text:
https://www.harpercollege.edu/about/news/images/Four%20mentees.jpg
Fishing Well's early success prompts additional financial commitment from Rotary Club
Harper College News Bureau
Four current Schaumburg/Hoffman Estates Rotary Fishing Well Scholarship recipients (left to right): Sarah Yeo, Karen Schimpf, Oscar Alvarado and Carlos Segura
The Rotary Club of Schaumburg/Hoffman Estates has been so impressed by the early success of its innovative Fishing Well Scholarship through Harper College, the club couldn't pass up an opportunity to increase its support even more.
"By providing access to higher education for those that may not have it, (scholarship recipients) improve their lives, their family and the entire community by having better employment opportunities and more earning power," said Eileen Higginbotham, the Rotary Club's Director of Community Service. "As the program started to roll out, we saw the potential and the results. We thought, 'Well, let's see what we can do to extend this.'"
The scholarship launched in 2016 with a $100,000 grant over four years from a longtime Rotary Club member. Seeing the positive effects the scholarship could bring, the club quickly matched the donation for a total of $200,000. Just recently, the club voted to donate an additional $35,000 a year through 2026, Higginbotham said.
The Fishing Well Scholarship program allows Harper College students who are 24 years or older and have overcome challenges to receive financial assistance to get their degree. They also are paired up with a mentor from the Rotary Club – a key aspect of the scholarship. The concept of the scholarship is that rather than give people a fish, it's better to teach them to fish.
"The scholarship is about getting adults educated so that they can learn more and earn more," said Lauren Chilvers, the Scholarship and Special Projects Coordinator at Harper.
One student who's thrilled with the program and the additional financial commitment is Carlos Segura, who is studying for his associate degree in Computer Science while maintaining a job. The 41-year-old Streamwood resident helps his son go to college, too.
"My son is going currently to DePaul, so I'm paying for his tuition," he said. "For me, going to school wouldn't be possible without the Fishing Well Scholarship. The reason I started school was to give my son a boost."
Segura credits Harper, the Rotary Club and his mentor, Royal Hartwig, for encouraging him along his journey. The duo bonded quickly over coffee and additionally at Rotary Club meetings. With their support, Segura is on the honor roll and a member of the Phi Theta Kappa honor society.
Like Segura, all Fishing Well Scholarship recipients match with a Rotary Club of Schaumburg/Hoffman Estates mentor who offer advice, act as cheerleaders and let their mentees know they're there to help. The program is so popular, there's currently a waiting list of prospective mentors, Higginbotham said.
Scholarship recipients also wanted to give back in their own way, so Harper created a Rotaract Club to work alongside the Rotary Club on community projects, fundraisers and other service opportunities. The Rotaract Club is open to all Harper College students and focuses on giving young adults volunteer opportunities.
"It's truly a life changer because sometimes it seems like an impossible task to go to college, but with (the Rotary Club's) help it was a 180-degree change because you have the money weight off your shoulders," Segura said. "At least for me, that gave me a lot of opportunity to study, get better grades and therefore the ability to help at the club."
Harper Fast Facts


text:
Why study in UIBE
About UIBE
Return HomeUniversity of International Business and Economics (UIBE) -> Schools
School of International Studies
Over the past fifty years, the School of International Studies (SIS) has been committed to cultivating multi-disciplinary graduates for both the business and academic arenas. SIS fosters originality, innovation, honesty and truth.
Being one of the oldest schools at the University of International Business and Economics, the School of International Studies is among the top institutions around China. It is a sanctuary of knowledge for all undergraduate and graduate candidates.
The School of International Studies consists of four departments---Linguistics and Literature, Translation and Interpretation, Business English and General English. Six research institutes have been established---the Institute of Theoretical Linguistics, the Institute of Applied Linguistics, the Institute of English and American Literature, the Institute of Translation, the Institute of English-Speaking Countries Studies and the Institute of Business English.
Every year 480 undergraduates join the workforce, and 80 graduate candidates are enrolled. There are currently one hundred and ten faculty members, many of whom are influential scholars and experts. We are proud of the students, faculty and alumni who are part of this dynamic global community of thinkers, scholars and leaders.
Positioning itself as an educational institution aspiring to a greater international reputation, the School of International Studies has carried out a wide range of international cooperation and programs with a lot of well-known foreign universities or organizations.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
@font-face {
  font-family: 'Open Sans';
  font-style: normal;
  font-weight: 400;
  src: local('Open Sans'), local('OpenSans'), url(http://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/cJZKeOuBrn4kERxqtaUH3bO3LdcAZYWl9Si6vvxL-qU.woff) format('woff');
}
@font-face {
  font-family: 'Open Sans';
  font-style: normal;
  font-weight: 600;
  src: local('Open Sans Semibold'), local('OpenSans-Semibold'), url(http://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/MTP_ySUJH_bn48VBG8sNSqRDOzjiPcYnFooOUGCOsRk.woff) format('woff');
}
@font-face {
  font-family: 'Open Sans';
  font-style: normal;
  font-weight: 700;
  src: local('Open Sans Bold'), local('OpenSans-Bold'), url(http://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/k3k702ZOKiLJc3WVjuplzKRDOzjiPcYnFooOUGCOsRk.woff) format('woff');
}
@font-face {
  font-family: 'Open Sans';
  font-style: italic;
  font-weight: 400;
  src: local('Open Sans Italic'), local('OpenSans-Italic'), url(http://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/xjAJXh38I15wypJXxuGMBrrIa-7acMAeDBVuclsi6Gc.woff) format('woff');
}
@font-face {
  font-family: 'Open Sans';
  font-style: italic;
  font-weight: 600;
  src: local('Open Sans Semibold Italic'), local('OpenSans-SemiboldItalic'), url(http://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/PRmiXeptR36kaC0GEAetxuw_rQOTGi-AJs5XCWaKIhU.woff) format('woff');
}
@font-face {
  font-family: 'Open Sans';
  font-style: italic;
  font-weight: 700;
  src: local('Open Sans Bold Italic'), local('OpenSans-BoldItalic'), url(http://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/PRmiXeptR36kaC0GEAetxhbnBKKEOwRKgsHDreGcocg.woff) format('woff');
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Women can lose hair due to a number of factors; the most frequent are anxiety, pregnancy, dieting, or severe emotional difficulties. Androgenetic alopecia is thought of as like Male Pattern Baldness wherein hair follicles have become sensitive to the hormones within the scalp. It's typically characterized by hair thinning and thinning hair at another pattern that starts just above the temples. This instance in women does not typically lead to complete baldness but some may elect to lower the rest of the hair and go for a whole bald appearance.
Many products can be found in the marketplace but the addition of nettle shampoo products is gaining rapid recognition. This product cleanses the scalp and it also helps to nourish and revitalize the hair roots (which is also known as นอกจากนี้ยังช่วยในการบำรุงและฟื้นฟูรากผม in the Thai language).
Even though it's yet to be demonstrated that nettle extract alone assists in treating hair loss issues, hair products which combine nettle and other herbal medications are showing good reviews. It's great that people with this issue now have the choice to use products from organic sources.
Immediate application of nettle extract may also be performed but people who would opt for this topical procedure is needed to practice extreme caution. The plant has stinging hairs on its leaves and stalks which contain histamine and other chemicals which may lead to allergy upon contact with human skin. Although these allergic reactions aren't very harmful, it gives distress and best to be avoided as far as possible.
Hairs are an essential part of humans because it gives an attractive look. Everyone wants that hairs must be best for their personality.
Styling of the hair also plays a great role in promoting the fantastic look of any person. You'll find a number of salons which are there just to provide a perfect style of your hair. So when an individual confronts a problem their self-confidence could be hampered.
Someone can even be psychologically affected because of hair fall. They continue thinking about their problem and hence this impacts their daily life. This is why they start looking for a variety of ways to eliminate this problem.
There are various medical ways with the help of which you can solve this problem. You will find numerous ways to get rid of the issues. Usually, there are various reasons for men and women to suffer from hair loss problems. Click here, If you want to find other kinds of treatments for hair falling.
Women hair loss problem can occur due to a number of reasons. To begin with it can be attributed to the hormonal changes, pregnancy and so forth. Women normally have the problem all around their head. Among the most effective ways to take care of this hair fall problem is by consulting a doctor. Check out here, If you want to consult with a hair loss doctor.
If you are a woman and suffering from hair loss problem, you must make it sure that you are using such hair loss products which specifically intended for women hair loss problem. It is because the causes of hair loss also differ in men and women. There are plenty of products in the marketplace these days. It's your responsibility to figure out the best among them. Make certain that you are not misguided by some of those false claims by this product.
The hair loss treatment for women is found in the medical shops and as they are over the counter products they do not require a prescription. You will find that some of these products are very effective while the others aren't. That means you must always go through the online reviews of these products to find out the truth about the product.


text:
Personalis' CEO, John West, first became involved in DNA sequencing and DNA sequence interpretation in 1982. In the 1980's, he led the development of an automated DNA sequencing system based on pattern recognition from autoradiographs, and licensed software from the lab of Roger Staden at MRC Cambridge, UK for sequence assembly and analysis. In the 1990's Mr. West was General Manager and subsequently President of Princeton Instruments, a company focused on low light scientific imaging. This technology was used in a number of fluorescent automated DNA sequencing developments. In 2001 Mr. West joined then market leader Applied Biosystems as Vice President of Genetic Analysis. He was subsequently promoted to VP, DNA Platforms. While at Applied Biosystems Mr. West's group introduced the model 3730xl Genetic Analyzer. This product became the mainstay of almost every major genome center in the world.
In 2004, Mr. West moved to be CEO of Solexa Ltd, a venture capital backed UK company focused primarily on single-molecule DNA sequencing. Mr. West realized that the company's recent acquisition of DNA cluster technology could be transformative. In 2005 he led Solexa's reverse merger into US-based and Nasdaq-listed Lynx Therapeutics, and led two PIPE financings totaling almost $100M. The company introduced its first system in mid-2006. Mr. West negotiated the January 2007 acquisition of Solexa by Illumina, Inc for approximately $600M, and stayed as VP of the DNA sequencing business there into 2008. During this time, Illumina became the world leader in next generation DNA sequencing.
From 2009 through mid-2011 Mr. West served as CEO of ViaCyte, Inc, a company leveraging stem cell technology to develop a diabetes cell therapy.
In late 2009 Mr. West's family became the first healthy family of four to be sequenced. Their experience working with the Stanford team on genome interpretation led to the foundation of Personalis.
Mr. West received a BS and MS engineering degrees from MIT, and earned an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.
Richard Chen, MD, MS
Dr. Chen joined Personalis in November 2011 as Chief Scientific Officer. A physician scientist, Dr. Chen has extensive expertise in systems biology, translational genomics, knowledge engineering, and scientific product development. Dr. Chen has co-founded and served on the board of several companies, including Ingenuity Systems, where he led the development of systems biology approaches to genomic data analysis for scientific discovery. Dr. Chen has also served on the clinical faculty at Stanford University School of Medicine where he led process and technology innovation for improved health care delivery. Dr. Chen received a BS in Computer Science from Stanford, and a MD from Stanford University School of Medicine. He also received a MS in biomedical informatics from Stanford. He completed his Chief Residency and Dermatology Specialty Training at Stanford and is board certified.
Aaron Tachibana
Aaron Tachibana joined Personalis as Chief Financial Officer in March 2019, with more than fifteen years of executive financial management experience at large, medium, and small cap public and private companies.
Prior to Personalis, Mr. Tachibana was Chief Financial Officer at Lumentum from August 2015 to September 2018. Lumentum is a publicly listed optical and photonics company that was a spin out from JDSU. From November 2013 to July 2015, he was Vice President of Finance, Corporate Controller for JDSU, a public company with $1.7 billion in annual revenues. Prior to JDSU, Mr. Tachibana was Chief Financial Officer at Pericom Semiconductor from March 2010 to October 2013, a publicly listed semiconductor company that provided high-performance connectivity and timing solutions. From 1992 to 2010, he held executive and senior management positions with Asyst Technologies, Inc., Allied Telesis, Inc., TapCast Inc. and TeraStor Corporation.
Mr. Tachibana holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and Finance from San Jose State University, and is a graduate of General Electric's Financial Management Program.
Clinton Musil, MBA
Chief Business Officer
Clinton Musil joined Personalis in January 2019 as Chief Business Officer. Mr. Musil previously worked at ARMO Biosciences, where he oversaw the Company's $147 million initial public offering and $1.6 billion sale to Eli Lilly. Clinton has expertise in corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) from the healthcare industry, including raising several billion dollars in equity and advising on more than $35 billion in M&A transactions. Prior to joining ARMO, Mr. Musil was a Managing Director at Hercules Capital where he provided capital to life sciences companies at multiple stages of development. Clinton brings an extensive background in healthcare investment banking from several global, full service firms as well as experience as an investor at Essex Woodlands, a healthcare-dedicated fund. Earlier in his career, Mr. Musil served in various positions at Gilead Sciences, Inc. and Sanofi S.A. Mr. Musil received a B.S. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Arizona and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Carol J. Tillis
Vice President, Finance and Administration
Carol J. Tillis joined Personalis in November 2011 with over 20 years of experience in senior financial management, much of it related to DNA sequencing. From 2004 to 2010, she was Vice President of Finance at Pacific Biosciences, Inc. Ms. Tillis started at Pacific Biosciences as its first full-time finance person during the company's early development stages, and helped transition the company into a commercial entity. From 2002 to 2004, Ms. Tillis was a Financial Consultant for several early stage start-up companies. From 1999 to 2001, she was Director of Finance of Entigen Corporation, a life-science software company. From 1991-1999, she held various positions at Molecular Dynamics (Amersham Corporation) most recently as the Finance Manager – Sales Marketing and Services where she helped start the international finance operations. From 1985-1991, she worked at several banks as a Corporate Loan Officer. Ms. Tillis received a B.S. from Marquette University in 1985.
Christian Haudenschild, PhD
Vice President, Genomic Services
Dr. Haudenschild joined Personalis in early 2012 to build the company's professional services department. Prior to this role he was an Associate Director in charge of commercial sequencing at Illumina Inc. in Hayward, California. His team was responsible for the preparation and next-generation sequencing of thousands of DNA and RNA samples. Dr. Haudenschild was previously the Senior Manager of Technical Accounts at Lynx Therapeutics (which later became Solexa, Inc. and which was later acquired by Illumina). At Lynx and Solexa he was involved in developing the first massively parallel protocols for the study of small RNA and DNA. In 1995, he received his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Enzymology from the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France after completing a Master's degree in 1989. He completed his postdoctoral research in Molecular Biology at Washington State University, Pullman from 1995 to 1997 and at the University of California at Berkeley from 1997 to 1999.
Michael Fitzpatrick
Vice President, Worldwide Sales
Michael Fitzpatrick joined Personalis in April 2013 as Vice President of Worldwide Sales. During Mike's 30 year career in the biotech field, he has built commercial teams focused primarily in the genomics space. He spent 20 years at Applied Biosystems where he held executive level positions including Vice President of The Americas, Vice President of Sales for the Molecular Biology Division and Vice President of Global Key Accounts. In 2006, Mr. Fitzpatrick joined a start-up, Codon Devices, where he built the initial commercial team and launched their synthetic biology technology globally. Most recently, Mr. Fitzpatrick was with OpGen, Inc. as Vice President Global Sales where he built the global commercial sales and support teams to launch their Optical Mapping technology. Mr. Fitzpatrick received a B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Maryland College Park.
Rena McClory, PhD
Rena McClory joined Personalis in 2014, and serves as Vice President, Marketing, where she established and leads marketing and product management teams in building brands and accelerating product adoption in key immune-oncology, basic research and clinical markets. She was promoted from Senior Director, Cancer Research and Clinical Services in 2015. Rena brings over 20 years experience in marketing leadership roles at RainDance Technologies, as director of marketing, at Illumina as senior market manager PCR, at Agilent as senior director of marketing and technical service, and senior director, instrumentation and QPCR reagents. Rena holds a PhD in Molecular Microbiology from the University of Glasgow.
Stephane Mouradian, PhD
Vice President, Business Development
Stephane leads the Business Development team at Personalis. Previously, Stephane was at Illumina where he led Illumina's companion diagnostic partnerships with pharmaceutical companies in oncology, the international expansion of NIPT (Non Invasive Prenatal Testing) and Illumina's venture investments in start-ups such as Twist (synthetic biology) and Boreal Genomics (liquid biopsy), for which he served as Illumina-appointed board observer. Prior to Illumina, Stephane was at Caliper Lifesciences for 15 years. He developed and launched several microfluidic DNA and protein testing products that became standards in genomic laboratories today, and he led corporate development for Caliper. Stephane holds a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a Master's degree in Chemical Engineering from Strasbourg University, France.
Lloyd Hsu
Vice President, Software Engineering
Lloyd Hsu joined Personalis in May 2015 as VP of Software Engineering. Mr. Hsu owns and drives all aspects of software development, architecture and strategy. Mr. Hsu also leads the IT department and is responsible for ensuring the IT infrastructure aligns with Personalis' business strategy. Prior to this role, Mr. Hsu spent 4 years as a Senior Director of R&D at Informatica Corporation, where he defined and executed a strategy to revitalize Informatica's Connectivity products while leading an R&D organization spread across the US, UK and India. Prior to Informatica, Mr. Hsu spent 14 years at TIBCO Software, holding various positions from developer to Director of Engineering. Mr. Hsu was instrumental in helping TIBCO grow from an early staged spinoff into the market leader in real-time integration. Prior to TIBCO, Mr. Hsu spent 4 years at Oracle Corporation as a software developer for the RDBMS and Oracle Tools products. Mr. Hsu received a BA in Computer Science from Harvard University and an MS in Computer Science from Stanford University.
Xavier Paliard Pharm.D., Ph.D.
Vice President Immunology, Research & Development
Xavier Paliard joined Personalis in July 2017 as Vice President Immunology, Research & Development where he leads the strategy as well as R&D in the area of personalized cancer vaccines and other personalized therapeutic opportunities.
He has over 25 years of experience in Research & Development of vaccines, biologics and small molecules across an array of therapeutic areas including immuno-oncology and infectious diseases. Prior to joining Personalis, Dr. Paliard was Executive Director of Nonclinical Research at Ultragenyx. Before this, he held positions of increasing responsibility in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies including MedImmune/AstraZeneca, Anaphore, ARYxTherapeutics, Merck and Chiron/Novartis. Dr. Paliard is a named-inventor on multiple patents; he has published in top peer-reviewed journals including Nature and Science and participated in the successful filing of multiple INDs and drug approvals. He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of New Mexico. Dr. Paliard holds a Ph.D. in Immunology and a Pharm.D. from the Claude Bernard University in Lyon, France and received his postdoctoral training from the HHMI laboratory of Dr. Philippa Marrack in Denver CO.
Jonathan MacQuitty, PhD
Dr. MacQuitty, our Chairman of the Board, has served on our board of directors since June 2011. Since July 2018, Dr. MacQuitty has served on the board of directors of and as Chief Executive Officer of D2G Oncology, Inc., an oncology biotechnology company. Since April 2016, Dr. MacQuitty has served as a Venture Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, an early-stage technology venture capital firm. From May 2015 to April 2017, Dr. MacQuitty served as Chief Executive Officer of Forty Seven, Inc., an immuno-oncology company. From May 1999 to December 2014, Dr. MacQuitty served in various roles, including Partner, at Abingworth Management Inc., a trans-Atlantic bio-investment firm. Dr. MacQuitty holds a B.A. and M.A. in Chemistry from Oxford University, a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Sussex, and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
A. Blaine Bowman
Mr. Bowman has served on our board of directors since May 2019. Beginning in 2006, Mr. Bowman served on the board of directors of Solexa, Inc., a DNA sequencing company, until its sale to Illumina, Inc., a biotechnology company, after which Mr. Bowman continued to serve on the board of directors until May 2018. From March 1977 to August 2005, Mr. Bowman served in various roles at Dionex Corporation, a manufacturer of analytical instruments, including Chairman of the board of directors, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and he served on the board of directors until its sale to Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. in May 2011. From July 2012 to December 2015, Mr. Bowman served on the board of directors of Altera Corporation, a programmable logic devices company. Mr. Bowman holds a B.S. in Physics from Brigham Young University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Patrick J. Balthrop, Sr.
Life Science Industry Executive
Patrick J. Balthrop, Sr. is the founding principal of Apalachee Ventures. He has over 30 years of experience building, growing and optimizing businesses in the healthcare sector, particularly in the life sciences segments of diagnostics, life science tools and medical devices. Previously, Mr. Balthrop was CEO, President and Director of Luminex Corporation, a publicly-traded diagnostics, tools and devices company. During his ten year tenure as CEO, Luminex increased sales more than eight-fold, transitioned from a loss position to segment-leading levels of profitability, made several strategic acquisitions and introduced numerous new products.
Prior to Luminex, Mr. Balthrop was President of Fisher Healthcare from 2002 to 2004. He also had a 20 year career at Abbott from 1981 to 2002, where he ran the company's worldwide commercial operation, was the first head of Abbott Vascular, ran several R&D programs and was GM of the Far East Area, among other accomplishments.
In addition to being a director of Personalis, Mr. Balthrop is Chairman of the Board of Oxford Immunotec PLC (NASDAQ: OXFD), Discovery Life Sciences and Agendia NV. He also serves as an executive advisor to the private equity firm Water Street Healthcare Partners.
Mr. Balthrop has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a BS in Biology from Spring Hill College.
Alan Colowick, MD, MPH
Dr. Colowick has served on our board of directors since May 2019. Since May 2017, Dr. Colowick has served as a Partner at Sofinnova Investment, Inc., a clinical stage life sciences venture capital firm. From February 2010 to April 2017, Dr. Colowick held various positions, including Executive Vice President, at Celgene Corporation, a pharmaceutical company. From February 2008 to January 2010, Dr. Colowick served as the Chief Executive Officer of Gloucester Pharmaceuticals Inc., an early stage cancer pharmaceutical company, until its acquisition by Celgene Corporation in January 2010. From October 2006 to February 2008, Dr. Colowick served as President, Oncology at Geron Corporation, an early stage pharmaceutical company. Earlier in his career, Dr. Colowick served in various capacities at Amgen Inc., a biopharmaceutical company. Dr. Colowick has served on the board of directors of Human Longevity, Inc., a genomics-based health intelligence company, since June 2016, and has served on the board of directors of Principia Biopharma Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, since February 2017. Dr. Colowick previously served on the board of directors of Achaogen, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, from August 2015 to August 2017, and on the board of directors of Dimension Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, from August 2015 to November 2017. Dr. Colowick holds a B.S. in Molecular Biology from the University of Colorado, an M.D. from Stanford University School of Medicine, and an M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Karin Eastham
Karin Eastham has served on our board since September 2019. Ms. Eastham has over 35 years of experience in financial and operations management, primarily in life sciences companies. Ms. Eastham serves as a director for 3 additional public biotechnology companies, Nektar Therapeutics, Geron Corporation, and Veracyte, Inc. Her former public directorships include Illumina, Inc., MorphoSys AG (based in Munich, Germany), and Amylin Pharmaceuticals. Ms. Eastham's career includes her service as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and Trustee of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research. She also served as Senior Vice President, Finance, Chief Financial Officer, and Secretary of Diversa Corporation. She held similar positions with CombiChem, Inc., a computational chemistry company, and Cytel Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company. Ms. Eastham also held several positions, including Vice President, Finance, at BoehringerMannheim Diagnostics. Ms. Eastham received a B.S. and an M.B.A. from Indiana University and is a Certified Public Accountant.
Ken Ludlum
Mr. Ludlum has served on our board of directors since July 2015. Mr. Ludlum also currently serves on the board of directors of NATUS Medical, Inc., a medical equipment company, IRIDEX Corporation, a medical device company and Dermavant Sciences Ltd, a biopharmaceutical company.
From February 2014 to April 2016, Mr. Ludlum served as Chief Financial Officer at CareDx, a molecular diagnostics company. Mr. Ludlum has also served as Chief Financial Officer of a number of other medical technology and biotechnology companies. Mr. Ludlum holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Lehigh University and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School.
Paul Ricci
Mr. Ricci has served on our board of directors since February 2019. Since October 2018, Mr. Ricci has served as an Advisor to Lightspeed Venture Partners, an early-stage technology venture capital firm. Since September 2018, Mr. Ricci has served as an Advisor to Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm. Mr. Ricci served as Chief Executive Officer of Nuance Communications, Inc., a computer software technology company, from August 2000 to March 2018 and as its Chairman from March 1999 to February 2018. Mr. Ricci holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Economics from Stanford University.
Our Scientific Advisory Board
Russ Altman, MD, PhD
Russ Biagio Altman is Professor of Bioengineering, Genetics, & Medicine (and of Computer Science, by courtesy) and former Chairman of the Bioengineering Department at Stanford University. His primary research interests are in the application of computing technology to basic molecular biological problems of relevance to medicine. He is particularly interested in informatics methods for advancing pharmacogenomics, the study of how human genetic variation impacts drug response (e.g. http://www.pharmgkb.org/). Other work focuses on the analysis of functional sites within macromolecules with a focus on understanding the action, interaction, and adverse events of drugs.Dr. Altman holds an M.D. from Stanford Medical School, a Ph.D. in Medical Information Sciences from Stanford, and an A.B. from Harvard College. He has been the recipient of the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and a National Science Foundation CAREER Award. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians, the American College of Medical Informatics, and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. He is a past-president, founding board member, and a Fellow of the International Society for Computational Biology. He is an organizer of the annual Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing. He leads one of seven NIH-supported National Centers for Biomedical Computation, focusing on physics-based simulation of biological structures. He won the Stanford Medical School graduate teaching award in 2000. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Dr. Altman chairs the FDA Science Board advising the Commissioner 2013-2014, and is the President-Elect of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics.
Euan Ashley, MD, PhD
Euan Ashley BSc (Hons), MB ChB, MRCP, DPhil, FACC, FAHA
Associate Professor of Medicine (Cardiovascular),
Director, Stanford Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease
Co-Director, Training Program in Myocardial BiologyMember, Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Translating Genomic-based Research for Health
Director, Stanford Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing Laboratory
Leadership committee, AHA Council on Functional Genomics and Translational Biology
Director, Stanford Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center
Born and raised in Scotland, Dr Ashley graduated with 1st class Honors in Physiology and Medicine from the University of Glasgow. He completed medical residency and received a PhD in molecular cardiology at the University of Oxford before moving to Stanford University where he was a Donald W. Reynolds Fellow. He trained in clinical cardiology and advanced heart failure and joined the faculty in 2006. His laboratory is focused on the application of genomics to medicine. In 2010, he led the team that carried out the first clinical interpretation of a human genome. The paper, published in the Lancet, was reported in over 300 news stories worldwide and became one of the most cited articles in clinical medicine that year. The team extended the approach in 2011 to a family of four and now routinely apply genome sequencing to the diagnosis of patients at Stanford hospital where Dr Ashley directs the Clinical Genome Service and the Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease. In 2013, Dr Ashley was recognized at the White House Data to Knowledge to Action event for his contributions to Personalized Medicine. Dr Ashley is a recipient of the National Innovation Award from the American Heart Association and a National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award. He is a member of the AHA Council on Functional Genomics, and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences Roundtable on Translating Genomic-Based Research for Health. He is a peer reviewer for the NIH and the AHA as well as journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet. He is co-founder of Personalis, Inc.
Father to two young Americans, in his 'spare' time, he tries (and usually fails) to understand baseball, plays the saxophone in a jazz quartet, and conducts research on the health benefits of single malt Scotch whisky.
Atul Butte, MD, PhD
Atul Butte, MD, PhD is the Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg Distinguished Professor and inaugural Director of the Institute for Computational Health Sciences (ichs.ucsf.edu) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Butte is also the Chief Data Scientist for the entire University of California Health System, including 17 health professional schools, 6 medical centers, and 10 hospitals. Dr. Butte has authored over 200 publications, with research repeatedly featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Wired Magazine. Dr. Butte was elected into the National Academy of Medicine in 2015, and in 2013, he was recognized by the Obama Administration as a White House Champion of Change in Open Science for promoting science through publicly available data. Dr. Butte is also a founder of three investor-backed data-driven companies: Personalis, providing medical genome sequencing services, Carmenta (acquired by Progenity), discovering diagnostics for pregnancy complications, and NuMedii, finding new uses for drugs through open molecular data. Dr. Butte is a principal investigator of three major programs: (1) the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine, implementing Governor Brown's vision to promote precision medicine in California; (2) ImmPort, the clinical and molecular data repository for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; and (3) the California Precision Medicine Consortium, helping recruit tens of thousands of participants into President Obama's AllofUs Precision Medicine Initiative. Dr. Butte trained in Computer Science at Brown University, worked as a software engineer at Apple and Microsoft, received his MD at Brown University, trained in Pediatrics and Pediatric Endocrinology at Children's Hospital Boston, then received his PhD from Harvard Medical School and MIT.
Mia Levy, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Mia A. Levy is the Director of Cancer Clinical Informatics for the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine at Vanderbilt University.
Dr. Levy received her undergraduate degree in Bioengineering from The University of Pennsylvania in 1997 and her Medical Doctorate from Rush University in 2003. She then spent 6 years at Stanford University completing post-graduate training in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology while completing her Ph.D. in Biomedical Informatics. She joined the faculty at Vanderbilt as an Assistant Professor in Biomedical Informatics and Medicine in August 2009. She is a practicing medical oncologist specializing in the treatment of breast cancer.
Dr. Levy's research interests include biomedical informatics methods to support the continuum of cancer care and cancer research. Current research projects include informatics methods for 1) clinical decision support for treatment prioritization of molecular subtypes of cancer, 2) longitudinal clinical plan management, 3) image based cancer treatment response assessment using quantitative imaging, and 4) learning cancer systems. She is the principle investigator for MyCancerGenome.org, a publically available knowledge resource for genome directed cancer treatment selection.
Michael Snyder, PhD
Michael Snyder is the Stanford Ascherman Professor and Chair of Genetics and the Director of the Center of Genomics and Personalized Medicine. Dr. Snyder received his Ph.D. training at the California Institute of Technology and carried out postdoctoral training at Stanford University. He is a leader in the field of functional genomics and proteomics. His laboratory study was the first to perform a large-scale functional genomics project in any organism, and currently carries out a variety of projects in the areas of genomics and proteomics both in yeast and humans. These include the large-scale analysis of proteins using protein microarrays and the global mapping of the binding sites of chromosomal proteins. His laboratory built the first proteome chip for any organism and the first high resolution tiling array for the entire human genome.


I'm not really out in front of this one, but I'll do the obligatory post.
11g was announced back in early July in the UK, followed shortly by an announcement here in the States. Every since then, I'll go to OTN, downloads, OBIEE to see if was generally available. I've done this every day for the past month. On Friday, I did the same thing and 10.1.3.4 was still there. I then got an email from my boss that evening saying it had been released. I guess I can't first for everything.
To download the latest and greatest, go here. The Overview is here. And finally the documentation.
I downloaded it on Friday evening (nerd) but haven't installed it just yet. I'm hoping to get to it this week. I wouldn't say I'm excited...I'm still in my learning phase...so it just means a bit more work. I'm sure it will be fun though.
Mr. Rittman, I believe, has written a book on 11g, which means he's had it for quite some time. Get on over there to see a host of articles pertaining to the new release. I'll start with the New Features section, the install, and probably head on over there.


If you want effective source for online wholesale athlete shoes, no doubtly, here is the right place to get reliable and cheap athlete shoes. And it is possible to mix and match and get the volume discount for athlete shoes items purchase.
Over the years DHgate built a solid reputation based on superior quality service and 144 athlete shoes items, which has China top Casual Shoes, Shoes & Accessories suppliers. Furthermore, you can check out our list of athlete running shoes and 36 athlete shoes customer reviews, and buy the top quality shoe, athlete shoes at wholesale prices, free shipping and no taxes.


text:
Home Ideas Philosophy Adolf Hitler and me
Adolf Hitler and me
Details: Parent Category: Ideas	Category: Philosophy	| Published: 30 December 2011 | Hits: 15006
Today Adolf Hitler is the personification of evil.
But without him my parents may never have married and I certainly would not have been conceived in a hospital where my father was recovering from war injuries.
Unless every event prior to our birth happened exactly as they did, none of us would be here to contemplate the incredible unlikelihood of our birth.
Each of us owes our existence to the unique cell that multiplied to become us when it was fertilised, at that exact instant, by a singular unique sperm. The slightest variation in the circumstances of this event and you would not be reading this. You would not exist at all.
Because of the need for this precise event to have happened we are all exquisitely dependent on the exact past that led up to that fertilisation. In the same way our successful birth and our path through life since has been determined by the circumstances and accidents of our lives; in turn resulting in our own children.
Your ancestors
Of course for each of us existence is equally contingent on many other accidents and events in the past. Obviously every one of your ancestors had to exist; each with the same degree of chance and improbability: all four grandparents; eight great-grandparents; 1,048,576 twenty times great grandparents and so on.
This takes your ancestry back about 400 years.
If I go back as far a William the Conqueror the number grows to around five thousand billion; after forty-two generations. Since this is ten thousand times the number of humans on the planet at the time; and I'm definitely not related to everyone; there has been an awful lot of inbreeding by distant cousins going on; probably in a handful of towns or villages. My profile in Genebase.com shows that I am related to quite a lot of humanity within 100 generations; about 73% of their present database; including 12 Afro-Americans and 15 indigenous Americans. A similar ancestry applies to you; and to everyone alive today.
You may think that it is obvious that your parents (and theirs; and theirs; and so on) needed to be just as they were when these copulations led to you. But it is amazing how frequently we hear in popular culture someone say: 'if only my father had not been a drunk who beat my mother'; or 'if only my parents had been wealthy'; or even more weird: 'if my mother had married some other man I would have had a better life'; completely disregarding that in any of these circumstances they would not exist at all.
I have no such complaints. My father was an electrical engineer and an almost model husband; as was his father; and his brother. My mother's family were similarly exemplary; as described elsewhere on this website. My existence and those of my children are therefore directly dependent on the natural scientists that pioneered our knowledge of electricity; and technology in general. But it is not nearly so interesting to attribute one's existence to Newton; or Benjamin Franklin; or Michael Faraday; good people who were motivated by the quest for truth and knowledge; as to the opposite.
Our existence depends equally on the evil doctrines of the past that motivated men like Hitler; Stalin; Napoleon; the Spanish inquisitors; or on the self-serving acts of mass murderers like those that poisoned indigenous people or perpetrated other similar atrocities for profit.
A man who meant well
Often the best intentioned were among the worst killers in history.
One such pivotal man in history was Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, KT, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCIE, ADC, (19 June 1861 – 29 January 1928).
He was another who was essential to my existence. It is certain that without him, and decisions he took, my grandparents would not have had my mother. My Grandfather fought; was gassed; somehow avoided death; and won his Military Medal (in extreme peril), all under Haig's command. My mother was conceived after these events.
Memorial to Field Marshal Douglas Haig, Edinburgh Castle - Military Genius or The Butcher of Flanders Field?
Haig commanded the allied forces at several critical actions during the First World War. He is variously remembered as one of the greatest British soldiers: 'The Master of the Field' and, alternatively, as: 'The Butcher of the Somme' (or the Butcher of Flanders Field).
Haig was certainly a man of fixed opinions who was faced with, for him, an insurmountable learning curve; as the nature of war changed. He was slow to grasp the importance of advances in technology: artillery; machine-guns; barbed wire; and war gas.
Haig was a highly religious man who wrote that he was doing God's work and that his hand was divinely driven. Unfortunately for him the German officers had the same God guiding their hands; somewhat better as it turns out.
At the battle of the Somme the allies, including Australians, suffered 623,907 casualties including 146,431 dead. On the first day, 1 July 1916, the British army suffered 60,000 casualties 'before breakfast'.
Haig went on to command the three battles at Ypres (/ˈiːprə/ [eepra] - but known by the Tommies and Diggers in the trenches, 'Wipers'). In third Battle of Ypres (21 July to 6 November 1917 - also known as the Battle of Passchendaele) British, Canadians, ANZAC, and French forces recaptured a minor strategic objective, the Passchendaele Ridge in three and a half months, at the cost of 310,000 allied and 260,000 German casualties.
When I grew up in Australia, Haig's name was synonymous with British military incompetence; or worse, deliberate and criminal disregard for the lives of our finest young men.
So when Grandma took me to see her name carved into the wall of the Banqueting Hall in the Civic Centre at Newcastle upon Tyne, as a result of her time as Sheriff, I blurted out that it would be more impressive if it was not shared with the 'Butcher of the Somme'.
Freemen of the City of Newcastle
Haig had apparently been made an Honorary Freeman of the City soon after the armistice in 1918. Grandma was truly shocked and scandalised that I thought so little of the great man who had been instrumental in 'winning the war'.
A man who didn't
But there is another angle to this. On the German side a young school dropout, who had variously considered the priesthood and settled instead into the life of a somewhat bohemian artist, felt the stirrings of German patriotism when war was declared. Despite an ailment that initially had him exempted, he partitioned to join the Prussian Army. He became a runner at Ypres where he was wounded and was twice awarded for bravery while still a private soldier; earning the Iron Cross.
This was the award that he later wore proudly as 'Fuhrer of the Third Reich' and commander of the greatest military machine the world had then seen.
Had the battles been conducted differently Hitler may have been killed, possibly by a shell from one of my Grandfather's gun's. Had he not been a war hero he may not have commanded the respect that allowed him to become the leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party and political leader of the Kampfbund, a league of patriotic fighting societies. These largely ex-soldiers held that the German Army was in fact undefeated but had been sabotaged by Marxists together with Jewish bankers and newspaper proprietors; and the corrupt politicians who capitulated at the Armistice. In November 1923 they attempted an uprising against the Weimar Republic in Munich, the Munich Putsch.
The Putsch inevitably failed and Hitler was jailed. He used his time in jail to write a book Mein Kampf (My Struggle) in which he describes his political opinions and how he came to hold them. The book can be read on-line or downloaded from Project Gutenberg Australia.
Hitler dedicates it to the 15 comrades who fell during the Munich uprising.
Today Mein Kampf is regarded to be an anti-Jewish rant of the worst kind and is still banned in many countries. In the preface Hitler writes that one of its purposes is to: 'to destroy the legendary fabrications which the Jewish Press have circulated about me'.
It is well documented that as an artist prior to World War One, many of Hitler's clients for his paintings were wealthy Jews and that he seemed to get on well with them; against the growing anti-Jewish sentiment already gaining popularity.
His anti-Jewish opinions seem to have developed and magnified as a result of the war and possibly as a result of believing that a book: 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion', was genuine. This book originated in Russia as: "The Jewish Programme to Conquer the World", around the end of the 19th century. It is a clever amalgamation of actual Zionist sentiment, based on verifiable sources, and imaginative conspiracy theory. It is thought to have originated with the Russian Secret Police, in support of the widespread Pogroms against the Jews that broke out in Russia in the 1880's.
These attacks on Jews resulted from the extreme religious beliefs of orthodox Christians, to the exclusion of other religions. The Pogroms had an even more violent resurgence between 1903 and 1906 under Tsar Nicholas II, who failed to punish the perpetrators. Some historians believe the Tsar himself to have been behind these later outbreaks. He was certainly a religious fundamentalist who believed in magic and famously in the powers of the mystic healer Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin. Thus many believed that the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, during which the Tsar and his family were executed, was a manifestation and demonstration of a Jewish conspiracy.
In the thirties 'The Protocols' were widely believed to be genuine. For example Wikipedia says that Henry Ford funded printing of 500,000 copies that were distributed throughout the US in the 1920s. It was also widely distributed by the Fascists.
All the while the Vatican was notably silent on the matter and maintained good diplomatic relationships with Mussolini in Italy and, in due course, with Hitler in Germany. Scholars argue about whether ambiguous statements from the Pope (Pius XII) were anti-Jewish, or rather, anti-communist at the time. But it is fair to say that he did speak out against the mass-killing of the disabled and genetically defective and certainty did not sanction mass-killing of any kind.
The First World War is central to Mein Kampf. A central theme is the sacrifice made by Germans in the war, only to be stabbed in the back by forces that he claims to have an international agenda: international Jews; Marxists; Capitalists (the New York Stock Exchange); or to be so degenerate and bourgeois (like the democratic political leaders and Wartime profiteers) that they blindly did the bidding of these more focused, sinister forces (like the Bolsheviks in Russia whom he claims are part of a larger Jewish conspiracy).
While Mein Kampf does not call for the mass annihilation of Jews it does suggest that some prominent Jews should suffer the same fate as did the German troops in the trenches:
' At the beginning of the War, or even during the War, if twelve or fifteen thousand of these Jews who were corrupting the nation had been forced to submit to poison-gas, just as hundreds of thousands of our best German workers from every social stratum and from every trade and calling had to face it in the field, then the millions of sacrifices made at the front would not have been in vain. On the contrary: If twelve thousand of these malefactors had been eliminated in proper time probably the lives of a million decent men, who would be of value to Germany in the future, might have been saved. But it was in accordance with bourgeois 'statesmanship' to hand over, without the twitch of an eyelid, millions of human beings to be slaughtered on the battlefields, while they looked upon ten or twelve thousand public traitors, profiteers, usurers and swindlers, as the dearest and most sacred national treasure and proclaimed their persons to be inviolable.'
Hitler sees a world dominated by struggle for race survival: 'Man has become great through perpetual struggle'. Ultimately he predicts there will be a crisis of territory:
'Races which are culturally superior but less ruthless would be forced to restrict their increase, because of insufficient territory to support the population, while less civilized races could increase indefinitely, owing to the vast territories at their disposal. In other words: should that state of affairs continue, then the world will one day be possessed by that portion of mankind which is culturally inferior but more active and energetic.'
He claims that modern democracies perpetuate this by giving voice to the weak and that racial purity was being corrupted by allowing internal colonisation by weaker races.
This kind of racial thinking was already strong throughout Europe and is clearly evident in British and American writing in the 1920's. In Germany Friedrich Nietzsche was popular in the bohemian world of Hitler's youth and some of his work can be interpreted to support Hitler's racial and anti-Semitic beliefs. But it is said that Hitler was more 'deeply and fundamentally' inspired by the composer Richard Wagner, particularly his last opera Parsifal.
When I went to school in the 1950's in Australia several of our teachers had fought in the first war; including the Headmaster who taught 6th class who bore a hip injury; shrapnel from a shell. We could often divert his attention from some boring topic by asking about the war; and instead learn about strafing boats on the Nile with a Vickers machine gun or some other interesting bit of trivia.
At his knee we learnt about the mass slaughter of the flower of Australian youth. I can still be reduced to tears by the War Memorial in Sydney or Canberra. We were encouraged to blame this incomprehensible slaughter on: imperialism; an interrelated, inbred, bunch of royal families and their internecine politics; and the sheer incompetence of British military leadership.
Hitler appeals to exactly the same sentiment in Mein Kampf but he blames it on the Jews.
A man who knew not what he did
Bertrand Russell in his History of Western Philosophy argues that the stream of philosophy that was embraced by Nietzsche and Wagner has its roots in the romanticism of Lord Byron; the English/Scottish poet who was disgraced and expelled from England for allegedly siring a child by his married half-sister; and who was the father of Ada Lovelace, now recognised as a pioneer of computer programming. Thereafter Byron had a major influence on continental and particularly German philosophy.
Without these earlier accidents of history Hitler may never have written Mein Kampf.
That Mein Kampf immediately struck a chord with many Germans in the aftermath of the First World War, and in this atmosphere of German nationalism, can be seen from the many newsreel records from the period showing the celebrity and adulation that Hitler commanded.
The book was an almost instant bestseller. Some 260,000 copies were sold before Hitler came to power; enabling him to repay debts from his trial and buy a Mercedes car while still in jail. He was soon released.
The book proves the adage that 'the pen is mightier than the sword'. Just seven years after publication Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany.
After he became Chancellor, then Fuhrer, it is estimated that a further ten million copies were produced.
The tumultuous events of the 'Weimar' years, prior to Hitler's appointment as Chancellor are another story; vastly documented in the media and on the web.
But two elements helped Hitler's rise to power: solid working Germans, Hitler's power-base, were scandalised by the 'degenerate behaviour' of those in power, in particular at the libertarian recreations of the demimonde of Berlin, as described by Christopher Isherwood in his Berlin Stories; and the collapse of the economy of the Weimar Republic, that had been imposed on Germany by the allies after the war in 1919.
To demonstrate the scale of this collapse: in January 1921 one US dollar cost seven Marks; by 1923 one US dollar cost 4.2 billion Marks. The resulting unemployment hit 'working Germans' badly.
The so called 'moral collapse' was accelerated by this downward path of the Mark. Prostitution became rampant; simply to survive. It was said that 'a dalliance with a 15 year old in Berlin cost no more than 30 US cents' at this time (I owe this to Mel Gordon's book 'Voluptuous Panic').
As many of the bankers and foreign capitalists blamed for this economic situation; and artists blamed for moral collapse; were Jewish, or had Jewish names, it was easy for Hitler to ascribe this 'depravity' to their deliberate intent.
The Weimar years were recently the subject of a series of art exhibitions in Sydney titled 'Mad Square' encompassing Expressionism, DADA, Bauhaus, Constructivism, and eroticism (much of it fetishistic, homosexual and bisexual). It was from these art and social movements that Hitler chose examples of degenerate art that he claimed demonstrated the general decline in cultural values. Much of it was subsequently destroyed during the Reich; along with many books that were also labelled 'degenerate' or 'depraved'. Book and art burnings became symbolic of his rise to power. It's one of the reasons that today we do not approve of book burning, or banning, and its slightly shocking that Hitler's book has suffered the same fate in some places.
Once in power Hitler's domestic and foreign policies centred on gaining Lebensraum (living space) for the Germanic races. Germany rearmed, building a vast modern and efficient war machine, and set about 'unification' with, or conquering, neighbouring territories. Citizens identified as 'racially degenerate', such as Jews and Gypsies and anyone with a genetic disease, were first marginalised and then purged; very large numbers being rounded up and systematically put to death.
It is estimated that as a result of Hitler as many as fourteen million people lost their lives.
And so to you and me
I am obviously not arguing that mass murder is a good thing because without it you, like me, would not exist.
Rather I want to encompass the whole past as the very fabric from which we arose; with all its evil doctrines and wars; along with all its fine acts of self sacrifice and charity; artistic insights and creativity; together with the successful uncovering of truths about our universe.
My choice of Hitler is 'close to home' for me, and particularly well documented, but I could equally have focused on the history of Scotland; the Spanish Inquisition; or Lord Byron.
Like a personal tartan, the past before our birth is our special fabric because had the smallest thread been different or the slightest bit out of place it would not have us to observe it; someone else perhaps.
When you think about it this goes for the entire universe. The subtlest of changes just a few million years ago would have meant that no humans would be here at all to wonder at its mysteries. This is the most fundamental prerequisite for your universe; and mine.
I find it endlessly fascinating.
I don't think that there is any flaw in the argument that we are each dependent for our very existence, and therefore our ability to observe the universe, on the exact events that preceded our birth.
But this has some interesting consequences. Many of these have been the topic of much philosophical and theological debate.
If, for example, you like some, believe that you have a special relationship with a god and can converse with or at least send a message to that god in prayer, then do you also believe that you were destined by that god to exist? Perhaps you don't think that you are so important but you might believe that certain prophets were.
The implication of such a belief is that all that went before you, or perhaps Mohammad, Jesus, Ezekiel, Moses or the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) was irrevocably required; and that the decisions made by everyone in the prehistory of that event were necessarily ordained.
Thus the decisions made by Napoleon to attack Russia or to escape from Elba, that he thought were his own, were in fact required by your god, down to the last detail of his life, in order that you and, if you have them, your children exist to interact with your god.
Similarly your god arranged that all of history happened as it did: Hitler, Stalin and Slobodan Milošević are part of his/her deliberate creation in order that children born today exist.
This is not a new idea. It has long been argued by theologians and supports the the claim for the Judeo-Christian God's omnipotence and omniscience. But as pointed out by its critics it also implies that criminals and sinners are not ultimately responsible for their actions; as their actions were ordained as a necessary part of creation. Judas was required to betray Jesus so that he might die for our sins.
Extending this idea implies that no one has 'free will'. I had to behave exactly as I did: in school; and university; and at work; and socially; and in private; and all the interactions an apparent accidents of my life had to be just so; in order that my children would come into existence.
This is a serious problem for theologians: either everything is ordained and even when sinning one is following God's plan; or God has largely stepped out of the picture, perhaps after the initial creation, and limits his/her interventions to a bit of judicious weeding; tilling and/or replanting according to whim. These grand interventions may be perceived by us as lightening strikes; natural disasters; meteor impacts; planitary extinction events; supernova; and so on.
While there are non-religious arguments for the view that the universe already exists in space and throughout time, related to Einstein's incorporation of time into a space-time continuum (see Free Will, Certainty and Uncertainty on this website), that the future is already determined runs counter to common sense; and our everyday belief in our own volition (ability to choose).
Some philosophers, mathematicians and physicists argue that the universe is at its fundamental level, as described by quantum mechanics, is unpredictable and random; that the global appearance of predictability, as described in physical laws, is a higher order phenomenon. In this case the same starting initial conditions may not always result in the same outcome. So it is possible that complex but apparently entirely physical things, like a meteor impact, may or may not happen; unpredictably. This may then provide an explanation for Free Will.
From my perspective my children are the the direct or indirect outcome of my considered and deliberate actions; even if one thing did lead to another. But from their perspective they would not exist to perceive the universe unless I, and their mother, had behaved exactly as we did; we are a necessary part of their fabric of existence.
As a result, if we reject the view that everything is ordained, and prefer to think that we make choices, we are obliged to believe in a universe in which the future is entirely contingent on the day-to-day actions of humans. Its present was in the hands of our ancestors.
That we are here is therefore entirely accidental; even though it is almost infinitely improbable. This same improbability encompasses every human, past and present, on the planet.
In this view, the future may also depend on any animal that has volition (makes a choice) such as: the dog that bites; the cat that scratches; the horse that throws; as these interactions are constantly changing the course of human decision making.
While some philosophers, like Descartes, have argued that no animal, except humans, has the ability to make such choices; that other animals are simply reacting predictably to a situation; this seems unlikely when a chimp can be shown to out-think a human on certain tasks. Either a chimp makes considered choices or a human does not. And what's so special about humans anyway?
This impact on the future may encompass other living things that we interact with; like those that do not seem to have volition but may nevertheless behave unpredictably such as: the bee that stings; the weed that grows; or the bacteria that infects. Thus it may be that a characteristic of living things, as opposed to the inanimate, is our ability to change the future; or possibly everything subject to quantum uncertainty is constantly on the verge of a different future?
There was a time when we might have regarded our influence on the future to be limited to future human events, at arms length from the actual greater universe, but now human actions are depleting planetary resources; impacting on its climate; extending to other planets; and beyond the solar system itself. We still, with good reason, regard and earthquake, tsunami or cyclone to be the work of nature (or God), beyond human influence or control, but we are more doubtful about a lightening strike; bushfire; loss of top-soil; epidemic; plague; or climate change.
In contemplating the perceived uniqueness of this present; and its apparent dependence on the actions of mankind; some philosophers have proposed that all alternative scenarios do in fact exist, in different parallel universes, but we only experience the universe that happens to have us in it. But then why do I have the sense that the choices I made in life had only one set of consequences? Why don't I perceive all the universes with me in them, for example when I decide to take a sip of coffee, or not; or on a grander scale, with different partners and children?
There are several extended discussions of these issues on this website - seek them out using the search function.
Julian Assange's Endgame
A facebook friend has sent me this link 'Want to Know Julian Assange's Endgame? He Told You a Decade Ago' (by Andy Greenberg, that appeared in WIRED in Oct 2016) and I couldn't resist bringing it to your attention.
To read it click on this image from the article:
Image (cropped): MARK CHEW/FAIRFAX MEDIA/GETTY IMAGES
Assange is an Australian who has already featured in several articles on this website:
Six degrees of separation, conspiracy and wealth;
In Defence of Secrecy; and
More Julian Assange.
/uh'merrjuhnsee, ee-/.
noun, plural emergencies.
1. an unforeseen occurrence; a sudden and urgent occasion for action.
Recent calls for action on climate change have taken to declaring that we are facing a 'Climate Emergency'.
This concerns me on a couple of levels.
The first seems obvious. There's nothing unforseen or sudden about our present predicament.
My second concern is that 'emergency' implies something short lived. It gives the impression that by 'fire fighting against carbon dioxide' or revolutionary action against governments, or commuters, activists can resolve the climate crisis and go back to 'normal' - whatever that is. Would it not be better to press for considered, incremental changes that might avoid the catastrophic collapse of civilisation and our collective 'human project' or at least give it a few more years sometime in the future?
Back in 1990, concluding my paper: Issues Arising from the Greenhouse Hypothesis I wrote:
We need to focus on the possible.
An appropriate response is to ensure that resource and transport efficiency is optimised and energy waste is reduced. Another is to explore less polluting energy sources. This needs to be explored more critically. Each so-called green power option should be carefully analysed for whole of life energy and greenhouse gas production, against the benchmark of present technology, before going beyond the demonstration or experimental stage.
Much more important are the cultural and technological changes needed to minimise World overpopulation. We desperately need to remove the socio-economic drivers to larger families, young motherhood and excessive personal consumption (from resource inefficiencies to long journeys to work).
Climate change may be inevitable. We should be working to climate "harden" the production of food, ensure that public infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams, hospitals, utilities and so) on are designed to accommodate change and that the places people live are not excessively vulnerable to drought, flood or storm. [I didn't mention fire]
Only by solving these problems will we have any hope of finding solutions to the other pressures human expansion is imposing on the planet. It is time to start looking for creative answers for NSW and Australia now.
Since my retirement Wendy and I have done quite a bit of travel, often these days to less 'touristy' places, although that's just a matter of degree. After all we're tourists and we were there. On occasion we've revisited old haunts after a decade or so absence.
Everywhere we go there is one thing in common with our home in Australia: there are a lot more people than there were a decade or so back. Everywhere we go there is evidence of resource depletion, particularly water resources, and environmental degradation. Everywhere we go new dwellings have spread like a cancer across once green fields.and forests. Concrete forests now stand where humble dwellings or open fields once were.
It's no good blaming our parents, the underlying causes of the many environmental challenges we face go back the start of the 19th century and the Industrial Revolution when no longer were the great masses of humanity the children of farm labourers, serfs, slaves or servants serving a small cultured elite.
With industry came systematic applied science, engineering, and improved medical understanding. Now workers needed new skills and had to be educated. With education came many benefits, including independent volition, and improved living conditions. Death rates declined; fertility improved. By the end of the 19th century world population had more than doubled its pre-industrial record, reaching 1.6 billion. But then it really took off.
By the mid 20th century many informed commentators were getting alarmed and calling for population restraint.
In 1968 the world human population had topped 3.5 billion, over a billion since the end of World War 2.
That year Professor Paul Ehrlich, of Stanford University in the US, published The Population Bomb correctly warning that: 'hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.' Critics claimed that he was alarmist, yet very soon 260 of every thousand babies born in Zambia were dying due to malnutrition before their first birthday. In Pakistan the number was 140 per thousand (source: The Limits to Growth).
In the same year concerned scientists in Europe formed The Club of Rome. Three years later the Club published 'The Limits to Growth', the results of a state-of-the-art, yet primitive, multi-factorial computer model that projected the impacts on food consumption/production; pollution and the cost of reduction; energy resources; and non-renewable industrial minerals, of unrestrained exponential population growth. The model forecast multiple disastrous consequences early in the 21st century. The authors feared no less than anarchy, driven by food and resource riots, and the total collapse of civilisation. The final sentence reads: 'The crux of the matter is not only whether the human species will survive, but even more whether the human species can survive without falling into a state of worthless existence.'
My copy of The Limits to Growth
Only a few paid any heed. Several of these were later described as the 'Asian Tigers'.
Singapore's Stop at Two policy
From 1972 Singaporeans were encouraged to have two child families
- incentives included payment for sterilisation and public housing for married couples without children
- disincentives included precluding couples with more than two children from applying for public benefits
The result was a decline in fertility from 4.7 in 1960 to 1.7 in 1980
Although the campaign stressed the need for girls, as in China, cultural factors resulted in a preponderance of boys
- an ongoing social and economic problem
Nevertheless, Singapore has gone from a struggling third-world country to become the fourth richest country in the world (1)
On the other hand, since independence in 1947 India's population has grown sixfold
- India will soon overtake China as the world's most populous country - visit and compare
Critics of The Club of Rome, like Herman Kahn, of the Hudson Institute, cried: 'garbage in gospel out', a popular objection to computer modelling at the time, and lo, the Club's projections were soon proven to be overly pessimistic. In the 1970's science came to the aid of mankind. New crops were developed and there was a 'green revolution'; new processes and products improved efficiency and new mining technologies, like remote sensing from aircraft and satellites, together with new extractive methods, like deep-sea oilwells and 'fracking', redefined resource availability. In first world countries rivers and air was cleaned up and pollution ceased to be our number one concern.
The Hudson Institute's Herman Kahn's riposte - one of many
The Hudson Institute was later employed by the NSW Government to help plan the State's future
- no mention of global warning
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief - we didn't have to do anything. The religious among us were right: God, or the Gods, had it all in hand - it was all part of 'The Plan'. It was business as usual.
Yet today, the Club of Rome's foremost prediction: that unless we did something, by 2020 world population would reach eight billion has proven alarmingly prescient. And Paul Ehrlich's predictions are also vindicated.
In 2013 a Global Hunger Summit in London(2) was told that: 'Malnutrition is the underlying cause of death for at least 3.1 million children [per year], accounting for 45% of all deaths among children under the age of five and stunting growth among a further 165 million [children].'
Although they factored in 'pollution' as a general concern, the research team behind The Limits to Growth said, or knew, nothing about the specific threat of carbon dioxide. Was this an oversight?
With our new skills scientists now have ice-cores, containing entrapped air bubbles, that go back half a million years. These show a close correlation between global temperature and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The highest level ever was around 300 thousand years ago, when it was much warmer and carbon dioxide reached 300 parts per million.
Because of man's multifarious activities, including agriculture, the atmosphere broke that half million year record in the 1950's and we have been in uncharted territory ever since. While correlation does not necessarily denote causation, and it's still not as warm as it was back then, I find it rather alarming. Read my paper: Climate Change - a Myth?
It seems highly probable that climate change is at least in part due to the current mouse-plague that we call humanity: clearing forests; digging up the ground; building things; making stuff soon to go to garbage tips; consuming resources without concern for the future and, of course, burning things.
How long can this go on? I hope there will be a deus ex machina, that some, as yet unknown, aspect of quantum science, genetic engineering and/or nuclear energy will save us. Failing that, I hope that current civilisation will outlast my grandchildren and perhaps theirs? One glimmer of hope is the declining fertility in first-world countries as more women have careers beyond motherhood and living standards improve. Yet as I pointed out in 1990 this would consume far more energy than the third world has to hand. Is it now a case of too little too late?
I won't be around to know.
As the The Club of Rome pointed out, and should be obvious to 'Blind Freddy', the indefinite exponential growth, that our economies are addicted to, is unsustainable. 'Soon or later,' as Alice remarked about drinking from a bottle marked 'poison': 'it's bound to disagree with you'.


Please note this request is not guaranteed and is based upon availability of staff or events previously scheduled at the college. All tour request will be followed up by a phone call, from a college representative along with a confirmation letter. The confirmation letter will include your confirmed tour date and time, a campus map, and contact information for you tour guide.


In the heart of Ballston, discover a gorgeous FULLY FURNISHED two bedroom and two full bath condo with glass enclosed sunroom and open floorplan. Finely appointed kitchen with granite countertops and stainless appliances. Pergo hardwood flooring throughout. Washer/dryer in unit. Outdoor pool & grills. The condo comes with an assigned oversized garage parking space. Rent includes gas/electricity/water! Steps to the Ballston Metro, shopping, dining options, a lively farmers market, and the popular W&OD trail.


7.24.010 Authority of courts to render.
7.24.020 Rights and status under written instruments, statutes, ordinances.
7.24.050 General powers not restricted by express enumeration.
7.24.060 Refusal of declaration where judgment would not terminate controversy.
7.24.090 Determination of issues of fact.
7.24.110 Parties—City as party—Attorney general to be served, when.
7.24.146 Application of chapter—Validation of proceedings.
7.24.190 Court may stay proceedings and restrain parties.
Rules of court: Cf. CR 57.


text:
Crypto.com is struggling, but it won't follow FTX
Over the past week, the CRO token has been for Crypto.com it has decreased by nearly 45%. This was due to fears that the Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange would be the next to face a liquidity crunch after the FTX bankruptcy.
In fact, the daily exchange volume has dropped from its highs of around $4 billion last year to around $284 million last October. Withdrawals continue to increase as users and investors remove their funds from the platform.
However, Crypto.com CEO Chris Marsalek stepped in to reassure investors, saying:
"Expect a tough cryptocurrency winter, but Crypto.com isn't going anywhere."
Why Crypto.com Is Safe, Words Of The Company's CEO
After concerns grew about the potential collapse of Crypto.com, Marszalek was called in to intervene.
In fact, in an interview yesterday, the CEO of Crypto.com confirmed that the exchange has a strong balance sheet and mentioned that exposure to FTP extension It was limited to 10 million dollars.
Specifically added:
"We have recovered $990 million from FTX, and inter-exchange fund flows are a necessary part of the business."
So, according to Marsalek, you don't have to worry, given the fact that that is croCrypto.com's token, was never used as collateral for a loan, unlike the relationship between FTX and Alameda and FTX's token, FTT.
Moreover, Crypto.com is relieving alarms over the weekend about a massive transfer of Ethereum On a rival company, the spotlight has been shed on a potential default, with a rush of withdrawals.
The CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com said the company is ready to show there is no problem ahead: the balance sheet is strong and that no risk has been taken.
Concerns about the CRO token: Here's what happened
Some of the market's mistrust of Crypto.com may stem from the recent incident of 400 million dollars The ETH was accidentally sent to an account on an exchange called Gate.io.
Not only that, the Wall Street Journal reported massive withdrawals from Crypto.com over the weekend. With the exchange's CRO token crash, there was speculation that users were dumping the token and/or that the company was selling tokens on the market for crypto or cash to fulfill withdrawal requests.
CEO Chris Marsalek answered some clarifying questions on YouTube via livestream regarding the panic that spread yesterday on Twitter over the faltering of the stock exchange, which is one of the top ten in the world in terms of trading volume.
Marsalek said:
We will prove them wrong about our actions. We will continue to work as we have always done and be the safe place for everyone to access cryptocurrency."
In addition, the reserve audit report will be released within weeks, the company's CEO confirmed.
Marsalik clarified that all addresses for these scale transfers are whitelisted and approved. The destination address was Gate.io's corporate account for Crypto.com, and the money was returned after Gate.io increased the company's account's daily transfer limit.
In the interview, Marsaclid asserts:
The money was not in danger of being lost. The system will not allow us to send money to a place where it cannot be recovered. Their allegations are unfounded."
Specifically, Marsalek is speaking to detractors of Crypto.com, saying he can't wait to prove them wrong not just with words, but more importantly with actions.
Marsalek also explained that Crypto.com has 70 million individual customers worldwide and generated $1 billion in revenue in 2021 and 2022.
Also, it is important to note that the Crypto.com panic came at a time when the cryptocurrency market was already in equilibrium, with the FTX crash last week. In fact, FTX has gone from being one of the largest exchanges in the world to being one of the largest exchanges in the world declare bankruptcy.
Crypto.com: Some interesting things about the giant global stock exchange
Crypto.com has a certain story behind it. In fact, before the platform was among the top ten exchanges globally, albeit smaller than FTX and market leader Binance, the platform made headlines in 2021.
Specifically, after registration A deal worth $700 million To rebrand Los Angeles' Staples Center as Crypto.com Arena. In fact, the home of the Lakers changed its name in favor of Crypto.com, with the most lucrative "naming rights" deal in American sports history.
Founded in 2016, the Singaporean cryptocurrency company has always been a huge investor in sports, especially in recent years. In fact, Crypto.com has signed deals with Formula 1, UFC, Major League Soccer, Paris St.
All this has contributed to increasing the prestige of one of the most famous and respected stock exchanges in the world which, as the CEO has pointed out, certainly cannot now collapse despite the market's difficulties.
Is Marsalik really right? Will Crypto.com survive the harsh crypto winter unscathed?
This is what investors are especially hoping for, as Crypto.com, from its founding until today, has always been committed to making cryptocurrencies more accessible to everyone. In fact, its goal is to increase the use and dissemination of digital assets in people's daily lives.
This is why we partnered with Visa, the global traditional finance giant, through which we created crypto debit cards that allow you to pay in cryptocurrencies and convert coins into traditional currencies.
Moreover, despite recent concerns, Crypto.com is one of the most secure, reliable and robust platforms on the market, with around ten million users worldwide.
Category: CRYPTO


text:
Tag Archives: captain sensible
Features, Milestones
"Damned Damned Damned" by The Damned: A Debut @ 4 Decades (1977-2017)
February 18, 2017 Ken Pierce	Leave a comment
So back in October I did a quick little "Music Milestone" for the debut single by The Damned with "New Rose"; it's an amazing tune and one that had held up over the years. You can review that summary on THIS LINK in case you haven't seen it yet. I decided to do this because I was all amped up about seeing the band in concert for the very first time. Yeah it happens and you cannot always see everyone. I was just glad that I got the chance – AND I went to both shows so was feeling double special about the experience. All of that leads us to today where the bands official debut album "Damned, Damned, Damned" has reached its own 40th Anniversary. In 1977 I was far too young to be listening to this sort of stuff and I would get into some of what the band was doing during my high school years. The interesting thing about my own exposure was that I would first hear a song called "Jet Boy, Jet Girl" which was a cover by another artist and then slowly make my way into "Machine Gun Etiquette" and then onto this particular debut release. So, I cannot really speak about its overall impact on me other than sharing what I liked about it so here goes nothing.
Continue reading "Damned Damned Damned" by The Damned: A Debut @ 4 Decades (1977-2017) →
brian jamescaptain sensibledamned damned damneddave vaniandebut albumsmusic milestonesnick lowerat scabiesstiff recordsthe damned
The Damned: Live Photos @ Gramercy Theatre (10/29/2016)
November 10, 2016 Ken Pierce	Leave a comment
The Damned were in NYC for two nights celebrating their 40th Anniversary and I am excited to share that we were there for both shows in terms of review and photography. Night #1 was given an in-depth overview by our own Steve Bunche and that narrative can be examined on THIS LINK. Now here is the photo gallery from this particular night.
The Damned by Ken Pierce (2016)
Continue reading The Damned: Live Photos @ Gramercy Theatre (10/29/2016) →
40th anniversary tourcaptain sensibledave vaniangramercy theatrelive concert photosmonty oxy moronpinchstu westthe damnedthe damned concert photos
Event Reviews, Reviews
The Damned @ Gramercy Theatre (10/29/2016)
November 10, 2016 Steve Bunche	Leave a comment
Artist: The Damned
Venue: Gramercy Theatre (New York, NY)
Opener: n/a
Label: English Channel Records
Written By: Steve Bunche
"NEAT, NEAT, NEAT!!! 40 YEARS OF THE DAMNED AT THE GRAMERCY THEATRE"
Where to even start when discussing the Damned?
One of the seminal bands of the early British punk movement, the Damned always stood out from their safety pin-and-Doc Marten's-sporting contemporaries in a number of ways, such as eschewing the era's Mohawk and swastika fashion for markedly individual ridiculousness (singer Dave Vanian's silly-yet-elegant Edwardian vampire chic and Guitarist Captain Sensible's red beret, sunglasses, nurse's uniform and occasional complete and utter nudity spring to mind), possessing a sense of humor, shamelessly allowing the beautiful voice of its singer to dominate the proceedings — seriously, Dave Vanian is blessed with one of pop music's most singular, evocative, and beautiful vocal deliveries — and a flair for actual musicianship that flew in the face of British punk's famous "any arsehole can pick up a guitar and bang out three chords" attitude.
While the majority of their contemporaries fizzled out like a fart in a thunderstorm, largely due to their cookie-cutter sameness and embarrassing (though well-intentioned) amateurishness, the Damned visibly grew and evolved from album to album, refining their sound from its rough-edged origins of four decades past into the tight, wholly professional and enthralling unit that endures to this day, despite numerous personnel upheavals and the criminally offensive ignoring that they receive from pretty much all but those in the know. Undaunted by such shabby treatment, the Damned have once more returned, this time to mark their forty years of merrily purveying polished mayhem to their loyal followers (and not one of their periodic so-called farewell tours) with an anniversary tour that recently brought them to NYC's venerable Gramercy venue, a former vintage movie palace that now serves as an unpretentious concert space that's mercifully free of the plague of hipster types that have infested what remains of the Big Apple's dwindling old school punk scene.
Continue reading The Damned @ Gramercy Theatre (10/29/2016) →
40th anniversary tourcaptain sensibledave vaniangramercy theatremonty oxy moronpinchstu westthe damned
"New Rose"; The Damned's Debut Single Is 40 (1986-2016)
Now since I've been doing these "Music Milestones" for several years now, it dawned upon me that every so often the need might arise to do a specific song's anniversary. This is especially important for those songs that ended up being absolutely iconic and preceded a full body of musical work by several months. The song "New Rose" by The Damned is such a song and it was released forty years ago today on Stiff Records. The band's full length debut album would be released in the middle of February during the following 1987 year. The song is a fast-paced one with thundering drums by Rat Scabies along with frenetic guitar by Captain Sensible. Singer Dave Vanian leads us into the tune with the words "Is She Really Going Out With Him". I guess you can consider this a kind of love song but if it's not that's fine since the tune kicks some ass and still does forty years later.
Though I didn't know this until only recently, the song is actually the very first single to be released by a British Punk Rock band and that was a pretty cool fact. It was written by bassist Brian James and produced by Nick Lowe with a B-side of a cover of "Help" originally done by The Beatles. The tune bears very little sonic resemblance to that of the Fab Four.
Continue reading "New Rose"; The Damned's Debut Single Is 40 (1986-2016) →
album anniversariesbrian jamescaptain sensibledave vaniandebut albumsmusic milestonesnew rosenick lowerat scabiesthe damned
The Damned @ Fillmore at Irving Plaza (5/14/2009)
May 20, 2009 Steve Bunche	Leave a comment
The Damned are one of the music world's most interesting Punk acts. At times their material borderlined on Metal and this was an aspect that I found very appealing as a young fan of music. Tonight they would be performing at The Fillmore NY at Irving Plaza and our own El Buncho was on point to see how it was going to turn out. To learn his thoughts about the gig and to enjoy a couple of photos just scroll past the bands logo below
BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO-THE DAMNED, LIVE AT THE FILLMORE, 5/14/2009
The Damned by Steve Bunche (2009)
The Damned: one of the seminal bands in the original UK punk rock movement, the first to release a single, and one of the longest-lived of their breed. I've greatly enjoyed them since first encountering their music in 1985 — I admit being late to the party — and have seen them perform live six times between 1988 and the present, but one thing that needs to be said about the Damned is that when they're firing on all cylinders there are few bands, live or in the studio, who can touch them for kickass tunes, clever and fun lyrics, exceptional vocals — frontman Dave Vanian has one of the finest sets of pipes in rock history, let alone punk — and the raucous sense of energy that make old school punk such a blast in the first place. However, when they're mediocre or just plain bad, there are few bands less worth listening to, and in many ways they can be held responsible for taking the whole Goth thing into the mainstream with the frilly-shirt theatrics of their "new romantic" PHANTASMAGORIA album back in 1985. Even as a sworn fan of the group it's possible to be polarized by their output, and following the results of their most recent album and the live show I saw on Thursday night at Manhattan's Fillmore, my twenty-four-year love affair with the Damned is finally over.
Continue reading The Damned @ Fillmore at Irving Plaza (5/14/2009) →
captain sensibleconcert reviewsdave vanianfillmore at irving plazanyc concertsnyc metal showsrat scabiesthe damned
Hasbro's Massive Unicron Transformers Figure Revealed
Helloween @ The Downtown (1/16/2004)
Team Rock Declares Bankruptcy: Metal Hammer Magazine and More Cancelled


Good Morning, Afternoon and Evening ALL! Enjoy your Sunday and prepare to have an awesome week!!!!Stay singing on today…you are special…you are loved and you are blessed!
Let's celebrate today by doing all we can to conserve water, enjoy it, and be a blessing to those who do not have it …if possible…and pray for those who do not have it….Be thankful… be grateful…be prayerful ….live love and be blessed! Happy World Water Day!
If you are looking for some delicious chocolates that are GMO free, Vegan, Gluten free and Organic you must check out the links below. I never thought I'd say this but I got a sample box using my surprise dash button I purchased from Amazon and boy am I glad I did. I can get one box a month, soothe my sweet tooth and not feel guilty about it.
Please leave your links in the comments so I can get to know you all better, support what your working on, and grow ourselves in business and friendship.
Here is a link to my outlets….Feel free to explore them and give input!
A Couple of Links to Mention all wandasncredible updates!
What do you know about Alberta King???
I love this topic and the question…reading is essential to a child's growth! Moms don't beat yourself up…If you lack time buy the book and watch the youtube with them too…then the can watch it on their own and have double reading action going on! Hope that makes sense lol Blessings!
I think I've been lacking lately. I've been so wrapped up in writing and in reading my own books that are more often than not completely inappropriate for my kids, that I haven't taken the time to sit down and read to them near as much as I should! I may be wallowing in my guilt as I drink my coffee this morning.
So today I'm giving myself a challenge to make up for my crapiness in parenting. Because honestly what kind of mother can call herself a writer and a lover of books when she hasn't read to her kids in like two weeks!! I feel awful!
I met Michael during my nursing shifts as a student last week of October 2007. In fact, it was one of my best experiences because I studied and prepared well for that one-week hospital exposure. I badly wanted to become a cardiologist or a cardiothoracic surgeon. Aside from that, I also wanted to become a Gynecologist, Psychologist, Psychiatrist, or a Forensic Psychiatrist. I was happy then because I performed well and had answered right all the questions that were given to me.
During that experience, I met him. He wasn't the handsomest person in my eyes, we only had something in common, which is to become a doctor (we bonded so much over that) and he's the one who approached and made friends with me. I'm not the kind of person who falls for a guy because they're good looking. There should be more.
Here we are for Day 4 of our 30DWC. Well, lets get to it!
Day 4 | Write about someone who inspires you.
I could say a couple different people honestly, but I'll keep this post simple. For me someone inspiring isn't about how much you do or how big of a success you are. It is also about WHO they are and how beautiful of a person you are as well. I have that come to mind and I want to talk about them.
What a post! Now I cannot wait to see this series and to get a copy of the book!
After watching the Amazon series, "Z: The Beginning of Everything," I couldn't wait to get my hands on the book. The two-day wait for my paperback copy of Terese Fowler's novel, Z: The Beginning of Everything, nearly drove me crazy. Having binge watched the entire season of the Amazon series in two days, I couldn't wait to find out how the magical love story of Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald would play out.


text:
OECD Home GambiaFishing for Coherence in West Africa: Policy Coherence in the Fisheries Sector in Seven West African Countries
Fishing for Coherence in West Africa: Policy Coherence in the Fisheries Sector in Seven West African Countries
Fisheries represent up to 30% of state budget revenues in West African countries and employ 7 million people in West and Central Africa. If the sector is to develop, or simply continue to exist at present levels, a number of policy challenges will have to be addressed. The number of issues is vast, ranging from illiteracy to EU trade policy.
The Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC) and the OECD Fisheries Division is working with regional organisations to help them address the question of policy coherence. This book provides not only an analytical framework adapted to the local context, but also an action framework based on the facts and realities in the field in order to improve the coherence of fisheries policies.
The Executive Summary is available for further information on this publication.
OECD Code 532008011P1
How to obtain this publication
Readers can access the full version of Fishing for Coherence in West Africa by the following options:
Subscribers and readers at subscribing institutions can access the online edition via SourceOECD, our online library.
Non-subscribers can purchase the PDF e-book and/or paper copy via our Online Bookshop.
Government officials with accounts (subscribe) can go to the "Books" tab on OLIS.
Access by password for accredited journalists
Globalisation and Fisheries: Proceedings of an OECD-FAO Workshop