made the sensible decision to return to a 14-team league in 2021, writes JON CARDINELLI.
Less is more. Fans and critics have spoken these words like a prayer in the wake of every Vodacom Super Rugby expansion, and after every season that has witnessed a drop in TV viewership, crowd attendance and revenue.
In 2014 there was talk of the tournament expanding to include more franchises from the USA and Asia. South Africa was set to add a seventh team to its contingent. A fifth conference was mooted, and by 2020 as many as 20 franchises were expected to feature in a global competition spread across five continents.
Perhaps we should be grateful that that logistical nightmare will not come to pass. Sanzaar has realised its mistake, and Super Rugby will revert to a 14-team, round-robin tournament from 2021.
The Cheetahs and Kings were cut from the roster at the end of the 2017 season. The Japan-based Sunwolves will leave the Super Rugby fray after the 2020 tournament. It's taken officials a few years to realise what most knew to be obvious. Less is more.
Super Rugby was the envy of the rugby world when it comprised 12 teams from the southern hemisphere powerhouses – Australia, New Zealand and South Africa – between 1996 and 2005. The decision to include two more franchises in 2006 was flawed, as it saw teams playing more games in the league phase – up from 11 to 13 – and diluted the Australian and South African effort.
It was the introduction of the conference system in 2011, however that led to the tournament compromising on its strength-versus-strength selling point. The Rebels joined the competition that season, but more concerning than the addition of a weakened Australian team was the introduction of home and away derbies.
That forced another significant change to the schedule. The round-robin format, or at least a fair schedule that saw every team playing every other side during the league phase, fell away.
The Stormers, for example, played every other South African side twice during the 2011 regular season, but did not face the Hurricanes and Waratahs. The draw was kind to some teams and cruel to others. Ultimately, it influenced the final log standings.
Hopefully Sanzaar has learned its lesson. Hopefully we will never revert to that format again and find ourselves wondering at the end of every season whether Team B would have finished ahead of Team A if it had avoided the likes of the Crusaders or Waratahs in the regular season.
Sanzaar has erred in its decision to revisit the six-team playoff format in 2021, though. Between 2011 and 2015, this format proved to have more cons than pros.
Teams finishing first and second in the standings were guaranteed home semi-finals, as well as a bye after the last round of the league phase. In that intervening week, the teams that finished third and fourth hosted those placed sixth and fifth respectively, with the winners advancing to the penultimate round.
It's a playoff format that rewards mediocrity rather than excellence, as it allows nearly half the teams competing in the tournament to advance. From 2021, six of the 14 teams will feature in the knockout stage.
How long will it be before Sanzaar takes another step back and returns to the four-team playoff system – which was in place between 1996 and 2010? That format would suit a tournament that's trying to regain its reputation as the world's leading regional competition.
The concept of a week off between playoff matches has merit. Travel has long been a challenge in this tournament, whether teams are traversing the Indian Ocean during the league phase or playoffs.
Only one team have managed to travel overseas and win a final in 23 years of Super Rugby. The Crusaders beat the Lions in the final at Ellis Park in 2017. Afterwards, Crusaders coach Scott Robertson admitted that his side – one of the fittest in the tournament – struggled with travel fatigue in the latter stages of the game. It was a big admission considering that the Crusaders enjoyed a one-man advantage for more than half the contest after Lions flank Kwagga Smith was shown a red card.
In a previous interview with SA Rugby magazine, Sanzaar CEO Andy Marinos confirmed that the powers that be have considered implementing a week's break between the semi-final and final. That would allow the away team – if they are travelling from overseas – a fair opportunity to rest and acclimatise.
I doubt that any of the teams will miss the away fixtures against the Sunwolves after the Japan-based side depart the Super Rugby scene. The Sunwolves have enjoyed some outstanding support in Tokyo over the past four seasons, but have often played in front of a largely empty stadium in Singapore.
Travelling to these cities has provided yet another challenge for the South African teams. Any side flying out of Johannesburg faces a 10-hour flight to Singapore, or an 18-hour flight to Tokyo. And if the capital of Japan is the first stop on a two- or three-game tour to the east, the South African outfit will sit on a plane for a further nine and a half hours when travelling from Tokyo to Sydney. Add another three hours to that journey if the final destination is New Zealand.
The Sunwolves concept hasn't been a success. While they scored a couple of landmark victories during the early stages of the 2019 season – winning in New Zealand and Australia for the first time – the makeup of the team tells a story.
They've had four years to develop their local player base, and yet the squad boasts more foreigners now than it did in 2016. The Japanese contingent also includes a host of players who have qualified for the national side through residency. The number of New Zealand players in their ranks has swelled considerably.
Former Springbok coach Jake White, who coaches the Toyota Verblitz in Japan's Top League, hit the nail on the head when commenting on the decision to axe the country's first Super Rugby franchise.
'Maybe the Sanzaar decision-makers have come to the realisation that the product we had is the one we want to keep,' White wrote in a column for AllOutRugby. 'Japan loves rugby and that's why they wanted a bigger stage to raise the profile of the sport. A team in Asia in a conference system might have sounded like a good idea at the time, but as we've seen, it hasn't really worked.
'The main reason administrators took rugby down that road was because they thought there was money to be made. Rugby was chasing a foothold in the Asian market, and now, a few months before the first World Cup in Asia, we've got the announced termination of the only Super Rugby side on the continent.
'The Sunwolves model has shown that it doesn't work like that. The Japanese need to develop their own regional rugby market and produce more homegrown heroes before trying to step up to Super Rugby.'
There's talk of the Sunwolves linking up with another tournament involving teams from Asia, Australia and the Pacific Islands after the 2020 season. While competition may provide the franchise with an opportunity to develop Japanese players, it will battle to attract the same interest as Super Rugby or the top leagues in Europe.
The axing of the Sunwolves, and indeed the Cheetahs and Kings in 2017, has been a messy and emotional affair. There's no doubt the reduction of teams is for the good of the tournament, though.
Less is more. Indeed, one has to ask if Sanzaar has done enough in cutting the roster from 15 to 14.
A 12-team tournament would not want for quality. There would be time enough to schedule a break before and after the semi-finals to ensure that travel doesn't influence the outcome of the playoffs to such a telling degree.
HOW SUPER RUGBY WILL WORK IN 2021
– There will be 14 teams (five from New Zealand, four from South Africa, four from Australia, and the Jaguares from Argentina).
– The three-conference system will be scrapped.
– The teams will complete in a round-robin format, playing 13 matches over the course of the league phase. The number of home and away matches will vary from six to seven, based on a two-yearly alternating match schedule.
– The top six teams will advance to the playoffs. The top two ranked teams on the log will receive a bye in week one of the playoffs. Thereafter they will host semi-final matches against the winners from a knockout round between teams ranked three to six.
Posted in SA Rugby mag, Super Rugby, Top headlines, Tournaments Tagged SA Rugby mag, Sanzaar
Post by SA Rugby magazine
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Scholarships - Website of nhfea!
One component of the New Hampshire Federal Executive Association's (NHFEA) mission is its presentation of annual scholarships. Each year, NHFEA presents Eugene L. Ochocki college scholarships to federal employees and/or their spouses and family members. At least one scholarship is annually awarded to a federal employee, in addition to any other scholarships that are awarded to a federal employee spouse and/or dependent child. Information for submitting an application for the 2014 NHFEA scholarships will be going out to agencies very soon. Download the Scholarship information at the bottom of this page to apply today! Please contact Kathi Hatch, President, for more information about the NHFEA Scholarship Program.
The NHFEA is pleased to continue its partnership with Grantham University, a 60-year-old institution that delivers accredited online degrees to working adult students around the world. The NHFEA partnership with Grantham University allows the NHFEA to offer a fully-funded scholarship to a federal employee, spouse, or dependent child of a federal employees. Contact Kathi Hatch, President, at 603-433-0508 for more information.
The Grantham Scholarship is in addition to the NHFEA's traditional scholarship program. Even though there were no applicants for the 2013 scholarship, one will be offered in 2014.
Mr. Ochocki was a former Director of the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Manchester, NH, and a former President of the NHFEA. It was his vision that lead to the NHFEA expanding beyond the awards to include scholarships being presented during Public Service Recognition Week. The scholarships are named in his honor. In addition, one special scholarship is given to a federal employee through Mr. Ochocki's continuing generosity to the New Hampshire Federal Executive Association.
4. Write an essay of 200 words or less on the subject, "How my academic major can be applied to jobs in the public sector."
Please note the essays were judged on presentation and content, as well.
We raise funds for our scholarships through a variety of outings. We will be going to a New Hampshire Fisher Cats game in July 19, 2014, at Manchester Stadium. The Fisher Cats will be playing against the Portland Sea Dogs. Federal employees will also be recognized at some point during the game. You or a family member could be one of the attendees to throw out a first pitch! Contact Jessica O'Meara for all the details and tickets!
We are also in the planning stages for our annual golf outing for later in the year. Bookmark the Activities page for more details about outings as they develop! We'd love to meet you at one of our activities.
If you would like to make a voluntary donation to the NHFEA Scholarship fund, please make your check payable to NHFEA and send it to NHFEA, P. O. Box 316, Portsmouth, NH 03802-0316. If you would like a receipt, please include an addressed, stamped envelope and one will be returned to you. Pursuant to IRS code requirements for substantiation of charitable contributions, the NHFEA provided no goods or services in return for this voluntary donation.
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Episode 1 Episode 2 Episode 3 Episode 4 Episode 5 Episode 6 Episode 7 Episode 8 Episode 9 Episode 10 Episode 11 Episode 12 Episode 13 Episode 14 Episode 15 Episode 16 Episode 17 Episode 18 Episode 19 Episode 20
Episode 1 Episode 2 Episode 3 Episode 4 Episode 5 Episode 6 Episode 7 Episode 8 Episode 9 Episode 10 Episode 11 Episode 12 Episode 13 Episode 14 Episode 15 Episode 16 Episode 17 Episode 18 Episode 19 Episode 20 Episode 21 Episode 22 Episode 23
Episode 1 Episode 2 Episode 3 Episode 4 Episode 5 Episode 6 Episode 7 Episode 8 Episode 9 Episode 10 Episode 11 Episode 12 Episode 13 Episode 14 Episode 15 Episode 16 Episode 17 Episode 18 Episode 19
2015 . 42min . USA . 6.5/10 . HD
Supergirl Watch Online :
Twenty-four-year-old Kara Zor-El, who was taken in by the Danvers family when she was 13 after being sent away from Krypton, must learn to embrace her powers after previously hiding them. The Danvers teach her to be careful with her powers, until she has to reveal them during an unexpected disaster, setting her on her journey of heroism.
TV-Show: Supergirl
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Science Fiction
Director: Ali Adler, Andrew Kreisberg, Greg Berlanti
Actors: Chris Wood, Chyler Leigh, David Harewood, Jeremy Jordan, Katie McGrath, Mehcad Brooks, Melissa Benoist, Odette Annable
Studio: Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television
Networks: CBS, The CW
Tags: Supergirl Novalocker Watch Supergirl Online Supergirl Full Episodes Supergirl Full Season Free Supergirl Full Series Supergirl Watch Series Supergirl English Subtitles
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Richard Hammond's Workshop
Richard Hammond trades his jet-setting lifestyle for a long-standing dream to set up a classic car restoration workshop close to his home in Herefordshire. With the help of skilled craftsmen,…
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A group of young L.A. professionals navigating the ups and downs of life and love. When they're ready to unpack it all, they meet at their favorite local bar for…
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An in-depth examination of some of the most stunning and emotional courtroom moments caught on camera, from frightening outbursts to furious judges.
A romance thriller between four men and women running like a runaway locomotive toward different desires, including success, revenge, children and love. Lee Sun Woo, is a photographer and editor…
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Trailer: Supergirl


Check out the TI aStore!
Just recently I was talking to a friend of mine (who is a regular reader of TI) and he was mentioning how it would be nice if I had a one-stop location where readers can check out books and products that I fully endorse. So, taking his suggestion to heart I decided (as a start) to set up an Amazon aStore a few days ago to feature those survival-related items such as books, instructional DVDs, and other products that I have, use, and recommend.
Keep in mind that there are a quite a number of products and books I have that are related to the themes of the TI site which I do not fully recommend. These are not listed in my store. All the items that you'll find in the TI aStore come highly recommended by me (In the interest of full disclosure, I do get a small commission for any product you buy through this site).
There are also a number of products that I have which I highly recommend (like the EcoZoom rocket stove for example) that unfortunately are not listed in Amazon. These miscellaneous products will be featured in a "Recommended Products" section on the site in the near future.
So be sure to check out the TI aStore. You can visit it via the link or in the menu above. Also, if you ever have any questions regarding any of the products that are in there send me a note via the contact form on my site and I'll gladly answer you as best I can.
Thanks for all your support! You guys are the best.
Where can more survival "stuff" for women be found?
I like the idea of the paracord bracelet, but even being a country woman, would not be caught out in public wearing one. The same is true for all the items so casually mentioned as being hung on your belt – how many women run around at the mall or grocery store wearing a combat belt strung about with knives, compasses and fire-starters?
There have to be some practical answers other than a huge backpack and hiking boots when one must go into the city.
My daughter has asked the very same question. Her solution was to find away to make some of these bracelets and necklaces in colors and a style more suited to women. She uses a Japanese method and has come up with some great fashionable solutions. She's even implanted a fire stick into one a closure method. She's in the process of setting up a website but would be happy to get your opinion on some of her work.


After work, I trudged through the snow to the delightful Eldon Square Waitrose this evening, though not before giving the store a call to check that it was opening its normal hours. It was, though quite a few shops en route had signs in their windows announcing that they had shut up earlier than usual (a similar picture to elsewhere in the UK, according to Retail Week), including Waterstone's at the Monument which was citing "staff shortages" due to the weather. The service in Waitrose was, as always, friendly and efficient, alleviating what might otherwise be the stress of negotiating a busy supermarket.
It's a disappointing end for a store that only opened at the end of 2008, and was featured, almost exactly a year ago, as Retail Week's 'Store of the Week'. It was, as John Ryan's review suggests, a really appealing shop, with a rich and interesting instore environment.
However, the problem signs were probably there from the beginning. Regularly walking past on my way to the bus station, it's fair to say that I'd never seen more a couple of customers in there at any one time – and often there looked to be no-one in the shop at all. Equally, the recent shrinking of the store – moving forward the back wall to reduce its size by about half – started to ring my alarm bells.
So what went wrong? To some extent, I'd suggest that Oil & Vinegar is the kind of shop where people go in, look at the lovely stuff on offer, and leave without buying anything. Certainly, it's more of a giftware retailer than a place to buy things for yourself, reflected in the Netherlands-based company's description of itself as a "culinary gift shop".
The key difference between the two incarnations, I would argue, is location. The original Oil & Vinegar had a pretty good spot in Earls Way (where Geoff Steven & Son Opticians is now situated), close to the side entrances of both Marks & Spencer and John Lewis, and therefore with plenty of middle-class shoppers passing to and fro. The store, though small, benefited from being wide and shallow, therefore having a much more prominent frontage on the mall than might be expected, given its size.
Most importantly, I think Oil & Vinegar's particular location within the mall has been problematic – next door to Waitrose but barely visible from its entrance; adjacent to two empty units; only passed by shoppers if they are going to and from the Eldon Square bus station; and deep and narrow in form (so with a limited frontage), rather than shallow and wide. Instead, the layout of St George's Way and, particularly, the orientation of its escalators seems to makes the opposite stretch, from Waitrose to Old Eldon Square, flow as a busier and more obvious route.
Looking to the future, the Oil & Vinegar website indicates that there are still opportunities to open franchise stores in the UK, stating that "following a country re-structure and development strategy Oil & Vinegar UK are looking to grow the UK & Ireland with 8 [stores] in 2009 and 10 in 2010". If this is so, perhaps we will yet see Newcastle welcome its third – and hopefully lucky – incarnation of an Oil & Vinegar shop.
Previous story Is this shop in Shields Road, Byker an old Woolies?
I went in a couple of times but, like you say, it seemed to be aimed more at the gift market and even then I still thought it was quite expensive. Very poor location too, without casting aspersions I would say the type of people getting the bus home are probably unlikely to spend £15 on a bottle of oil, a better location and it could work.


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text:
CHICAGO'S PERLMAN HONORS MOTHER WITH HISTORIC DONATION…
Ted Perlman
Posted By: chicagojewishnews March 7, 2019
By Ellen Braunstein, Special to Chicago Jewish News
Theodore F. Perlman remembers his mother as the first feminist in the Jewish organizational world. She was the national founder in 1944 of B'nai B'rith Girls, a division of BBYO, now called BBG since its split from B'nai B'rith International.
Anita M. Perlman exhibited leadership, community involvement and philanthropy throughout her extraordinary life. So it was not surprising that Ted Perlman, a Chicago industrialist and philanthropist, and his wife Harriette, would give a gift to BBYO International in his mother's memory. What is remarkable is the size of that donation: $25 million. It is one of the largest single commitments to a youth-serving organization in modern history, according to BBYO officials.
The gift will provide unprecedented resources to train young women and teens through the launch of the Anita M. Perlman Women's Leadership Initiative. "My mother had the foresight to know, even decades ago, the capabilities of young women and their desire to move into positions of leadership," Perlman said. "It is an honor to support her vision in the twenty-first century."
"Ted and Harriette have made an extraordinary gesture in honor of an extraordinary woman," said Matthew Grossman, Chief Executive Officer of BBYO. "Anita gave life to a movement of powerful young Jewish women and this initiative will enable us tohonor her by impacting the lives of others."
"One of our objectives is to support continuity in the Jewish faith," Perlman said. "We believe BBYO is one of the bastions of that direction. It has a pluralistic view of Judaism. It doesn't favor one area of Judaism over another."
Perlman, who founded The HAVI Group, a supply chain management, packaging and logistics firm, 40 years ago, has received the Anti-Defamation League of Chicago's "Community Leadership Award" and the "Weizmann Leadership Award" from the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science. His philanthropic career includes serving on the Board of Trustees for Ronald McDonald's House Charities; Board of Directors of the Jewish United Fund and Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago; Vice-Chairman of B'nai B'rith Beber Camp; Board Member of BBYO, Inc., and President of The Perlman Family Foundation.
His family gift coincides with the 75th anniversary of BBG. According to Noga Hurwitz, the Anita M. Perlman International N'siah, the teen leader elected as president by thousands of her peers internationally, "the gift reaffirms the value BBYO has placed on leadership for both women and men. Ted's mother did have the vision that women will lead and BBYO would offer access and the environment to develop as Jewish female leaders."
Encouraging young adults who are some of the 400,000 alumni to come back and lead the younger high schoolers is an aim of the gift, Perlman said. "The idea is to combine the idea of Jewishness as fun and an understanding of the world around them. It will lead them to be fuller participants with their friends, their chapters and the community as a whole."
The gift was announced at the BBYO international Convention in Denver. About 5,500 teens and adults attended.
Debbie Shemony, vice president of marketing for BBYO, said the organization is still working out the details of how the gift will be used. Most will go to leadership training, scholarships and bringing in speakers, she said.
Meanwhile BBYO continues to grow with over 22,000 members in North America and a presence in 50 countries. "We're seeing growth year after year," Shemony said. She sees as the reason the fact that BBYO is the only pluralistic Jewish organization so there are many ways to connect to Judaism. "They have the opportunity to behave as leaders, plan programs and community service and conduct outreach."
1 Comment on "CHICAGO'S PERLMAN HONORS MOTHER WITH HISTORIC DONATION…"
Irma Doris Gertler | November 9, 2019 at 10:57 pm | Reply
Dear Ted,
What a wonderful way to honor your dear mother,nothing would have pleased her more..Anita was my role model,mentor and dear friend.She installed me as International President O B.B.W. and I am grateful to have spent so much time with her.She was a tireless worker in behalf of youngpeople,and they adored her. All the best to you. Irma Gertler


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text:
New car tax rules mean nearly every driver will be penalised
Owners of polluting vehicles will be worst hit
Hayley Parker
Traffic along Etruria Road in Basford
New car tax rules being brought in this year mean every driver of a petrol or diesel car is set to be hit in the pocket.
Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) rates are set to rise for everyone this April.
Now Sean Kemple, from Close Brothers Motor Finance, is urging motorists to budget accordingly.
He explained that petrol and diesel owners of models which produce a lot of air pollution are set to be the most affected, reports the MEN.
More news here
VED rates for vehicles that produce over 255 g/km of CO2 pollution will rise to £2,365.
This will be a massive £120 increase from the current 2021 rate.
Meanwhile, drivers of cars producing 226 to 255 g/km will see a £105 rise, with fees for cars producing 191 to 225 g/km increasing by £75.
Price rises will be seen across all vehicles except for those producing less than 75 g/km of CO2.
Mr Kemple has also warned of the 'challenge' ahead as drivers look to switch to electric cars.
He said the Government would need to 'offset' tax revenues as more drivers started to ditch their existing petrol and diesel cars.
Speaking to Express, he said: "You can see the incentive from a tax perspective of road tax and benefit in kind moving towards lower emission vehicles.
"That's better for everyone involved so it's a win-win situation.
"The challenge then is, how does the Government then offset those tax receipts in terms of what they would have been getting from petrol and diesel vehicles.
"What you then see is the consumers of petrol and diesel, in their view, I suppose being penalised by the type of vehicle they are purchasing."
The Treasury has previously estimated they will need to fill a £40 billion black hole as a result of the loss of VED and fuel duty rates.
The VED increase is set to come into effect on April 1, 2022.
The changes were first announced during last year's Autumn Budget.
HM Revenue and Customs said the rise is to ensure VED rates are uprated with the Retail Prices Index (RPI).
They said increasing VED rates in 2022 will ensure rates are "maintained in real terms".
They said the changes will ensure motorists "make a fair contribution to the public finances".
They added: "This measure will impact on motorists owning a car, van or motorcycle or using a motorcycle trade licence.
"The increase in VED rates is in line with RPI meaning rates will remain unchanged in real terms for vehicle owners."
Stokie slams Hays Travel after New York nightmare left him with £20 spends
Girl, 17, says robber threatened to 'snap her neck' in terrifying mugging
Devastated daughter, 25: 'My dad died due to NHS neglect'
Derelict Stoke-on-Trent market could become international food hall - run by refugees
Teen caught with knife after overheard in pub planning attack
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text:
describe "Geocaching::Log for a572c594-8763-408a-9bec-f29b77a1e50f (Needs Maintenance)" do
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text:
In 3D computer graphics, modeling, and animation, ambient occlusion is a shading and rendering technique used to calculate how exposed each point in a scene is to ambient lighting. For example, the interior of a tube is typically more occluded (and hence darker) than the exposed outer surfaces, and becomes darker the deeper inside the tube one goes.
The ambient occlusion map (middle image) for this scene darkens only the innermost angles of corners.
Ambient occlusion can be seen as an accessibility value that is calculated for each surface point.[1] In scenes with open sky, this is done by estimating the amount of visible sky for each point, while in indoor environments, only objects within a certain radius are taken into account and the walls are assumed to be the origin of the ambient light. The result is a diffuse, non-directional shading effect that casts no clear shadows, but that darkens enclosed and sheltered areas and can affect the rendered image's overall tone. It is often used as a post-processing effect.
Unlike local methods such as Phong shading, ambient occlusion is a global method, meaning that the illumination at each point is a function of other geometry in the scene. However, it is a very crude approximation to full global illumination. The appearance achieved by ambient occlusion alone is similar to the way an object might appear on an overcast day.
The first method that allowed simulating ambient occlusion in real time was developed by the research and development department of Crytek (CryEngine 2).[2] With the release of hardware capable of real time ray tracing (GeForce 20 series) by Nvidia in 2018, ray traced ambient occlusion (RTAO) became possible in games and other real time applications.[3] This feature was added to the Unreal Engine with version 4.22.[4]
1 Implementation
1.1 Variants
2 Recognition
ImplementationEdit
3D animation of ambient occlusion enabled on the animation to the right.
In the absence of hardware-assisted ray traced ambient occlusion, real-time applications such as computer games can use screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO) or horizon-based ambient occlusion (HBAO) as a faster approximation of true ambient occlusion, using per-pixel depth, rather than scene geometry, to form an ambient occlusion map.
Ambient occlusion is related to accessibility shading, which determines appearance based on how easy it is for a surface to be touched by various elements (e.g., dirt, light, etc.). It has been popularized in production animation due to its relative simplicity and efficiency.
The ambient occlusion shading model offers a better perception of the 3D shape of the displayed objects. This was shown in a paper where the authors report the results of perceptual experiments showing that depth discrimination under diffuse uniform sky lighting is superior to that predicted by a direct lighting model.[5]
The occlusion A p ¯ {\displaystyle A_{\bar {p}}}
at a point p ¯ {\displaystyle {\bar {p}}}
on a surface with normal n ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {n}}}
can be computed by integrating the visibility function over the hemisphere Ω {\displaystyle \Omega }
with respect to projected solid angle:
A p ¯ = 1 π ∫ Ω V p ¯ , ω ^ ( n ^ ⋅ ω ^ ) d  ω {\displaystyle A_{\bar {p}}={\frac {1}{\pi }}\int _{\Omega }V_{{\bar {p}},{\hat {\omega }}}({\hat {n}}\cdot {\hat {\omega }})\,\operatorname {d} \omega }
where V p ¯ , ω ^ {\displaystyle V_{{\bar {p}},{\hat {\omega }}}}
is the visibility function at p ¯ {\displaystyle {\bar {p}}}
, defined to be zero if p ¯ {\displaystyle {\bar {p}}}
is occluded in the direction ω ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {\omega }}}
and one otherwise, and d  ω {\displaystyle \operatorname {d} \omega }
is the infinitesimal solid angle step of the integration variable ω ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {\omega }}}
. A variety of techniques are used to approximate this integral in practice: perhaps the most straightforward way is to use the Monte Carlo method by casting rays from the point p ¯ {\displaystyle {\bar {p}}}
and testing for intersection with other scene geometry (i.e., ray casting). Another approach (more suited to hardware acceleration) is to render the view from p ¯ {\displaystyle {\bar {p}}}
by rasterizing black geometry against a white background and taking the (cosine-weighted) average of rasterized fragments. This approach is an example of a "gathering" or "inside-out" approach, whereas other algorithms (such as depth-map ambient occlusion) employ "scattering" or "outside-in" techniques.
In addition to the ambient occlusion value, a "bent normal" vector n ^ b {\displaystyle {\hat {n}}_{b}}
is often generated, which points in the average direction of occluded samples. The bent normal can be used to look up incident radiance from an environment map to approximate image-based lighting. However, there are some situations in which the direction of the bent normal is a misrepresentation of the dominant direction of illumination, e.g.,
In this example the bent normal Nb has a direction that does not allow it to illuminate the scene as it is pointing at an occluded surface.
In this example, light may reach the point p only from the left or right sides, but the bent normal points to the average of those two sources, which is directly toward the obstruction.
VariantsEdit
Screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO)
Screen space directional occlusion (SSDO)
Ray-traced ambient occlusion (RTAO)
High Definition Ambient Occlusion (HDAO)
Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion+ (HBAO)
Alchemy Ambient Occlusion (AAO)
Angle Based Ambient Occlusion (ABAO)
Pre Baked Ambient Occlusion (PBAO)
Voxel Accelerated Ambient Occlusion (VXAO)
Ground Truth based Ambient Occlusion (GTAO)[6]
RecognitionEdit
In 2010, Hayden Landis, Ken McGaugh and Hilmar Koch were awarded a Scientific and Technical Academy Award for their work on ambient occlusion rendering.[7]
Photon mapping
Radiosity
High-dynamic-range rendering
^ Miller, Gavin (1994). "Efficient algorithms for local and global accessibility shading". Proceedings of the 21st annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques. pp. 319–326.
^ "AMBIENT OCCLUSION: AN EXTENSIVE GUIDE ON ITS ALGORITHMS AND USE IN VR". ARVIlab. Retrieved 2018-11-26.
^ Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion. Nvidia. Archived from the original on 2021-12-12.
^ "Unreal Engine Adds Support for DX12 Raytracing". ExtremeTech.
^ Langer, M.S.; H. H. Buelthoff (2000). "Depth discrimination from shading under diffuse lighting". Perception. 29 (6): 649–660. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.69.6103. doi:10.1068/p3060. PMID 11040949.
^ "Practical Realtime Strategies for Accurate Indirect Occlusion" (PDF).
^ Oscar 2010: Scientific and Technical Awards, Alt Film Guide, Jan 7, 2010
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ambient_occlusion&oldid=1126450720"


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About 550-600 million years ago, just prior to the Internet, the earth experienced the Cambrian explosion in which flora and fauna species proliferated. Wild and weird life forms emerged. Then, with a bang, as happened to the dinosaurs, 96% of all those species vanished. It wasn't the survival of the fittest, but the survival of the luckiest—says Steven Jay Gould, author of the fascinating book, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. Conditions changed so radically that species that were "fit" before, were not "fit" anymore. Rewind the tape of history, says Gould, and play it forward time and time again—and life would evolve differently every time.
How many major, and minor events, have shaped your life, your project, your company? A major job change in 1981 started me on the software methodology path. A 5-pound weight swing made the difference in becoming an Air Force officer—or not. A vividly remembered 3 seconds in 1973 was the difference between living and probably dying in a car accident. What is hidden from view in the future and what is garbled about our past remembrances? How much of what we are today resulted from planning, and how much was just the accidental unfolding of our past into our future?
In his fascinating and insightful new book, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, Ed Catmull, president of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation, devotes an entire chapter to the Hidden and the importance that leaders must place in creating the culture and the practices to uncover the Hidden. The Hidden includes all the things, the reality of the real world, that for whatever reason, we fail to see. None of the flashy Silicon Valley startups Catmull talked about planned to be one trick ponies—but many succumbed to the lack of sustainable innovations because of hidden problems the leaders never saw coming. "I spend a lot of time thinking about the limits of perception. In the management context, it particularly behooves us to ask ourselves constantly: How much are we able to see? And how much is obscured from view? Is there a Cassandra out there we are failing to listen to? In other words, despite our best intentions, are we cursed too?" says Catmull.
About 15 years ago, before the popularity of Agile methods, a major software development magazine published an article about a large aerospace company and how they had managed to be "on-time" and "within-budget" 95% of the time. The article, of course, heralded their accomplishment as a triumph of a standardized, metrics-driven, waterfall methodology. Who would argue with a 95% success ratio on projects? Well, me of course. My first reaction was that 95% in this instance was a terrible thing, not a positive one. I considered that 1) someone was cooking the books, 2) they were only taking on projects with very little uncertainty, or 3) they were drastically over-estimating the planned numbers. The problem in any case was that innovation was very unlikely in this organization—no one could afford to make a mistake when management was so enamored of non-failure on projects. In constantly striving to achieve high levels of project success based on limited measurements, management was hiding future problems with innovative new products.
On the other hand, maybe my mental model of the situation was all wrong. Maybe for an aerospace company that depended on government military contracts, innovation wasn't a significant problem—even in its future. Maybe predictability was key to keeping contracts flowing.
In this brief blog, we've now uncovered a range of problems with measurements: 1) picking the specific thing(s) to measure, 2) their accuracy, 3) the mental models we use to interpret them, 4) organizational pressure for the measure to show "success", 5) the context of the company's situation, 6) the complexity of the company's situation. Given all these problems with measurement—do we give up on them? Probably not, but maybe the most important caution—one that Ed Catmull repeats often—is that whatever we choose to measure hides both what we don't measure and what we can't measure. Furthermore, a critical role of leaders, and specifically those who want their companies to sustain themselves over time, is to constantly seek out problems hidden behind the measurement veil created by complacency, confidence, and past success.