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Next:ISRAEL: The Will of God
Attrition: Convincing Captains to Stick Around
May 22, 2007: The U.S. Army is having trouble hanging on to middle management, and is now offering $20,000 bonuses to 7,000 captains, to get them to stick around. Captains (rank O-3 of ten officer ranks) have been leaving the service at higher than wanted rates for nearly a decade now. There are several reasons for this. First, there are better opportunities in the booming civilian economy. These captains have been in the army less than ten years, and are far enough away from the 20 year mark (when they are eligible for a half-pay pension), to be able to leave without feeling much fiscal pain.
Then there's the war, and the constant trips overseas. Captains usually have families, with young children, and wives who are overwhelmed when left alone with the kids. The kids are only young once, and even with Internet access, there's a lot you miss if you're away.
There's still a generation gap between the junior officers (the captains are the most senior of that lot) and the generals. The younger officers have had it with the "zero tolerance" and political correctness crap. Actually, a lot of that has been ditched because of the wartime conditions. But there's still the feeling that your boss will hang you out to dry if the media makes a fuss about something you didn't do, but someone thinks you did.
The $20,000 will keep some captains in, and if it doesn't appeal to enough captains, the army will probably sweeten the pot. It takes at least six years of service for someone to become a captain, and that's if you take a sergeant and put them through Officer Candidate School. Most officers come from West Point or ROTC, in which case it takes about ten years. That's not just a lot of time, but a lot of money. It's cheaper to offer big bonuses to keep these junior officers in uniform.
WARPLANES: Got Growlers
ISRAEL: The Will of God
Attrition: Current 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999


Diptych, Painting composed of 2 parts.
Jean Starck is a co-founder of the Art Cloche movement (1981-1989), in Paris and belongs to the artist generation of the 80's / 90's of the underground culture and French urban art. Inspired by artists such as Gauguin or Dubuffet, his works are halfway between Art Brut and neo-primitive Art.


Enjoy the play of garden shadows created by this square mood lamp. Artisans create a garden of branches and birds in cutout bamboo and translucent silk paper. From Shuktara Handmade Paper Project, a workshop of Prokritee in Feni, Bangladesh. Shuktara artisans make a variety of handmade paper products.
The texture of birch bark is screen printed onto paper to create this unique mood lamp. Handmade with love by the Prokritee artisan group.


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Q: List of available fields in twitter and google(user profile) API Does anybody know where to get links to list of all available fields from twitter api and gmail api (user profile) as it is in facebook or linkedin http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/user/ https://developer.linkedin.com/documents/profile-fields
In twitter and gmail api documentation I can see just some examples of source code
Thanks in advance

A: Twitter REST API : https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api
Use the console : https://dev.twitter.com/console
Check under the user/account headings. There's no specific reference for only "users".
As for google, you may want to browse through. http://code.google.com/googleapps/docs/

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Shining a Light on Psoriatic Disease
Powerful portraits aim to inspire those with plaque psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis
June 22, 2017 | 9:30 am
Responsibility, Patients | Psoriatic Arthritis
A picture can be worth a thousand words, and each one has a story to tell. Stories about moments and emotions shared with friends or loved ones can be forever captured and memorialized in a single snapshot. When you live with psoriatic disease, including plaque psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis, being in front of a camera and having the focus on you is not always easy. But it does not mean you have to live your life behind the scenes.
This year, award-winning portrait photographer Martin Schoeller along with 12-time Olympic medalist and best-selling author Dara Torres and others with psoriatic disease have come together for the SHOW MORE OF YOU campaign from Celgene. The campaign aims to help raise awareness of psoriatic disease and empower those living with it to let their true selves shine through.
PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER MARTIN SCHOELLER ENCOURAGES OTHERS NOT TO FEAR THE SPOTLIGHT.
As part of this campaign, Schoeller shot powerful portraits of those living with psoriatic disease. The portraits, which can be viewed at ShowMoreOfYou.com, include notable names like Torres who has been living with plaque psoriasis for two decades, sports analyst and former professional football player Mark Schlereth who is living with psoriatic arthritis and everyday people with psoriatic disease. The portraits aim to help convey the participants' stories of strength and inspiration and empower others to show more of their true selves and embrace their imperfections, both in front of the camera and in everyday life.
As a storyteller, I want to bring out the true character of my subjects, and I believe the many faces of this campaign have inspiring stories to tell.
"As a storyteller, I want to bring out the true character of my subjects, and I believe the many faces of this campaign have inspiring stories to tell," said Schoeller.
HEAR FROM DARA, MARTIN AND OTHERS IN THE BEHIND-THE-SCENES MAKING OF SHOW MORE OF YOU.
Psoriasis is a common, chronic skin condition that affects nearly 7.5 million Americans and results in increased skin cell growth that may appear on the skin as raised, sometimes red, patches covered with a silvery buildup of dead skin cells. Up to 30 percent of people with psoriasis may eventually develop psoriatic arthritis, so it is important to raise awareness about not only psoriasis but also psoriatic arthritis. More than 1 million Americans live with psoriatic arthritis — a potentially debilitating disease that involves significant pain to swelling in joints — and whose symptoms can impact a person's everyday life, including common day-to-day activities.
I hope our stories empower others with psoriatic disease to follow their passions and show more of their true selves along the way.
Psoriatic disease can have both a physical and an emotional impact on those living with it. Torres, Schlereth and others shared their story about living with psoriatic disease in a behind-the-scenes video to help inspire others not to let it stop them from showing their true selves or doing the things they love.
"We are all from different walks of life, with different careers and backgrounds, but we all share similar journeys that only someone living with psoriatic disease can understand — and that is pretty special," said Torres. "I hope our stories empower others with psoriatic disease to follow their passions and show more of their true selves along the way."
To view Schoeller's portraits, learn more about the SHOW MORE OF YOU campaign and share your photo of how you are showing more of your true self, visit ShowMoreOfYou.com.
Celgene and National Psoriasis Foundation Launch the First-Ever Psoriatic Arthritis Awareness Day
Psoriatic Arthritis Treatment Worth Another Look
Making Psoriatic Arthritis Count
Pulling the Plug on Specialty Tiers for Psoriatic Arthritis Therapies

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


About one week ago, civil servants probably did not expect the situation to escalate as it did during past Thursday two days ago in Malawi's commercial center Blantyre. Originally, Malawi's civil servants aimed at an increase of their salaries. Meanwhile primary school pupils as well as bystanders took over the situation and went to Blantyre's streets chanting anti-Banda slogans and demanding the resignation of the country's current president.
seems to be stimulating the production of exports and import substitutes while restraining demand for imports.
Nevertheless, most of Malawi's nearly 120.000 civil servants expressed their dissatisfaction with the new government's actions. The strikers demanded a 65 % wage increase in order to cope with the increasing costs of living in the country. Since the devaluation, wages have hardly been adjusted to an increased price level.
The strikes almost affected all government institutions and finally lead to the shutdown of the country's two main airports. National as well as international flights departing the airports of Lilongwe and Blantyre were cancelled and hundreds of travelers of South African Airways (SAA), Kenya Airways and Ethiopian Airways could not proceed their journey.
Let me stress here that as I am leaving I have left some offer that whatever the case, civil servants should get salary increment.
Currently our wage bill is 97 billion kwacha (179.5 million pounds), and if we agree to their demands, this will almost triple to 276 billion kwacha, which is equivalent to the whole national budget.
Obviously it remains to be seen how the government will get through this current financial challenge in order to restore the normal state in the general civil services.
Although the countrywide strikes of civil servants were large-scaled and shut down public life in many areas, the strikes went off peacefully. But on Thursday some 300 pupils of several primary schools in Blantyre took to the streets and marched on the road to Sanjika Palace chanting anti-government slogans demanding Banda to step down. In the course of the countrywide strikes, many governmental schools were also affected leading to teachers not showing up in class for more than a week. The pupils' dissatisfaction could be rooted in the fact that they made the Banda-administration responsible for the absence of their lecturers.
On the streets of Lilongwe as well as Blantyre, anti-riot police forces had to intervene to disperse the gathered crowd of pupils. Particularly in Blantyre, the police had to keep the protesting pupils away from storming the Joyce Banda Foundation School buildings.
The sad thing is that the President has left the country without sorting out this mess. If kids like this are demonstrating against you, just know that things are not going on well. This is very embarrassing!
While these spontaneous protests went off mostly peaceful, parts of the protest turned violent in Blantyre. In Zingwangwa and Chirimba Townships, angry students and other youths burnt old tyres, stoned by standing cars and installed road blocks. Even a filling station was smashed and almost set on fire after angry students stormed it. In the meantime, students even blocked the country's biggest main road, the M1, but were dispersed shortly after by anti-riot police. The forces fired tear gas at the crowd in order to restore peace and order.
However, one can recognize that many in Malawi seem to be dissatisfied with the current situation of their country and how things develop. Taken all things of the past week together, the wage strikes, the clashes in Blantyre and Lilongwe, it becomes obvious that the president needs to react on the current unrest in order to return to a normal state of stability, peace and economic progress.


There is no end to the love people have for Pokemon, regardless of your age. From the original Pokemon games and anime to the current top app Pokemon GO, it is in everyone's life in some way. The Pixelmon Furnitures Mod for Minecraft gives you the opportunity to bring your love of Pokemon into your Minecraft world.
It comes with a large selection of furniture, all themed to Pokemon. The selection includes laptops, ore, coins, dollars, chairs, and nearly endless other items. A growing selection means you will never bore of this mod and you will always have a beautiful Poke-themed home.
A Pokemon theme for your home is a wondrous opportunity for the nostalgic and young alike. Like most Pokemon fans, it is something that has stuck with you for years, since you picked up your first cartridge and started playing around with it. Incorporating this first love into your current love, Minecraft, is a chance you cannot miss.
The furniture in the Pixelmon Furnitures Mod helps you to decorate your home with all of the Poke-themed items you need. There is a long list of items currently available with the mod, such as chairs, but the list will keep growing. You can expect regular updates to add more to what you already have.
Making the furniture from the Pixelmon Furnitures Mod 1.10.2/1.9.4/1.8.9 works the same as any other furniture. You will have to collect certain items, following specific recipes, and combine them. Luckily, the recipes are easy to follow and the items are not that hard to find. Most of the items come from mob and enemy drops, making them accessible to just about any Minecraft player.
Using the furniture, again, is simple. You can place the furniture as you do any other furniture you might have. The only difference is the appearance, obviously. The theme is special, but the creation and usage of the content is not. Even the dollars and coins are just as easy to use as any other furniture in Minecraft.
A large selection of items and easy to follow recipes will make it possible to get every item. For a Pokemon-themed mod, that is something you want to have. Collecting them all is a core concept of Pokemon, something that any fan understands by now. The mod fuels your Pokemon-collecting habit in a fun, simple way.


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Star Wars: Vader Down
Before the Star Wars Expanded Universe underwent the Great Disney Purge of 2014, I didn't check out the comics much. My wheelhouse was more the novels and games; not that some of the comics weren't great, but a lot of them just felt superfluous and uninspired (which, admittedly, is rich considering the direction the Star Wars book canon went around the time Fate of the Jedi started getting released). Maybe it was a combination of the writers penning lacklustre tales and the artists making everything look homogenous across the board – seriously, much of the art in the Dark Horse era looks like it's from the same overworked guy on most pages – but Star Wars and comics were two passions of mine that never really clicked.
That is, until Marvel started releasing multiple ongoing series in 2015. Not only did it click, it is now in danger of never coming apart from me until the next retconning board-wipe happens around the time Disney plan to release Episode IV.5 in 2060.
I spoke a little while ago about my enthusiasm for the new Darth Vader series in particular by calling it a remarkably twisted take on Doctor Who. Since we know Darth Vader will never die on the page, given his fate at the climax of Return of the Jedi, any attempt to milk drama from a cliffhanger regarding his safety would be pointless. Writer Kieron Gillen smartly circumvents that by crafting a rich array of supporting characters – notably the morally-flexible Dr. Aphra and her dynamic duo of deadly droids – and shaping a narrative trajectory built around drama that isn't dependent on Vader being left in a new deathtrap at the end of each issue.
With that lack of focus on character mortality established, I was hesitant about diving into Vader Down. The premise offered by the title – Vader gets shot down on a planet where the Rebels subsequently swarm in to try and kill him – sounded both simplistic and self-resolving before I turned the first page. Luckily, Gillen and fellow Star Wars writer Jason Aaron make it perfectly clear that Vader's fate isn't the story's primary focus. At least, his fate in terms of mortality isn't the focus – his fate in regards to his position within the Empire is another matter.
Chiefly, Vader Down is an excuse to get the diametrically-opposed casts of both Darth Vader and the ongoing Star Wars series to meet, shake hands and get to know each other (or, rather, meet, exchange blaster fire and attempt to get out alive). It's the first crossover the Star Wars ongoings have had since they started in 2015, and thus feels suitably epic in proportion to the scope of its six issues. Gillen and Aaron have crafted a crossover that's less about universe-altering plot shake-ups and more about smaller character interactions. Both writers have done a fantastic job making their respective casts interesting and nuanced – a particularly impressive feat especially for Gillen's cast of homicidal maniacs in Darth Vader – and there's a sense of excitement when they cross paths with each other. Han Solo and Dr. Aphra exchanging blaster shots and verbal witticisms in equal measure is no less enjoyable than R2-D2 facing off with his black-clad counterpart BeeTee, the latter packing more heat than a barbecue pit. In terms of the few ongoing series plots with developments that stick in Vader Down, the most compelling is Vader's continued attempts to get back in the Emperor's good books, his battle against the Rebels serving as an opportunity to regain some face (though not the parts of it that were burned off on Mustafar).
Though the crossover does lack strong storytelling meat to go with its honey glaze of spectacle, that glaze is made all the sweeter by the art department. Salvador Larroca is the unsung hero of the Darth Vader series, continuing to demonstrate how to enhance Vader's specter through strategic use of shading and lighting. Larroca manages to evoke some more nightmare fuel from the Lord of the Sith in subtle renditions of his mask features, particularly in the slightly narrower drawing of Vader's eyes and mouthpiece. You almost see Vader as glaring when he fights the Rebels, the firm black plasteel of his mask slowly morphing into a terrifying grimace. Mike Deodato similarly brings his own admirable artistic corpus to the table, meshing well with Larroca; both artists excel at somewhat more realistic depictions of the characters which look more like their film incarnations, rather than anything overly cartoonish. It's also definitely worth giving credit to artist Mark Brooks, whose covers for each issue – particularly the one chosen for the trade paperback, seen at the end of this review – each evoke a strong Drew Struzan feel. That meshes well with Jason Aaron's stated intent for Vader Down to be 'the movie of the Marvel Star Wars comic books.'
The end result of Vader Down is that it's a big, pulpy popcorn story (or maybe it's a honey-glazed ham; see the confusing metaphor in the last paragraph). It serves as a reminder of how both the Star Wars and Darth Vader ongoings are probably the most well-written Star Wars comics in a long time, and that sometimes it's very cool to see Darth Vader do his one-man army thing. Who knows, maybe this is the story which gave Gareth Edwards the inspiration for Rogue One's iconic ending scene.
PUBLISHER: MARVEL COMICS
STORY: 3.5/5
ARTWORK: 4/5
DIALOGUE: 4/5
OVERALL: 11.5/15
BEST DIALOGUE:
REBEL SOLDIER: "Darth Vader! Lay down your weapons! You're surrounded!"
VADER: "All I am surrounded by is fear. And dead men."
Posted on March 17, 2017 by thegenrefiendPosted in Chris Kills Comics
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We offer a number of yearlong and elective language arts classes to meet a variety of student needs. Some of these classes make use of a class website and other online tools. Use these links to access individual class pages.


InFamous released in Europe in May of 2009. Buyers could choose between a regular version, or this limited edition.
What's nice about this edition is that it in some ways resembles a comic book: from the material (paper), to the style of the drawings, to the panel-like grid on the cover, to the way the case folds open.
The case is entirely made of paper, which looks quite nice but at the same time makes the box more prone to damaging. These kind of paper cases often get squashed, resulting in dents en crinkles. What's also annoying is the sticker placed right on top of the artwork at the bottom. Why couldn't it be on the seal?
When folded open, the inner sleeve displays a bunch of colorful artworks on both the front and the back.
The game also comes with an art book, but it is even thinner than the manual. It does contain some cool artwork though. There's also a code included for a new move to be used in the game.
To conclude, this limited edition is not stunning or very special (as the name suggests), but it does the job. The art book looks a bit like a joke when you first see it, but it's just meant as a small extra. All in all, not a bad collector's edition, but not the best I've seen either.


On Thursday the 23rd May, 2013 the 'Hidden Secrets Sculpture Trail' had a grand opening and visitors were welcomed at the Museum from 1.30 pm.
Fiona Rocher the Museum Manager began by welcoming everyone and gave a brief talk about the background to her Sculpture Trail project.
It was followed by poetry reading. Children at the local Hawes Primary School had attended a creative writing workshop held at the Museum, and responded to the sculpture. There was then a guided tour of the Trail, we all enjoyed refreshments and gourmet buffet!
The Earth Loom – using natural resources everyone is invited to be part of the weaving.
The Wensleydale Vessel by Anna Whitehouse. The Sculpture is a reflection of the Yorkshire Dales landscape.
Otter carved in wood – there are signs of otters and brief sightings in the river running alongside the sculpture trail.
Oak Seat – by Tom Handley. The seat is made in two parts and Tom has carved some messages inside.
We all ended up at the Story Telling Chair by Richard Law – made in green oak.
A delight of a tour – these images show just some of the sculpture on the trail, do go and find pieces and the background to them by visiting the museum – it is so interesting to see what inspired each artist and how they interpreted items from the Dales Countryside Museum collection.


Above branch management level the rest of the sooo called human beings are a joke a total joke. They care for no one and nothing other than lining their pockets..
Regional directors think they own you and believe that the staff owe them thanks for giving you a rubbishjob with no prospects or respect. Your treated like a nothing and spoke to when they can be botheredpassing the time of day with you. Hard work, loyalty, dedication, good time keeping are all NOT REWARDED!!!!
ESS Safeforce has been great to me so I could not fault them in anyway.
They are a fast growing company with a lot to offer as being part of the VP Plc group.
Not very understanding. Colleague was a bully.
The offices were really hot and no air. Kitchen was tiny had to eat your lunch on your lap in discomfort.
The company as a whole is a great place to work. the overall work ethic is good, the staff are knowledgeable and friendly. Training is excellent.
the management have a good understanding of the business and a commitment to excellence.
Management clueless, expect you to work weekends overtime night shift but loose out on your Rostered dayshift on Monday. No incentive. Casual workers make more wages than full time men.
A large company. Job can vary depending who you work with and what you do. Average wages. Not much scope for progression but good if you just want to earn money and get stuck into routine.
Management stuck in the past.
going round rail depots servicing and repairing rail plant.
Job and hours are good but management leave a lot to be desired..its their way or the highway even if your way is better.
Typical day is dealing with depots and sites re the hired equipment.
I learnt totally new skills as I had never worked in Construction before.
New Management structure in place currently so I am not able to make a sound comment on this section.
People work hard and care about the work.
The hardest part is learning the kit.
The most enjoyable part is learning new skills/products.
I was employed on a temporary basis to support a team on a return to work scheme. The line-managers were pleasant people, helpful and very patient as mentors to the trainees. I only spent a couple of weeks there but those on the scheme could acquire useful assets for their CVs; training, experience,certification and references. It seemed like a good place to work.
Torrent is a small minded company that likes to force you into giving up your weekends by paying a derisory wage Monday to Friday, it completely ignores any work/life balance by doing this. The management belong in the 70's with its 'our way is best even if your idea is better' policy. This aside from the overtime being handed out to the managements 'friends' first.
I enjoyed working at ESS Safeforce, but I just prefer to being in a role where I can see myself being there in the future. This is not the case at ESS Safeforce.
I enjoyed working as a team as well as on my own to try and hit targets and getting that buzz if we do.
I learned a lot of at ESS Safeforce, but more skills/ lessons stand out more than others such as; multi-tasking between internal/ external stakeholders as well as customers. My strength of working under pressure greatly improved since working here, such as coming up with the best solutions for the customer in a short given amount of time, such as a quote for a customer, trying to get the sale/ hire.
This is basically my stepping stone to a different workplace/environment where there is much more potential to progress and achieve more, Torrent has learnt me a lot and developed my skills and made me realise my potential massively, however, i am now ready to take the next step into a different workplace and better myself. I have all the determination required to achieve this and i will given the right opportunity.
A typical day was serviceing railway equipment for there customers,on time deliverys to site,i was on call most weekends to keep plant running if broke down.
long hours, driving , I learned about customer relations, skills involved in the job, it skills, I worked well with others, or alone, the hardest part about the job was the time spent away from home, the enjoyable part was the satisfaction of leaving customers happy.
I would work on the computers and call customers about their equipment that was either due for service or had been serviced. I liaised with the service engineers who would inform me of any servicing or repairs that needed doing to the equipment.
I enjoyed speaking to customers and integrating with people.
Ask a question about working or interviewing at Vp plc. Our community is ready to answer.
How did you feel about telling people you worked at Vp plc?
What tips or advice would you give to someone interviewing at Vp plc?
How did you get your first interview at Vp plc?


All of today's Canadian upgraders process bitumen, the heavy crude oil product extracted from the oil sands, into synthetic crude oil. That high value oil is often shipped to the United States for further refining, denying the province of tax revenues and jobs that could come from refining it here.
NWR's solution is to convert the raw bitumen directly into the low carbon, ultra low sulphur diesel and diluents that are in critically short supply and high demand in Canada. This maximizes the value for all Albertans by generating higher margins on raw materials, while making environmentally responsible products that the market needs, and at competitive prices. NWR is focused on producing a range of cleaner, high value products needed to meet Alberta's increasing demand and North America's new low carbon standards.
The province requires large sources of diluent to meet the current and future needs for bitumen producers. NWR will be a vital source of high quality recycled and manufactured diluents that will displace expensive imports for bitumen producers.
This product is used primarily as a component in high octane gasoline. NWR's pure naphtha will also be ideal for use in petrochemical processes or as part of the manufactured diluent pool.
This high quality material has applications for intermediate feedstock in refineries, the production of lubricants, and for sales as an off-road fuel.
Products such as butane, propane, and ethane manufactured at the plant will be available and sold to other Alberta industries.
Although it may take years to fully develop eco-industrial synergy industries, the products produced by NWR will encourage downstream industries to develop. This catalyst will support the provincial government's vision and result in significant long term competitive advantages for Alberta.
NWR's Clean Performance Diesel is being formulated to make engines run more smoothly, reduce emissions and provide up to 30% better fuel economy than gasoline.
Cetane is the key indicator of diesel quality, like octane is in gasoline. The higher the cetane number the better the diesel combustion, which results in improved performance, better fuel economy and fewer exhaust emissions.
The poor combustion characteristics of low cetane diesel can take a toll on your vehicle. These inferior fuels leave behind deposits that directly impact performance, causing excessive engine vibrations and stress as well as more smoke and noise. Drivers experience a reduction in power, responsiveness and increase in fuel consumption and emissions.
The minimum cetane standard in Canada is currently 40. NWR's diesel will be manufactured to exceed Canadian standards and meet global specifications.
Diesel drives the provincial economy and is essential for its continual growth. NWR's Clean Performance Diesel will help meet this increasing demand. After the province's needs are met, the Partnership will be in a position to export diesel to other regions.


Beauty News: Sephora X Moschino Golden Teddy Collection!
A 'This is not a Moschino toy' Bear Eyeshadow Palette ($60.00) – this palette is said to be LARGE!
A Bear Brush Set ($68.00) – including five brushes with bear heads.
A Bear Head Highlighter Palette ($28.00) – including two highlighter shades.
A Bear Lip Gloss Chain Necklace ($40.00) – including six lip glosses.
Other items in the collection include a Bear Eye Mask ($25.00) made of super-soft faux fur, as well as a Bear Compact Mirror ($28.00). The whole range features the iconic Moschino teddy bear, and each product also has a striking high shine gold finish.
I learned very early on how much young people love my work, and sometimes they don't have the means to get it. This is another way for me to do Moschino and not sacrifice quality. It's a lot more accessible. I love to be able to put my arms around more people and have them be a part of the Moschino family in some capacity.
From what I can see, the collection will be available at Sephora in August, I'll update this post as soon as I know the exact release dates. Seriously though, just looking at this packaging makes me HAPPY!


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Q: ValueError: Input 0 of layer dense_24 is incompatible: expected axis -1 of input shape to have value 1024 but received input with shape [16, 512] I am quite new to using tensorflow and I would really appreciate some help on this. I am training an autoencoder and I am trying to load the data input with the tensorflow.data pipeline. However, after doing this, I've been having problems with the input shape etc. Does anyone know how to fix this? Thank you very much!!!
datatrain1.shape is (18820, 16, 256, 1)
This is how I defined the dataset
dataset = tf.data.Dataset.from_tensor_slices((datatrain1, datatrain1))
The dataset has shape of the following:
<TensorSliceDataset shapes: ((16, 256, 1), (16, 256, 1)), types: (tf.float32, tf.float32)>
Code for autoencoder
autoencoder.compile("adam", loss="mse")
autoencoder.fit(dataset,epochs=1, shuffle=True)
The above call to fit gives me the error :
ValueError: Input 0 of layer dense_24 is incompatible with the layer: expected axis -1 of input shape to have value 1024 but received input with shape [16, 512]

This is the model definition code:
n_clusters = 32

input_img = Input(shape=(16, 256, 1))
x = res_conv_block(input_img, 64, 2)

pool_1 = MaxPooling2D((1, 2), padding="same")(x)
x = res_conv_block(pool_1, 64, 2)

pool_2 = MaxPooling2D((2, 2), padding="same")(x)
x = res_conv_block(pool_2, 64, 2)

x = Conv2D(8, (3, 3), activation="relu", padding="same")(x)
x = MaxPooling2D((2, 2), padding="same")(x)

flat = Flatten()(x)
x = Dense(256, activation='relu')(flat)
encoded = Dense(64, activation='relu', name="encoded")(x)
x = Dense(256, activation='relu')(encoded)
x = Dense(1024, activation='relu')(x)
x = Reshape((4, 32, 8))(x)

x = UpSampling2D((2, 2))(x)
up_1 = Conv2DTranspose(64, (3, 3), activation="relu", padding="same")(x)

x = res_deconv_block(up_1, 64, 2)
up_2 = UpSampling2D((2, 2))(x)

x = res_deconv_block(up_2, 64, 2)
up_3 = UpSampling2D((1, 2))(x)

x = res_deconv_block(up_3, 64, 2)
decoded = Conv2DTranspose(1, (3, 3), padding="same", name="decoded")(x)

autoencoder= Model(inputs=input_img, outputs=decoded, name="autoencoder")
encoder = Model(inputs=input_img, outputs=encoded, name="encoder")
clustering_layer = ClusteringLayer(n_clusters, name='clustering_layer')(encoder.output)
# SOM_layer =
idec = Model(inputs=autoencoder.input, outputs=[clustering_layer, decoded], name="res-idec")
#SOM_layer = model.add(SOM_Layer())

Summary of the model:
Model: "res-idec"
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Layer (type)                    Output Shape         Param #     Connected to
==================================================================================================
input_11 (InputLayer)           [(None, 16, 256, 1)] 0
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
conv2d_58 (Conv2D)              (None, 16, 256, 64)  640         input_11[0][0]
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
conv2d_59 (Conv2D)              (None, 16, 256, 64)  36928       conv2d_58[0][0]
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
add_48 (Add)                    (None, 16, 256, 64)  0           conv2d_59[0][0]
                                                                 input_11[0][0]
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
max_pooling2d_24 (MaxPooling2D) (None, 16, 128, 64)  0           add_48[0][0]
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conv2d_60 (Conv2D)              (None, 16, 128, 64)  36928       max_pooling2d_24[0][0]
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conv2d_61 (Conv2D)              (None, 16, 128, 64)  36928       conv2d_60[0][0]
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add_49 (Add)                    (None, 16, 128, 64)  0           conv2d_61[0][0]
                                                                 max_pooling2d_24[0][0]
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max_pooling2d_25 (MaxPooling2D) (None, 8, 64, 64)    0           add_49[0][0]
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conv2d_62 (Conv2D)              (None, 8, 64, 64)    36928       max_pooling2d_25[0][0]
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conv2d_63 (Conv2D)              (None, 8, 64, 64)    36928       conv2d_62[0][0]
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add_50 (Add)                    (None, 8, 64, 64)    0           conv2d_63[0][0]
                                                                 max_pooling2d_25[0][0]
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conv2d_64 (Conv2D)              (None, 8, 64, 8)     4616        add_50[0][0]
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max_pooling2d_26 (MaxPooling2D) (None, 4, 32, 8)     0           conv2d_64[0][0]
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flatten_8 (Flatten)             (None, 1024)         0           max_pooling2d_26[0][0]
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dense_24 (Dense)                (None, 256)          262400      flatten_8[0][0]
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encoded (Dense)                 (None, 64)           16448       dense_24[0][0]
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dense_25 (Dense)                (None, 256)          16640       encoded[0][0]
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dense_26 (Dense)                (None, 1024)         263168      dense_25[0][0]
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reshape_8 (Reshape)             (None, 4, 32, 8)     0           dense_26[0][0]
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up_sampling2d_24 (UpSampling2D) (None, 8, 64, 8)     0           reshape_8[0][0]
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conv2d_transpose_56 (Conv2DTran (None, 8, 64, 64)    4672        up_sampling2d_24[0][0]
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conv2d_transpose_57 (Conv2DTran (None, 8, 64, 64)    36928       conv2d_transpose_56[0][0]
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conv2d_transpose_58 (Conv2DTran (None, 8, 64, 64)    36928       conv2d_transpose_57[0][0]
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add_51 (Add)                    (None, 8, 64, 64)    0           conv2d_transpose_58[0][0]
                                                                 conv2d_transpose_56[0][0]
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up_sampling2d_25 (UpSampling2D) (None, 16, 128, 64)  0           add_51[0][0]
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conv2d_transpose_59 (Conv2DTran (None, 16, 128, 64)  36928       up_sampling2d_25[0][0]
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conv2d_transpose_60 (Conv2DTran (None, 16, 128, 64)  36928       conv2d_transpose_59[0][0]
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add_52 (Add)                    (None, 16, 128, 64)  0           conv2d_transpose_60[0][0]
                                                                 up_sampling2d_25[0][0]
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up_sampling2d_26 (UpSampling2D) (None, 16, 256, 64)  0           add_52[0][0]
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conv2d_transpose_61 (Conv2DTran (None, 16, 256, 64)  36928       up_sampling2d_26[0][0]
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conv2d_transpose_62 (Conv2DTran (None, 16, 256, 64)  36928       conv2d_transpose_61[0][0]
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add_53 (Add)                    (None, 16, 256, 64)  0           conv2d_transpose_62[0][0]
                                                                 up_sampling2d_26[0][0]
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clustering_layer (ClusteringLay (None, 32)           2048        encoded[0][0]
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decoded (Conv2DTranspose)       (None, 16, 256, 1)   577         add_53[0][0]
==================================================================================================
Total params: 977,417
Trainable params: 977,417
Non-trainable params: 0

A: You don't need Flatten layer, since input is 2D.
Remove flat = Flatten()(x)
x = Dense(256, activation='relu')(x)
encoded = Dense(64, activation='relu', name="encoded")(x)
x = Dense(256, activation='relu')(encoded)
x = Dense(1024, activation='relu')(x)
x = Reshape((4, 32, 8))(x)


I have had a chronic cough for over 20 years. Thinking it was a food allergy but doing nothing about it in the beginning because it didn't make me sick. It didn't alter my life and it wasn't very bad. It was only a small cough in the beginning occurring every once in a while.


text:
A wall in their river: Flooded Ngäbe communities continue to fight dam
by Tracy L. Barnett
Kiad, Ngäbe-Buglé Comarca, Panama - "Bulu Bagama is my positive name. Luis Jiménez, my negative one," the Ngäbe elder began, standing on an expanse of cracked mud that covered what for generations was his family patrimony. A tumbledown shell of a house lay in ruins, and a few dead leaves clinging to one remaining tree provided scant shade from the sweltering midday sun.
The words, referring to his indigenous name and the one imposed by the dominant Spanish culture, summed up the feelings of betrayal from a people that has fought bitterly for nearly two decades to stop the Barro Blanco dam, a hydroelectric project that to local communities and environmentalists has become a symbol of everything that's wrong with the current model of development in Panama.
Bulu and his wife, Adelaida González, stood in the mud and recalled that terrible night last August when they awoke to find the waters of their sacred Tabasará River seeping into their home. They scrambled to collect their children and as many of their possessions as possible. Neighbors weren't so lucky; their houses were completely washed downstream. A child narrowly escaped drowning in those harrowing hours.
They had been given no warning, he said, and since negotiations with the government and dam builder were ongoing, the family had thought they were safe. The affected communities of Kiad, Nuevo Palomar, Quebrada de Caña and Quebrada de Plata weren't consulted about the flooding of their lands, they say, which directly affects around 500 people but also has an important impact on the entire Ngäbe-Buglé Comarca, an autonomous territory that is home to more than 150,000 individuals of the Ngäbe and Buglé indigenous groups. The Tabasará River in itself is sacred for them, as is the ceremonial site that is now submerged.
Despite the years of fierce resistance, the dam was built downstream, and last May the reservoir began to fill. Now the residents of the flooded communities are just asking that the water level be brought down to the boundary of their territory, consistent with the law.
Kiad is an important cultural and ceremonial center for the Ngäbe; there along the river lay two sets of ancient petroglyphs that contain the clues to the wisdom of their ancestors. The boulders are now completely submerged, cutting off their connection to their past.
The Honduras-based company Genisa said it was conducting a "test flooding" of an area that, according to its environmental impact statement, was uninhabited. Just another deception, opponents claim, in a long line of them, including carbon-credit certification under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a program designed under the Kyoto Protocols to allow industrialized countries to "offset" their greenhouse gas emissions by supporting sustainable development projects in less-developed countries.
International human rights and environmental groups have maintained that Barro Blanco was anything but sustainable, and that the history of human rights violations associated with the dam project should make it ineligible. Finally, the Panamanian government withdrew the CDM registration last November — a first for the CDM program.
"The tactics this company used were pretty much what all companies have used — falsifying studies, not doing interviews or doing them far from the affected communities," said Fr. Joe Fitzgerald, a member of the Vincentian community of Soloy who has ministered to the Ngäbe people in the region for 12 years.
"Genisa has been horrible in their whole treatment of the situation."
The project was temporarily suspended in part for noncompliance with the environmental impact assessment, but the suspension was eventually withdrawn and the project continued.
Genisa, contacted by telephone and Twitter, has not responded to requests for an interview.
The flooding was a bitter anticlimax to a battle that has incited thousands across the country to take to the streets, and the government to go to extreme measures to ensure the dam's completion.
Barro Blanco is just one of more than 30 dams that have been built, with dozens more proposed or underway in Panama, and it is far from the largest, at a generating capacity of just 28 kilowatts and an affected territory of fewer than 18 hectares. Severe police repression against the mostly indigenous protesters has drawn fire from the international community, and on March 17 the case was one of several heard by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C. (See related story.)
"They know it's a minor project," said Osvaldo Jordán, executive director of the Panamanian nonprofit Alianza para Conservación y Desarrollo (Alliance for Conservation and Development), one of the groups that requested the hearing. "If there was a functioning rule of law in this country, it would have been canceled long ago. However, there is a symbolic element that the government did not want to allow to happen ... which is that a group of people would take a firm position without major resources and make a project like this go down."
A sister's role
At its peak in 2011, and again in 2012, the battle to stop the dam effectively shut down commerce in the western part of the country, as thousands of Ngäbe protestors and their allies blocked the Pan-American Highway. Mercy Sr. Edia López was among them.
"I came into the area just to ask for a service job as a missionary with the poorest population of the country, without realizing that they were facing a very big problem with land and water," said López, known as "Hermana Tita" throughout Chiriquí province. A native of Chiriquí, she has been working in the comarca since 2010, when she moved from another district near the Costa Rica border. A small, animated woman with an easy laugh and a quick wit, she has witnessed the severe police repression that has occurred. She was moved to tears as she recalled seeing several indigenous activists injured in clashes.
Long before Pope Francis released "Laudato Sí, on Care for Our Common Home," López was focused on land and water issues. "I was always interested in the struggle before the pope's call and had a passion for the matter of caring for the common home, and I became involved in the mining struggle of the indigenous population and the local leaders," she said. "It was a tremendous struggle."
In the beginning, the fights against the mining and against the hydroelectric dams were linked, she said. The movement won a victory with a law to stop international investment in the mining industry in 2011 and with a new law to prohibit mining in the comarca in 2012. But a growing number of hydroelectric dams were still underway, including Barro Blanco, and the fight went on.
"I honestly didn't know what to do, but there we were in the streets, in the protests, and in meetings with the leaders, the coordinators, the grassroots leaders," López said. She found herself helping with logistics, with mediation with government leaders and police — roles that were beyond anything she'd imagined, but it was what needed to be done, and so she did it.
"I was just a witness, a logistical support, a moral support, a spiritual support, a friend of the leaders. I supported in any way I could."
Dead forest
The Jiménez family lost everything they owned in that flood. Bulu's anguish turned to rage as he recounted all that his family has lost, and then related the way the government first denied his people's existence, and then tried to buy them off.
Just upstream, the Miranda family also struggles with the loss of their river and their farmland, and continue what looks to be a losing battle to maintain their homes and way of life.
Göejet Miranda's face was grim as he dipped the paddle into the cloudy, foul-smelling waters of the Barro Blanco dam reservoir through a corridor of death — grand old trees that once shaded a clear, free-flowing river now gray skeletons against a dry blue sky. The trees had provided essential food for a wide variety of fish and freshwater shrimp that were a big source of people's livelihood, said Miranda; most of the fish species have died out since the dam began operating, and the shrimp as well.
He docked the boat and clambered out onto the mud alongside the dead remains of what modern agroforesters would have called a diverse food forest, which the community had cultivated for generations. Once, it had produced a life of abundance — mangos, bananas, papayas, quince, oranges, pineapple, cacao, coffee, yams, beans, corn and much more were their main source of income as well as food. More than 40 types of medicinal herbs that served as a natural pharmacopoeia now lay under a thick layer of mud.
The Miranda family compound is on higher ground than the Jiménez's, so water has not yet reached their homes. At the heart of their land is the cultural and educational center where their father, Manolo Miranda, developed the written form of Ngäbere, the language of the Ngäbe people. The reservoir now cuts off the village of Kiad and the educational center from the rest of the world — what was once less than an hour's walk to the closest town is now two hours.
Miranda's sister Weni Bagama is a leader of the April 10 Movement — the first of two different Ngäbe movements aimed at stopping the dam — and a deputy of the Ngäbe-Buglé General Congress, as is Miranda. She struggles to cope with the loss of their spring-fed river, where they bathed three times a day and washed their clothes and played — now a stinking mosquito breeding ground surrounded by acres of mud. She trudged uphill to their only source of clean water, a trickle from a spring uphill. As of early March, the waters had dropped enough to reveal the devastation of what had been their food forest. Now they were enduring a dry season hotter than any they remember, fearful of a rainy season and a rise in the waters that may spell the end of their lives in Kiad.
At the encampment
López is a frequent visitor to the encampment of the September 22 Movement, which lies along the Panamerican Highway, next to the entrance to the office of Genisa. She arrived just in time for the sunset prayer service and headed down the embankment into a rough-hewed settlement among the sparse trees. Some 30 practitioners of the Mama Tatda religion, practiced by a majority of Ngäbe, gathered under the palm-roofed shelter that serves as the encampment's church. Their haunting voices rose in the falling light as they sang and prayed in their native Ngäbere.
Their leader is Clementina Pérez Jiménez, a fiercely spiritual woman who paints her face before she goes into battle. Besides being a local chief, Clementina is national coordinator of the September 22 spiritual protest movement, named for the date in 1962 when their prophet, a woman named Besiko, had a vision that exhorts them to leave behind the modern materialist lifestyle and to protect the Earth and their cultural traditions.
"The Blessed Virgin said clearly that if the Barro Blanco project is not canceled, there will be disaster in the world," warned Clementina, 43, who was just 15 when she joined the student movement. She was the leader of the encampment in front of the entrance to the dam last May when police sent riot squads to forcibly remove them. She has laminated copies of the newspaper articles dated May 25, 2016, that show a cluster of police surrounding and grabbing her as she lay in front of the machinery, prone in her traditional white nagua dress.
"We have to respect the life of nature, in order to have the peace of God, because if we do not respect the legal norms of the life of God on Earth, then we cannot exist in the world," she told me earnestly. "It is clearly stated, 'If the indigenous peoples are beaten, the water will dry up or it will become blood.' We do not want that to happen with the peoples of America or any other people."
Police repression reached a climax under former President Ricardo Martinelli, 2009-2014, when hundreds of indigenous protesters were injured and several were killed. Current President Juan Carlos Varela sought a softer image and initially promised to cancel the dam, and began 12 months of negotiations with the Ngäbe leaders.
Eventually, however, he switched sides and persuaded the current chief of the comarca, Silvia Carrera, to sign an agreement last August allowing the nearly finished dam to proceed in exchange for certain goods and services for the comarca.
A celebration soured
Llano Tugrí, the capital of the comarca, is a remote, wind-beaten outpost among the peaks of the Cordillera Central, reached in a more-than-two-hour, white-knuckled ride in a pickup with 15 people in the back, sitting on wooden benches.
Among them was the dignified Ngäbe deputy and dam opponent Weni Bagama. The group was heading to the capital to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the comarca. They arrived at midnight and slept a few hours in a rustic shelter. Despite the buffeting winds and cold temperatures, Weni awoke early to bathe in the river, a treasured ritual no longer possible in her own beloved Tabasará. She emerged glowing and resplendent in her bright blue nagua dress, ready to face the day.
She had waited for today to do her interview, in the capital of the comarca on its 20th anniversary, to emphasize her point. The creation of the comarca was gained after years of struggle, giving the Ngäbe people authority over their own lands. Barro Blanco is in clear violation of that law, Weni said, as well as a number of others, national and international, which she enumerated, and its presence threatens the integrity of the comarca.
"The government makes it seem like this is a great thing, without taking into account the human rights that are being violated, without seeing that our homes are being flooded," she told me. "What we want to clarify to the public is that this wall was imposed upon us. When they began this project, it began with the intervention of the police. The public forum was held with police. When they built the walls, it was with the police. Every step of the process was imposed by the police."
What the April 10 Movement is asking for now, she said, is that the reservoir levels be lowered to below the limits of the Ngäbe territory. It's not enough to repair the damage or even the river, but it's a solution they can live with.
On a day dedicated to celebration, many present were in no mood to celebrate — partly because of Barro Blanco.
Carrera, the current cacica, or chief, surveyed the crowd from the back, serious and tired-looking under her broad-brimmed white hat. The Ngäbes' first woman cacique, she had been a strong voice at the forefront of the marches and the roadblocks. But something changed last August, when she signed the agreement with Varela there in the capital of Llano Tugrí. She was nearly thrown out of office afterward by her own people, who were furious about the agreement.
She continues to oppose the dam, she told GSR, and any other extractive project in the comarca. She only signed the agreement because the dam was done, and she felt it fell to her to negotiate some benefits for the comarca in exchange for their lost territory and ruined river: jobs for the people, a certain percentage of profits, goods and services. She ended up feeling bitter as her people opposed the agreement, the dam was finished and the comarca ended up with nothing but conflict.
"We learned when the Spaniards came and took our gold for mirrors," she said sadly. "The resources are our Mother Earth and they are ours to care for."
López is among those witnessing the potential of an even greater threat. One of the harshest impacts of the continuous pressure on Ngäbe authorities to open their resource-rich lands has been to intensify the fissures that open among the communities as deals are cut without community support. Ultimately, the interference has affected governability among the Ngäbe, she said.
Evidelio Adames, a biology professor at the University of Panama who grew up with the Ngäbe and has served as an investigator, witness and mediator throughout the conflict, agreed.
"They have their own wisdom, and they have the capacity to prevent such problems, but the government and the corporations are entangling them," he said. He traces the roots of the conflict to 2007, when the government opened bids to companies interested in building a hydroelectric plant on the Tabasará. "That auction was without consultation, and that was the first capital sin," he said. "Now cultural patterns have been affected, a watershed fragmented, and that impacts everything."
Back in Kiad, Manolo Miranda, brother of Weni and Göejet, sat on a hammock in the open-air schoolhouse and gently rocked back and forth, creating his own breeze as he reflected on the irony of a village without electricity being submerged by a hydroelectric dam. Kiad counts on one solar panel to charge its cellphones and computers; they have no need for hydro power.
It's been a tough fight, he said, and it's not over yet. But no matter what happens, he said, the battle against Barro Blanco has won more than it has lost.
He pointed to the success pressuring the Panamanian government to take away the company's capacity to issue carbon credits — thus far, it's the only case in the world where this has happened — and the embarrassing lobbying efforts against the Dutch and German development banks that helped to fund the project.
"We know that this struggle for justice has won. And we know that even if the project ends up operating in the end, it will do so with shame. What we've done, we've done with dignity and fairness.
"The eyes of the world are still on Barro Blanco. It has been an experience not only for the government, and for Panama, but it's been an experience for the corporations, and also for the financial institutions. And the resistance hasn't ended. The banks will see what happened at Barro Blanco and will apply this experience in other examples. This experience is absolutely not just for Panama, it's for the world."
[Tracy L. Barnett is an independent writer, editor and photographer specializing in environmental issues, indigenous rights and sustainable travel.]
Related - Listen to Tracy L. Barnett and GSR's Sr. Michele Morek in this NCR in Conversation podcast on the environment
Panama's hydroelectric boom destroys ecosystems, threatens rural way of life
Washington hearing is activists' last hope in battle over Panama dam
IMG_4143 crop.jpg


Elvis Costello: Holocaust In Microcosm. By Charles Shaar Murray : Articles, reviews and interviews from Rock's Backpages.
"HEY ELVIIIIIS!!!" There's this blonde gumdrop down the front, see, shaking it down in that demure stoned way that hippie girls seem to favour, and she's splitting her throat to scream at the singer in the band every time he prowls in her direction.


We (my kids Kessler (age 11) and Shaylee (age 9)) and I climbed on these peaks for acclimatization. We were with a guide on this trip since I went to Peru with just the kids and I.
We walked in some snow, but the weather was pretty good. The big volcanoes were all covered with clouds though. Shaylee and Nicholas saw three condors, Kessler and I one.
That'a great that you got to go back with both kids. Kessler is 11 already, wow! Seems like just a few years ago that you had your big adventure with the eruption on Ubinas!
Supposedly a rest day in Chivay after 3 nights on Mismi, but this seemed like a good idea as more acclimatisation for Hualca Hualca. Initially we headed for Huarancate but settled on Chucura when we saw the deep snow and remembered the concept of a rest day!
Before heading out, I had little information about the area and Nevado Chucura, but, despite its 1:100 000 scale, the Peruvian IGN topo map had served me well before. I asked around in Arequipa, and learned that it would be easy to climb, so I just went for it.
After climbing Nevado Huarancante, I made my way to Nevado Chucura over Pt 5310 and along the east ridge.
From the summit, I continued for a short while along the NW ridge to the next small outcrop, to verify that it was indeed lower. After that I hiked down to the road in Quebrada Chucura.


text:
Business & Economy Property 2018 GLS Programme suggests certain precincts to be better developed
2018 GLS Programme suggests certain precincts to be better developed
Business & EconomyProperty
The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) yesterday (Nov 30) released two residential sites and two residential with commercial uses at 1st storey sites for sale today under the 2nd half 2018 GLS Programme (Government Land Sales Programme).
Under the 2nd half 2018 GLS Programme, the Sims Drive and Middle Road sites are launched for sale under the Confirmed List while the Dairy Farm Walk and Tan Quee Lan Street sites are available for application under the Reserve List.
Together, these four sites under the 2nd half 2018 GLS Programme can yield about 1,915 residential units.
Commenting on the four sites – Sims Drive, Middle Road, Dairy Farm Walk, and Tan Quee Lan Street – that are made available under the H2 2018 Government Land Sales programme, Colliers International said that they will continue to ensure there are ample supply of development land for developers. Having a decent slate of public land on the market may also go some way to help moderate potential bids for the site tenders.
Ms Tricia Song, Head of Research for Singapore, Colliers International said: "It is unsurprisingly that the URA has decided to place Sims Drive and Middle Road sites for sale under the Confirmed List, and concurrently made the Dairy Farm Walk and Tan Queen Lan Street plots available for application under the Reserve List. We believe the move aligns with the Government's plans to transform precincts such as Kampong Glam and Paya Lebar as well as further develop the Bukit Panjang neighbourhood.
"Middle Road (Confirmed List, new) and Tan Quee Lan Street (available for application under Reserve List, new):
We expect positive response to the Middle Road plot on the Confirmed List as well as a potential trigger for the nearby Tan Quee Lan Street on the Reserve List. These sites fall within the Central Area, and hence will not be subject to the rule on minimum unit size.
"Both sites will supplement the housing demand in the rapid transformation of the Beach Road commercial enclave. It was recently revealed that next door Guoco Midtown will comprise 770,000 sq ft of premium Grade A office space designed for new economy companies; 30,000 sq ft of retail and entertainment to draw "novel concepts"; and more than 200 residential units. Together with the existing Parkview Square, DUO and Bugis Junction integrated developments, the entire area will have over 2.5 million sq ft of prime grade office and retail space.
Traditionally a commercial enclave, there had been few high-rise residential developments in the area until recently. The largest to date, DUO Residences, part of the DUO integrated development, has already sold 655 units of its 660 units since its launch in 2013, achieving an average selling price of SGD2,036 psf. We believe the time is ripe for more standalone residential developments in the Beach Road/Bugis area."
For the Middle Road site under the 2nd half 2018 GLS Programme which can yield 375 residential units and up to 1,500 sq m of commercial space on the first floor, Colliers expects a top bid of SGD1,400 psf ppr which translates to a land bid of about SGD475 million. There are two zones: the low-rise zone which can go up to six storeys, and a high-rise zone which can go up to 20 storeys.
Of the two sites, Colliers feels that the one on the Reserve List — Tan Quee Lan Street site is in a more superior location, being on top of the Bugis (Downtown Line & East-West Line) MRT interchange station and between the upcoming integrated Guoco Midtown, existing Bugis Junction and the newly completed DUO development.
Guoco Midtown project all set to redefine Beach Road
Colliers expects a top bid of SGD1,500 psf ppr for this site under the 2nd half 2018 GLS Programme, which translates to a land bid of SGD780 million.
Similar to the Middle Road site, there is a cap of 2,000 sqm for commercial uses at the first storey, and it can yield 580 residential units.
Shoebox unit prices rise even as prices of other private residential apartments fall
Colliers also made the following comments o the 2018 GLS Programme:
"Sims Drive (Confirmed List, carried forward from 1H18 GLS):
While it is now subject to a larger minimum average unit size of 85 sq m than before, the Sims Drive site should still attract more bullish bids, compared to the four bids with a top bid of SGD687.90 psf ppr garnered by the adjacent site where Sims Urban Oasis currently sits.
Sims Urban Oasis had a slow start but had finished strongly with nearly all of its 1,024 units sold as of October 2018, at an average selling price of SGD1,400 psf since its launch in February 2015. Park Place Residences at Paya Lebar MRT, one station away towards the east, had been selling at SGD2,000 psf. Parc Esta next to Eunos MRT station, two stops away towards the east has reportedly sold 329 units on its first day of sale on 17 November at an average price of SGD1,680 psf.
The Sims Drive site is within decent walking distance (450 metres) to the nearest Aljunied MRT station and 12 minutes' drive to the CBD. We estimate that the site could see a top bid of SGD500 million (SGD960 psf ppr). The land rate would be significantly higher than the SGD687.90 psf ppr for the Sims Urban Oasis site placed by a subsidiary of GuocoLand in April 2014 – reflecting the more palatable size of the new site (570 units) and the market recovery, especially for city-fringe projects, since 2014.
Dairy Farm Walk (available for application under Reserve List, new):
We expect this site is unlikely to be triggered for sale soon, given that the Dairy Farm Road site (Residential with commercial at first storey) that was just awarded in September 2018 had received lackluster response post-cooling measures with five bids and a top bid of SGD830 psf ppr. Developers are unlikely to pile in within the short time frame. The earlier site could potentially build over 430 units, whereas this site could potentially build 375 units.
Nonetheless, while the Diary Farm Walk site is about 750 metres away from the nearest MRT Downtown Line Hillview Station, it is in a serene environment with proximity to the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. Nearby projects Tree House (completed in 2013), Foresque Residences (2014), Eco Sanctuary (2016) and The Skywoods (2016) are currently transacting at SGD1,000-1,300 psf. With a palatable quantum of less than SGD300 million, this site could still appeal to niche developers. We expect the top bid for the site to come in at SGD280 million (or SGD 800 psf ppr)."
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About 300 of Westpac Singapore's customers were notified that the bank would unwind its mortgage loan portfolio. The decision to unwind its mortgage loan...


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HBO's Succession Season 1 – Will Ferrell
TV Show Extras Casting Call – New York City, NY
Academy Award winning Writer, director, producers, comedian and actor Adam McKay has teamed up with funnyman again Will Ferrell for a new series. A casting call for the HBO TV show "Succession" is looking for extras! Ferrell and McKay have teamed up quite a bit over the years. The duo have created some of favorite classic comedies like Anchorman, Step Brothers, Talladega Nights and The Other Guys. This time the two will be executive producing the HBO series. An acting audition is looking for non-union men and women to portray pedestrians. Filming will be in New York City on December 17th, 2017. This is a paid acting job. Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin are starring in "Succession". If you are interested and want your chance to work on the project, check out the HBO casting call notice below!
About "Succession"
Succession" stars Brian Cox as Logan Roy, the tough, powerful, and aging patriarch of the Roy family and head of a family-controlled international media conglomerate; Jeremy Strong as Kendall Roy, eldest son from Logan's second marriage, currently a division president at the family firm and the heir apparent; Kieran Culkin as Roman Roy, Logan's outspoken, fun-loving son and Kendall's younger brother who is still on the board of directors at the firm, but no longer works there; and Sarah Snook as Shiv Roy, Logan's only daughter, who she sits on the board of directors but does not work at the firm and has been pursuing a career in politics.
Grant Wilfley Casting is seeking NONUNION men and women for work as NYC pedestrians
Filming on SUNDAY, 12/17 for the HBO show "SUCCESSION."
This will be an EXTERIOR, current season scene in Lower Manhattan.
Possible early morning call time.
If you are interested and available, please email succession@gwcnyc.com with the following:
Union status (SAG or Non-union)
Confirmation of full day availability for Sunday 12/17
What IDs you could bring to fill out your I9
Current wardrobe sizes
Current photo(s) of yourself
Please change the email subject line to FACEBOOK 12/17 PED


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Pacific Fiji
Pacific coaches says test rugby is becoming more competitive
12:14 pm on 28 November 2016
Pacific coaches believe the gap between the haves and have-nots of international rugby is closing.
The November test window was brought to life when Ireland defeated the All Blacks in Chicago while Italy stunned South Africa in Florence.
Fiji and Samoa were both on the end of heavy defeats by England and France respectively but Tonga pipped Italy 19-17 to record just their fifth victory over a top tier nation.
The Tonga rugby team celebrates their win over Italy Photo: Photosport
Head coach Toutai Kefu said there's been a lot of close games and the gap is getting smaller.
"It gives us tier two nations glimmer: confidence that we're now starting to break through that competitive barrier and be really competitive with those tier one nations," he said.
"Even between the tier one and tier two, I mean the gap is closing between tier two and tier three now - Romania are recording some really good successes.
"Those tier three teams are getting much better prepared and World Rugby are obviously helping them, as well as they are us."
Fiji rugby coach John McKee. Photo: AFP
The Flying Fijians ended their Northern tour on a winning note, defeating Japan 38-25 in Vannes, and coach John McKee said more competition is great for rugby.
"We need to see more teams upsetting other teams, it makes the game more interesting," he said.
"I think there's a lot of work going in, particularly at the level (below the top). I keep in touch with a lot of tier two coaches and I know that the programs in a lot of countries is improving, the depth of talented players is improving.
"Between now and 2019 we've already seen the gap close but we'll see more tier twos challenging tier ones and winning games."


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Home / News / Data Privacy & Security / California privacy agency will issue proposed enforcement rules first, board members tell public
California privacy agency will issue proposed enforcement rules first, board members tell public
By Amy Miller
Published 27 May 2022 19:06
Modified 27 May 2022 19:06
Antitrust abuses of data CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) Cybersecurity Data Privacy Data transfers US state privacy legislation
The California Privacy Protection Agency offered the first clues into expected new rules under the state's privacy laws, and the top priority will be enforcement.
The agency's initial packet of rules will focus on enforcement and agency audit rights with its first set of draft regulations under the 2020 California Privacy Rights
Senior Correspondent
Amy is responsible for the coverage of an array of regulatory and litigation issues pertaining to the Internet, including privacy, data security and antitrust. Formerly a legal reporter for the ALM media group, Miller has closely followed legal trends in Silicon Valley and covered corporate legal departments for online and print publications including The American Lawyer, Corporate Counsel, and The Recorder. Miller is a graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is an award-winning journalist with expertise ranging from education and legal reporting to computer-assisted reporting.


Deloitte Access Economics was engaged by the Australian Government Department of Education to undertake the Review of the Impact of the TEQSA Act on the higher education sector.
Deloitte Access Economics was engaged by the Australian Government Department of Education to undertake the Review of the Impact of the TEQSA Act on the higher education sector. The Review assessed the impact of the TEQSA Act by examining Terms of Reference relating to quality in the delivery and regulation of higher education, legislative overlap and the role of the Higher Education Standards Panel.
Deloitte's Defence team combines defence experience, highly trained professionals and an array of external industry talent to ease the challenges for all levels of Government and the Public Sector.


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George Pyle: Utah lawmakers want to make it even harder to be poor
Utah Income Tax Form TC-40
By George Pyle
| Oct. 22, 2019, 9:00 p.m.
| Updated: Oct. 23, 2019, 12:08 a.m.
"If you want more of something, subsidize it; if you want less of something, tax it."
— Ronald Reagan
The Gipper's concise philosophy of government might work for some things.
It is the idea behind taxing, sometimes at very high rates, cigarettes and alcohol. And for subsidizing, for reasons that escape logic in the 21st century, oil wells and coal mines.
Although true libertarian economic thinkers would point out that, if sin taxes get too high, it only serves to create a black market in butts and booze, reducing government revenue and moving product that might be even more unhealthy than the legal stuff.
And their progressive brethren would note that subsidizing an industry unwisely insulates it from market forces that, as the real price of renewable energy goes down, could help to clean up the planet.
Reagan's aphorism also explains the motivation behind the latest plan to "reform" Utah's state tax structure.
Clearly, legislative leaders think there should be fewer poor people in the state, so they would raise taxes on them. And they want more rich folks around, so they propose to subsidize them.
The plan might also be read as an incentive for families in Utah to have more children, as it would greatly increase the per-child income tax break. Though those who think it through, as anyone contemplating being fruitful and multiplying should, might see that another part of the same plan, to cut back on the state's main funding source for public education, would have the effect of discouraging reproduction hereabouts.
The scheme to raise the sales tax on groceries while cutting taxes on income has one purpose and one purpose only. It is a play to suck up to rich people, kind of and very, and give the back of their hand to poor folks who have the gall to hang around smelling up the place.
The Legislature's own bean-counters figure that, under this plan, richer, bigger families make out the best, while smaller, poorer families benefit little or not at all.
By the tax-and-subsidize theory, a plan such as this would encourage poor people to leave the state and rich people to move here. Though, given the outbreak of "luxury" apartments that are already going up all over the place, and the increasing number of homeless folks being displaced by them, it's hard to see that it would matter much.
Besides, if rich people are really so short-sighted and policy-illiterate as the tax plan supposes — and, if they are, how come they're rich? — it would be really easy to find an affordable apartment in high-tax California and the population of no-income-tax Wyoming would be booming.
It's more complicated than that, of course. There are high-tax states growing and shrinking and there are low-tax states growing and shrinking. So how attractive a place is depends on a lot of things that aren't taxes. Like job prospects, outdoor recreation, good schools and universities and the likelihood of earthquakes, wildfires and hurricanes.
The plan also includes adding sales taxes to some services — in an increasingly service-based economy — like landscapers and yoga instructors.
That might be not-so-horribly regressive, as rich folks are more likely to be buying those services. Or it might be damaging to those barely hanging on, as they are the ones doing the landscaping and the instructing.
If Utah really wanted to anchor its revenue to a reliable source, it would increase its income tax rates and make them progressive rather than flat. At the current 4.95%, we would have lots of room to inch up Utah's tax brackets and still be a relatively low-burden state. If continue to pretend that really matters.
We could double our rate for high-earners and still be well below the top bracket in California (12.3%) and in the neighborhood of Minnesota (9.85%) or Iowa (8.53%).
But to the people flogging this plan, who have no desire other than to run about shouting, "Tax cut! Tax cut! Tax cut!" the real numbers don't matter.
Neither do the real people.
George Pyle, reading The New York Times at The Rose Establishment.
George Pyle is the editorial page editor of The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at gpyle@sltrib.com. Follow him on Twitter, @debatestate
gpyle@sltrib.comFollow @DebateState
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new idea-- i am sick and tired of sitting around here-- mostly tired... i am not sick--- i enjoy having a cuppa or two of coffee and writing this dd - gets a few things out of my semi crowded head.... but then..... i watch everyone else go off and play with the dogs- and here i sit surrounded by paperwork which i screw up anyway.
so in the interest of efficiency-and my sanity i am outa here- 9 to 12 - by 1 i may be back NAPPING ... BUT At least i have been aired out.
usta be---- going anywhere was such a struggle because of teh effort it took to get my various cars running, i have not got over the effect of rolling starts, jumper cables, lack of heat or a/c i may have had this car for 4 years, but i am still shocked to turn the key and have it purrrrrr away.
this is the car that played the ave maria for months every time i tried to have that siri lady tell me how to get out of some cow pasture she had got me into.
my car's siri lady has a nasty sense of humor- so i just don't trust her.------ now... joyce has a better relationshoip- with her siri person. joyce got us to the hospital to visit annie- then found the store on hannover street in the north end- where we needed the flashers - we were very fortunate to find a place to double park- i don't know what they do with those cars next to the curb that are blocked in with the double parked.. maybe they auction them off every spring.
my siri person has betrayed me enough times so i have learned i am better off to rely on dead reckoning - if i can just remember where teh atlantic ocean is, i can ususally get around pretty well- thanks to my old magazine delivery occupation.
which reminds me... maybe the daily doggie population has not heard some of teh stories about that phase of my life.... my favorite story is--- one day-- in a blizzard-- one of the usual delivery people could not get out to deliver teh WantAds---so there i was in lowell---standing in line with my pink slip waiting for the owner of the small variety store to be done waiting on all the kids who had school canceled and had gone to his store for candy... he was very patient with them and i said when i got to the register... "gee you are awfully nice to those kids"
and he said " why shouldn't i be- maybe 1/2 of them are mine"
there is a funny boston parking story that is difficult to tell without a diaqgram... but i will try... in east boston- there is a situation here 2 streets meet at a "V" and people park along the legs of that "V" but when those places are full they continue along teh same line well out into the intersection-- or " square"--- where lacking the curb for directions- they just stop and leave their car - th part that gets very strange is, by general agreement with the police, it is allowed- and many times some people come and take cars away leaving the others all alone , un attended, in the middle of this "square" - there are times when a half dozen cars will be creating a slalom course- this is normal boston. i have used that parking araingement many times and never been ticketed.
along with a cleaned off desk, i have a few new ideas i want to tlak to staff about this week.
most alarming-- new volunteers are not to be assigned to the cellar for laundry folding- and every volunteer should take a box of cookiies and go around and give every dog on the property at least one-- but not more than 3 "cookies" -- the dogs need the public exposure- and teh volunteers might think it more fun than picking poo.