On the second anniversary of Myanmar's 2015 landmark election, The Irrawaddy revisits this shortened interview with the then chairman of the Union Election Commission U Tin Aye with Kyaw Zwa Moe published in the August 2015 magazine issue. Video of the full interview split into two parts is embedded in the text.
Mr. Chairman, it is fair to say that two of three elections since 1988 were not a success. The results of the 1990 vote were not recognized. The 2010 election was deemed flawed. But the 2012 by-election, which you organized, was given a certain degree of credit. What will you do to make sure the 2015 election receives the same kind of recognition?
Myanmar has very limited knowledge and experience of elections. There had been only four [full, multiparty] elections—in 1952, 1956, 1960 and 1990—before the 2010 election.
Judging the previous elections against my personal norms for an ideal election, they are not ones that elected outstanding and morally good people to represent the people.
The first three polls took place during periods of anarchy. In the 1990 election, people cast their votes for a party because they did not like the other option. In the 2010 election, there was essentially only one party, which was backed by the previous government and therefore had lots of handicaps.
correct the mistakes and keep doing more to ensure the right things are better and more relevant.
Do you hope the forthcoming election will be as credible or even more so than the 2012 by-election?
Sure, it must be. Where the 2012 by-election was different from the 2010 election was in the matter of widespread advance voting [in 2010]. I have records in my hands about how many individuals from which parties won the election with how many advance votes.
How will you prevent such things in 2015?
I have prevented them since the 2012 by-election. Speaking of advance votes, I should really thank my seniors. They were far-sighted, because advance voting ensures that voters do not lose their rights.
There are two kinds of advance votes. One is for constituents in a constituency. It can be given by those who will be traveling on voting day and the elderly and ill persons who cannot go to polling stations to cast votes. The ward-level chapters of the UEC go to their places, even if they are behind bars or in hospitals, and take their ballots in envelopes. This is how advance votes are cast in constituencies.
When we get those advance votes in our hands, we have to make a list of those who cast the votes. We have a form to record them. Then we have to hand over the boxes of advance ballots before 6 am, when polling stations are opened. Advance votes that are handed in after 6 am are invalid. I have instructed that when the polling stations are closed in the evening, the advance votes must be counted first and the list must be hung on the wall of the polling station, because I fear that there will be voting irregularities to do with taking advantage of advance votes. For example, if there are 100 advance votes and the list of which votes have gone to whom is hung on the wall, there can't be cheating.
You mean the Union Solidarity and Development Party [USDP] manipulated advance voting previously.
Mr. Chairman, you were elected to Parliament for the USDP. Is the party happy with your performance at this time?
It is a matter for them. Allow me to blow my own trumpet a little bit. If those in power complain to me about such cases [regarding advance voting], I will call them and discuss it in line with the truth and the law. I won't make any compromises with anyone over anything that could discourage a free and fair election. I will dare to criticize anyone for anything that is against the law. If I do something wrong, I will not hesitate to apologize and I will not hesitate to be punished. If I do something wrong, just box my ears. I don't mind. So they [the USDP] don't like me. They do want me to favor them.
They don't like me as I'm not biased. You would ask me what I would do if somebody in power put pressure on returning officers. I have issued an instruction. I have told them that advance votes that arrive at polling stations later than 6 am are invalid and I would imprison them if they accept the advance votes that arrive after 6 am.
I will conduct training soon and there I will carefully teach them about the must-knows, dos and don'ts. I will tell them what they must do, what they have to do, and if they don't, they will be imprisoned.
But people still remain doubtful that the election will be free and fair. Frankly speaking, you are an ex-army man. And there are errors on voter lists. There are doubts as to whether the election will be held in unstable ethnic regions. What guarantee would you like to give to dispel people's doubts?
People may doubt the credibility of the coming election because I am an ex-army man. I don't want to say they should or should not doubt me. The winner will say the election is fair and the loser will say it is not. So, taking this into consideration, I have invited civil society organizations, thinking that it will be better if there are witnesses.
CSOs understand election laws as they have given voter education. I have asked them to check whether or not my proceedings are in line with the law. I also invited international observers. There are two types of observers. Short-term observers come three or four days before voting day and go back two or three days after voting day. Long-term observers come on the announcement of the date for voting day.
The Carter Center has been here […] and done a survey. It will send its team of observers who will monitor different areas. They will monitor the nomination of candidates, their validity, the election campaign, what our commissions do, how we count votes, how we will investigate allegations of fraud and how candidates enter the Parliament.
I am allowing them to stay in the country from the day they arrive in the country until the elected candidates are sworn in and become parliamentarians. I assure you I will do my best. Everyone is keeping an eye on me. How can I cheat?
Mr. Chairman, last year, you said that the military may seize power if there was instability in the country. Perhaps you said it because you were worried. But some viewed it as a threat. As UEC chairman, don't you think such words could damage the credibility of the institution?
I don't blame those who criticize me. I did not mean to threaten; I said so because I do not wish it to happen.
I joined the military in 1963 and passed the time under the socialism of the Revolutionary Council, and then the State Law and Order Restoration Council and State Peace and Development Council, and the country has lagged behind in development.
You know that previously Bangladesh, Laos and Cambodia lagged behind us. But now they are developed. How have they become developed? With the help of grants, aid and loans.
I am full of bitter experiences in my mind and in my heart. This makes me afraid that the military might need to seize power again. The military intervenes when there is disorder and instability.
The military never seizes power when the country is peaceful. You may point out the 1962 coup. That was because of the weakness of the 1947 constitution. The military seized power, giving the excuse that [ethnic regions] could secede from the country [according to the constitution]. History will decide whether their reasons were right or wrong.
I did not mean to threaten. We were blamed for the 1988 coup. There was no rule of law then, there were cases of beheadings, the administrative mechanisms had fallen apart, and there were fights at border posts and the US naval fleets [entered Myanmar's territorial waters]. Under such circumstances, what would have happened had the military not seized power and just stood by?
Think about it. It was not that the military seized power because it wanted to, but because it was inevitable. But then, as a result, the country suffered.
We see now that the military, government and election commission are working in harmony. I think the military must have given a guarantee about this election.
As the military has provided a guarantee, so has the government, I think. This is my personal view. I don't know if they are craftily playing tricks. But I believe we are in the same boat. If they do so, there will be a big impact. The country will be in trouble. I dare to persuade them and I would urge them [to not stage a coup] and to listen to my decision. What I want is—today, the Union Solidarity and Development Party is the ruling party, and it must be the best opposition party if it loses the election.
No. No. I want to deny that comparison. The national convention was convened for 1992, 1993. The National League for Democracy [NLD] should have acted shrewdly and attended the convention and gone along with the Constitution, no matter what was written in it. In fact, the Constitution was a step for the transfer of power.
If the government at the time said the election would be held only after the Constitution was drafted, so it should have been. The NLD could have contested again. No other party would have been able to win that election. If they said they would change the Constitution again after it won that election, no one would have been able to stop it. It was not clever.
What legal action will the UEC take regarding unlawful campaigning or encouraging people to vote for a particular party? Recently, some religious organizations spoke indirectly of doing so.
That case is very delicate. I don't want to talk about it. It is a complicated issue. I asked them not to do it. I will take action if anything is against the law. But it is best if they don't do it.
I hear that you will retire when your current term expires. What legacy would you like to leave for the commission?
I will quit when my term expires after the election. … As to your question of a legacy, I want to talk about the essence of elections. Elections are crucially important. They need to turn out outstanding and virtuous people. Secondly, political parties are very important. They have to constantly improve their capacity. They have to serve the country when they come into power. The opposition party should not disturb but cooperate. I want to instill these concepts. And I want my commission to be a strong, firm institution.
Are you ready to take any bigger role after you retire?
I won't unless the situation requires it. Bogyoke Aung San said that he would stand by and laugh at his comrades' arguments, after the country gained its independence. I will copy Bogyoke Aung San's words because I like them. I will not laugh, but I will stand by and watch. Unless the situation requires it, I will not take any role.
You were a member of the USDP. Do you wish the USDP to win in the election?
As a chairman, I am not supposed to have attachment to a party. It would not be wise. I do have an attachment, but I don't put it at the forefront of my mind.
Anyway, attachment is the origin of a patriotic spirit. If you say you don't love your organization, I would say you don't have patriotic spirit. I am speaking the truth. I love the country. I love my organization. I love the military. I am willing to sacrifice my life for them.


text:
Tag: Human Rights
Body parts of people with albinism used for witchcraft
Emily Price
Malawi is offering a reward of $7,000 for any information regarding abductions and attacks on people with albinism. The reward comes ahead of elections after the killing of Yasin Phiri…
This Week Around the World
This Week Around the World – Feb. 24–March 3:
Marena Riggan
Feb. 26–March 2 Hanoi, Vietnam: U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un arrived in the capital of Vietnam on Feb. 26 ahead of the 2019 North Korea–U.S….
Protests in Nicaragua contribute to economic decline
Nicaragua's economy has seen a $900 million deficit and has lost a total of 215,000 jobs, with 70,000 from the tourism industry as a result of university-led protests. The protests,…
This Week Around the World – Jan. 14–20:
Jan. 14–18 Zimbabwe: In response to a hike in fuel prices, protests began throughout Zimbabwe on Jan. 14 in what has been dubbed the "stay-at-home" protests, according to The Guardian….
El-Sisi denies presence of political prisoners
Lukas Amsden
CBS aired a 60 Minutes segment on Sunday, Jan. 6 featuring an interview with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi despite backlash from the Egyptian government. In the interview, President el-Sisi…
United States intensifies bombing in Syria
Despite President Donald Trump's announcement of a full withdrawal from Syria by mid-January, the United States has intensified bomb campaigns in the eastern territories held by Iraq and Levant forces….
Human rights and journalism threatened
Sabrina Achcar-Winkels
Journalist Jennifer Ávila spoke on Oct. 18 at Portland State about the journalistic freedom amid violence in Honduras. In a presentation titled, "The Silencing of Dissent: How Freedom of the…
Why are we still debating abortion?
Missy Hannen
United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently created a Religious Liberty Task Force to ensure "[federal] employees know their duties to accommodate people of faith," Sessions said. As Vox put…
May 21 Democratic Republic of Congo: The World Health Organization launched a vaccination program amid the growing worries surrounding the Ebola outbreak in the DRC. Over 7,500 doses of the…
UNESCO pursues global human rights despite U.S. withdrawal
Willis Homann
In early October, the United States announced to the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization it will withdraw from the organization completely by the end of 2018. "This decision…
Duterte drug war continues to rage in the Philippines
Devon Stoeber
Since Rodrigo Duterte became president in June of 2016, the Philippines has endured an ongoing drug war resulting in the killings of many citizens both guilty and not guilty of…

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Hylophilus olivaceus é uma espécie de ave da família Vireonidae.

Pode ser encontrada nos seguintes países: Equador e Peru.

Os seus habitats naturais são: regiões subtropicais ou tropicais húmidas de alta altitude.

Referências

Hylophilus
Aves descritas em 1844

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Cine Teatro Opera
Avenida Corrientes 860,
4 people favorited this theater
Architects: Alberto Edmundo Bourdon
Functions: Live Theater, Stage Shows
Styles: Art Deco, Atmospheric, Streamline Moderne
Phone Numbers: Box Office: 54114.326.1335
Manager: 54114.326.1335
Cine Ideal
Cine Teatro Gran Rex
Cine Odeon
Cine Tita Merello
Cine Real
The original Teatro Opera was developed in 1871 by Antonio Petalardo, a local businessmen who foresaw the need for popular theatre catering to the city's booming population in subsequent years. The original Beaux-Arts style theatre was opened in 1872 on Calle Corrientes, then a narrow street along Buenos Aires northern outskirts, and premiered with a performance of Giuseppe Verdi's "Il Trovadore". Specializing in musicals, the theatre was an early success and enjoyed a reputation of being among the most technically advanced at that time, becoming the first in Latin America to possess in-house generators. The massive widening of Calle Corrientes to make Avenida Corrientes led to the theatre's demolition in 1935, however, following which the Petalardo family sold the establishment to Clemente Lococo, who had the new Cine Teatro Opera built.
Today, the Cine Teatro Opera is located in the centre of Buenos Aires theatre district on Avenida Corrientes 860 at Suipacha. It gets its name from its close proximity to the Teatro Colon (the main opera house which was opened in 1908). It was designed by Belgian-Argentine architect Alberto Bourdon and was opened on 5th August 1936, with 2,500 seats. It was described as the finest first run theatre in Argentina.
The exterior consists of two bays which have Art Deco style decorative features in recessed areas and a central three-tier curved 'wedding cake' central feature which contains many windows.
The interior decoration lends the impression of an open air theatre in an Atmospheric style. Floating clouds and shining stars appear in the ceiling and details of street architecture appear on the side walls. Seating is provided for 1,220 in the orchestra, 414 super pullman seats and 866 pullman seats, the latter were at a cheaper price.
As well as screening movies, the theatre also hosted regular Tango concerts led by stars including Hugo del Carril and Edmundo Rivero. Top International performers such as the Follies Bergere Company and the Lido Company from Paris, France, Josephine Baker, Marlene Dietrich, Edith Piaf, Mina, Diana Krall, New York Ballet Company, the Bolshoi Ballet Company, Ava Gardner, Julio Brocca and in the 1950's while they were touring together Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. In 1982, the theatre hosted Mercedes Sosa on her triumphal return to Argentina's scene after her European exile during the last 'dirty war' in the 1970's, and bandoneonist Astor Piazzolla's last 'live' performance in Argentina in June 1989. It housed some of the most successful productions of the Pepito Cibrian-Angel Mahler duo, which heralded a rebirth of Argentine musical comedy.
After serving many years as a first run movie theatre, economic instability and changing public tastes led to the theatre's decline during the 1990's, and in 1996, its proprietors considered selling the building to parking structure developers. Public outcry and activism on the part of National Theatre Director Lito Cruz led to the passage of the National Theatre Law providing subsidies to struggling performance houses as well as protecting them from demolition. It was modernised in 1998, removing most of the Atmospheric style decoration inside the building.
In 1999, International show promoters CIE-R&P purchased the theatre and upgraded its facilities to make it the home of Broadway musicals imported 'as-is' to Argentina. CIE (now acquired by T4F) continue to run the theatre, but have signed a four year sponsorship deal with Citi Bank, granting them naming rights over the theatre, exclusive sponsorship and benefits for its customers and intensive logo placement (an agreement which expires in December 2012). This has proved to be controversial, especially, the naming rights issue, which would change the name of the theatre, which is much loved by the people of Buenos Aires. Citi Bank sponsorship has brought one advantage, which is money, used in 2010 to renovate the theatre under the direction of Argentine specialist Alberto Negrin, bringing it back to its former glory, but with a version of Art Deco style that somehow assimilates 21st Century logos.
Contributed by Ken Roe, Ricardo D.R. Watson
atmos on March 20, 2010 at 6:26 am
Theatre opened August 1936 and was designed by Belgian architect Albert Bourdon.
Further investigation has discovered it opened on 5 August and was remodeled/modernised in 1998.It looks like most of the atmospheric decoration has gone.It now has 1852 seats.More info and photos at
www.petitherge.com/article-22242723.html


3 Announcements: 1) Gary Jobson Event - Sat. 11/22/10! Gary is hosting a CBYRA Event at St. Mary's College of Maryland in St. Mary's City. More details to follow. 2) CBYRA would like to clarify the discount offered to members with Fawcett Boat Supplies. Fawcett has established a CBYRA member account which offers members discounts on virtually every item in the store. Discounts are market based and vary depending on the item, but provide members with the most competitive prices available from the internet and marine retailers. 3) Please make note that CBYRA's changed phone number is 410-990-9393.


text:
Q: alpinelinux 3.12 missing man package? I'm trying to get manpages working on alpinelinux 3.12, used latest 3.12 version and:
# apk add man
ERROR: unsatisfiable constraints:
  man (missing):
    required by: world[man]

Weird? apk add man-pages works perfectly. I've enabled all repos (community, edge, etc) apk update and still can't find man?

A: Found the problem they changed package name from man to mandoc. apk add man doesn't work anymore, it's:
# apk add mandoc
 in 3.12

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
The Museum Building
Donate Artifacts
Questions and Queries
Town Trail
About Waterford Co. Museum
2. The Museum Building
In 1999 the Museum moved to a larger space in the old Town Hall in St. Augustine Street. This building was originally a grain store built by Thomas Buckley, a local merchant, in the late 18th century. By the mid 19th c. it was almost a ruin. In 1871 the Town Commissioners acquired it for conversion into a 'Town Hall And Public Library.' The work was complete by 1876 when the Commissioners were in residence. In 1909 the front facade had to be demolished and rebuilt to its present appearance. A new council chamber and Theatre were also created.
The building had various uses over the years. In 1875 the Augustinians opened a school upstairs in the theatre. They were forced to leave in 1880 because the pupils were being constantly disrupted by travelling opera and theatre companies wishing to practice. The ground floor was used as a butter market. It also housed the town fire engine and in the early 1900s it was used by Sheehan & Co. as a poultry market. In 1922 the building was occupied by British troops for several weeks and the U.D.C. later put in a claim for damages.
The U.D.C. vacated the building on 16 April 1999. The museum moved into this building in the same year and it opened to the public in 2000. After extensive refurbishment of the Town Hall the museum re-opened as Waterford County Museum in 2009 with a larger display area.


text:
What's up Doc? Was There Some Illegal Hanky Panky at Oshawa City Hall?
Reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Columnist
Sometimes when a set of facts comes to your attention for which there is no public explanation, your imagination runs wild with speculation.
And today's column is such a state of affairs.
A top city bureaucratic official, Commissioner of Community Affairs, Stan Bertoia, whose 2010 salary was $186,778.39, left employment at Oshawa City Hall and a few months later took up employment in a junior position (Head Civil Design) with the Toronto Transit Commission at a vastly reduced salary of about $115,000.
Mr. Bertoia's former department controlled the largest city budget, in excess of $35M, of any city department.
His department was responsible for the maintenance, improvement and beautification of the City's roads, parks and public open spaces, including maintenance of valley lands, walking and bike trails, and forestry and horticulture programs, management of the parking system, management of the City's recreational facilities, including the delivery of fitness and leisure programs and support programs for arts and culture, as well as the management and maintenance of City buildings, waste collection and environmental programs----quite broad and far reaching technical responsibilities.
For such a senior official at city hall, you'd think that there would be some public acknowledgement of his leaving.
The lack of any public acknowledgement of this major change at city hall smells of rot.
Equally baffling is the very quiet appointment of Garth Johns, formerly commissioner of Durham Region Human Resources, whose 2010 Regional salary was reported as $181,981.42 to fill Mr. Bertoia's former position.
Mr John's appointment to this top level city position seems to have taken place without any external executive search, formal vetting process of alternative candidates, or any candidate competition, all of which you'd think would be standard for senior public positions.
Nor does any evidence exist that a set of job qualifications, background experience, or hiring criteria were ever developed. After all, the public has to be assured that the best candidate available was hired in any public service capacity and, in this case, there is no evidence of identifying candidate experience or qualification criteria.
Mr. Bertoia was a professional engineer, a basic requirement you'd think with a responsibility to oversee roads and public buildings and the whole host of technical responsibilities in his department.
Bertoia's replacement, Mr. Johns, in addition to operating a part time Human Resources Consulting Practice, holds a BA in health administration, an MBA, is a Certified Health Executive, a Certified Municipal Officer and holds additional certifications in Organizational Development, Conflict Management and Coaching, certainly not the kind of technical expertise we'd think would be required to oversee major engineering responsibilities.
There has also been no public announcement of Garth John's appointment to the city senior administrative position.
The only public acknowledgement is his appearance at the March 3, 2011 meeting of the city's Community Services Committee Agenda as the "Acting Commissioner" which has since been recently replaced on the city web site as "Commissioner."
You'd think that such a high level appointment would have been accompanied by a press release.
All of this secrecy about Bertoia's leaving and John's appointment and the giant mismatch in filling the vacancy leaves a smell in the air of cronyism and the mysterious and unexpected vacancy leads to thoughts of cover up….and why? Which is where speculation begins to take place!
Human Resources, which seems to be Mr. John's expertise and experience, falls under Oshawa's Corporate Services Committee….so Mr. John's appointment to the technical Community Services Department seems to be a giant mismatch of experience, competence and training….and there has been no public acknowledgement of this significant change of upper management at city hall.
As best as I can discover, Bertoia left the city employ sometime after Aug 31, 2010, the last community Services Committee meeting he attended prior to the October 25, 2010 election, and became employed at the TTC in February, 2011. He didn't attend the January 20th City Community Service Meeting and so at that date, he was absent, had been fired or had resigned, or was on enforced leave prior to the first meeting of the new council Community Services Committee meeting on Jan 20, 2011.
If indeed there were ethical issues involving a dismissal, did the city hide this from Bertoia's new public employer?
Another interesting question is why Johns would choose to leave his job at the Region for a very comparable salary at Oshawa City Hall. Perhaps Johns is now part of the succession planning for City Manager.
Anyway, there are too many questions....and no authoritative answers to the questions!
Public figures and corporations who are caught in difficult or unusual circumstances have learned to get out in front and take control of the situation, but in some cases, those with the facts just want to play dumb, and by so doing compound any residual public relations problems arising from the situation.
A personnel issue, presumably involving Bertoia, was discussed in a 5 minute closed session of the Jan 20,2011 City Council Finance and Administration Committee attended by Councillors Diamond, Bouma, Aker, Wood and Mayor Henry as well as Support Services Manager, Mary Medeiros, Corporate Services Commissioner Rick Stockman, and Finance Services Director Chris Brown.
This short 5 minute in-camera session was obviously simply an information session for councillors as there is no evidence of any discussion or decision being made in the few minutes and so I surmise the decision had been made earlier outside of the realm of council.
The fact that the closed meeting to discuss a confidential personnel issue was attended by the Corporate Services Commissioner and the Finance Services Director suggests discussion of unethical or illegal transgressions around city cash.
Smart PR people know that they can reduce the collateral damage of public speculation resulting from negative situations by full information disclosure--otherwise the public will expect the worst.
The fact that Mr. Bertoia left his city commissioner job at a 2010 salary of $186,778.39 for another employer that paid him about $115,000 annually which he started after a 3-4 month period of unemployment suggests a dismissal from his Oshawa position.
The fact that there have been no threats of lawsuits for wrongful dismissal suggests a dismissal for cause.
The fact that a "personnel issue" was discussed at the Jan. 20, 2011 in-camera meeting of the Finance and Administration committee of council attended by city financial officers, Corporate Services Commissioner R. Stockman and Finance Services Director C. Brown suggests a financial concern in relation to the personnel issue.
The fact that the personnel issue was discussed by a committee of council suggests a serious discussion about a senior level employee.
Obviously politicians Diamond, Bouma, Aker, Wood, and Mayor Henry who attended the Jan. 20th Finance and Administration meeting have decided to perpetrate the past lack of council transparency and keep taxpayers in the dark about potential difficult circumstances at city hall.
All of these politicians who have direct knowledge of all of the details of the issue campaigned on increased accountability and transparency, and now they've chosen to keep you, the taxpayer, in the dark!
In the light of no official information regarding this issue, and the juxtaposition of all of these factors along with Mr. Bertoia's sudden and unexpected departure suggests a reasonable assumption of corporate fraud through one of the many types outlined in the Deloitte and Touché Report, "Confronting Fraud and Unethical Behaviour in Government" quoted in my March 7, 2011 Oshawa Central Newspaper Column "Greed Trumps Trust Even in Public Service."
As pointed out in the Deloitte Report, one in six cases of government fraud results in losses in excess of $1M and 26% of these cases were never prosecuted.
If indeed, there was some fraud perpetrated on public moneys in this case, then the public has a right to know the details of the loss and assurance that any guilty party would be prosecuted with full restitution and appropriate criminal penalties being sought.
If there was no fraud in this case, despite all appearances to the contrary, city officials have the responsibility to provide full information regarding Mr. Bertoia's sudden departure from the city with a view to protecting his reputation and the integrity of the city's financial controls.
A cover up is an injustice to every city taxpayer and every party interested and involved in this issue.
And another major question. Why is the Oshawa press not all over this like fleas on a stray cat? Is it possible they're too busy researching stories on silly PR stunts like "Durham Politicians to shed pounds for good cause" to report on things that really matter?
We'd better pass this on to the Toronto papers for some serious investigation and reporting on Oshawa City Hall!
Posted by Site Administrator at 9:00 AM 2 comments:
Labels: accountability, Central Newspaper, eye on city hall, John Henry, longworth, oshawa, Oshawa Central Newspaper, Stan Bertoia, transparency
LATE BREAKING NEWS....LIBERALS PARACHUTE CANDIDATE INTO OSHAWA RIDING
Bill Longworth,
Oshawa Central Newspaper Political Columnist
There has been considerable speculation about who will carry the Liberal Banner in the upcoming Federal Election. Political columnist Bill Longworth has learned from an authoritative source Friday night that Liberals intend to parachute in a Crown Attorney from Richmond Hill as Oshawa'a Federal Liberal Candidate. If this indicates the state of readiness of the Liberal Party in Oshawa and across the country, Longworth says they are in for a rude awakening. No major party has parachuted a candidate into Oshawa in living memory and Longworth speculates that the Oshawa voters will show their distain for this action on election day.
Longworth says voters should expect other major blockbuster announcements regarding this election in the upcoming days.
Posted by Site Administrator at 2:45 PM No comments:
Where's the fat?
Where's the fat? This is a fine question to contemplate as I sit on the best beach in North America, Florida's Panama City Beach, where I have "March breaked" with my family since the early 70's. Unfortunately, I'll be back home before you read this!
So if the column seems a little disjointed---blame it on the beach!
So where's the fat? What are you going to cut out of the budget? Those were questions I was asked dozens of times during the last election campaign when I pledged to cut taxes by 3%.
Where's the fat? That's the million dollar question because it is covered up by bureaucrats, elected officials, and public appointees whose interest it is to not let us know.
They'll not voluntarily inform taxpayers of this any more than a crook will tell us what they've robbed and where they've hidden the stash.
Just rest assured, though, that in the city's $115M+ budget, there is plenty of waste, fat, excess, inefficiency, and even some corporate fraud if Oshawa's City Government is typical of other governments at all levels in the country.
As an example of criminal excess, It has recently come to light, as a result of an $1800 Freedom of Information request by the Globe and Mail, that a Niagara Parks Commission Executive racked up $400,000 on his corporate credit card over three years, and this kind of irresponsibility runs wild in the public service.
Further stories of public agency and government official's waste, graft, partying, and drunkenness at your expense would curl your hair.
While we read of these stories frequently in the national press, many members of the public continue to deny excess and wastage in Oshawa City Government. These people must believe we have the only clean government in the nation!
Equally frustrating is the public's inability to access the information with high costs, redacted and heavily edited releases, stonewalling, and government's outright refusal, despite Freedom of Information Legislation, to release requested information.
In terms of the Niagara Parks Commission's big time partying on the public dime, the real question is how this was allowed to occur without any kind of internal or external oversight....unless, of course, they had a "gentleman's agreement" that all members of the commission's executive board should, as a matter of common practice, run wild with public monies.
I reported in a past column of being hosted to a fancy dinner by an appointed member of the Oshawa Harbour Commission and being counselled to order from the right hand "price" column, this Harbour Commissioner explaining the culture of excess that he'd learned from the Chairman of the Commission while generously entertaining themselves with wine, women, and song on the many distant conventions and conferences they'd attended doing "business" (or holidaying and partying) on behalf of the city's harbour.
While taxpayers will often complain of the high political salaries and expenses and will even complain about the high bureaucratic wages listed on Ontario's Public Sector Salary Disclosure, these taxpayer costs are only a small fraction of the highway robbery being perpetrated on city taxpayers.
Taxpayers have a right to complain about municipal politicians, not only about their handsome salaries, perks, and benefits, but more about the ineffective and sloppy job they do in overseeing the functions of city hall, and the waste, graft, inefficiencies, and questionable spending that goes on there.
While political salaries and some political expenses are disclosed on the city website, and high bureaucratic salaries beyond $100,000 earned by about 80 city employees are disclosed on the Ontario Public Employee Disclosure, charges on credit cards issued to various departments and officials are not publicly disclosed.
City Council does not monitor or approve bureaucratic expenses charged to city charge cards and thus they are not providing oversight on the most potentially blatant misuse of taxpayer cash.
If some official in the small Niagara Parks Board can rack up over $400,000 in credit card purchases over three years, what are the charges being racked up on the dozens of city charge cards issued to senior city bureaucrats?
Obviously, it is in taxpayer's interests to "hire" astute questioning individuals as trustees of the public purse.
During the election, I was calling for a 3% tax cut without an ounce of service cuts as the only way to cut out waste and excess from public spending.
Interestingly, one astute voter pointed out that I'd just lost the election when I announced that policy, since city hall staffers and their extended families were all voters, probably representing in excess of 20% of the pathetically low voter turnout, and none of them would want to see any cuts in city hall budgets.
City hall staff interests are best served with the election of docile and accepting politicians who are afraid to rock the boat. At present, there is so little debate or discussion at city hall that the Mayor brags that city council meetings are lasting just over an hour.
To me, these short meetings demonstrate a real problem---when bureaucrats learn that nothing is being questioned, discussed, or debated, they will ramp up their indiscriminate spending.
In my March 7th column, I reported that 10.5% of all occupational fraud was government related and that one in six of these cases resulted in losses exceeding $1M. Without strong and effective political oversight, these cases are bound to increase.
A strong councillor would present a motion for periodic forensic audits of all city hall financial systems to insure iron-tight controls over city hall spending. They would also call for time/efficiency studies to reduce costs of city hall operations.
These are the roles played by Canada's and Ontario's Auditors General, both of whom independently investigate any area they please, and whose public reports have the power to muster public pressures to embarrass governments into calling independent Royal Commissions to fully expose inefficiencies and oversights, and criminal and unethical activity in public spending. The investigations often lead to departmental re-organizations and procedures to implement recommendations, and in serious cases, firings and criminal prosecutions.
Unfortunately the investigative freedoms and right to subpoena records and take evidence under oath is not included in the contract of Oshawa's Auditor General whose power is limited to being a political hack in a charade to provide political support for all bureaucratic actions at city hall.
If Oshawa's auditor general had real teeth to expose wrongdoing and questionable spending, he would have brought the MBA tuition funding to public attention, for example, instead of providing comment only upon direction of city council after the expenditure was exposed by a member of the public.
The city of Oshawa publishes lists of cheques issued every month but only the recipient of the cheque, often a numbered company, is listed and not the reason or rationale for the expense. Unethical spending can be easily hidden in a few cheques of the thousands listed and will not alert any political oversight unless they are unusually large in the tens of millions of dollars. Anything less escapes all political scrutiny.
I'd like to see every cheque issued by the city and every charge card bill, accompanied by their detailed invoices, go through the office of Oshawa's Auditor General who would sign off on expenditures only after they had passed the scrutiny of the department head and the city manager. All this prior to the detailed information reaching the politicians for their final approval.
It's not that public workers are any more dishonest than other workers on the planet---it's just that lax supervision systems of the spending habits of managers creates opportunity that spawns excesses. It's like dropping a $100 bill in the middle of the floor. It won't be long before it's picked up by even the most honest of citizens.
There are enough examples of public employee spending excesses regularly in the big city newspapers to justify closing all floodgates of unethical or criminal opportunity.
It is obvious every government at every level needs Rob Ford and his strong leadership to derail the gravy train!
Where is Oshawa's Rob Ford?
Posted by Site Administrator at 9:00 AM No comments:
Labels: Central Newspaper, eye on city hall, John Henry, longworth, Nicholson, Oshawa Central Newspaper
Hey Stupid! It's Not the Government of Canada!
So I bet you didn't know that we have a new political party and a new government in our country.
For heaven's sake, we may have even have had our nation renamed.
It's now Harperland with the Harper Government, not the Canadian Government, or the Conservative Government, in charge.
The PMO has sent a directive to all departments that the words "Government of Canada" should be replaced by the words "Harper Government" in all Federal Government Communications.
So over Harper's political history, he has morphed from Liberal to Reform to Alliance to Conservative (not Progressive Conservative which implies some forward momentum) and now to the Harper Party where he stands alone without a hope in hell of getting a parliamentary majority.
The Prime Minister has firmly put himself in the center of all Government operations reducing the role of Parliament, his Cabinet, the 308 Members of Parliament, and even the 143 members of his own party elected to Parliament. Only one person, Stephen Harper, counts in the Harper Government.
His control is such that cabinet ministers like Bev Oda, and the famous "not" inserted by the PMO into a government funding agreement document, are forced to take the "fall" for the Boss's directives---be damned the reputations of anyone in his cabinet or in his caucus.
Many of us have had those authoritarian bosses from hell that would have their staff take the blame for the boss's orders when the thing goes bad and the heat rises.
Bosses with guts, of course, would have no part of this. They would have the strength of character to stand up and face the firing line. But not Harper. His strong arm style has everyone running scared.
Do as you're told or face the consequences! Shortly after Harper's Conservatives won a minority government, a bureaucrat who refused Harper's order to refer to the newly elected government as "Canada's New Government" in government communications was relieved of his duties.
As a guy more important than Parliament and its Parliamentary traditions and values, Harper makes his own rules as he goes along.
In December, 2008, Harper prorogued parliament when he faced defeat and prorogued it again in January 2010 when he didn't want questions on the Afghan detainee issue interfering with his enjoyment of the Olympics. He broke his own fixed date election law to call a politically expedient election, and cheated on the 2006 Conservative Party election spending reports. Harper's Conservative Officials are currently under criminal investigation for exceeding party spending limits by transferring funds to 67 local candidates who would then use the funds to pay for national advertising. They'd then get a 60% reimbursement from Elections Canada that they'd then donate back to the National Party. In effect, taxpayers were paying a portion of the Conservative National Advertising Campaign and four officials of the Conservative party are now facing potential prison terms for this sleight of hand.
So much for the Canadian values of conciliation, compromise, fairness, openness, courtesy, respect, consideration, restraint, cooperation....and honesty!
Harper has placed himself above Parliament as the centre of the Canadian universe and maybe the only Canadian that matters.
Of course his scale of importance in his own mind was demonstrated by his prorogation of Parliament rather than facing a non-confidence vote he was bound to lose where he'd be forced to follow the long established British parliamentary tradition of resigning as Prime Minister.
I can understand that dictatorial governments like those deposed or close to it, Libya and Egypt, might be called the Muammar Gaddafi Government or the Hosni Mubarak Government since every action of those regimes was designed to maximize their leader's wealth on the backs of the people....but in Canada? Never!
Never mind using terminology like the "Harper Government" heading every piece of Government of Canada correspondence. Parliamentary tradition will not even allow the name of a member to be spoken aloud in the House and those so doing will be ruled "out of order" by the speaker.
One thing for sure, though, Government of Canada correspondence screaming "Harper Government" will be flying out to every world leader to impress them of Stephen Harper's importance to our nation. It's his 15 minutes of fame and he'd better take advantage of it.
Historically, some countries have produced great government leaders like Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Gandhi.
If Harper, with his distinct lack of legislative accomplishment as a leader, can rebrand the government of Canada as the Harper Government, I can't understand why there was no Winston Churchill Government or FDR Government, or Ghandi Government. After all, these political leaders are recognized worldwide as men of stature leading their countries and the world to great things.
And in Canada, we've had some great leaders in William Lyon Mackenzie King , Sir John A. Macdonald , Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Louis Saint-Laurent, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, and Lester Pearson, all judged as Canada's greatest Prime Ministers by experts, and yet not one put themselves on the same kind of pedestal that Stephen Harper is climbing upon.
A PM, like Liberal Mike Pearson, who, like Harper, headed only minority governments, brought us the Canadian Flag, Old Age Pensions, and National Medicare, three major accomplishments that define Canada. All this, of course, was in addition to winning the Nobel Peace Prize for creating the UN's first designated peacekeeping mission to resolve the 1956 Suez Crisis.
With these huge achievements, Pearson, had he been a less modest man, may have been justified in putting his name tag on the Canadian Government.
But no! Only Harper would do that! Combined with his iron-fisted control, it's a sure sign of insecurity!
With no achievements to speak of, and devoid of any legislative legacy, and with tons of broken promises, Harper's only legacy will be one of dictatorial rule and a flagrant disregard for the traditions and laws of Parliament.
In a recently published book, Harperland, columnist Lawrence Martin writes, that Harper has raised the concentration of power within the Prime Minister's Office to new heights. To maximize his control over the government, the minority Parliament and the civil service, the prime minister has recurrently ventured where none of his predecessors have dared to tread.
And putting his name-brand on Canada's Government is ample proof of his dictatorial style and his lack of concern for the plight of many Canadians.
Canadians should be wary of those that run up their own flag and blow their own horn---usually because no one else will do it! And usually for good reason!
If you are opposed to Stephen Harper rebranding the Government of Canada in his own name, you may want to sign the petition of Canadians
I did on the first or second day of the petition and was the 15155th person to do so.
My remarks there are that Stephen Harper has not done a damn thing of consequence for this country except to make "prorogue parliament" part of every Canadian's understanding of government irresponsibility.
Why not add your voice and your message to the petition?
Conversely, of course, you may disagree with the petition and want to start your own on the same site. Maybe something like, "Stephen Harper is the best thing since sliced bread for Canada and I fully support his efforts to rebrand Canada as Harperland"
You'll get at least two signatories to this petition. Yours...and Stephen Harper himself!
Labels: Central Newspaper, eye on city hall, longworth, oshawa, Oshawa Central Newspaper
Greed trumps Trust--- Even in the Public Service!
You can hardly pick up a newspaper these days without reading about more waste and abuse of public monies by public officials.
As I write this column, the Toronto Star headline screams about spending abuses on Toronto Police paid duty assignments whose officers are paid $65 an hour for unnecessary assignments around construction sites where the work could be done equally well by a few barricades....but such is the strength of public unions that negotiate the laws and hourly rates necessitating this public waste.
In 2009, Toronto taxpayers paid $7.8M on uneccesary police duty assignments, notwithstanding the extra wastage spent by the Provincial Government ($3.5M), City of Toronto entities (Toronto Water, Toronto Hydro, TTC---$2.6M) Construction Companies ($5.5M), Utility Companies ($5.2M)---most for work that could be performed by a few $5 barricades and reflective plastic traffic cones.
These paid duty assignments as well as paid court appearances, which probably act as an incentive for many officers to be quite aggressive in laying traffic charges, account for the incidence of many police officers earning well over $125,000 on Ontario's Public Salary Disclosure List.
In Toronto, irresponsible, if not criminal, spending problems have surfaced within the Toronto Community Housing Corporation.
A week or so ago, Toronto's Auditor General disclosed extensive wastage of public funds by staff officials of the Toronto Community Housing Corporation who expensed $40,000 of public money for a Christmas Staff dinner while many residents of Toronto public housing undoubtedly went without a Christmas dinner, $1000 for Holt Renfrew Chocolates, and $800 for staff massages at a summer picnic. Beyond these transgressions, TCHC staff disregarded corporate procurement policies and purchased big ticket items with sole sourced contracts, less than arms length deals, and spent $25M on an unsolicited proposal.
TCHC was governed by a Board of Appointed Citizens plus some politicians and resident appointees. But this civilian oversight was insufficient to properly supervise the spending approved by employed officials of the Corporation.
The Civilian Appointees to the TCHC, like politicians elected to oversee public organizations, simply do not have the skill, expertise, or intimate knowledge of the workings of the large organizations and, like stealing candy from a baby, hired bureaucrats can easily hide inappropriate and wasteful spending from prying eyes.
As I've said repeatedly in my columns, and in my campaign for mayor, the only way to insure growing productivity and efficiencies in public expenditures is to squeeze these out of the system with reduced annual capital allocations to force spending cuts, combined with a directive that there be no service cuts.
In addition, It would be helpful if all public senior managers were hired on renewable term contracts to insure their easy dismissal if they were unable to produce these growing efficiencies with decreasing tax allocations.
After all, this is the strategy the City of Oshawa implemented to control the investigations of its highly paid Auditor General who will have his 5 year term with its handsome salary renewed only as long as his reports remain supportive of city operations, politicians, and senior bureaucrats. He doesn't have the independence of the Toronto Auditor General or those holding the position at the Provincial and Federal Levels. He's literally a sheep in a wolf's costume!
Jobs for Life guarantees, like those in Toronto for city CUPE employees, muzzles politician's abilities to work for increased productivity and increased cost efficiencies through contracting out. This is unusual job security foreign to the private sector. This iron rice bowl type of employment has even been abandoned in China where it led to an unproductive, unmotivated, and inefficient workforce that hindered China's international industrial competitiveness.
Even here in Oshawa, city employee's job security, salaries, and benefits are the envy of Oshawa's work force.
Of course, appointed community representatives are often just as good as politicians and bureaucrats in hiding self-serving expenditures from prying eyes.
I was once invited to a fancy restaurant dinner by a federally appointed member of the Oshawa Harbour Commission who blatantly advised me, and the manager of a well-known local media organization eating with us, to order from the right hand column on the menu---the price column. It seems that blowing public money is contagious to all positions of public trust. Burning up OHC cash seemed a greater priority than what we ate.
Even highly respected politicians like long serving Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion is under an investigative cloud for donating only minimal proceeds from her charity fund raising events to advertised recipients, and of course, her potential conflict of interest charges for unduly influencing her son's hotel development project in her city. It seems, no matter your moral compass at the beginning, increased tenure in the job moves you closer to the ethical edge.
I have commented often on all of the fat and waste in governments of all levels and of all stripes in these columns and have stated unequivocally that, while politicians contribute their fair share to this waste of taxpayer's resources, they do not have the skills or the detailed knowledge of the government operations they oversee on our behalf to eliminate fraud, irresponsibility, deception, cheating, lying and unlawful or unethical conduct that occurs on their watch.
And the trust we have in politicians to come clean with the facts is often compromised by their proclivity for putting unjustly favourable or incomplete spins on the facts.
According to a report on Preventing Fraud and unethical behaviour in Government presented by Deloitte and Touché Canada, one of the largest and most prestigious audit, consulting, financial advisory, risk management, and tax service accounting firms in the country, a typical organization loses 6% of its revenue to occupational fraud, and 10.5% of these cases are government related with average losses of $45,000 with one in six occurrences resulting in losses exceeding $1M.
Frighteningly, governments failed to prosecute in 26.1% of these cases out of fear of bad publicity.
The report also indicates a direct relationship between employment tenure which is presumably correlated with increased responsibility and size of fraudulent loss, and presumably politicians move closer to that ethical line with increased public service....providing context to the Hazel McCallion case quoted earlier.
Internal fraud according to the Deloitte report is perpetrated by false financial reporting, kickbacks and bribes, phantom vendors, submission of fraudulent expense accounts, and payroll fraud...and we frequently read of such crimes against the taxpayer through investigative journalism or criminal investigation...unfortunately though, not in Oshawa where we have no news watchdogs over city council, except for this columnist and a few interested and public minded citizens who expose some transgressions that do escape the top secret mindset of city council and administration.
A recent highly publicized example of fraudulent and criminal misuse of taxpayer monies was exposed in the Gomery Inquiry which investigated bid rigging, fraudulent sole-source advertising contracts, and kickbacks totalling in excess of $100M, some of which was filtered back to political party election preparedness coffers.
Ron Fraser, Oshawa's Auditor General, works under a 5 year renewable contract which makes him a "yes" man for city bureaucrats and politicians. His terms of employment require that his investigations result from city council direction and his renewable term precludes him from raising any fuss normally associated with Federal or Provincial Auditors General or indeed the Toronto Auditor General, all whose contracts make them much more independent from the political and bureaucratic functions in which they work.
In terms of some investigative work to discover huge wastages and lost tax savings in the city, I'd suggested politicians direct the auditor general to look at:
1) Mileage and private automobile use allowances paid to high auto expensing city staff members and suggestions on how to save money in this area. Two Toronto employees were billing $20,000 per year, in addition to their salaries.
2) Cost of duplications of service between city and regional levels of government and cost savings that would result from eliminating Oshawa Municipal Government and Administration
3) Cost of individual consultant's reports to city hall, how and why they were sourced, how their fees were set, and their relationship to any city hall bureaucrats or politicians.
4) Commission Time/Study, Productivity and work efficiency studies in the various city hall departments to improve cost effectiveness
5) Analysis of the city hall general vote plebiscite process and strategy to establish whether voters were sufficiently informed of the impact of the change.
6) Costs and effectiveness of city PR, advertising, and promotion activities
7) Investigation of City Expense Accounts, staff and politician's use of city charge cards,
8) And the list goes on....
Without a daily press or any investigative reporting in Oshawa, and a press controlled in large part by city advertising revenues, it is hard to pin down this kind of excess and wastage of public monies in Oshawa, but you can bet your bottom dollar, it's just as bad.
Unethical conduct and spending by both politicians and bureaucrats alike will continue to go unreported like the MBA scandal did until uncovered by interested citizens interested in digging to find the truth.
And city taxpayers will continue to be penalized with the highest taxes in the GTA as this wastage continues!
Political and bureaucratic greed will continue to trump trust in serving the public.
Posted by Site Administrator at 9:00 AM 1 comment:
Labels: auditor general, Central Newspaper, eye on city hall, high taxes, longworth, oshawa, Oshawa Central Newspaper, taxes
What's up Doc? Was There Some Illegal Hanky Panky...
LATE BREAKING NEWS....LIBERALS PARACHUTE CANDIDATE...


Today we're sharing a new Chrome Experiment called the WebGL Globe. It's a simple, open visualization platform for geographic data that runs in WebGL-enabled browsers like Google Chrome. The globe below shows world population, and we've created another globe showing Google search traffic.
The second challenge of the project was animating the globe – we wanted it to be fun for the user to manipulate. Thanks to WebGL, we're able to display thousands of moving points at high frame rates by using the user's graphics processing unit (GPU) for 3D computations. Each state of the globe has its own geometry and we morph between them with a vertex shader, saving precious CPU resources. Additionally, to make the globe look nice, we took advantage of the possibilities of GLSL and created two fragment shaders, one to simulate the atmosphere and another to simulate frontal illumination of the planet.
Now that we've released the globe, we're hoping that developers like you will create your own. What data will you show on it? If you're feeling inclined, you can learn more about the data format (represented in JSON) and get the code here. If you create your own globe, please also consider sharing a link with us -- at some point in the future, we hope to post a list of interesting globes that have been submitted.
UPDATE 6:16 PM: Fixed link to the code in last paragraph.
Doug Fritz is a creative programmer in Google's San Francisco office. Doug says he likes "simplifying the complex and complexifing the simple, because in reality it's all somewhere in the middle".
Doesn't work for me. Says my browser doesn't support WebGL and that I should use Chrome, etc. But I *AM* using Chrome - version 11.0.696.60.
"Sorry, your browser doesn't support WebGL"
Chrome has an hardware black list that will block 3D graphics to a lot of users.
Launch Chrome with the --ignore-gpu-blacklist extra parameter to skip the blacklist.
Very nice.. you need a converter for KML to this JSON format. :) Or at least a nice XSLT. Granted.. it looks like it would only work for point data at this time.
How hard would it be to give the various JSON elements a clickable link. Is that supported well in WebGL?
The data format in the JSON example file doesn't match the format desribed in the readme on github.
FIX - for "graphics card does not support webgl" - go to about:flags, look for "GPU accelerated compositing", enable it, hit relaunch button at bottom of screen.
What Dyea said!!! Thanks, that worked.
I take that back... Dyea's suggestion got me one page further, then I dead-ended on the same error message after I hit the "launch experiment" button.
What I find odd is that the Arcade Fire experiment works fine.
I am just getting the spinning circle for ever. Tried on every browser I have and even tweaked the settings on Chrome as suggested. I sure wish I could see something.
Not particularly useful. The search density merely highlights where the major population centres are, given the internet and google are ubiquitous.
Now if the google searches were normalised against the population density, that might tell you something.
But then what does the 3D representation add anyway?
If you want a proof on how our world is divided between the have and have not just take a look at Africa. I give you a hint they don't use Bing either!
isn't there any workaround without using 3d graphic cards?
This is so cool! Who ever put this thing together was a genius!
adding extra parameter in startup (--ignore-gpu-blacklist) doesn't seem to work either. actually its not even taking that parameter.
I am also just getting the spinning circle for ever.
I now use Analytics to create a json data file to show the last x-number of visitors.
Trying to run this code hosted on Windows 2008 server. The WebGL part does not show. I tried a lot of WebGL stuff and they all worked before, but the Globe just doesn't. Any clue?
sorry does not work.Message telling me my Browser does not support web GL.
Does anyone have any documentation for recording in JSON format?
hi Doug how many people participate in this experiment? and i if we can known, how long were you working in it?


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The move to video communication is as fundamental a shift as the move from typewriter to computer keyboard. It is now an essential and necessary media channel, regardless of your industry.
Just as important though is your ability to leverage the tremendous opportunities video offers and tailor them to your specific goals. With a seemingly endless array of complicated visual options, it's hard to know where to start.
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text:
California Northstate University Closer To Opening Elk Grove's First Medical CenterCalifornia Northstate University is nearing the final stretch in getting its new medical center and teaching hospital up and running.
CNSU Closer To Opening Elk Grove's First Medical CenterThe need for more hospitals and healthcare workers may be greater than ever right now. Plans for a new medical center in Elk Grove couldn't be more welcome news.
PG&E May Shut Off Power To 21k Customers Next WeekForecasted high winds and dry conditions may prompt the first Public Safety Power Shutoff of the year Monday night.
Yosemite Officials Ask For Information About Missing Hiker Alice Yu XieOfficials are asking for the public's help as they search for a hiker who went missing in Yosemite National Park.
Human Remains Found In Fairfield FieldFairfield police are investigating after human remains were found in a field.
Detective Hurt In Carmichael Shootout Expected To RecoverThe Sacramento County sheriff's deputy wounded in a shootout in Carmichael Friday night is expected to survive, officials said.
02:00 AMPaid Program
Stockton Police Release Blueprint For Peace Through 2022
By Marissa Perlman January 7, 2020 at 6:11 pm
Filed Under:Stockton News, Stockton Police Department
STOCKTON (CBS13) — A new strategic plan in Stockton lays out a two-year guideline in hopes of reducing crime and making the quality of life better in the city.
The police department says crime is down, but there is still work to be done. For a decade, the narrative in Stockton has been one of fear and violent crime but, the police department says they're now seeing a change with a massive drop in the number of homicides in 2018.
Long-time neighbors in Stockton tell CBS13 they know crime. At one point, gang violence earned Stockton the title of the "murder capital of California."
Now, Stockton Police are at work laying out a strategic plan to cut down on violence. The plan is a blueprint for peace for the next two years.
READ: Stockton Job Market Among The Worst In The Nation, Study Finds
The goals are the same as they were in the 2017-2019 strategic plan: reduce crime and blight, increase trust between the community and police, recruit and hire staff, and employ staff members that are highly trained.
Chief Eric Jones said, "We heard very loudly and clearly, these are the goals that matter for us."
Data shows the police department followed through with their goals. In 2018, the number of homicides dropped by 40% and non-fatal shootings decreased by 31%. Chief Jones attributes that success to what he calls a "collective approach to violence."
That means, more police on the streets going after violent gangs and working with community groups, including clergy and non-profits.
ALSO: Truck Hauling Belongings Of 3 Active Duty Military Families Stolen In Stockton
Chief Jones said, "Why did those big drops happen? It's no one organization, it's no one thing, that means public safety isn't just police."
But, resources, both financial and personnel, are still a concern. Even now, as the city emerges from bankruptcy.
Chief Jones said, "we've finally hired a bunch of officers, now we're looking at how do we increase the diversity, how do we add more training?"
The biggest driver for violence in Stockton is gang violence with 70% of crime here tied to groups.
Marissa Perlman
More from Marissa Perlman
Sideshow Shut Down Freeway Traffic In Sacramento


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Author George R.R. Martin
Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister forces are massing beyond the kingdom's protective Wall. To the south, the king's powers are failing—his most trusted Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister forces are massing beyond the kingdom's protective Wall. To the south, the king's powers are failing—his most trusted adviser dead under mysterious circumstances and his enemies emerging from the shadows of the throne. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the frozen land they were born to. Now Lord Eddard Stark is reluctantly summoned to serve as the king's new Hand, an appointment that threatens to sunder not only his family but the kingdom itself. Sweeping from a harsh land of cold to a summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, A Game of Thrones tells a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens. Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne a child is lost in the twilight between life and death and a determined woman undertakes a treacherous journey to protect all she holds dear. Amid plots and counter-plots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, allies and enemies, the fate of the Starks hangs perilously in the balance, as each side endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones. Unparalleled in scope and execution, A Game of Thrones is one of those rare reading experiences that catch you up from the opening pages, won't let you go until the end, and leave you yearning for more.
Best from George R.R. Martin (Author)
Tuf Voyaging
Dance With Dragons...
Official A Game of...
Feast for Crows Game...
Storm of Swords Game...
A Storm of Swords Game...


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Title XXII OCCUPATIONS AND PROFESSIONS
< > • Effective - 28 Aug 2020, 4 histories
337.615. Education, experience requirements — reciprocity — licenses issued, when. — 1. Each applicant for licensure as a clinical social worker shall furnish evidence to the committee that:
(1) The applicant has a master's degree from a college or university program of social work accredited by the council of social work education or a doctorate degree from a school of social work acceptable to the committee;
(2) The applicant has completed at least three thousand hours of supervised clinical experience with a qualified clinical supervisor, as defined in section 337.600, in no less than twenty-four months and no more than forty-eight consecutive calendar months. For any applicant who has successfully completed at least four thousand hours of supervised clinical experience with a qualified clinical supervisor, as defined in section 337.600, within the same time frame prescribed in this subsection, the applicant shall be eligible for application of licensure at three thousand hours and shall be furnished a certificate by the state committee for social workers acknowledging the completion of said additional hours;
(3) The applicant has achieved a passing score, as defined by the committee, on an examination approved by the committee. The eligibility requirements for such examination shall be promulgated by rule of the committee;
(4) The applicant is at least eighteen years of age, is a United States citizen or has status as a legal resident alien, and has not been finally adjudicated and found guilty, or entered a plea of guilty or nolo contendere, in a criminal prosecution under the laws of any state, of the United States, or of any country, for any offense directly related to the duties and responsibilities of the occupation, as set forth in section 324.012, regardless of whether or not sentence has been imposed.
2. Any person holding a current license, certificate of registration, or permit from another state or territory of the United States or the District of Columbia to practice clinical social work who does not meet the requirements of section 324.009 and who has had no disciplinary action taken against the license, certificate of registration, or permit for the preceding five years may be granted a license to practice clinical social work in this state if the person has received a masters or doctoral degree from a college or university program of social work accredited by the council of social work education and has been licensed to practice clinical social work for the preceding five years.
3. The committee shall issue a license to each person who files an application and fee as required by the provisions of sections 337.600 to 337.689 and who furnishes evidence satisfactory to the committee that the applicant has complied with the provisions of subdivisions (1) to (4) of subsection 1 of this section or with the provisions of subsection 2 of this section.
(L. 1989 H.B. 738 & 720 § 6, A.L. 1995 S.B. 69, et al., A.L. 1997 S.B. 246, A.L. 2001 H.B. 567, A.L. 2004 H.B. 1195 merged with S.B. 1122, A.L. 2005 S.B. 177, A.L. 2006 S.B. 756, A.L. 2007 H.B. 780 merged with S.B. 308, A.L. 2010 H.B. 2226, et al., A.L. 2014 S.B. 808, A.L. 2018 S.B. 840, A.L. 2020 H.B. 2046)
- All versions
Effective End
337.615 8/28/2020
337.615 8/28/2018 8/28/2020


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Dolina Beszeniowska (słow. Bešeňovská dolina) – dolina w słowackich Tatrach Zachodnich. Jest jedynym prawym odgałęzieniem Doliny Suchej Sielnickiej. Wcina się w południowe stoki Golicy Huciańskiej i jej południowo-zachodnie ramię. Ma długość około 2 km i opada początkowo w południowym kierunku, powyżej Mesztrowej wykonuje ostry zakręt na wschód. Uchodzi do Doliny Suchej Sielnickiej około 800 m na północ od jej wylotu, a jej ujście tworzy skalisty jar, jest wąskie, strome i trudne do przejścia.

W najwyższej swojej części Dolina Beszeniowska zaczyna się trzema żlebkami i jest zalesiona, w części środkowej znajduje się na niej duża polana Wyżnie Łąki, dolna część znów jest zalesiona. Dnem doliny spływa Beszeniowski Potok, będący jedynym prawym dopływem Suchego Potoku Sielnickiego.

Nazwa doliny pochodzi od odległej miejscowości Beszeniowa, która dawniej posiadała tutaj swoje pastwiska. Obecnie Dolinę Beszeniowską dwukrotnie przecina szosa z Liptowskich Matiaszowiec przez Huciańską Przełęcz do Zuberca.

Przypisy

Doliny Tatr Zachodnich
Doliny słowackich Tatr


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Q: Error thrown when converting date to milliseconds According to the docs
"The model must always be a Date object, otherwise Angular will throw an error"
However, I need to convert my date object into milliseconds for an API post, and in doing so this causes the error to be thrown.
Is it possible to resolve this without changing the input model?
For instance
<input type='date' ng-model='user.dateOfBirth'>

I would like it to remain as it is so when a user is logged in, the input data can be autofilled.
So in my controller i'm trying to do something like
user.dateOfBirth = $scope.user.dateOfBirth.getTime()

Which works, but I get the date format error.
How can I reslove this?


European education and research establishments can now access tailor-made public cloud services from Microsoft, following the inclusion of Azure on Géant's infrastructure as a service (IaaS) framework.
The framework, announced in May 2015, is intended to make IaaS resources more readily accessible to the 50 million or so users of Géant's pan-European 500Gbps network by allowing them to forgo engaging in individual tenders and benefit from volume discounts.
The Microsoft portion of the framework will see users provided with access, via Géant's Cloud Catalogue, to Azure-based cloud resources that are tailored for use by the research and education community.
Erik Huizer, interim CEO of Géant, said adding Microsoft to its list of providers is proof of its commitment to ensuring users have a wide portfolio of cloud services to choose from.
"The Géant Cloud Catalogue is already delivering significant benefits to users across the European research and education communities," he said.
In May 2017, Géant announced a similar agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS), as its work to populate its Cloud Catalogue continues apace.
The UK government has revealed details of the work it is doing to help other countries replicate the success of the Digital Marketplace in their territories and streamline their ICT procurement policies.
CCS confirms commission charges on G-Cloud sales are to rise from 0.5 to 0.75% when the next iteration of the framework drops in May 2017, but suppliers fear it could harm their ability to innovate.
The Microsoft agreement, however, marks a new in its ongoing involvement with Géant, which has previously seen the software giant participate in helping its community of researchers across Europe reap the benefits of using cloud.
Anthony Salcito, vice-president of worldwide education at Microsoft, said Azure's services should prove a good fit for Géant's user base.
"[Azure] allows quick access to powerful computing environments where complex data can be stored and shared easily and securely. It also gives researchers access to tools that can turn data into insights and enable them to collaborate with others quickly and securely to accelerate discovery," said Salcito.


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Warren explains positions on Israel, Pilgrim
C. RYAN BARBER
HYANNIS — In a room filled with signs calling for the closure of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station and the end of NStar's herbicide use, it seemed that Cape issues would dominate Sen. Elizabeth Warren's "office hours" Wednesday at Barnstable Town Hall.
"No questions about the Pilgrim nuclear power plant and no questions about NStar, right?" joked state Sen. Daniel Wolf, D-Harwich, facing signs that read, "Close Pilgrim" and "Say nay to the spray."
But when the man in the green Hawaiian shirt stood up, Warren went from voicing her support for those local causes to defending her vote to send $225 million to Israel in its ongoing conflict with Hamas.
"We are disagreeing with Israel using their guns against innocents. It's true in Ferguson, Missouri, and it's true in Israel," said Harwich resident John Bangert, who identified himself as a Warren supporter but said the $225 million could have been spent on infrastructure or helping immigrants fleeing Central America.
"The vote was wrong, I believe," he added, drawing applause from several in the crowd.
Warren told Bangert she appreciated his comments, but "we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one."
"I think the vote was right, and I'll tell you why I think the vote was right," she said. "America has a very special relationship with Israel. Israel lives in a very dangerous part of the world, and a part of the world where there aren't many liberal democracies and democracies that are controlled by the rule of law. And we very much need an ally in that part of the world."
Warren said Hamas has attacked Israel "indiscriminately," but with the Iron Dome defense system, the missiles have "not had the terrorist effect Hamas hoped for." When pressed by another member of the crowd about civilian casualties from Israel's attacks, Warren said she believes those casualties are the "last thing Israel wants."
"But when Hamas puts its rocket launchers next to hospitals, next to schools, they're using their civilian population to protect their military assets. And I believe Israel has a right, at that point, to defend itself," Warren said, drawing applause.
Noreen Thompsen, of Eastham, proposed that Israel should be prevented from building any more settlements as a condition of future U.S. funding, but Warren said, "I think there's a question of whether we should go that far."
After visiting the Cape Abilities farm in Dennis and WE CAN, a nonprofit organization in Harwich that helps women through life transitions, the debate marked the lone point of discord on a day of friendly facetime with Warren. Before leaving Barnstable Town Hall for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Warren said she shared the Cape Downwinders' concerns over the Plymouth nuclear plant.
Warren said she first raised the lack of an adequate escape plan for the Cape in the event of an accident at Pilgrim in a conversation with Allison Macfarlane, chairwoman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. At the Statehouse, legislation to expand the emergency zone to include the Cape and Islands has stalled, in part, because federal regulations supersede the state's.
"We had some back-and-forth, I'll just put it that way. We had some back-and-forth about it, and some of the back-and-forth was about the question of whose responsibility it was to have an adequate escape route and who has to approve the escape route. Her position was that this is the responsibility of the state," Warren said of Macfarlane. "My pushback on this, I think, ends up kind of in the same place where you are on this, and that is it is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that is ultimately responsible for ensuring that if the plant is open, it is operated safely, and that means there is an exit plan in the case of emergency."
Follow C. Ryan Barber on Twitter: @cryanbarber.


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Завидовци е село в Западна България. То се намира в Община Своге, Софийска област.

География
Село Завидовци се намира в планински район. Завидовци се намира недалеч от село Искрец. Земите около Искрец и Завидовци са прочути с чистия си въздух, там е изграден санаториум за белодробно болни. Доказано е, че това са местата с най-малко мъгли през годината в България.

Културни и природни забележителности
Горите около селото често са посещавани от гъбари, най-често събирайки гъби пачи крак. В близост до Завидовци се намира местността Белчовци.

Външни препратки

Села в Софийска област
Населени места в община Своге


Bible verse reminders found in my grandmother's Bible.
This is day 22 of Photo 365.
This entry was posted in Photography and tagged Bible, Photo 365. Bookmark the permalink.
Was that from grandmother Ruth's bible?
What a blessing to still have that! Probably when she was studying there. Is that near where she went to school? Could you scan the verses for me and email me a copy? I miss her, too. What a woman! I would love to see what touched her heart from God's word. My email is : lisalastdupree@yahoo.com. Thanks!
YES, of course. I will scan the document and email it to you. It's a treasure.
What a wonderful spiritual legacy she left you!
That she did! Seeing her handwriting again feels like she's in the next room. Wonderful, blessed memories.


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IV is een roman van Arjen Lubach uit 2013 die werd genomineerd voor de Gouden Strop.

Hoofdrolspelers

Marcus Ruys. Emeritus hoogleraar middeleeuwse schriftcultuur. Hij heeft een dochter Elsa bij zijn inmiddels al lang van hem gescheiden jongere vrouw. Aan het begin van het verhaal wordt hij met een injectie vermoord.
Elsa Ruys. Briljant wiskundige en getrouwd met Joost Doorman. Lars is hun acht maanden oude zoontje.
Ans Kahn. Directeur van De Nederlandsche Bank en een oude geliefde van Marcus. Haar codeletter is  beta.
Jacob Veen. Tweede man van de geheime Koninklijke veiligheidsdienst. Hij is bij de executie van Marcus Ruys aanwezig.
IV alias de Kroonprins Willem Alexander. Is de opvolger van zijn grootvader Bernard als hoofd van de geheime Koninklijke veiligheidsdienst, die de orde van het Koninkrijk bewaakt.
Rechercheur John Hart van de Amsterdamse politie.
Rechercheur Mirjam Levi, werkzaam bij de Amsterdamse politie maar ook informeel lid van de Koninklijke veiligheidsdienst.

Verhaal

Elsa, Joost en Lars brengen hun vakantie door in het familiehuis van haar vader in Le Muy, Maison Taciturne genaamd. Een telefoontje dat haar vader is overleden brengt Elsa pijlsnel naar Amsterdam, waar ze op Schiphol wordt opgehaald door ene Jacob Veen.

In de hoofdstad ontwikkelt zich binnen 24 uur een zoektocht van Elsa naar de verborgen boodschappen van haar vader. Ze komt in contact met zijn laatste vriendin, studente Robin, "de  alfa". Daarbij ontsnapt ze zowel aan de Koninklijke geheime dienst als op de plaats delict aan de Amsterdamse politie. De vondst van een door Marcus Ruys bewerkte Cicero-brief van Thorbecke in de Universiteitsbibliotheek van Amsterdam door Robin, geeft voldoende aanknopingspunten om verder te zoeken.

Na een incident waarbij de directeur van De Nederlandsche Bank, Ans Kahn, zichzelf doodschiet, wordt Elsa haar situatie nog hachelijker. Met hulp van een oude televisiecollega van haar vader Maarten van Eck wordt het mysterie duidelijk. Elsa is Elsa de eerste, de enige wettige erfgenaam van de troon als de directe afstammeling van Willem III en Emilie Ambre. De andere partij is de Koninklijke veiligheidsdienst die de bestaande orde wil handhaven. Rechercheur John Hart van de Amsterdamse politie, die te dicht bij de waarheid komt, wordt van het onderzoek gehaald. Collega Mirjam beschuldigt hem van ongewenste intimiteiten.

Via een bezoek aan de burgemeester van Delft komt Elsa erachter dat de aanwijzing  "de nieuw aarde"  niet alleen staat voor het DNA in de graftombe in Delft, maar ook voor het vakantiehuis Maison Taciturne. Samen met Robin en Maarten  rijdt Elsa in de geleende Saab van haar afwezige stiefvader terug naar het zuiden van Frankrijk. Ook de Koninklijke geheime dienst rijdt die kant op evenals een zwaar gefrustreerde rechercheur John Hart. Onder een keukentegel met de letter " omega" vindt Elsa 4 buisjes met huid verstopt. Deze zijn waarschijnlijk door haar vader gestolen uit de grafkelder in Delft. Van Eck heeft intussen met een laptop en Skype een directe verbinding met een televisiestudio in Hilversum. Voor het oog van miljoenen kijkers komt IV de 4 buisjes gewapenderhand opeisen. Als John Hart op de kroonprins schiet werpt Jacob zich in de kogelbaan van het schot en sterft. IV verdwijnt met zijn chauffeur en de 4 buisjes in een zwarte Mercedes, die vervolgens door hem met de inzittenden wordt opgeblazen als de Franse politie het tweetal totaal heeft omsingeld. Het bewijs is vernietigd, maar de verboden toegang tot de Grafkelder van Oranje-Nassau in Delft ligt nu toch wel open.

Opzet

Arjen Lubach leent duidelijke thrillerelementen van De Da Vinci Code van Dan Brown. In dat boek gaat een kleindochter van een vermoorde Louvre-curator op onderzoek uit en komt erachter dat ze de laatste afstammeling zou kunnen zijn van Jezus Christus en Maria Magdalena. In deze Nederlandse thriller ontdekt Elsa Ruys dat zij rechtstreeks afstamt van koning Willem III der Nederlanden.

Maatschappelijk vervolg

Na in een roman de erfrechten van koning Willem Alexander te hebben betwijfeld, kwam de auteur met het plan dat hij dan wel de 'Farao der Nederlanden' zou willen zijn. Hij verzamelde genoeg handtekeningen om dat plan in het Parlement aan de orde te kunnen stellen.

Prijzen en nominaties
2013: genomineerd voor de Gouden Strop
2013: Crimezone Debuutprijs gewonnen

Thriller (boek)


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"Celebrating Women through the Eyes of Our Children" is a special publication, which has channeled the creative energy of children and women. The art book is a celebration of women and the many and important roles they play in our society. The book promotes gender equality and women empowerment.


It's almost that time again….
The Long Beach Public Library will be closed on Wednesday, April 3, 2019 for the staff to attend a library conference. It will reopen on Thursday, April 4, 2019 at 9:00 am.
Presentation by Mississippi Maritime Museum. Free to the public. Event will be held at the City Hall Annex next to the Long Beach Public Library.
In honor of National Library Week and all of our wonderful patrons, please join us again for Patron Appreciation Day on Saturday, April 13th in the main wing from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm. Refreshments will be served courtesy of the Friends of the Long Beach Public Library.
More about Patron Appreciation Day!
The Long Beach Public Library will be closing at 1:00 pm on 4/18/2019 due to weather. We should be open for regular business hours on 4/19/2019 at 9:00 am. Please be safe.
The Long Beach Public Library will be closed from 5:00 pm on Friday, April 26, 2019 through Monday, April 29, 2019. We will reopen at 9:00 am on Tuesday, April 30, 2019.


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View cart "After Love" has been added to your cart.
Format: ISBN: 978-1-925760-06-4 Trade Paperback 224pp Rights: World Rights Release / Publication Date: 01 /09 /2018
Categories: Fiction, New and Recent
William 's Lane's disarming new novel, The Word, brilliantly satirises the ways in which we use language to define our lives. Kenric is an oddball advertising eccentric who possesses an unusual gift for language. The brands he names, sell. Yet he comes to believe advertising uses language too cynically. He is inspired by Maria to abandon the corporate world and establish a small residential community called The Word. The idealistic community relocates from Pittwater to a warehouse in industrial Mount Druitt, gathering about it others concerned with the misuse of language.
The Word is both a charming ensemble piece of unforgettable characters, and an astute and humorous exploration of the ways in which language beguiles and creates connections, but also misleads. Lane understands the human tendency to seek answers and directions in the unlikeliest of individuals but is happy to show us the folly of doing so. As such the novel parallels current world trends while evoking with candour Sydney's watery beauty and suburban harshness.
William Lane lives in the Hunter Valley, NSW, where he is raising three children. After completing an Honours degree in Australian literature, he travelled and worked in a number of different jobs. In addition to reading and writing, his interests include music and education. He has completed a doctorate on the Australian writer Christina Stead, and has had several critical articles on Stead published in literary journals. He is the author of three other novels: Over the Water (2014) and The Horses (2015) and The Salamanders (2016). An earlier and different manuscript version of The Salamanders (titled An English Girl) was shortlisted for the Vogel Prize. An earlier version of The Salamanders also won a Varuna Litlink Fellowship in 2010.
Black Rock White City
Meatloaf in Manhattan


is a free video website offering thousands of videos on all natural health, nourishment, fitness, recipes, natural remedies plus much more. A vegan diet will be low in Vitamin supplements A, it is basic nutritional science and recognized by our knowledge of biological synthesis techniques. Then you will also find tons of individuals saying they received terrible results on a vegan diet. A 2010 UN record argues these products generally require more resources and cause higher greenhouse emissions than plant-based options ( 17 ).
The dairy industry has long marketed the myth that milk and dairy food promote increased bone health-but the opposite is true. The data is currently abundantly convincing that higher intake of dairy products is associated with higher rates of bone fracture and osteoporosis, matching to Yale and Harvard School research groups.
People choose to be vegan for health, environmental, and/or moral reasons. For instance, some vegans believe that one stimulates the beef industry by consuming eggs and milk products. That's, once dairy cows or egg-laying chickens are too old to be productive, they are generally sold as meat; and since male calves do not produce dairy, they usually are increased for veal or other products. Some individuals avoid these items because of conditions associated using their production.
You ought to be in a position to get the majority of the nutrients you will need from eating a assorted and balanced vegan diet. Dried beans and dark renewable leafy vegetables are specially good sources of iron, better on a per calorie basis than meat. Flat iron absorption is increased markedly by eating foods containing vitamin supplements C along with foods comprising iron.
After having been a vegan for over 5 years now (back when everyone on YouTube either ate vegan junk food or a fully raw diet), we thought it is time to write up a good summary of this way of eating and living. Let's see what high carb veganism is all about. Then there have been the conferences where I watched these experts getting dish after bowl of food. HUGE plates of food.


T.I. Not Wasting Time, Reportedly Back In Recording Studio.
When news broke that T.I. was released from prison, the streets were abuzz with word that the King was released to a halfway house to finish out the remainder of his jail sentence.
Now just a week later, reports are surfacing that T.I.'s wasting no time since his release and getting back in the studio.
"My right hand went home to visit family & found his way to the studio. Why wait for 2010, get it in now' Love the attitude!"
Before anyone had a chance to comment on Liles' tweet, it was swiftly deleted. How convenient.
If Tip really is in the studio recording new music be on the lookout for a comeback.