We will greet an Afghani father and son, now in his 20s. When they fled the Afghan Talib regime they spent six years in Indonesia before being resettled in Arizona this January. In Indonesia, the father worked at several jobs, including driving and baking. Here, both have already found jobs, and the son is part of a work/study program that will let him resume his education. The father told us that he could only take his eldest son out of Afghanistan, so this son has had to grow up without a mother. The rest of the family remains there: his wife, two daughters, and two sons. Although the process has begun to bring the rest of the family here, it could be several more years before they will be able to join their father and brother in the US.
We will also greet an 18 year old Rohingya man who is settling into his very first apartment home. We will learn more about him and his journey when we visit.
We will visit a family from Sudan. The mother of this family has a terribly harrowing tale of her journey to the USA. Please be aware that it is hard to hear, but she wanted us to know what she endured to find peace.
When she was 5 years old, our client lived in a tiny village in Sudan. One day, her village was set on fire. Everyone had to flee. Our client was asleep at the time, and her mother was unable to gather all her children; she left our client behind. Our client survived when she was found by another family and fled with them. They all ran to Libya where this new family eventually adopted our client. She grew up there with them.
Libya is not a safe place for refugees; there was a tremendous amount of violence. When she was 24 years old, our client witnessed the murder of her adoptive parents, and she was assaulted. The pain of this is still with her today.
She was found by The Red Cross and transferred to a refugee camp. Her story circulated the camp and a man in camp came to meet her and asked her to marry him. They married and applied for asylum. While waiting for asylum, they had a set of twin boys and another little boy a year later.
Our client spoke of being so afraid for her children that, for 2 years, they never left their house. Her children never slept on beds. They had no toys. She cried as she recounted life in camp waiting for asylum.
Almost exactly 4 years ago, our client and her family arrived in Phoenix. Her husband is working and their older 3 children are in school; another little boy was born shortly after they arrived in the USA.
We will also visit a family from Aleppo, Syria. The mother and father fled the civil war in 2013 with their 4 boys (now ages 15-11). They were in Turkey for 3 years before being granted asylum here. In that time, a 5th boy was born (now 3).
The family is getting used to life in the USA, despite not liking it at first. The older boys are doing well in school and the youngest will begin Headstart in the Fall. Everyone speaks English. The mother has made friends and started her own little business as a part of the Syrian Sweets program. The father works at the airport.
The families of both the mother and father remain in Turkey and they miss them. The mother said they speak to them every day. The mother was excited to share with us pictures of her family and one of her English teacher here in Phoenix. She expressed her sincere gratitude to WTAP for coming to visit and supporting their family.
Join us to distribute clothes, shoes, computers, bikes and books to recently arrived refugees, all to support their quests to self sufficiency.
We will meet a family of 6 who are originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo. They spent time in the Muyinga Refugee Camp in Burundi before arriving in Arizona, but before that they were in Rwanda for a while. (They cannot remember exactly how long in either location.) They have only been in the US for six weeks. Two of the children were born in the DRC and two were born in Burundi. The ages of the children are 18, 15, 10 and 2—three boys and one girl. The older kids are in school and are learning English. The father is quite educated—he worked in a hotel in Burundi and while in Rwanda he started a master's degree. He also speaks English. They are very happy to be in the US. The kids seem happy and adjusting to their new life.
We will also visit a family of 7 originally from the DRC who lived in a refugee camp in Burundi for years. The mother is 32 and spent the majority of her life in the camp. She got married in the camp and had all of her children there. They have only been in the US for 1 month. The older kids are in school, and The mother, said that she and her husband are thrilled when the kids come home with new English words. She is happy to be in the US.
And we will meet a single mom with two sons, ages 5 and 13 Her parents were forced to leave their home in DRC due to wars in 1999. She was 13 years old and her brother only 11. They lived in a refugee camp on the border of the DRC until 2006. From 2007 to 2019 they lived in a refugee camp in Burundi. They received clearance to come to the USA in late 2018 and arrived in late January 2019. The oldest son already has some English skills and is enjoying school. She lives with her brother, age 31, who quickly secure a job.


Written by a self-described "out of work programmer" who "spent [a] couple of months (while looking for a job) building Ultima 4 to showcase [his] online programming skills," this is a really neat-looking Flash-based, apparently faithful remake of Ultima 4.
Is there a way to save the game? Also AWESOME JOB! Very Nice! Good Job!


text:
Recipe for a stable energy future
Opinion // Editorials
Houston Chronicle,Copyright 2012: Houston Chronicle
March 8, 2012 Updated: March 8, 2012 7:39 p.m.
It's quiz time, Houstonians: How many of you remember gas wars? Raise your hands.
How many of you recall when a driver could cruise around town and see regular leaded gas (there was no unleaded in those prehistoric days) that could be pumped for as little as 15.9 cents a gallon while the gas wars were on, and ethyl (as premium was called) that could be had for, oh, a nickel more?
Only a few hands up, we're guessing.
Americans under the age of 55, and that's most of us, have grown up in the certain knowledge that this country has scarce and depleting petroleum reserves and is destined to rely eternally on ever larger foreign sources for its oil needs. And at ever higher prices beyond our control.
In 2006, the Energy Information Administration put the nation's proven oil reserves at about 21 billion barrels, down nearly half from 39 billion barrels in 1970. The level of imports has grown steadily since the 1970s. Or at least that dependence was growing until recently. Then came horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing and oil and gas extracted from shale formations. As this is being written, the script for our nation's energy future is being rewritten in a quite remarkable - and hopeful - way. But only if we as a people will get out of our own way.
A recent Chronicle story reintroduced the "I word" in discussing America's energy future. That is "I" as in independence - energy independence. The story quoted energy experts projecting that this country could be producing more oil and gas than Saudi Arabia within the next decade.
For those Americans who lived through the original gas lines during the Arab oil embargo in 1973, and again in 1979, and who have watched gasoline prices rise and fall seemingly at omnipotent OPEC's whim or that of a few speculators, the notion of energy independence sounds like fantasy.
Except that it is not. There is a quiet revolution going on in this country, one not well understood by the Obama administration.
Fortunately, most Texans do get it. We've heard about fracking and horizontal drilling, and in Houston, we know that a lot of our neighbors are off to good-paying jobs in places like Carrizo Springs, in South Texas, or maybe up in Pennsylvania or even New York state. We know about Eagle Ford and Haynesville and Barnett. We are familiar with the Marcellus and the Utica shale formations up east. Oh, yes, and we've gotten the word about the Bakken formation in the Dakotas and Wyoming, extending into Canada. It seems like the U.S. Geological Service is updating its estimates of oil reserves there almost daily - and always upward.
What we're finding out is nothing short of amazing. Thanks to improvements in technology, enormous oil and gas resources have become accessible in ways that are both economic and environmentally acceptable.
There is now talk that America's petroleum reserves could be the world's largest, perhaps even several times those of Saudi Arabia.
Alas, what's lacking is strong national political leadership and bipartisan agreement that would help make full use of this gift of resources as the sturdy bridge that can bring America to an energy future based on sustainable sources.
Lack of leadership and accurate information: Those are our nominees for the two biggest clouds in what is otherwise a silver-lined energy future. Too many Americans don't know about our prospects. Too many of our leaders apparently don't quite believe it.
Starting with the president. The Obama administration is busily claiming that domestic oil and natural gas production has expanded during this president's term, even as he ridicules "Drill, baby, drill!" as a bumper sticker rather than a policy while on the stump. But the wrangling over a silly slogan boils down to partisan posturing - on both sides.
Drilling deserves better than sloganeering and sniping. It's more complicated than that, and more important, as well. People in this town know that drilling can and must be a large part of an effective national energy policy.
Oil production has expanded during this president's term for a couple of specific reasons that have everything to do with drilling: 1) Horizontal drilling and fracking on mostly private lands; and 2) President George W. Bush's decision to expand exploration offshore in July 2008, when gas was at $4 a gallon. By the time President Obama was sworn in the following January, the pump price had dropped to about $1.80 a gallon, due largely to the economic collapse, but also thanks to the signal sent to markets by Bush's order.
For their part, the Republican presidential candidates do get it. But they need to do a better job of creating a narrative that communicates the urgency of this issue. It requires more than a throwaway catchphrase or two.
Boasting and bumper stickers are no substitute for informed leadership and bipartisan cooperation. A couple of high hurdles stand between this country and a new, brighter day in energy. Clearing those will require:
1 Telling Americans the new truth about domestic energy resources rather than the same old scare stories. Our resources are plentiful and accessible; not scarce. That fact hasn't yet penetrated the public mind-set. That's the job of leaders.
1 Rejecting the destructive notion that simply because an idea or a strategy won't give us an instant fix, it's not worth doing. Acceptance of that argument over the past 40 years is what has us in this mess. Enough!
This country is poised to change course in ways undreamed of even a few years ago - if only we have political will to reach agreement on a way forward, and eyes to see the new path ahead.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
A Frightful Stairway
Cave bats in Borneo
By M.T. Abdullah et al
Ecotourism can be a powerful tool for bat conservation, especially in regions with little history of understanding or concern for bats. Whether it comes from 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) swirling out from under a bridge in downtown Austin, Texas, or 20,000 large flying foxes (Pteropus vampyrus) rising from tree roosts in the Philippines, few things improve the image of bats more than the direct infusion of cash into a local economy.
Our upcoming book, Bats of Borneo (by M. T. Abdullah and Les Hall), describes major bat caves that attract – or could attract – ecotourists to Borneo. Our research for the book took us to Gomantong Cave in the state of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo, home to 600,000 to 2 million wrinkle-lipped bats (Chaerephon plicata), whose evening emergence is an awesome spectacle.
We hoped to study the bats from inside the cave and collect information that could offer help in effectively managing and protecting this important colony.
Our caving expedition, however, turned into a greater adventure than we had anticipated. Uncounted centuries of roosting bats provided a functional, if somewhat unsavory, staircase leading to the home of the bats.
Les first saw the fly-out of wrinkle-lipped bats during a BCI Founder's Circle Trip in 1998. The cave is popular with both foreign and local tourists who come to see the bats and the spine-tingling harvest of swiftlet nests – the primary, and highly valued, ingredient for the bird's nest soup that's popular among the Chinese community.
Locals gave us directions to the part of the cave used by bats. They also noted that the area smells rather badly and no one ever goes there. We soon discovered just what they meant.
Gomantong Cave is a large, intricate cave system. The bats roost at the rear of a segment known as Simud Hitam (Black) Cave. Part of this segment is occupied by black-nest swiftlets (Collocalia maxima), which make their nests mostly out of the birds' saliva.
We emerged from the rain forest at the base of a limestone cliff where the dark entrance to the cave was fronted by a small cluster of timber long-houses used by those who collect the nests. Inside the cave, ladders of twined rotan vine and hardwood rungs hung from the ceiling at dizzying heights. The nest collectors dangled from these ladders like flies in a spider web. Another type of ladder, made from a hardened bamboo pole, pivoted around the cave to reach the highest nests.
Inside the cave, we found ourselves at the base of a steep rock pile left by a collapse in the cave roof. Above the rocks, daylight streamed through a large hole some 200 feet (60 meters) above the floor – the exit through which the wrinkle-lipped bats emerge at sundown. After scrambling up and around the rock pile, we had expected to encounter a tall chamber, since wrinkle-lipped bats almost always roost in cracks and on ceilings very high up in large caves. Most roost sites are inaccessible to humans.
What we found instead was both stunning and disconcerting: An enormous, chocolate-brown cone of guano rose more than 100 feet (30 meters) high. Here was a stairway to the wrinkle-lipped bats. The top of the guano mountain was lost in the darkness of the chamber, but we could hear the chattering of bats that seemed to be daring us to climb the pile.
With some trepidation, we stepped off the rocky floor – and immediately sank knee-deep in guano. Then we began trudging upwards as our boots filled with guano. Halfway up, the guano grew softer and our legs sank even deeper. The smell of ammonia was overpowering. Three-quarters of the way up, we were thigh-deep in guano and leaning forward almost on all fours. Our eyes began weeping and our throats burned from the ammonia.
Finally, we made it to the top and stood there on wobbly, aching legs. Still more than 15 feet (5 meters) below the ceiling, we aimed our flashlights into several deep crevices, causing the bats to add substantially to the guano pile. We could see very little in the dark crevices, although the bats' chattering increased markedly as they noted our intrusion.
Then we ventured into a side passage with a ceiling height of about six feet (two meters) – and suddenly we saw bats everywhere. Most were wrinkle-lipped bats ranging from naked newborns to gray-furred older pups and on up to adults. The young and their mothers occupied the deepest pockets in the ceiling, squeezed in tightly with just their heads poking out. Adult males often hung below the females and young on prominent projections from the ceiling. We also saw small clusters of Philippine horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus philippinensis) and fawn roundleaf bats (Hipposideros cervinus). Many females of both species were obviously pregnant.
At this height, the cave was extremely hot and humid, just what horseshoe and leaf-nosed bats look for in maternity sites. Perhaps this low-ceiling area also offered a choice microclimate for rearing young wrinkle-lipped bats? That's a question for another day. With sweat rolling off our foreheads and our glasses and cameras fogged, it was time to get out – both because of the extreme conditions and to avoid unnecessarily disturbing the bats.
Descending the pile was easy: We'd take one step and slide another until we reached the bottom. The total time of our journey up and back down the guano mountain probably lasted just 20 minutes, but the experience is guaranteed to remain in our memory forever.
Bat colonies play a vital role in maintaining healthy environments and economies, and many communities are also recognizing their cash value as destinations for tourists. Around the Pacific, bats are becoming valuable tourist attractions, with popular colonies in the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and elsewhere.
This conspicuous cash value is generating new interest in protecting bat colonies. Now we need to gather and pool our knowledge to develop effective, long-term management strategies to ensure that the bat colonies remain healthy and continue to provide the spectacular emergences that so enthrall visitors from around the world. The great caves of Borneo require special, continued attention and monitoring to ensure that the bats can also continue to co-exist with the harvesting of bird's nests.
M.T. ABDULLAH is an Associate Professor at the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak and Head of the Animal Resource Science and Management Program. He studies biodiversity and molecular ecology of bats in Borneo and Malaysia. IMELDA VIVIAN PAUL is a postgraduate student studying bats at the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. LES HALL, a member of BCI's Scientific Advisory Board, recently retired from the University of Queensland but is still involved in bat research and is a Visiting Fellow at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak.
Besieged Bats of Mentawai
From Superstition to Understanding
Battered by Harsh Winds


Map of Grifeu Girona, Catalonia: Take a look at a road map of Grifeu in the Girona region of Catalonia in Northern Spain. Use this convenient road map to look for facilities and tourist attractions close to Grifeu, view towns and villages adjacent to Grifeu, and view even more Girona places.
Grifeu Map - Girona Province Catalonia Spain: Check out our dynamic street map of Grifeu and surrounding areas, the map presented above might possibly be a zoomed in version giving you a city, village or town centre map, if not you can utilize the zoom in control button lower right on map (+), or to get a more distant map of Grifeu's surrounding zones, make use of the (minus symbol) zoom out navigation button. To see a pictorial and fascinating satellite map of Grifeu, Girona, click on the Satellite or Earth button on the bottom left of the Grifeu map. Should you wish to use Google "Street View", you'll need to firstly select the "View Larger Map" navigation button on the upper left of the map of Grifeu and drag the tiny orange coloured figure (lower right) to the specific road or street you wish to see. This is a brilliant way to prepare for a trip to Grifeu in Girona Catalonia, unearth particular places to visit or amenities and find your way around the Grifeu area.
On this website you can view detailed maps of these Girona towns and villages: Fabert, Pontos, Tamariu, Sant Marti d Ogasa, Freixenet de Dalt, Llers, Besalu, Santa Pellaia, Cors, Castell d Aro, Palol d Onyar, Garrigoles, L Hostalnou de Bianya, Sant Feliu de Guixols, Navata, Jafre, Can Buixo, Ger, Lloret de Mar, Sant Roc, Portbou, Sant Medir, Das, Santa Creu d Horta, Queixas, Llafranc, Santa Margarita, Font-Rubi, Calella, Sant Marti de Campmaior, Fontcoberta, Prades, Sant Llorenc de la Muga, Santa Maria de Llorell, Fontanilles, Setcases, Vilavenut, Giverola, Platja d Haro, Palau-Sator, Viladrau, Darnius, Joanetes, Fornells, Burgeroles, Figueres, Angles, Tortella, Vilademuls, Llado and lots more.
Map of Grifeu Spain (Catalonia): I trust you'll find this map to your liking, we have provided a sizable representation of it so that you can be able to easily print it out and take a copy with you on your visit. In these times of sat nav, maps have less value, though I personally (and maybe you as well), enjoy having a visible map which I can view at leisure, which means that a printable Grifeu map is a must. Below find cheap Grifeu hotels, cheap Grifeu holiday rentals and cheap Grifeu airport transfers.
Translations: The Spanish translation for "map" is "mapa" and the Spanish translation for "motorway" is "autopista". Refresh the page for more translations.


A lot has changed since we first looked at the great web, hybrid, native mobile development debate. Enterprises now see employees as a key mobile constituent and iOS 7 has 1500 new native APIs. In this webinar, we discuss the myths, facts and tradeoffs of each and why enterprises go one direction over the other.


text:
Q: MySQL/SQL query with errors I have this query below, with quite a few errors in.
Does anyone know MySQL/SQL good enough to fix the errors?
UPDATE shopproducts AS wesp
JOIN currencies AS wec
JOIN shopcategories AS wesc
JOIN shops AS wes
IF(wesc.adelivery = 1)
    SET wesp.totalprice = ROUND(wesp.price / 100 * wec.value, 0) + wes.adelivery
ELSE IF(wesc.bdelivery = 1)
    SET wesp.totalprice = ROUND(wesp.price / 100 * wec.value, 0) + wes.bdelivery
ELSE
    IF(wesp.price <= wes.freedelivery)
        SET wesp.totalprice = ROUND(wesp.price / 100 * wec.value, 0)
    ELSE
        SET wesp.totalprice = ROUND(wesp.price / 100 * wec.value, 0) + wes.stddelivery
WHERE wesp.currency = wec.name
AND wesp.sortcategory = wesc.category
AND wesp.shop = wes.name

Thanks!

A: Use this way,
UPDATE shopproducts AS wesp
JOIN currencies AS wec
JOIN shopcategories AS wesc
JOIN shops AS wes
SET wesp.totalprice = case when (wesc.adelivery = 1) then ROUND(wesp.price / 100 * wec.value, 0) + wes.adelivery .....(like this way all the when) end

WHERE wesp.currency = wec.name
AND wesp.sortcategory = wesc.category
AND wesp.shop = wes.name

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Welcome to the Garden Court Hotel, a family owned and operated central London hotel.
Established in 1954, the hotel is an English Heritage listed 19th Century Victorian building and we have embraced our history to provide an authentic British atmosphere. We set high standards with the goal of providing real value for money at affordable prices.
Whether it's business or pleasure, you'll find the Garden Court Hotel ideally located next to London's Hyde Park and just minutes away from the bright lights and famous sights of the West End.
The 19th-century Garden Court Hotel is ideally situated in Kensington Gardens Square. We are a modern, family-run hotel just a short walk from Bayswater, Queensway, Royal Oak and Paddington Stations.
Each comfortable room is tastefully designed, complete with flat screen TVs, in-room safes and tea/coffee making facilities. Our deluxe rooms also have the added luxury of in-room Nespresso machines and mini-fridges.
Free high-speed Wi-Fi internet access throughout the hotel, and there is also free luggage storage available at our 24-hour reception.
A complimentary continental buffet breakfast is available when booked directly through our website or by phone.
Nestled in a quiet residential area and part of a thriving and cosmopolitan neighbourhood, Bayswater is famed as one of London's most architecturally traditional areas and a shining example of London's diversity.
Located in proximity to three tube stations, our unrivalled transport links are ideally situated for getting lost in London's many famous sights and sounds. With the great expanse of London's iconic Hyde Park on your doorstep as well as the world renowned Portobello Market and Notting Hill a short walk away you are never too far from your next adventure.


text:
Demonstrating her penmanship, Puja writes swifty with a focused look on her face, gliding the pen across the page with special attention to every line and loop. Occasionally she pauses to brush her long dark hair away from her eyes. She especially lights up when writing her favorite cursive letters 'S' and 'P'.
She prepared for the contest by practicing drafts on loose leaf paper and making edits. She then rewrote the text on the official entry form.
Joel Hibbard, Puja's fifth-grade regular education teacher, describes her work ethic as something to be revered.
"She is exceptional and always goes above and beyond," Hibbard said. "I would definitely say she is a perfectionist, which is a good quality to have. She is very hardworking, energetic and willing to do what it takes to be successful."
Despite other schools' recent drop of handwriting lessons, Valley View begins teaching handwriting in the second grade.
"The credit should first go to Puja, then her parents, then to her second-, third- and fourth-grade teachers," Hibbard said. "Those are the ones who started her out and getting her to know those letters."
Puja's mother, Bhranti Patel, takes pride in seeing her daughter appreciate writing and the meaning behind it.
"She loves to write and express herself," Bhranti said. "I think she thinks it's a good idea to write rather than to type because the emotional feelings that are attached to writing."
Puja said she also prefers handwriting over typing because of the convenience and not having to deal with a computer charging and loading.
Although Puja will begin middle school in the fall, Hibbard said she will not need any advice during the transition because she is ready for whatever comes her way.
Bhranti Patel also sees no limit to her daughter's potential.
"She is always into something," Bhranti said. "She is always doing competitions and participating in so many different things so we will see what comes."
— sleduc@greenbay.gannett.com 'Like' Shelby Le Duc on Facebook and follow her on Twitter @pgshelbyleduc


text:
Lambda výrazy jsou kusy kódu, které lze předávat v programu předávat podobně jako proměnné bez nutnosti je obalovat jako v předchozích verzí Javy do rozhraní. Jejich typ je dynamicky určen podle kontextu, kde jsou použity. Lambda výrazy lze zaměňovat s odpovídajícími instancemi **funkčních rozhraními**, což jsou speciální rozhraní s jedinou abstraktní metodou (např. Runnable, Callable, Predicate, Function...).

```java
// varianta na jeden řádek pouze s lambda výrazy

Collection<String> names = Arrays.asList("John", "Mary", "Margot");
names.stream().filter(a -> a.length() < 5).sorted().forEach(a -> System.out.println(a));
```

```java
// varianta s funkčním rozhraním

Predicate<String> isShort = a -> a.length() < 5;
Consumer<String> printer = a -> System.out.println(a);
names.stream().filter(isShort).sorted().forEach(printer);
```

```java
// varianta s funkčním rozhraním (bez lambda výrazů)

Predicate<String> isShort = new Predicate<String>() {
	@Override
	public boolean test(String a) {
		return a.length() < 5;
	}
};

Consumer<String> printer = new Consumer<String>() {
	@Override
	public void accept(String t) {
		System.out.println(t);
	}
};

names.stream().filter(isShort).sorted().forEach(printer);
```

### Odkaz na metodu

Metody je možné referencovat operátorem *::*. Získané reference lze použít místo lambda výrazů. Podporovány jsou tyto reference:

| Referenční metoda | Získání reference
|---|---
| statická metoda *M* třídy *C* | C::M
| instanční metoda *M* instance *I* | I::M
| konstruktor třídy *C* | C::new

```java
Iterable data = Arrays.asList(1, 2, 5, 4, 8, 8, 55, 4);

// varianta 1
data.forEach((a) -> System.out.println(a));

// varianta 2
data.forEach(System.out::println);
```

### Default metody v rozhraních

V rozhraních je nově možné specifikovat i metody s těly, které se nazývají **default metody**. Tyto metody není nutné znovu implementovat, ale implementující třída ji může překrýt. Pokud jedna třída implementuje více rozhraní se stejně pojmenovanými default metodami, ohlásí kompilátor chybu a metodu je nutné překrýt a v těle případně provolat metodu některého z implementovaných rozhraní.

```java
public interface Greeter {
    default String greet(String name) {
        return String.format("Hello, %s!", name);
    }
}
```

```java
public class Person implements Greeter {
    // nothing here
}
```

```java
System.out.println(new Person().greet("John"));
```

### Statické metody v rozhraních

Statické metody nově lze specifikovat i v rozhraních. Každá taková metoda musí mít tělo, protože se dědičností či implementací nepřenáší do implementujících tříd. Proto lze statickou metodu rozhraní provolat pouze na tom rozhraní, které ji implementuje. Tím se předchází mnohým problémům.

```java
public interface Thanker {
	static String thank() {
		return "Thank you.";
	}
}
```

### Vylepšená reprezentace data a času

Nově jsou k dispozici tyto hlavní třídy:

- *java.time.LocalDate* pro reprezentaci data (bez času)
- *java.time.LocalTime* pro reprezentaci času (bez data)
- *java.time.LocalDateTime* pro reprezentaci data a času (kompozice výše zmíněných tříd)

Další hromada tříd umožňuje práci s časovými zónami, okamžiky, intervaly, změnami, atd. Java se zde velmi inspirovala od populární knihovny [JodaTime](http://www.joda.org/joda-time/).

```java
// get the current date
final LocalDate now = LocalDate.now();
// get the end of the current month (several ways to do it)
final LocalDate endOfMonth = LocalDate.of(now.getYear(), now.getMonth(), now.lengthOfMonth());
// get period between current date and end of the current month
final Period durationTillEndOfMonth = now.until(endOfMonth);
// get period in days
final int daysTillEndOfMonth = durationTillEndOfMonth.getDays();
```
#### Převod Date → LocalDateTime

```java
private Date convertLocalDateTimeToLegacyDate(final LocalDateTime date) {
  return Date.from(date.atZone(ZoneId.systemDefault()).toInstant());
}
```

#### Převod LocalDateTime → Date

```java
private LocalDateTime convertLegacyDateToLocalDateTime(final Date legacyDate) {
  return LocalDateTime.ofInstant(legacyDate.toInstant(), ZoneId.systemDefault());
}
```

### Reference

- http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/java/jf14-date-time-2125367.html
- http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/javaOO/methodreferences.html
- http://zeroturnaround.com/rebellabs/java-8-explained-default-methods/
- http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/technetwork/tutorials/obe/java/Lambda-QuickStart/index.html
- http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/javaOO/lambdaexpressions.html

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


As a ?former? higher education reporter, I very happy to see higher education affordability being discussed in the context of spiralling inflation and targeted financial aid.
President Obama is threatening to tie affordability to financial aid. It could be empty election year rhetoric. If actually implemented, such a move – tying funding to financial efficiency – would start a revolution in Anglo-Saxon universities.
As the financial crisis starts to impact higher education – and higher education is caught completely unprepared despite five years of warnings – I wish I were still covering higher education.
Things are getting very interesting and the cost-spiral may finally come to an end.
The big question – will any senior administrator be cut from bloated overhead at Canadian institutions?


Payment methods can be enabled for selected IPs though Methods are disabled in backend.
By using this extension you can enable any payment method for your selected IPs, you just need to put your IP in backend and select your desired payment method.
This will be useful for developers who working on checkout and want to test full order process, with the help of this extension developer can select his desired payment method and put his IP in backend, it will enable accordingly.
1. Enable payment method without knowing the world, you are testing something.
2. Can save multiple IPs comma separated.


This is the published version, checked on 7 October 2015. The draft contains 2 pending changes.
Switch medication from mirtazapine to sertraline.
Before day 1: gradually reduce dosage of mirtazapine to a maximum of 30 mg/ day.
Day 1: reduce a dosage of 30 mg/day to 15 mg/day.
Day 8: start sertraline in a normal dosage of 50 mg/day.
Day 14: if necessary increase dosage of sertraline.
Sertraline slows dose-dependently the metabolism of mirtazapine through CYP2D6.


text:
Health.mil
The Ruinous 'International Price Index': A Letter from the Future
Gary S. Goldman
By 2050, it was clear we had made a huge mistake — although far too late for that to make a difference — as shortages, rationing, and black markets completely consumed the international pharmaceutical drug industry.
In retrospect, if you had to pick when things started going downhill, it'd probably start in 2025, the first year the world's drug prices were set in a large convention center in Brussels.
Starting in the 2000s, European nations began setting their price controls on pharmaceutical drugs by averaging the prices paid by neighboring countries.
In 2019, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives proposed adopting the practice in the United States, home to the world's largest drug market and most of the key drug-making firms. When President Elizabeth Warren led the adoption of the plan two years later, in 2021, the practice really took off.
Quite suddenly, the governments of almost all Western nations set their prices based on what the other governments had decided to pay. Except, it was circular, since those governments were also basing their price controls on the price controls the others had set, as well.
In 2025, the considerable confusion this situation created led to the adoption of the annual price control setting conference, held, naturally, in Brussels, where unelected European Union bureaucrats decide the fate of their continent on behalf of its citizens.
Prior to the convention, nations had been engaging in an escalating arms race akin to how states in the U.S. try to position their party primary dates ahead of each other, except the opposite. Every nation wanted to go last, to benefit from the price control decisions of the others, and so the decisions of the various price control committees were subject to frequent, mysterious delays.
It was, to be frank, a bit of a mess. But the arrival of the annual price-setting convention, first proposed by Finland's Minister of Social Affairs and Health Pirkko Mattila, completely turned the situation around.
Rather than leaving the order of who sets prices first to the whims of the individual nations, the process was now governed by an orderly lottery. Every year, the fate of medical innovation became largely subject to drawing a numbered ping pong ball from one of those machines they use for televised lottery drawings (the ratings, however, are nowhere near as high).
There were still problems, of course (as the French say, "Comme on fait son lit, on se couche!"). In the lottery's third year, the first price control ping pong ball selected belonged to the Republic of Malawi, a tiny, landlocked African nation that had clearly not anticipated playing a major role in how the international pharmaceutical drug market works.
Because almost every nation's prices were set on each others' in circular fashion, the first nation to pick its prices had a vastly outsized impact on all the others. Malawi officials present at the conference had clearly not prepared any detailed research on prices for individual drugs, and a mood of panic set over the convention hall as fellow bureaucrats — and anxious drug company representatives — considered the implications.
However, the situation was averted when Malawi, in a move praised as selfless by the other participants in Brussels but later criticized as an embarrassment by the domestic political enemies of the Malawian president, opted to retain the prices from the previous year.
Relief quickly filled the Danish hall. However, while some viewed the incident as a cautionary tale, others saw an opportunity, particularly as a means to reward domestic firms and punish international ones. In the following months, smaller nations rejected all proposals to restrict the early rounds to major nations out of hand. But, ironically, it was the selection of a large, major nation that ended up causing the problems we would later face.
Already, U.S. firms, which had previously brought roughly half of all new drugs to the market, had faced significant troubles as a result of the price controls adopted by the U.S. And without a major, relatively free market in America providing price discovery, the international market gradually began to lose touch with economic reality, suffering from major shortages within only a few years.
Shortly following a particularly acute situation in which penicillin had run out across Europe and North America, resulting in shockingly high black market prices above $100,000, the first lottery draw went to China, which had been in an escalating economic trade war with the U.S. since President Donald Trump was elected in the late 2010s.
Although other nations had previously used an early draw to buttress domestic firms, the Chinese representatives suddenly responsible for the world's drug industry were characteristically well-prepared and ruthless. The resulting price scheduled was expertly designed meticulously to wipe U.S. firms off the map, and nearly succeeded, as the convention was followed, within a few months, by several major bankruptcies.
In turn, this caused a major, populist outcry against the drug companies, who were blamed for the shortages, rationing and other problems it created. Several years later, it was a key factor in the election of American President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on a health care platform far enough to the left that it would have left the late Pelosi feeling anxious.
As fate would have it, the U.S. drew a very early round in the price-setting lottery only months after "AOC" had been elected. The Bronx socialist had traveled to Brussels herself for the occasion and personally announced in the convention hall the U.S. would be paying "exactly nothing" for the drugs invented at a cost of roughly $3 billion each by privately capitalized firms (it had been a thriving business back then). The convention hall erupted in chaos, and ultimately disbanded without fulfilling its mission. But irreparable damage had already been done.
Nearly all the large drug firms are gone. Although government officials had vowed to offset the loss with a new Department of Medicine, the efforts have, thus far, done little to improve the situation. Innovation has slowed to a trickle, as academics with promising ideas face difficulty securing the resources to conduct the "twice as safe" safety regulations enacted some ten or so years ago. We face shortages, rationing, and rampant black markets, which are, practically speaking, the only reliable means of purchasing drugs these days, but are not covered by insurance.
In retrospect, it was a mistake for the world's nations to set their price controls based on each others' price controls. Although the Europeans got away with it for a few years, once the U.S., which had provided the last significant drug market, joined in, the situation quickly deteriorated.
If only we had known then what we do now, even Finland's Mattila, an early champion and one of the last to admit defeat, would have loudly warned us: price controls are a path to socialist ruin.
Gary S. Goldman is the nationally recognized host of "Business, Politics, & Lifestyles" a weekly talk show airing on WCRN 830 in Metro Boston, Mass. Learn more at garyonbpl.com.
drug prices international drug prices pharmaceutical companies price controls
Thus Spoke America's Governors
American, British And Israeli Elites To The People: There's No Going Back
FloridaBuff says:
This is a great, futuristic prediction of how liberal price controls can ruin an industry. Think rent controls?


text:
Kenny Burrell — студійний альбом американського джазового гітариста Кенні Беррелла, випущений у 1957 році лейблом Prestige Records.

Опис
Гітарист Кенні Беррелл, якому на той момент було 25 років, на одній із своїх найперших сесій грає у своєму впізнаваному простому стилі з квінтетом, який також включає недооціненого баритон-саксофоніста Сесіла Пейна, піаніста Томмі Фленагана, басиста Дуга Воткінса і ударника Елвіна Джонса. Цей альбом досить короткотривалий (трохи більше 36 хв.), однак включає багато чудових свінгових композицій, а саме «Don't Cry Baby», «Drum Boogie», «All of You» і «Strictly Confidential» Бада Пауелла.

Список композицій
 «Don't Cry Baby» (Фіоріто, Гус Кан) — 8:20
 «Drum Boogie» (Вейбрайт) — 9:14
 «Strictly Confidential» (Бад Пауелл) — 6:25
 «All of You» (Коул Портер) — 6:17
 «Perception» (Кенні Беррелл) — 6:05

Учасники запису
 Кенні Беррелл — гітара
 Сесіл Пейн — баритон-саксофон
 Томмі Фленаган — фортепіано
 Дуг Воткінс — контрабас
 Елвін Джонс — ударні

Технічний персонал
 Боб Вейнсток — продюсер
 Руді Ван Гелдер — інженер
 Айра Гітлер — текст

Посилання
 Огляд  на Allmusic

Альбоми Кенні Беррелла
Альбоми Prestige Records
Альбоми, записані на Van Gelder Studio
Альбоми, спродюсовані Бобом Вейнстоком

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Performances, 2009-2013
Seeking, Seeking, 2/15/09, Illinois State University Wind Symphony, Normal, IL
Seeking, Seeking, 11/5/09, University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa Wind Symphony, Tuscaloosa, AL
A Road, A Path, 11/16/09, University of Texas-Arlington Wind Ensemble, Arlington, TX
Harvest Moon – 1/29/10 Hillsboro County Honors Band, Tampa, FL
The Golden Gray – 2/6/10, Premiere La Crosse High School Band, La Crosse, WI
The Golden Gray, 2/25/10, North-Central CBDNA Conference, Illinois State University Wind Symphony, Normal, IL
Learning to Breathe, 3/18/10, Andrea Steele – Clarinet, Lu Liu – Piano, Kemp Recital Hall, Illinois State University, Normal, IL
Learning to Breathe, 4/25/10, Andrea Steele – Clarinet, Lu Liu – Piano, School of Music Auditorium, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL
Linger(ing), 5/1/10, Christine Hansen – Horn, Andrea Steele – Clarinet, Roy Magnuson – Piano, Broadview Mansion, Normal, IL
Chaos and the Dark, 9/30/10, Illinois State University Wind Symphony, Normal, IL
"Alzheimer's Quartet", 2/11/11, Elan String Quartet, with Shannon Maney-Magnuson and Robbie Q. Telfer, Chicago, IL
…and we'll all go together., 2/19/11, Premiere Normal Community West Wind Ensemble, Normal, IL
In the Twilight of a Sunless World, 3/3/11, Illinois State University Symphonic Band, Normal, IL
Thaw, 4/3/11, Premiere La Crosse High School Band, La Crosse, WI
Thaw, 4/11, Illinois State University Symphonic Winds, Normal, IL
The Golden Gray, 4/19/11, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Wind Ensemble, Lincoln, NE
To Have Seen the Worst, Premiere, 5/11, Quad City Wind Ensemble, Davenport, IA
Transcend the Night, 5/11, Geneseo High School Concert Band, Geneseo, IL
Learning to Breathe, 10/27/11, Andrea Steele – Clarinet, Nancy Pounds – Piano, Westbrook Auditorium, Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, IL
Linger(ing), 11/11/11, Mark Babbitt – Trombone, Kate Lewis – Viola, Roy Magnuson – Piano, Center for the Performing Arts, Illinois State University, Normal, IL
…if we can still dance, 3/22/12, Quasari String Quartet, Robbie Q. Telfer and Shanny Jean Maney, poets – Red Note Music Festival, Illinois State University, Normal, IL
Harvest Moon, 3/30/12, Western Illinois University Wind Ensemble, Macomb, Illinois
Transcend the Night, 4/13/12, Geneseo High School concert Band, Geneseo, Illinois
That Dear Land of Rest, Premiere, 5/8/12, Lincoln-Way West High School, New Lenox, Illinois
That Dear Land of Rest, 5/10/12, Lincoln-Way East High School, New Lenox, Illinois
In the Twilight of a Sunless World, 5/13/12, La Crosse Central Wind Ensemble, La Crosse, Wisconsin
In the Twilight of a Sunless World, 5/22/12, Downers Grove South Wind Ensemble, Downers Grove, Illinois
Harvest Moon, 6/5/12, JEB Stuart High School Wind Ensemble, Falls Church, VA
The Universe, 6/7/12, The Encyclopedia Show: The Universe, Shanny Jean and Robbie Q Telfer, poets, The Vittum Theater, Chicago, IL
Book of the Dead: Concerto for Soprano Saxophone, Winds and Percussion, Premiere, 7/11/12, Paul Nolen, soloist, Royal Northern Wind Ensemble, St. Andrews University, Scotland, UK
Bloom, Premiere, 10/28/12, Illinois State University Symphony Orchestra, Ramiro Miranda, Conductor, Normal, IL
Book of the Dead: Concerto for Soprano Saxophone, Winds and Percussion, 11/15/12, Paul Nolen, soloist, Illinois State University Wind Symphony, Normal, IL


text:
Leopold Museum in Vienna accused over Nazi-looted art
Institution says restitution laws don't apply as it is a private gallery
31st March 2008 23:00 GMT
The Leopold Museum in Vienna is holding art that was stolen by Nazis from Jewish owners, according to allegations by Austria's Green Party and the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (IKG), Austria's main Jewish legal body. After the museum opened an exhibition of work by the Austrian artist Albin Egger-Lienz on 14 February, Wolfgang Zinggl, a member of Austria's Green Party, issued a statement saying that 14 Nazi-looted works were included in the display. An additional painting not in the show but held in the museum's permanent collection, Houses on the Lake, 1914, by Egon Schiele, was also alleged to have been stolen by the Nazis from Jewish owner Jenny Steiner.
Leopold Museum director Dr Rudolf Leopold responded that he had not known the provenance of Houses until 1998, when Austrian archives were opened. But according to Erika Jakubovits, executive director of the IKG, Dr Leopold would have known when he bought the work in 1953 that Jenny Steiner was its prior owner. Dr Leopold himself published a catalogue raisonné of Schiele's work in 1972 which lists Ms Steiner as the former owner of Houses. In 1994 Dr Leopold said in an interview that, since 1950, he had owned and relied on the 1930 Schiele catalogue raisonné by Otto Kallir-Nirenstein, which also names Ms Steiner as the owner of the painting. Ms Steiner's art losses to the Nazis are broadly known to art restitution experts and the public, Ms Jakubovits told The Art Newspaper.
On 20 February, the Green Party held a press conference saying that Dr Leopold was wrongly holding the paintings. The Leopold issued a press release the next day, saying that when Dr Leopold bought Houses in 1953, he had in fact known that Jenny Steiner was the former owner, but had not known that she was Jewish.
Dr Leopold's art-buying advisors and friends were deeply involved in Nazi dealings with art looted from Jewish families, Ms Jakubovits told The Art Newspaper, and his leading advisors would have known that Ms Steiner owned Houses and was Jewish, she said.
On 1 February, the IKG gave the Austrian Ministry of Culture a legal opinion by Austrian law professor Walter Berka as to whether Austria's law requiring restitution of Nazi-looted art could apply to the Leopold Museum. The restitution law applies to federal museums but not private institutions. The Leopold Museum is privately owned, but the government funded its construction, subsidises it, and gave it the funds to purchase Dr Leopold's collection.
The Minister of Cultural Affairs said it was examining the issue of the Leopold to see if a resolution could be found.
On 10 March, the IKG presented a second legal opinion, by law professor Georg Graf, concluding that 11 paintings in the Leopold's collection from six different Jewish owners had been looted by the Nazis. All of the art would have to be restituted if the Leopold were subject to the restitution laws, the report says. In a press release dated 13 March, the Leopold said that it was investigating Professor Graf's report and would issue a statement to various members of the Austrian government.
In response to the claims, Dr Leopold was quoted in the Austrian weekly magazine Falter as saying that "for these people, it's all about money".
Appeared in The Art Newspaper Archive, 190 April 2008
More ArchiveTopicsViennaLeopold MuseumNazi lootJewish HeritagePrivate galleries
Illustrator Pierre Le Tan's enormous collection to be sold by Sotheby's
The Nazi art dealer who supplied Hermann Göring and operated in a shadowy art underworld after the war


text:
Counting The Birds Of Babel
But where are the birds?
Lucas van Valckenborch
Tower of Babel, 1594
If you were to grasp three seemingly unrelated threads in your hands, Dear Reader: the Tower of Babel, the uber-controversial HS2 rail development in England, and the derring-do of Georgian-era maritime exploration, and I asked you to guess what would pop up if you gave them a slight tug ...
Probably the oddest thing in the universe
I would admire your thinking if you gave an answer of Babel Fish!, and that would be a long bow I should be proud to draw, but cannot, as the answer comes in the form of the modest Royal Navy officer, navigator and cartographer extraordinaire, Captain Matthew Flinders. There is no attractive likeness of him to be found on the interwebs, so I proffer up a photograph of his famous cat Trim, who stands behind his statue outside the State Library in Sydney.
Cat on a hot tin library roof
Nota bene: If this is all you wish to know and your curiosity is satisfied, then avert your gaze now, as I am about to take you on a merry ride of discoveries, a.k.a. A Lesson.
Whatever one may have to say about the English multi-billion pound high speed rail project, HS2, Your Correspondent, for one, is pretty thrilled by one delightful outcome. It was during excavations around London's old St. James's cemetery by archaeologists last year, readying the ground for Euston Station's upgrade, that the lost grave of Matthew Flinders was unearthed. Athough his reinterment is somewhat delayed by this being Year of the Plague, he is eventually going "home" to Donington in Lincolnshire.
St. James's Churchyard before Euston Station encroached &
Where Flinders was first lost then found
While this talented navigator, hydrographer and scientist is mostly unknown outside of Australia (and Donington), his is a household name here*. Flinders had learnt his craft under the tutelage of Captain William Bligh**, of the infamous Bounty, who in turn had his navigational skills honed by the preeminent Captain James Cook. He subsequently filled gaps on maps, proved things, named things (he was modest, however, and named nought after himself, just Flinders Island for his brother Samuel), got wrecked & rescued and generally dazzled brightly for a short career.
Do you see Trim?
Loyal to the end
It was during one of Flinders' celebrated journeys that we come upon our Tower of Babel thread. Between the Australian mainland and Tasmania there is a group of islands by the name of Furneaux*** where Flinders and fellow Fens-man George Bass (naval surgeon and naturalist) were doing a bit of high-end surveying from the tiny sloop Norfolk in 1799 - circumnavigating and mapping Van Dieman's Land and proving the existence of the Strait to be named Bass - and Flinders named a remote, granite island within it Babel, for the confusion of voices of the astonishing numbers of roosting penguins, geese, shags, gulls and petrels getting down to the business of domestic chores and child-rearing on its 440 hectares.
One of the rather unsuitable survey ships
From which great scientific strides were made
It was Flinders' second voyage to this neck o' the woods within a year. His first was aboard the schooner Francis, sent to survey the islands as one of a party on a shipwreck recovery mission.
Flinders charting on the Francis voyage
Engraving detail by John Buckland Wright, 1946
He writes in his later published narrative of his voyage, his witnessing, what he was not to know at the time, a great flock of migratory petrels which had come to the Furneaux Islands to roost from the Bering Sea, and where Babel Island has the largest rookery:
There was a stream of from fifty to eighty yards in depth and of three hundred yards, or more, in breadth; the birds were not scattered, but flying as compactly as a free movement of their wings seemed to allow; and during a full hour and a half this stream of petrels continued to pass without interruption at a rate little inferior to the swiftness of a pigeon. On the lowest computation I think the number could not have been less than a hundred millions.
If this seems a fantabulous and unlikely number, Australian historian Ernest Scott did his own calculation in his 1914 biography of Flinders, where he did not dispute the reliableness of Flinders' estimate, and arrived at 151,500,000 birds.
These petrels, short-tailed shearwaters (Ardenna tenuirostris), are known commonly as mutton-birds around these parts and nest in burrows, which is rather handy for harvesting (except when there is a venomous snake lurking at the end of one's reach). They're a bird that has long been part of the Aboriginal diet and indeed Babel Island is now a privately-owned island where a Tasmanian Aboriginal community come to commercially harvest eggs, birds for meat and oil, and feathers, once. Early Colonial settlers to this country had many an occasion when mutton-birds saved them from starvation. So they're looked upon benignly. And consequently, the giddy bird count of 1798 is more typically just the mere tens of millions.
Mutton-birding in the Furneaux Islands with 1955 style
Alongside our friend, the Bogong Moth, they're recently showing some erratic and dramatic reduction in numbers. For the birds, it would appear that there's not enough food in the North Pacific to give them sufficient sustenance to undertake their epic annual journey. Even on a good year, mutton-birds fall from the sky along the coast of Australia, just too pooped to make it to any of the number of rookeries on islands around south-eastern Australia, washing up on beaches sometimes in their thousands.
Mutton-bird 30,000km migratory route
Illustration by Craig Smith, 2019
From children's book Windcatcher by Diane Jackson Hill
For those on the lookout for these endearing seabirds, there has been plenty of chatter about dwindling numbers and notable absences. But this could be a temporary blip, and a recent article in the Audubon Society's magazine hopefully suggests that breeding has lately taken a back-seat to foraging in Antarctica for those that survive the lean seasons in the Arctic, for they are long-lived birds (over 40 years) and will make several million kilometres flight over their lifetimes, so in better times will come back to Babel to contribute their thrumming and chugging train-like voice to the rest.****
* Where all school children learn that his charts are still used today and he coined the name Australia for what was called New Holland.
** When poking about on the Naval Historical Society of Australia website, I did discover that Flinders had a hiccough in the eyes of the disciplinarian Bligh, and occasioned a demotion for a time. It is inferred that the cause was "the favours of attractive and uninhibited South Sea maidens", leaving the young midshipman with venereal disease and the only blot on his otherwise unblemished copybook. It is here I found the suggestion it contributed to his early demise at 40.
*** In one of those peculiar coincidences, whilst I was perusing a bit of interweb cartography for this post, Mr. P and I were having a side conversation about Vansittartism, arising from our both reading London War Notes by Mollie Panter-Downes, and lo! there is a Vansittart Island in the Furneaux Group!
**** And a surprising boost to the numbers could come this year in that Plague-Times has meant restrictions on the numbers of eligible persons to set foot on Babel and its sister islands for harvest season.
Image credits: 1: Wikimedia Commons; 2 John (Viet-Triet) Nguyen via Behance.com; 3, 5: Flying With Hands; 4, 6: via Google; 7: Antipodean Books; 8: via 1993 PhD thesis of Irynej Skira @ UTas; 9: CSIRO Publishing
Cro Magnon 21 November 2020 at 15:36
I've always loved the Tower of Babel painting. It must have been a commission; I cannot imagine any painter sitting down to all that work unless he knew he was to be well paid.
Cro: I like this version better than the Bruegel - is it sacrilege to say such things? I never thought about the why's but it does seem unlikely it would be painted just to while away the time.
Keeping It Simple In Darling Point
Colour Me Purple, November
A Taste Of Thanksgiving
Dennis To The Rescue
The Mutton-Bird Mercy Dash
C Is For ...


text:
Why I Love Cat Winters and Why You Might Too
If you're an avid reader like myself – if not, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE – you probably have that one author (or more) who you love the mostest. Whose every book you've read – and then probably reread a couple of (a.k.a. countless) times. Well, that's what Cat Winters has become to me in the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016.
The first time I encountered with something by her was back in 2015 when I was buddy-reading Slasher Girls & Monster Boys with Ruzaika for our Halloween event, Spooky October. Her short story, Emmeline, was one of my favourites from the anthology and I'd instantly fallen in love with her unique storytelling and writing.
It took me a month after that to pick up another book by her – The Cure for Dreaming – and, unfortunately, it ended up being a tad bit less magical and wonderful than what I was expecting based off on my love for Emmeline. That said, it was a solid four star book with a very well-crafted story that touched on topics such as women's rights and how appearances can be misleading.
Olivia Mead is a headstrong, independent girl—a suffragist—in an age that prefers its girls to be docile. It's 1900 in Oregon, and Olivia's father, concerned that she's headed for trouble, convinces a stage mesmerist to try to hypnotize the rebellion out of her. But the hypnotist, an intriguing young man named Henri Reverie, gives her a terrible gift instead: she's able to see people's true natures, manifesting as visions of darkness and goodness, while also unable to speak her true thoughts out loud. These supernatural challenges only make Olivia more determined to speak her mind, and so she's drawn into a dangerous relationship with the hypnotist and his mysterious motives, all while secretly fighting for the rights of women. Winters breathes new life into history once again with an atmospheric, vividly real story, including archival photos and art from the period throughout.
After the mild disappointment The Cure for Dreaming had been, I was reluctant to pick up another book by Cat Winters. However, In the Shadow of Blackbirds sounded way too good to pass, so I started reading it in the beginning of 2016… and could not put it down until I was finished, as it was one of the best books I'd ever read. From the mystery aspect of the book to the romance everything was downright perfect.
In 1918, the world seems on the verge of apocalypse. Americans roam the streets in gauze masks to ward off the deadly Spanish influenza, and the government ships young men to the front lines of a brutal war, creating an atmosphere of fear and confusion. Sixteen-year-old Mary Shelley Black watches as desperate mourners flock to séances and spirit photographers for comfort, but she herself has never believed in ghosts. During her bleakest moment, however, she's forced to rethink her entire way of looking at life and death, for her first love—a boy who died in battle—returns in spirit form. But what does he want from her?
After that, it didn't take me long to pick up her two other published books: The Uninvited and The Steep & Thorny Way and I freaking adored both of them, even though they were vastly different from each other. They were both 5 star reads, although In the Shadow of Blackbirds still remains my favorite Cat Winters novel. That said, character- and writing-vise The Uninvited overshines the others, in my opinion.
Twenty-five year old Ivy Rowan rises from her bed after being struck by the flu, only to discover the world has been torn apart in just a few short days.
But Ivy's life-long gift—or curse—remains. For she sees the uninvited ones—ghosts of loved ones who appear to her, unasked, unwelcomed, for they always herald impending death. On that October evening in 1918 she sees the spirit of her grandmother, rocking in her mother's chair. An hour later, she learns her younger brother and father have killed a young German out of retaliation for the death of Ivy's older brother Billy in the Great War.
Horrified, she leaves home, to discover the flu has caused utter panic and the rules governing society have broken down. Ivy is drawn into this new world of jazz, passion, and freedom, where people live for the day, because they could be stricken by nightfall. But as her 'uninvited guests' begin to appear to her more often, she knows her life will be torn apart once more, but Ivy has no inkling of the other-worldly revelations about to unfold.
Scene: Oregon, 1923.
Dramatis personae:
Hanalee Denney, daughter of a white woman and an African American man
Hank Denney, her father—a ghost
Greta Koning, Hanalee's mother
Clyde Konig, doctor who treated Hank Denney the night he died, now Hanalee's stepfather
Joe Adder, teenage boy convicted of accidentally killing Hank Denney
Members of the Ku Klux Klan
Townspeople of Elston, Oregon
Question: Was Hank Denney's death an accident…or was it murder most foul?
So, what is that makes Cat Winters's novels the bestest, in my opinion? What is that makes me mention her on the same page with some of my other all-time favourite and auto-buy authors like Maggie Stiefvater and Holly Black?
Allow me to list all the wondrous things that you'll find in a Cat Winters novel, lovelies:
First off, every single book of hers offers the reader 10000% accurate and authentically written historical settings. They make imagining the era super-duper easy and will probably make you get lost in her books and feel as though you're RIGHT THERE with the main character.
On that note, I should also mention how well Cat Winters conveys emotions. In all four of her books I was in the exact emotional state as were the characters. The Uninvited – probably her most emotional novel - had me as close to crying as my stone-cold hard allows me, as we followed the heroine's journey through guilt, anger and, finally, forgiveness.
She is the freaking master of mixing real life with the paranormal.
Her characters are so realistic and relatable that it seems as though they could walk out of their books into the real world at any moment. Next to that, Cat Winters's main characters always have great qualities and learn important lessons in their books. Although, the stories occur in the past, the readers can benefit a lot from these lessons, in my opinion.
Also, diversity? Cat Winters novels have them. The Steep & Thorny Way mainly focuses on racism, but LGBT rights and freedom of religion are also discussed in the novel.
Most of her books are frightening and even mortifying on some levels; however Cat Winters somehow always manages to add a lot of love-filled and heart-warming parts to her stories that stay with you even after finishing her books – maybe even more so than the negative parts. The Steep & Thorny Way, while showcasing terrible things the Ku Klux Klan committed, also portrays friendship and family in the most beautiful and heart-wrenching way.
Last but not least, I love how Cat Winters writes AH-MA-ZING YA and Adult books, I found it quite rare when an author is capable of writing both YA and Adult novels in the same quality.
In 1925, Alice Lind steps off a train in the rain-soaked coastal hamlet of Gordon Bay, Oregon. There, she expects to do nothing more difficult than administer IQ tests to a group of rural schoolchildren. A trained psychologist, Alice believes mysteries of the mind can be unlocked scientifically, but now her views are about to be challenged by one curious child.
Seven-year-old Janie O'Daire is a mathematical genius, which is surprising. But what is disturbing are the stories she tells: that her name was once Violet, she grew up in Kansas decades earlier, and she drowned at age nineteen. Alice delves into these stories, at first believing they're no more than the product of the girl's vast imagination. But, slowly, Alice comes to the realization that Janie might indeed be telling a strange truth.
Alice knows the investigation may endanger her already shaky professional reputation, and as a woman in a field dominated by men she has no room for mistakes. But she is unprepared for the ways it will illuminate terrifying mysteries within her own past, and in the process, irrevocably change her life.
DOESN'T THAT SOUND SUPER-FASCINATING SLASH CREEPY? It sounds like a horror movie I'd definitely watch, which is just great because it'll be released in October 4th, which makes it THE PERFECT Halloween read.
Finally, I feel like I should mention how it pains me a great deal to see how freaking underrated Cat Winters's novels are. SHE DESERVES MORE RECOGNITION, GUYS. So please, if anything I'd written in this post made you feel like these novels could be for you, then check out her novels by clicking on the covers, because THEY'RE THE BEST. Pinky-swear.
Who are some your all time favourite or auto-buy authors?
What are your favourite books by them?
Labels Lists, Other posts
Noelia Alonso 2 July 2016 at 14:45
I've heard about this author but I haven't read anything by her. My auto-buy author is J. K. Rowling (predictable much? hahahaha) although I have enjoyed everything by her except The Casual Vacancy. I didn't like that book at all
Veronika Éles 3 July 2016 at 17:21
You definitely should try something by her when you have a little time - her books are just SO GOOD. A bit maybe? :P I know that feeling - Maggie Stiefvater is my auto-buy author, but Lament was just..meh.
Alise 3 July 2016 at 05:45
I remember reading In the Shadow of Blackbirds when it first came out and knowing next to nothing about it yet ended up loving it. Now I'm always on the lookout for whatever she writes next :)
Yay, glad to meet another fan! :D
Gwen Lavender Mud 3 July 2016 at 23:02
Auto buy authors for me are Rainbow Rowell, Gillian Flynn, Marissa Meyers, Lois Lowry, Maggie Stiefvater and possibly a few other I am forgetting at the moment.
Great post! I definitely need to get some Cat Winters titles. The covers on the books are gorgeous and the stories sound so darn intriguing too. Thanks for highlighting this author :)
Absolutely love Maggie Stiefvater and Marissa Meyer! I've only read Gone Girl by Flynn, but I can't wait to dive into her other novels!
Thanks! Really, really hope you'll enjoy her novels!! :)
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To binge-read or not to binge-read?
The Happiness Tag
Top Ten Things Books Have Made Me Want To Do (But ...
Cecelia Ahern - Flawed (Flawed #1)
The Halsey Book Tag
12 Books Set Outside The US
Marieke Nijkamp - This Is Where It Ends
Harry Potter Tag
Ten Facts About Me (That You Were Dying To Know)
{Discussion Review} Eileen Cook - With Malice
Calia Read - Unhinge
Top Ten Books I've LOVED That Have Under 2000 Rati...
Master List of 120+ Trilogies
Release Calendar: 2016 July


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text:
Basic school children in Lambussie provided with potable water
Basic school children at Lambussie in Lambussie-Karni District, who used to spend several hours in search of drinking water from unsafe sources, have now been provided with potable water.
The water was provided through the intervention of the German Embassy and the International Centre for Enterprise and Sustainable Development (ICED), which provided a mechanized borehole for the children at a total cost of a 27,188 Ghana Cedi.
Dr Marius Haas, German Ambassador to Ghana, who inaugurated the project, said the embassy had limited funds to support community based projects.
He, however, said the provision of clean drinking water, good hygiene and sanitation were essential for the survival of children hence the assistance.
Dr Haas pledged the embassy's commitment to continue working with ICED to help provide essential basic needs such as water to people in the communities.
He also commended the community members for providing GH�2,200 towards the implementation of the project and urged them to maintain the borehole for the sustainable use of the children.
Mr Clement B. Benin, District Chief Executive of Lambussie-Karni said the district was created two years ago and as a result, had many development challenges.
He said the district assembly had been focusing on the provision of education, health and agricultural facilities, which he identified as the driving force of the district's economy and called for support in those areas.
He said efforts were being made to rehabilitate existing structures in the district and also connect electricity and water to accessible schools to enhance teaching and learning.
Mr Benin announced that the district assembly was preparing its three-year medium term development plan, which would embody all sector programmes to avoid duplications and waste.
He appealed to Non Governmental Organisations and donor countries to complement government's efforts in the provision of irrigation facilities to help improve the livelihoods of the people.
Dr Emmanuel Kwesi Boon, Chairman of ICED called on teachers and pupils of the schools to manage the facility in an efficient and sustainable manner.
He appealed to the German Embassy to continue to support ICED to realize its development goals in the northern sector.
Earlier, Mr Benin conducted Dr Haas round the gardens of the physically challenged persons at Karni, the Piina Dam and the Piina Senior High School and appealed to the German Embassy to invest in those facilities as well.
Ghana Is A Beacon of Success - Virgin Group's Founder
Storm destroys properties in Wa


The Oregon Duck began her reign in the rain.
Phyllis Francis is the new World 400m champion.
In a stirring display of tenacity and confidence, Francis powered past favorites Allyson Felix (US) and Shaunae Miller-Uibo (Bah) in the final 40 meters to claim her first individual World title.
Francis ran a personal best 49.92.
While that is the slowest winning time in World Championship history, the cool, wet weather kept times slow, distances short, and competition fierce on a night marked by persistent and heavy rainfall.
Francis is Oregon's first major meet sprint champion since Otis Davis, who won the Olympic 400m in the 1960 Rome Olympics.
Francis was unsure of her position at the finish.
"Me?" she asked when told she had won.
Her mental approach worked to perfection.
Francis "put doubt on the back burner," she said, and the secret to her success is "patience and believing in yourself."
She had both patience and belief in bundles Wednesday night.
Doubt was nowhere to be found.
Before the race she told herself, "You deserve to be there. We're all finalists and whatever happens, happens."
The two runners she swept past are individual Olympic champions, Felix at 200m and Miller-Uibo - she of the famous Rio finish line dive - at 400m.
"They are such phenomenal competitors - I was just telling myself to stay up with them."
Francis' win is the culmination of a well-planned progression through the major championship ranks. She placed 7th in the 400m at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing and 5th at the Rio Olympic Games.
An accomplished relayist, the 25 year old Francis owns 4x400m relay gold from both the 2015 World Relays and the 2016 Olympics.
"It means a lot to me... this is a huge step that is blossoming into something great in the future for my career."
Francis said of her last 40m, "I've got to go back and look at it. I was telling myself to be patient and go with the flow. I told myself 'don't panic, don't freak out, don't get too excited. Put your arms down, put your legs down, and keep going.' "
On winning the World title with a personal best time, Francis said, "It's a good feeling - I'm ecstatic. It's so surreal right now."
On a perfect night for a duck, this Duck ran a perfect race.
Phyllis Francis defines class. I've been impressed by her poise during post-race interviews. Coaches should devote time to training their athletes to get out of their egos like Phyllis does, when they talk to the press.
I agree with you completely, George! Francos was very poised in the mixed zone and in the press conference, and she was gracious to her fellow competitors.
Shaunae Miller-Uibo (Jam) is from the Bahamas, not Jamaica.
Thank you so much for the heads up - much appreciated. I've made the correction.


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Blogging – my books. my life.
I am trying a new type of wrap-up post this year. One that is focused more on blogging than reading. These were the top posts – by traffic – on my blog this year. I would have liked to track them by comments because I think that's a better metric, but page hits is much easier. Enjoy.
Hello October. Hello Old Books.
Did you see anything you missed the first time around?
*Interestingly, these are all print reviews. No audio.
I completely missed the Book Blogger Appreciation Week memo this year. I couldn't figure out why people were appreciating me yesterday.
But when I realized it was BBAW, I headed over to the website to see what was happening and stumbled upon this list of questions for those partnerless in the interview swap. Figured I'd play.
Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack? Not usually. But I love a cup of tea with a book.
Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you? I don't mark my books but that is more out of laziness. If I like a quote, I usually note the page in a note on my phone so I can find it again come review-writing time.
How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Whatever handy "bookmark" I can find. Usually a library receipt.
Fiction, Non-fiction, or both? Fiction, generally.
Hard copy or audiobooks? Both!
Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point? I can put a book down mid-sentence. Which is handy now that I have a baby.
If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away? Usually. Yay, smartphones.
What is the last book you bought? A bedtime book for Evan. For myself? Probably Shine by Jeri Smith-Ready. I haven't been buying books lately.
Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time? See my answer to what I am currently reading.
Do you have a favorite time of day and/or place to read? I love reading on weekend mornings. But that's a thing of the past for now.
Do you prefer series books or stand alone books? I appreciate both.
Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over? It goes in phases for me. I'll recommend one book to everyone for awhile.
How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author's last name, etc.?) By genre. Within fiction, by author's country.


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text:
Wary North Korea Struggles to Stay Afloat in Info Age
Burma's Frontier Appeal Lures Shadowy Oil Firms
Thai Opposition Challenges Poll in Court as Protest Numbers Dwindle
5th BarCamp Attracts Thousands of Technology Lovers
Face to Face With the Tattooed Women of Chin
Thein Sein: Constitution Must Reflect Deals With Ethnic Groups
With Election Disrupted, Thai Protestors Regroup and Refocus
Seattle Crushes Denver to Win Super Bowl
New Domestic Airline to Begin Flying This Month
Arakan Govt Snubs EU Delegation Over Plans for Crisis
Hotel, Shopping Mall Project on Rangoon Military Premises Approved
Sri Lanka Hits Out at US Over Rights Resolution
Obama's Asia Policy Set Back by Democrat
US refugees From Burma Worry About US changes in Policy
Confident of Asean Relations, China Denounces Japan's Air Defense Zone 'Hype'
Thai Elections Peaceful, But Crisis Far From Over
Journalists Detained for Reporting Alleged Burmese Chemical Weapons Factory
Bomb Attack Hits Convoy of Mandalay Chief Minister
Crossing the Indo-Burmese Border on Motorcycle
Cycling: A Way Into Burma's Heart
Global Watchdog Says Indian Cars Fail Safety Test
The Irrawaddy Business Roundup (February 1, 2014)
Burma's Lonely 'Dictator Pagoda'
Burmese Migrants Advised to Return as Thai Work Visas Expire
Burmese Arrested After Dispute With Chinese Pipeline Workers
Chinese-Backed Nickel Mining Project Draws Concerns in Chin State
Thailand's New Fault Line: The Right to Vote
Burmese Workers in Thailand Face Arrest
US Adviser on Burma to Visit Next Week
Telenor, Oredoo Telecoms Licenses Finalized
182 Escape from Philippine Jail, Most Recaptured
Thai Govt Officials Forced to Beg Access to Offices
Thai Government 'Lacks Interest' in Solving Burma Migrant Labor Abuse
After Stunning Debut, India's Anti-Graft Party Scrambles to Dispel Doubts
China Faces Obstacles on Road to Consumer Society
Travel Agency Launches Overland Trips Between Rangoon and Bangkok
Families Relocated for Thilawa SEZ Seek Meeting With 'Unresponsive' JICA
British Minister Defends Burma Army Training
US Ends Group Resettlement for Burmese Refugees on Thai Border
Asian Wings Launches Mandalay-Chiang Mai Flight
UK Official Talks Development Aid, Military Ties in Burma
Refugees From Burma's Chin State Face Indian Dilemma
North Korea Warns of Tensions Over US-South Korea War Games
Malaysia Navy Chief Denies Chinese Incursion
US Ends Resettlement Program for Burmese Refugees
Moderate Quake Reported near Indian Border
US Coffee Company Looks to Source Beans from Burma
Chinese Court Finds 2 Grassroots Activists Guilty
Thailand Braces for Violence as PM Yingluck's Charm Runs Out
Access to the Internet is highly restricted by a regime that keeps its people in the dark about the outside world, but some North Koreans use a local Intranet called "Bright."
PYONGYANG, North Korea — It's late afternoon at the e-library in North Korea's Kim Il Sung University, where row after row of smartly dressed students sit quietly, their faces bathed in the glow of computer displays as they surf the Internet. On the surface, it's a familiar-seeming scene, which is exactly why officials are offering it up for a look.
North Korea is literally off the charts regarding Internet freedoms. There essentially aren't any. But the country is increasingly online. Though it deliberately and meticulously keeps its people isolated and in the dark about the outside world, it knows it must enter the information age to survive in the global economy.
As with so many other aspects of its internal workings, North Korea has tried hard to keep its relationship to the Internet hidden from foreign eyes. But it opened that door just a crack recently for The Associated Press to reveal a self-contained, tightly controlled Intranet called Kwangmyong, or "Bright."
North Korea thinks Bright is the authoritarian answer to the freewheeling Internet.
One of the first things an outside observer notices at Kim Il Sung U is that the students are actually studying. Not wasting time on Facebook or Reddit, no BuzzFeed. In fact, the sites they surf most likely aren't even on the Internet, but on the North-Korea-only Bright.
Chats and email? Monitored.
Content? Restricted to the point that the use of Bright hardly even needs to be watched by officials.
How about the OS? It's "Red Star," now available in version 3.0, which looks a lot like the Microsoft operating system, but is used only in North Korea. Red Star has audio and video players, and even a game—Korean chess. There's a Firefox-style search engine called "Our Country" that helps users navigate around an estimated 1,000 to 5,500 websites, mostly for universities, government offices, libraries and state-run corporations. Most North Koreans have no access to the Internet at all.
"The goal is to reap the benefits of information technology, while keeping out potentially corrosive foreign influences," said Scott Bruce, a North Korea IT expert and analyst at the Arlington, Virginia-based nonprofit CRDF Global.
Copies of Red Star have found their way outside of the North and been studied abroad. But North Korea is so secretive about Bright, which it launched more than a decade ago, that it is off-limits to even the foreign technical advisers it brings in. It can be accessed only in the North and is meant exclusively for domestic use.
"I haven't had a time when I've been allowed to use the Intranet—since the point is that it is not open to foreigners," said Will Scott, a computer sciences instructor at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology who has worked about as closely with North Korea's attempt to get wired as any other foreigner.
Through daily interactions with North Korean students at his university, however, Scott has been able to glean a general outline of what Bright is all about.
"The Intranet provides a connection between industry, universities and the government. It seems to be focused on information propagation, rather than commerce, entertainment or communication," he told the AP. "Given the limited resources in the country, where computers are likely not to be owned by individuals, and are a valuable resource, this has a striking resemblance to the uses first made of the Internet in the US when it was introduced in the '80s."
Technologically, he said, North Korea's Intranet is a mini-Internet, with a combination of joint venture companies and vaguely government-affiliated labs that collectively maintain the core infrastructure that exists on the global Web.
Graduate students and North Korean professors at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology are allowed to access the real Internet from a dedicated computer lab, similar to the e-library at Kim Il Sung University. They receive the same speed and unfiltered access that foreign instructors do, although everyone's access is monitored. Scott said the graduate students don't use the Internet nearly as much as Americans would, treating it more like the way Western students might visit a library to find books.
Students' emails must be reviewed and approved by one of the vice presidents of the university before they can be sent, which, Scott said, means they rarely use email.
"There is some resistance to providing Internet access to students because it requires some level of political capital, and is generally discouraged by higher-up ministries as not worth the potential danger," he said. "I think you would find a surprising lack of technical surveillance on the Intranet, due largely to the high level of self-censorship built into the collective psyche in the country."
Because of the general population's lack of experience with the Internet — and the perception that it is dangerous, forbidden territory—there is no grassroots clamor in North Korea for change.
So deeply engrained are the government's teachings about dealings with the outside world that even some of the students at Kim Il Sung University said they see the Internet as a tool best used in moderation.
"I use the Internet often to look for English reference books," said Ri Jong Hyok, a 21-year-old math student. "But actually the national Intranet has most of the books that I need so I don't need to use it so much."
Still, some experts believe that as more North Koreans become familiar with the benefits of going online—a trend that would seem inevitable if North Korea is to keep afloat in the information age—it will become increasingly difficult for the ruling regime to keep the IT dam from bursting.


text:
The ObserverYouTube
MP calls on YouTube to remove Real IRA propaganda videos
'Cyber-terrorism' films of dissident republicans could be banned from site
Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sat 1 Aug 2009 19.01 EDT
The Real IRA and Continuity IRA have been dealt a propaganda blow in cyberspace. YouTube has confirmed to the Observer this weekend that it is investigating the presence of films praising the dissident republican terror groups on its worldwide video-sharing network.
The company was moved to act after complaints from a Northern Ireland MP, who just last month persuaded Facebook to remove a pro-Real IRA group from the social networking site.
A number of propaganda videos for the two groups are thrown up when the words "Real IRA" or "Continuity IRA" are typed into the YouTube search engine.
In March the Continuity IRA was responsible for killing a Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officer. Forty eight hours earlier the Real IRA gunned down two British soldiers outside an army base in Antrim Town just before they were to leave for Afghanistan.
In the latest video to be posted on YouTube a masked man in a green combat jacket carrying an AK-47 rifle is seen at a riot in Armagh City on 13 July this year. Continuity IRA supporters have posted a video recorded at Easter of two masked men in combat fatigues addressing a crowd at a bar in Armagh. During their speech they threaten Northern Ireland's deputy first minister Martin McGuinness and brand him a "traitor".
A different video posted by a group called the "Free Derry Media", entitled "The War Goes On", is accompanied by a song denouncing the Provisional IRA. The lyrics include a verse telling the British to "stick your decommissioning up your ass". The imagery in the video includes masked gunmen firing a final salute over the coffin of Real IRA activist Joseph O'Connor who was shot dead by the Provisional IRA in west Belfast 10 years ago.
Other videos include recent news footage of rioting in north Belfast which is singled out for praise as "Republican Youth Resistance".
Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson described the films as "a form of cyber-terrorism". The junior minister at Stormont said: "It's entirely wrong that terrorist organisations can engage in blatant propaganda and cyber-terrorism without any apparent sanction. Democratic governments need legislation to limit the capacity of these groups to spread their propaganda. At present, in effect, YouTube are broadcasting hardcore terrorism, unfiltered."
Donaldson pointed to the example of Facebook, which he petitioned to remove a pro-Real IRA network from last month, as an example of confronting terrorists on the web. His own Facebook group "Stop Terrorism" has 40,000 members, many of whom wrote to Facebook calling for the pro-Real IRA group to be taken down, he said.
YouTube said last night that it shared the MP's concerns about the use of its network to spread pro-terrorist messages. A spokesman said: "YouTube is a community site used by millions of people in very positive ways. Sadly, as with any form of communication, there is a tiny minority of people who try to break the rules. On YouTube we don't allow content like pornography or gratuitous violence, and last year we introduced a new policy for the UK banning videos in which people brandish weapons in a threatening manner.
"When people see content that they think is inappropriate they can flag it and our staff then review it and take the appropriate action, including removing videos and suspending accounts.
"As well as enforcing these general content rules, we will of course take action if we receive reports from the authorities of any other illegal activity on the site.
"We regularly talk about these issues with MPs and elected representatives in other countries, and we'd be very happy to sit down with Mr Donaldson to discuss what we're doing to keep YouTube clean of inappropriate material while ensuring that lawful expression is allowed."
The video-sharing network is understood to be replicating its decision in England and Wales to remove any material that involves people using or glorifying weapons like knifes and guns. The company moved to ban this material last year in response to the national outcry over knife crime.
YouTube's policy on the broadcasting of weapons in videos varies from country to country. There is no ban in the United States because weapons are legal. It is understood that the company is moving towards removing the Real and Continuity IRA films because both organisations are illegal under British and Irish law.
Northern Irish politics
UK security and counter-terrorism
Real IRA


Do you remember my house on the hill project?
& richly coloured stone foundations.
to get me in the right frame of mind.
into the wet clay before firing.
makes the glossy whiteness extra lovely.
especially with the addition of some rustic timbers.
and is currently for sale.
but this bathroom still fits the white mood.
to create a simple & calm bathroom.
White works so well in winter spaces.
a charming town just outside of Melbourne.
also from the Ibiza house?
Yep, that's got me in the mood for white!
Let's play Cards in the Pool!


text:
Q: Share and NTFS Permissions Issue I am facing a domain level issue, the problem description is;

*

*I try to create a folder and Named "Folder 1" and share it with every one with "Read" permissions only.

*I created another folder inside "Folder 1" named "Child".

*I set the security permission of the folder for "User 1" and "Domain Administrator" as Full.

The problem that I am facing is the users for which i have set permissions full are not able to create/modify and files in the "Folder 1". This is happening across the domain.
I have tried practising the same on the File Server as well as on the desktop PCs but the same issue is coming up.
How is this issue resolved?

A: Setting a folder to be shared as Read only means nobody can write to it over the network irrespective of the security permissions of the folders inside.
What you want is to set the sharing permissions as Read/Write - the security permissions on the folders themselves then take effect to decide who can do what.


This Wisconsin-shaped metal art is a tribute to walleye fishing and ice fishing in Wisconsin!
Perfect for any fisherman who lives in Wisconsin, grew up there or experienced a great trip and wants to remember it forever.
Cut from steel about as thick as a nickel. It's roughly 18x17" in size.
Walleye sign is coated with your choice of a variety of colors of durable powder-coat. This sign will be safe indoors or out without peeling or fading like spray paint.
Ships FREE to Continental US!
My husband loved it! Super easy to work with. This is a great gift for the fisherman who has it all.
My husband hung this up almost as soon as he opened it. We love it!!! I would recommend this artist!!!


Middlesbrough defender David Wheater wants to stay at the club and get them back in the Premier League, but he fears being sold to balance the books.
Wheater, a Boro fan, insists the prospect of Championship football will not prompt him to ask for a transfer, and he feels a year in the second tier will not harm his long-term England ambitions.
"I've got two more years left here so it is up to the manager," Wheater said. "I'm happy to stay here. I won't ask for a transfer but if the manager accepts another bid then that is a different matter."
He added: "Maybe if I was 28 or 29 and still hadn't played for England then I might be thinking differently but I've got plenty of years ahead to get in the England squad.
"I've supported Boro all my life so they are a team I want to be playing for at the moment and try to get them back up.
"That's where I want to be, the Premier League with Middlesbrough. I think we can get straight back. I think we have enough quality to do that."
Wheater admits the likes of Stewart Downing and Tuncay Sanli are "too good" for the Championship.
Downing's situation has been complicated by a long-term ankle injury, with his team-mates expecting him to be out for six months.
"I think Stewart Downing is too good for the Championship," Wheater said. "Tuncay as well, he's too good for the Championship. But it is down to them.
"I'd like to think that I'm too good for the Championship but that's obviously where I'm heading at the moment."


The panel appointed by Parliament's Standing Rules and Orders Committee yesterday completed the two-day interview exercise for prospective commissioners to the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission and the Zimbabwe Media Commission.
The interviewing panel was chaired by the Deputy President of the Senate Cde Chen Chimutengwende.
The commissions are part of the independent commissions that were created by the new Constitution adopted in 2013 and included members drawn from zanu-pf and the MDC-T.