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Front Page » Business & Finance » Enterprise Florida is taking trade mission to Mexico
Enterprise Florida is taking trade mission to Mexico
Written by Blanca Venegas on February 2, 2016
Enterprise Florida is hosting an Export Development Trade Mission to Mexico City in May for eligible small to mid-size Florida companies that are new to the Mexican market.
The mission, scheduled for May 23-26, will be led by Florida Secretary of Commerce Bill Johnson.
"We are recruiting companies that are either manufacturers, high-tech companies or have never exported to Mexico," said Manny Mencia, senior vice president of International Trade & Development at Enterprise Florida based in Coral Gables. "We have room for as many as 30 companies and 28 have signed up already."
But there is a process for the interested companies in order to attend, he added.
"The companies that have signed up are vetted by the US Commercial Office in Mexico for suitability for the Mexican market," Mr. Mencia said. "Only those that are deemed to have a strong chance to do business in Mexico will be approved."
Some of the leading sectors for Florida exports to Mexico include automotive parts and supplies, aviation parts and services, education and training services, environmental technologies and water, plastic materials and resins, security and safety equipment and services, internet and IT services, medical devices, transportation infrastructure equipment and services, and many others.
According to recent Enterprise Florida data, Florida exports to Mexico rose 29.5% between November 2014 and November 2015. Imports were also up by 17.4% for the same period.
"[Mexico] is one of the largest markets in the world for US products," Mr. Mencia said. "It's by far the fastest growing market for Florida exports in the Western Hemisphere, and I don't think there's a market that has as much potential."
Florida companies can also benefit greatly from the new opportunities that will be available as part of the new International Airport, a multi-billion project that will be built in Mexico City in just a few years, Mr. Mencia said.
"I think Mexico will be the most substantial nation in the Americas for the short and mid-term," Mr. Mencia said. "We are working very closely with the Mexican Consulate here in Miami to develop the mission's agenda, so many of the questions related to it can be answered in about three weeks before the mission."
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Last winter, on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, the County's Community Warning System alerted me to a fire at Chevron's Richmond refinery. Our Hazardous Materials team and other staff responded.
I'm Dr. William Walker, Director of Contra Costa Health Services, here to talk to you about how Contra Costa Health Services responds to emergencies.
There are many opportunities for us to respond to community and individual emergencies 24 hours a day.
What usually comes to mind when we talk about emergency response is our Haz Mat team, in Level A uniforms that look like they are doing a space walk. We certainly do have a experienced team that is called by the refinery directly or by Sheriff's Dispatch during a crisis. They also often respond to much smaller incidents, involving hazardous materials spills, leaks and even methamphetamine laboratory concerns.
As the Health Officer, I respond to a range of other emergencies. Not a week goes by without dozens of calls of one kind or; some of the situations can be pretty strange -- I recall one involving decaying dead ducks that had to be removed from an East County roadway.
When I get an emergency call now, because of the plans we have and the drills and exercises we do -- along with the Community Warning System and a very high level of collaboration with partners like the Red Cross and the County's Office of Emergency Services, I feel good about our ability to respond. The days of running to a pay phone -- hoping we had enough dimes in our pocket, to find out what was happening -- are gone. I also feel good knowing I have an incredibly committed, competent workforce that stands ready to be mobilized, whether for a community disaster or an individual emergency.


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Talking art, life with Houston native Bond girl Lois Chiles
Lifestyle // Luxe Life
Molly Glentzer Nov. 29, 2016 Updated: Nov. 30, 2016 10:25 p.m.
1of9A painting by Lois Chiles, for her show "Woman to Woman" at Octavia Gallery.Photo: Courtesy of the Artist
4of9Lois Chiles in New York City, in 2016Photo: Patrick McMullan, Photographer
5of9Maggie Rapp, Lois Chiles and Joe McNay at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History 2016 Gala in New York City.Photo: Patrick McMullan, Photographer
6of9Lois Chiles and her husband; Richard Gilder; at a gala earlier this year. Photo: Patrick McMullan, Photographer
7of9Chiles Co-starred with Roger Moore in "Moonraker."
8of9Robert Redford and Lois Chiles in "The Way We Were."
9of9Lois Chiles, 1979Photo: Everett Collection, HANDOUT
After more than 30 years as an actress, Houston native Lois Chiles knows the feeling of being observed.
She was, perhaps, most watched for her turn as a Bond girl - she portrayed Holly Goodhead opposite Roger Moore in the 1979 James Bond film "Moonraker" - but also had feature roles in other notable films, including "The Great Gatsby," "The Way We Were" and "Broadcast News."
Although Chiles is still naturally gorgeous at 69, these days she prefers to be the observer. She spends as much as five hours, five days a week, in her New York studio, painting. Her subjects, most often, are nudes - a practice necessary to understanding what's underneath clothing when one paints.
Chiles works the old-fashioned way, spending hours at a stretch with professional life models. Her recent works at Octavia Art Gallery in Houston show an accepting and empathetic eye.
Skin and the anatomic subtleties of the human body are endlessly fascinating and challenging to conquer, Chiles said. "It's really about seeing, and the more you see, you can make choices about what you are going to paint."
Chiles took up painting in the mid-1980s after Oscar-nominated costume designer Theadora Van Runkle invited her to join a life drawing group of Hollywood insiders.
'Woman to Woman' New works by Lois Chiles
When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays, through Dec. 10
Where: Octavia Art Gallery, 3637 W. Alabama
Info: 713-877-1810, octaviaartgallery.com
"I hadn't painted since I was a child, but they told me just to bring some newspaper and come," Chiles said. "I started by sitting in the back and watching what everyone else did."
She kept at it and, a decade later, began studying life drawing with Laddie John Dill, one of the California Abstract Expressionists. But her life on the West Coast seemed stalled.
"I could see it was time to drive away," she said. "There are not that many parts for women my age … and bad scripts upset me," she said. "I grieved about 10 years as I saw it coming because it was all I knew. And I had friends and a nice life in Santa Monica."
She wanted to pursue painting but needed a job. So in 2001, Chiles packed up and came home, landing a gig teaching film acting to theater students at the University of Houston.
A year later, in Maine, she met Richard Gilder, the New York investor and philanthropist who jump-started the Central Park Conservancy (a model for Houston's Hermann Park Conservancy).
Chiles had dated famous men for years, including musician Don Henley, but never married. Gilder, who is now 84, finally persuaded her to wed him in 2005.
The couple maintains a full schedule, with pet projects that include the New York Historical Society and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. They spend summers entertaining at a spectacular historic estate in Islesboro, Maine.
With more freedom to paint, Chiles enrolled in life drawing classes at the National Academy of Fine Arts, where her first teacher, Cornelia Foss, allowed no nonsense, insisting that Chiles stand up to paint - which she still does.
"I feel very lucky to have found another form of artistic expression at this point in my life," Chiles said.
She sees painting as an extension of acting. Both involve studying faces and behavior," she said. "Painting is endlessly fascinating. There's such a wealth of knowledge to be gained."
She has taken workshops with T. Allen Lawson, one of Maine's best landscape painters, and she studies often in New York with painter Kyeong Keun No.
"He is responsible for teaching me how to create the illusion of form, volume and dimension on a one-dimensional surface," Chiles said.
She gravitates to painting women.
"Perhaps it has something to do with learning more about my own gender - finding the common thread in all of them and in me," she said. "I appreciate the beauty and radiance of women of all ages and ethnicities, in contemplation, whether nude or not, stripped down bare, without emotional artifice. When I paint, I try to go beyond the boundaries of the physical being to see the interior life: the vulnerability of the young nude woman, the grief of a friend having lost her beloved husband, the young girl reading while being observed. All being themselves with dignity, strength and resilience."
There is, however, one man she would love to paint: her husband.
"But he won't let me."
Molly Glentzer
Follow Molly on:
http://www.facebook.com/mollyglentzer
Molly Glentzer, a staff arts critic since 1998, writes mostly about dance and visual arts but can go anywhere a good story leads. Through covering public art in parks, she developed a beat focused on Houston's emergence as one of the nation's leading "green renaissance" cities.
During about 30 years as a journalist Molly has also written for periodicals, including Texas Monthly, Saveur, Food & Wine, Dance Magazine and Dance International. She collaborated with her husband, photographer Don Glentzer, to create "Pink Ladies & Crimson Gents: Portraits and Legends of 50 Roses" (2008, Clarkson Potter), a book about the human culture behind rose horticulture. This explains the occasional gardening story byline and her broken fingernails.
A Texas native, Molly grew up in Houston and has lived not too far away in the bucolic town of Brenham since 2012.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
http://ahval.co/en-53671
Turkey's deep state never one structure, more a culture of impunity
Nick Ashdown
Jul 20 2019 09:00 Gmt+3
Last Updated On: Jul 23 2019 01:47 Gmt+3
A decade ago Turkish prosecutors sought to pin all manner of crimes on a shadowy group called Ergenekon made up of military officers and staunch secularists bent on overthrowing the state, but a court this month acquitted more than 200 defendants accused of being part of the conspiracy and some experts say the group probably never existed.
Now members of the secretive Gülen movement are being pursued by legal authorities with equal vigour, but experts say the deep state, a term coined in Turkey in the 1990s, was never a single entity, but rather a series of sometimes competing groups operating on behalf of elements of those in power, protected by a culture of impunity that goes back decades.
Though the Ergenekon trials depended on unreliable evidence and were used by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and their then-allies in the Gülen movement to go after political rivals, experts say many of the defendants were likely involved in crimes for which they have never been held accountable.
"There were certainly lots of people in those indictments who should have been prosecuted for misdeeds, especially against the Kurds in the east, for murders, for assassination, maybe even the Hrant Dink assassination," said Henri Barkey, international relations professor at Lehigh University and senior fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations, referring to the 2007 murder of the Turkish-Armenian journalist.
"But one never got the chance to do those things because ultimately those indictments were the fruits of a poisoned tree," Barkey said.
Prosecutors claimed a single organisation - Ergenekon - was behind nearly every act of political violence in recent Turkish history, leading many to believe that a powerful, clandestine network dubbed the 'deep state' would finally be exposed and brought to justice.
But scholars say the real deep state has always been widely misunderstood, and was never a single organisation.
"At the time [of the Ergenekon trials] there were charts being published in newspapers with a kind of hierarchical organisation, with a Mr. Big at the top, etc. The actual deep state was never like that. It was never highly structured. It was more of a culture of impunity," said Gareth Jenkins, an analyst at the Institute for Security and Development Policy. "An organisation called Ergenekon never existed."
The so-called deep state was actually a number of often competing legal and extralegal groups preoccupied with maintaining Turkey's national security at any cost.
"Institutionally, a deep state can be parts of the police, intelligence or military, as well as groups outside of [the state], whether it's business interests or organised crime," said Ryan Gingeras, a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in California.
These types of structures and practices have a long history in Turkey. The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) that ran the Ottoman Empire in its final years included clandestine elements, some of which helped carry out the Armenian genocide that began in 1915.
Some claim that deep state practices emerged from the Turkish offshoot of an alleged NATO stay-behind programme called Gladio in preparation for a potential Soviet invasion. The Turkish version was allegedly called Counter Guerrilla, and its existence was confirmed by former Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit. But Gingeras says NATO has never acknowledged Gladio and evidence is very sparse.
"We have virtually no documentation that it ever existed," he told Ahval.
But by the 1970s, organised crime groups were working with elements of the Turkish state.
"It's clear that there were organic connections made between elements of the Turkish security services and the Turkish underworld very early on," Gingeras said. "Especially those who had right-wing sympathies found a kind of natural place within the country's growing counter-terrorism, counter-dissident policy by the early to mid-seventies."
In November 1996, an incident occurred which brought the deep state into the public eye. A car carrying a member of parliament and head of a Kurdish paramilitary unit, a hit man and member of the ultranationalist Grey Wolves, a former deputy police chief of Istanbul and a beauty queen crashed in the town of Susurluk. Only the member of parliament survived.
An official commission exposed links between the government, paramilitary groups, and the criminal underworld for the first time, and Turkey's National Intelligence Service (MİT) admitted to recruiting ultranationalist underworld figures to carry out assassinations. Fourteen police officers were convicted of being part of a criminal gang, but no senior government officials were put on trial.
Saturday Mothers, a group that gathers in Istanbul's Taksim square weekly to protest the disappearance of people in recent decades as Turkey saw important regime changes. (AFP Photo/Ozan Köse)
One of the most notorious groups associated with the so-called deep state was JİTEM, the intelligence wing of Turkey's gendarmerie founded in the 1980s that is allegedly responsible for many atrocities committed during the 1990s as part of what is referred to as the dirty war against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) armed militant group. The gendarmerie is a rural police force left over from Ottoman times that often operates with little accountability.
"What has long been the case is that the gendarmerie has maintained this sort of weird autonomy, partially part of the military, partially part of the Interior Ministry. As a force it has at various times burglarised the authority of both the military and the urban police force," Gingeras said.
JİTEM has been officially acknowledged, but information about the organisation is based mostly on personal accounts that are often unreliable.
"We kind of have an idea that it was this group that had a lot of autonomy [and] a lot of authority in prosecuting this anti-PKK agenda. But we don't really know how it interacted with the military [and] how it operated and interacted with regular elements of the police force," Gingeras said.
Activists say the government has never properly investigated or been held to account for JİTEM's actions, but as Gingeras says, "that's very typical of virtually anything dealing with Turkish government malfeasance. That's the rule and not the exception."
The two people who allegedly founded JİTEM – Veli Küçük and Arif Doğan – were both defendants in the Ergenekon trials. Küçük was amongst those recently acquitted, and Doğan died in 2014.
The overwhelming majority of JİTEM and other groups' atrocities, including many thousands of enforced disappearances, were committed in the largely Kurdish southeast in the 1990s. Many human rights activists were furious that Ergenekon defendants suspected of involvement in those crimes had escaped justice after their acquittal.
"There's almost no Kurd in the southeast who hasn't been touched by this culture of impunity. At least one member of everyone's [extended] family has been killed," said Mustafa Gürbüz, an expert on Kurdish issues at the American University and the Arab Center in Washington.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan rose to power partially based on a pledge to root out the deep state culture, a narrative that many Kurds tentatively believed.
"Certainly it's a big part of the story of how and why Erdoğan was elected. His candidacy and the formation of the AKP was built around the idea of counteracting the culture that produced Susurluk," Gingeras said.
For a while it appeared as though the government was starting to investigate state-perpetuated human rights abuses, but trials seemed to go nowhere, and Gürbüz says in the end Erdoğan did not fulfil his promises and has more recently been courting ultranationalists.
"Most Kurds believe that the perpetrators are still protected by Turkish state bureaucracy, and that extrajudicial, arbitrary measures have been revived from their ashes with a Turkish nationalist fervour against the perceived enemies of the Turkish state," Gürbüz said.
Gürbüz also pointed out that abductions were once again on the rise in Turkey, especially after the 2016 failed coup attempt the government says was carried out by member of the Fethullahist Terror Organisation, its name for the Gülen movement.
"Various human rights organisations have documented that extrajudicial abductions and interrogations are rampant once again, reminiscent of the early 1990s," he said.
Gingeras said that after the Ergenekon trials and violent split between the AKP and Gülen movement, conceptions of the deep state splintered along partisan lines.
"The deep state as a concept still has resonance, but it's very partisan. Like everything else in Turkey, it's become an open interpretation within your partisan read," he said. Former journalist and current opposition parliamentarian Ahmet Şık, said Gingeras, "says AK is the deep state. If you look at the Good Party hard right … it's the United States. If you're AK … it's FETÖ."
https://jamestown.org/program/murky-past-of-turkeys-gendarmerie-intelligence-emerges-in-ergenekon-investigation/
The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Ahval.
The historical roots of Turkey's clandestine networks and Erdoğan's authoritarianism (II)
Turkey's clandestine networks and Erdoğan's authoritarianism
Other Articles Suggested by Editor مقالات أخرى من اختيارات المحرر Editör tarafından önerilen diğer makaleler


text:
package main

import (
	"errors"
	"strings"

	"github.com/docker/infrakit/pkg/plugin/group"
	group_types "github.com/docker/infrakit/pkg/plugin/group/types"
	"github.com/docker/infrakit/pkg/spi/flavor"
	"github.com/docker/infrakit/pkg/spi/instance"
	"github.com/docker/infrakit/pkg/types"
)

// Spec is the model of the plugin Properties.
type Spec struct {
	Flavors []group_types.FlavorPlugin
}

// NewPlugin creates a Flavor Combo plugin that chains multiple flavors in a sequence.  Each flavor
func NewPlugin(flavorPlugins group.FlavorPluginLookup) flavor.Plugin {
	return flavorCombo{flavorPlugins: flavorPlugins}
}

type flavorCombo struct {
	flavorPlugins group.FlavorPluginLookup
}

func (f flavorCombo) Validate(flavorProperties *types.Any, allocation group_types.AllocationMethod) error {
	s := Spec{}
	return flavorProperties.Decode(&s)
}

func (f flavorCombo) Healthy(flavorProperties *types.Any, inst instance.Description) (flavor.Health, error) {
	// The overall health of the flavor combination is taken as the 'lowest common demoninator' of the configured
	// flavors.  Only flavor.Healthy is reported if all flavors report flavor.Healthy.  flavor.Unhealthy or
	// flavor.UnknownHealth is returned as soon as any Flavor reports that value.

	s := Spec{}
	if err := flavorProperties.Decode(&s); err != nil {
		return flavor.Unknown, err
	}

	for _, pluginSpec := range s.Flavors {
		plugin, err := f.flavorPlugins(pluginSpec.Plugin)
		if err != nil {
			return flavor.Unknown, err
		}

		health, err := plugin.Healthy(pluginSpec.Properties, inst)
		if err != nil || health != flavor.Healthy {
			return health, err
		}
	}

	return flavor.Healthy, nil
}

func (f flavorCombo) Drain(flavorProperties *types.Any, inst instance.Description) error {
	// Draining is attempted on all flavors regardless of errors encountered.  All errors encountered are combined
	// and returned.

	s := Spec{}
	if err := flavorProperties.Decode(&s); err != nil {
		return err
	}

	errs := []string{}

	for _, pluginSpec := range s.Flavors {
		plugin, err := f.flavorPlugins(pluginSpec.Plugin)
		if err != nil {
			errs = append(errs, err.Error())
		}

		if err := plugin.Drain(pluginSpec.Properties, inst); err != nil {
			errs = append(errs, err.Error())
		}
	}

	if len(errs) == 0 {
		return nil
	}

	return errors.New(strings.Join(errs, ", "))
}

func cloneSpec(spec instance.Spec) instance.Spec {
	tags := map[string]string{}
	for k, v := range spec.Tags {
		tags[k] = v
	}

	var logicalID *instance.LogicalID
	if spec.LogicalID != nil {
		idCopy := *spec.LogicalID
		logicalID = &idCopy
	}

	attachments := []instance.Attachment{}
	for _, v := range spec.Attachments {
		attachments = append(attachments, v)
	}

	return instance.Spec{
		Properties:  spec.Properties,
		Tags:        tags,
		Init:        spec.Init,
		LogicalID:   logicalID,
		Attachments: attachments,
	}
}

func mergeSpecs(initial instance.Spec, specs []instance.Spec) (instance.Spec, error) {
	result := cloneSpec(initial)

	for _, spec := range specs {
		for k, v := range spec.Tags {
			result.Tags[k] = v
		}

		if spec.Init != "" {
			if result.Init != "" {
				result.Init += "\n"
			}

			result.Init += spec.Init
		}

		for _, v := range spec.Attachments {
			result.Attachments = append(result.Attachments, v)
		}
	}

	return result, nil
}

func (f flavorCombo) Prepare(flavor *types.Any,
	inst instance.Spec,
	allocation group_types.AllocationMethod) (instance.Spec, error) {

	combo := Spec{}
	err := flavor.Decode(&combo)
	if err != nil {
		return inst, err
	}

	specs := []instance.Spec{}
	for _, pluginSpec := range combo.Flavors {
		// Copy the instance spec to prevent Flavor plugins from interfering with each other.
		clone := cloneSpec(inst)

		plugin, err := f.flavorPlugins(pluginSpec.Plugin)
		if err != nil {
			return inst, err
		}

		flavorOutput, err := plugin.Prepare(pluginSpec.Properties, clone, allocation)
		if err != nil {
			return inst, err
		}
		specs = append(specs, flavorOutput)
	}

	return mergeSpecs(inst, specs)
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Deputy Secretary Tony Miller Visits Los Angeles for President's Speech to Students
pkickbush
On September 8, Deputy Secretary of Education Tony Miller visited Commonwealth Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles to watch with a class of 5th-graders as President Obama spoke to America's students. Miller also represented the Obama Administration at the "Get Schooled" conference and video screening of a documentary video, "Get Schooled: You Have the Right."
"As we start the new school year," Miller said, "America needs all students performing up to the best of their abilities. We need every child to graduate from high school ready to succeed in college and to compete in the global economy. As President Obama has said, if you drop out of school, you're not quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country," Miller said. "The Administration's participation in Get Schooled is an example of creative public-private partnerships that are critical to addressing the crisis in our schools and supporting young people in their education."
See photos of Deputy Secretary Miller's visit. See the video and text of President Obama's speech in which he challenged students to work hard, set education goals, and take responsibility for learning.
ED Staff
Answering the Call of Martin Luther King, Jr. Service Day
Duncan Hears the Success Story of "Fantabulous" Sousa Middle
Nebraska Schools Use Niche Tactics to Claim Academic Victories
← President Obama, Secretary Duncan Talk with Students at Wakefield High
Town Hall Meeting with Secretary Arne Duncan: Join the Conversation! →


text:
End the use of extreme rendition
"From both a moral standpoint and a practical standpoint, torture is wrong. Barack Obama will end the use torture without exception. He also will eliminate the practice of extreme rendition, where we outsource our torture to other countries."
All of the Obameter
By Louis Jacobson December 4, 2012
Extraordinary rendition officially ruled out, but secrecy makes its elimination hard to prove
The use of "extreme rendition" is one of the most controversial legacies of President George W. Bush. It was so contentious that during the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to "eliminate the practice of extreme rendition, where we outsource our torture to other countries."
As we have previously noted, extreme rendition -- sometimes called "extraordinary rendition" -- refers to taking terrorism suspects to nations where they are at a high risk of being tortured or imprisoned indefinitely. This practice became common following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
On Aug. 24, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Special Task Force on Interrogations and Transfer Policies had finished its review. The United States would continue to send individuals to other countries, the panel decided, but the United States would seek "assurances from the receiving country" that the suspect would not be tortured. But the specific recommendations themselves were -- and remain -- classified.
To gauge the progress on implementing these principles, we interviewed human rights and legal experts. There was broad consensus among these experts that if extraordinary rendition is happening at all, it's happening less frequently than it did under Bush. But there was also agreement that we can't really be certain what is going on.
There are two reasons for the uncertainty. One is that rendition activities are performed by top secret intelligence agencies, so in the normal course of affairs, the public is unlikely to know many details of what goes on. The second is that it's extremely difficult to "prove a negative" -- that is, to demonstrate with any certainty that something is not happening.
"I see no evidence that they have engaged in this practice," said David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor. "They have not abandoned non-extraordinary rendition, at least in theory, which means the capture of an individual to take him to another country, but they would claim that they will not do so for purposes of torture."
Steven Watt, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union's human rights program, suggested that Obama has "partially fulfilled the promise to end extreme rendition." He gave Obama credit for officially ending the practice but added that there is still a possibility that ordinary renditions can turn into extraordinary renditions even if that's not the intent of the policy.
Much hinges on how believable the promises from other nations are. Jen Nessel, a spokeswoman for the Center for Constitutional Rights, a human-rights advocacy group, said her organization believes that "'guarantees" of no torture are worthless," though she acknowledged that "there is some debate about the issue."
Tom Malinowski, the Washington Director for Human Rights Watch, said that there is no evidence that the Obama administration has sent to suspects to the most repressive countries believed to be used by the Bush administration, such as Syria, Egypt and Libya (each of which, in any case, has undergone major governmental changes during Obama's tenure, and would not necessarily be receptive to such requests any more).
However, Malinowski added that a "big problem" is that the Obama administration "has placed a much greater emphasis on asking foreign intelligence and security services to take the lead in arresting terrorism suspects around the world."
For instance, he said, "instead of having the CIA detain an Egyptian, and then rendering him to Egypt, the U.S. is now more likely to pass the intelligence to the Egyptians and ask them to make the arrest themselves. That's not technically a rendition – and it's not prohibited by human rights treaties in the way some renditions are -- but some would argue that it has the same effect. And because these detainees never pass through U.S. hands, we have no information about how many people are involved and where they end up detained."
We conclude that Obama has partially met the promise by officially ending the practice of extraordinary rendition. No evidence has emerged that the administration has continued the policy of its predecessors surreptitiously. Still, too little is known about current activities to rate this a Promise Kept. Not even the task force's full recommendations have been released publicly yet. On balance, we rate this a Compromise.
Department of Justice, "Special Task Force on Interrogations and Transfer Policies Issues Its Recommendations to the President" (press release), Aug. 24, 2009
New York Times, "U.S. Says Rendition to Continue, but With More Oversight," Aug. 25, 2009
Email interview with Tom Malinowski, Washington Director for Human Rights Watch, Nov. 30, 2012
Email interview with Robert Chesney, University of Texas law professor, Nov. 30, 2012
Email interview with Jen Nessel, spokeswoman for the Center for Constitutional Rights, Nov. 30, 2012
Email interview with David Cole, Georgetown University law professor, Nov. 30, 2012
Interview with Steven Watt, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union"s human rights program, Dec. 4, 2012
By Lukas Pleva September 15, 2010
Obama's extreme rendition policy is issued, but results still uncertain
On the campaign trail, President Barack Obama promised to end the use of torture, close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, and stop al-Qaida prison recruitment.
He also pledged to end the use of "extreme rendition," a promise that we last rated in January 2009. At that time, we rated it In the Works, since on Jan. 22, 2009 Obama signed an executive order directing the creation of a task force to study and evaluate the transfer of prisoners to other nations for detention and/or interrogation. We were curious to see how things have unfolded since then.
First, however, a little primer on international law (a short one, we promise).
To start off, there is a difference between extreme rendition, also known as extraordinary rendition, and rendition itself.
The use of rendition in the United States goes back to President Ronald Reagan, who authorized the practice in 1986 for use against terrorism suspects. Over the years, it became a tool to retrieve suspects from foreign countries, and to bring them to this country for a trial. During the Clinton era, the suspect was also sometimes brought to a third country. These transfers are often referred to as "renditions to justice". They happen outside the legal extradition and deportation framework, but the ultimate goal is to put the individual before a regular legal panel.
Extraordinary renditions, which critics say became widespread following the September 11 terrorist attacks, are used to bring suspects to countries where they are at a high risk of being tortured and/or imprisoned indefinitely.
In the promise, Obama said that he'll stop outsourcing "our torture to other countries," so we'll look at whether he ended the use of extraordinary rendition, not rendition as a whole.
We asked numerous legal experts to evaluate how President Obama is doing with the promise.
It immediately became clear, however, that this was not going to be easy. Rendition activities are performed by top secret intelligence agencies, so it's possible we'll never really know whether extraordinary renditions have ceased.
Still, it appears that there is at least some movement on the promise.
On Aug. 24, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Special Task Force on Interrogations and Transfer Policies had finished its review. The United States will continue to send individuals to other countries, stated a Department of Justice Press press release, but the United States will seek "assurances from the receiving country" that the suspect will not be tortured. The recommendations specifically called on the Department of State to be involved in evaluating those assurances and for the Inspector Generals of the Departments of State, Defense and Homeland Security to submit annual reports on transfers conducted by each of their agencies. The report also recommends that agencies obtaining assurances from foreign countries insist on a monitoring mechanism or establish a monitoring mechanism, to ensure that the individual is not tortured. The specific recommendations themselves are classified, however.
Ben Wizner, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, told us that it's "unlikely that CIA renditions under Obama -– if they"re being conducted -– are even remotely on the scale of what occurred during the Bush administration." Wizner said we're not seeing a large number of families coming forward claiming that their loved ones were shipped off to other countries and tortured, which is what happened during the Bush administration.
Still, some experts are critical. Maria LaHood, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the DOJ Task Force recommendations are not particularly meaningful. "Neither assurances nor monitoring can prevent against torture," she said. She cited the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was taken to Syria in 2002. Arar claims that he was severely beaten and tortured in the Syrian jail, despite assurances from Syria and consular visits from from Canadian authorities. LaHood said that it's hard to tell from policy recommendations if there's been an improvement or not.
Margaret L. Satterthwaite from the Center for Human Rights & Global Justice at New York University also criticized the DOJ task force recommendations. There is no mechanism in place for the individual subjected to rendition to challenge the transfer before an independent panel. Moreover, nobody outside the government actually knows the details of the policy, so it's hard to objectively evaluate whether the government is sticking to its promise.
We're not sure if we'll ever be able to issue a definitive ruling on this promise. The administration has announced new procedural safeguards concerning individuals who are sent to foreign countries. President Obama also promised to shut down the CIA-run "black sites," and there seems to be anecdotal evidence that extreme renditions are not happening, at least not as much as they did during the Bush administration. Still, human rights groups say that these safeguards are inadequate and that the DOJ Task Force recommendations still allow the U.S. to send individuals to foreign countries. We'll give the Obama administration credit for the steps it's already taken, but until we have a more definitive evidence that extraordinary renditions have stopped, this promise stays In the Works.
E-mail interview, Robert Chesney, The University of Texas at Austin, June 21, 2010
E-mail interview, Beau Grosscup, California State University Chico, June 14, 2010
E-mail and phone interview, Maria LaHood, Center for Constitutional Rights, July 13, 2010
E-mail and phone interview, Ben Wizner, American Civil Liberties Union, July 13, 2010
E-mail and phone interview, Margaret L. Satterthwaite, New York University School of Law, July 15, 2010
E-mail interview, Steven Ratner, University of Michigan Law School, June 22, 2010
The Department of Justice, Press Release: Special Task Force on Interrogations and Transfer Policies Issues Its Recommendations to the President, Aug. 24, 2009.
The New York Times, U.S. Says Rendition to Continue, but With More Oversight, by David Johnston, Aug. 24, 2009.
By Angie Drobnic Holan January 27, 2009
Obama signs executive order concerning extreme rendition
On Jan. 22, 2009, President Obama signed a detailed executive order on torture and extreme rendition.
The order said that prisoners "shall in all circumstances be treated humanely and shall not be subjected to violence to life and person (including murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment, and torture), nor to outrages upon personal dignity (including humiliating and degrading treatment)." It also specifically nullifies interpretations of federal law on interrogations "issued by the Department of Justice between September 11, 2001, and January 20, 2009."
The order also creates a task force to study whether the procedures in the Army Field Manual are sufficient to protect the country and make recommendations on "additional or different guidance for other departments or agencies."
The task force will also study and evaluate the transfer of prisoners to other nations, a process known as "extreme rendition." The task force is given six months to finish its work, with a possibility of extension.
The order, worth reading in its entirety, also says the CIA shall not operate detention centers and should close "as expeditiously as possible" any centers it now operates. The International Committee of the Red Cross, an independent monitoring organization, should also be given timely access to prisoners, the order states.
Obama has taken the first step toward fulfilling this promise, but there are still many details to be worked out, such as closing CIA detention centers and ending extreme rendition. So for now, we're moving this one to In the Works.
The White House Web site, executive order on ensuring lawful interrogations , signed Jan. 22, 2009, accessed Jan. 27, 2009
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Garage shelving has to be personalized, mainly because it deals with shelving of our personal closets, which we work with at least twice a day. Shelving is essential in closets as it easily tends to become messy and unorganized. Together with the lives of people becoming busier everyday, they do not want to invest time in keeping their products organized in closets taken care of ignored by closing the doors. The storage systems ought to be such where people can access their items, including clothes, accessories and sneakers easily. The shelving should be alterable, as we may want to change the layout from time to time. With the modifications occurring in our wardrobe the variation also has to happen inside the shelving.


text:
Silicone products can be divided into three categories according to the different molding process. Molded silicone products are usually made by being put into the high temperature mold after the addition of curing agent in the solid silica gel through the curing machine pressure and high temperature into a solid. The shape of the mold determines the shape of the molded silicone products. Molded silicone products is currently the most widely used in the silicone industry. So as for silicone bracelets. Extruded silicone products are usually extruded through the extrusion of silicone molding. The general shape of the extruded silicone long and tubular which can be cut, but the shape of the extruded silicone has limitations. Liquid silicone products are made through the injection molding of silica gel. Because of its soft characteristic, widely used in the simulation of human organs.
Meaning Green Rubber Bracelets Green rubber bracelets are usually used to support ecology with messages like "SAVE OUR EARTH" and "PEACE", leukemia and Muscular Dystrophy with the message "I WILL" and organ donor-ship. Sometimes it is used for general cancer support. Lots of the time green just has fun and silly messages. Sometimes the green rubber bracelets glow in the dark. basketball-silicone-braceletswholesale-custom-wristbands
about 200℃ will solidify rubber into the sharp of wristband. let"s see how the mould come into being. Mould, industrial production to use injection, blow molding, extrusion, die-casting or forging and forming, smelting, stamping and other methods to get the various models and tools of the required products. In short, mould is used to make molding tools. This tool is made up of various parts, and different molds are made up of different parts. It mainly realizes the processing of the shape of the articles by changing the physical state of the formed material. It has the title of "the mother of industry". Under the action of external force, the billet becomes a tool with specific shape and size. It is widely used in blanking, die forging, cold heading, extrusion, compaction of powder metallurgy parts, pressure casting, and plastic or injection molding of engineering plastics, rubber, ceramics and other products. The mould has a specific contour or inner cavity shape, and the shape of the cutting edge can be used to separate the blank from the contour line (blanking). The shape of the inner cavity can be used to obtain the corresponding three-dimensional shape of the blank. The mould generally consists of two parts, the movable die and the fixed die (or punch and concave die), and the two parts can be divided into two parts. When separate parts are removed, the blank is injected into the mold cavity to form. The mould is a precision tool with complex shape, bearing the bulging force of the billet. It has high requirements for the structure strength, stiffness, surface hardness, surface roughness and machining precision. The development level of die production is one of the important symbols of the mechanical manufacturing level. The most important factors of mold material are thermal strength and thermal stability. Materials used for common materials: working temperature, forming materials, mold materials. make-your-own-silicone-bracelet-kitcoloured-wristbands-for-events
For others, the color may simply represent a favorite color or it may represent a particular person or event in the wearer's life. But for an increasing number of people, the color of a rubber brstarburst rubber band braceletacelet signifies the wearer's awareness of a particular cause or medical condition. The size and location of a colored rubber bracelet makes it a more subtle and unobtrusive reminder than other forms of wearable insignias, from a ribbon placed squarely on the chest to a T-shirt spelling out a cause outright. Causes, however, cannot claim exclusive rights to any particular color. Because of this, quite a few colors may represent more than a single cause: Red AIDS or HIV Awareness Blood Donor DARE (or Drug Abuse Resistance Education) DUI Prevention Epidermolysis Bullosa, which is a group of disorders characterized by the appearance of skin blisters from very minor injuries Heart Disease Blue Arthritis Dystonia (a kind of neurological disorder that causes twisting, repetitive movements, and even abnormal postures) Child Abuse Sexual Assault Thyroid Disease Eating Disorders Education Graves' Disease Pro Choice Ovarian Cancer Irritable Bowel Syndrome Gastro-esophageal reflux disease or GERD Esophageal Cancer Lymphedema, or lymphatic obstruction Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or Myalgic Encephalopathstarburst rubber band bracelety, though the general public often refers to it as chronic fatigue syndrome Prostate Cancer Reye's Syndrome, a rare but potentially deadly disease that may affect the liver and brain, and which occur in children who are recovering from a viral infection Scleroderma Victim's Rights Water Quality Sexual Assault Thyroid Disease Trisomy 18 or Edwards Syndrome, a kind of genetic disorder Purple Alzheimer's Animal Abuse Rhett Syndrome Sarcoidosis Cancer Leiomyosarcoma, a kind of malignant cancer Lupus Colitis, the inflammation of the colon Crohn's Disease or regional enteritis, a kind of inflammatory bowel disease Epilepsy Gynecological Cancer Cystic Fibrosis Domestic Violence Pancreatic Cancer Pulmonary Hypertension Hodgkin's lymphoma Lymphoma Fibromyalgia, a condition marked by chronic widespread pain Foster Care Macular Degeneration Other colors may be in the same situation. Gray can signify the battle against mental disease or Parkinson's, and white may symbolize free speech or the right to life movement. Orange may be a call for racial tolerance, or it may represent an awareness of Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. In order to be more precise and avoid any unnecessary confusion, you may have your bracelets engraved with the actual name of the cause you are trying to espouse. That should clear up the matter nicely, though some people may not necessarily consider the vagueness of the bracelet a negative thing. The lack of specificity may cause some people to ask the bracelet wearer about what the colored rubber bracelet means, and the wearer can then help spread awareness of the espoused cause by answering the question directly. There are many online companies which sell wholesale rubber bracelets at discounted prices and if you look through their catalogue, you will come across thousands of designs and patterns. Just choose the ones you like, order the number of pieces you require and you are done. Delivery of wholesale rubber bracelets can be made to you within 3 to 5 days. colored-rubber-bands-for-bracelets
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Includes a 24 page, professionally printed booklet, and a download of the tracks.
Includes unlimited streaming of Ravenloft - Unofficial Game Soundtrack via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Printed Booklet + Double CDRs Professionally Printed Booklet with two CDrs.
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Synth Bard's new masterpiece - a soundtrack to the 1983 Dungeons and Dragons Adventure Module "Ravenloft," complete with a 24 page booklet.


Taking a break from life this morning, I want to write about the Turkish language. People are always asking me if it is hard to learn. I don't find it difficult, it's just different. If you are a language person, you probably will get it pretty easily. The key is to stop translating and start learning like babies do.
There are many problems with direct translation, one of them being that there is not always a Turkish word for the English equivalent. This became very clear to me when I tried to find a book on verbs. There is "501 English Verbs", "501 German Verbs", "501 Spanish Verbs", etc. But when I found the Turkish book, it was only "201 Turkish Verbs". Not as nicely done as the others either, but still a great way to learn!
Every once in a while, I do come across the exact opposite situation. Take the word "half" for example. Turks have two words, yarım and buçuk. I don't know the rhyme or reason behind this. What I do know is that it just takes practice! Below are some tips for you.
00:30 (aka 12:30 a.m.) – Saat Yarım or simply yarım assuming the conversation is about time.
I will see you in half an hour – Yarım saat. Notice the word order changed from the time above.
I am not positive, But I assume if I were coming to meet you in one and a half hours it would be bir buçuk saat sonra.
Half a kilo – Yarım kilo.
0,50 TL – No idea. Following this lesson, it would be Yarım TL, but something tells me it is not. It is probably just 50 kuruş. Do you know????
'Yarım' is used only when it means half of 1. Other than that, it is always 'buçuk' 🙂 So, you can use 'yarım' when you mean half of 1 bread, half of 1 o'clock, etc, but you need to use 'buçuk' for the rest.
Thanks for the lesson Ozlem! Any other points on this we should know about?
As I learnt Turkish "on the hoof" I hadn't even noticed this anomaly. Def. Fifty kuruş though.
If it's 1 lira 50 kuruş you would say bir buçuk lira but not for half a lira on its own – if that makes sense.
Hi. another a dilema usage for you..You can say "yarım ekmek" (half of bread) but you cant say "buçuk ekmek"..or you can say "yarım elma" half of apple..etc..
Thanks for a relevant post and I think I will order the book, since I am going to take a Turkish course in January, so I am excited to see how it will be.. I hope I pick it up as easily as you have done.
Did you buy this book in Ankara? I've just started studying and this looks like an excellent resource.
No, I have never seen it in Ankara. I bought it in the U.S. thanks for reading the blog!
özlem is right; 0< YARIM < 1 which means yarım is half of one. but buçuk means "and a half"; there must be a number before it.


Amateur Boxing Program The Amateur Boxing program is our featured competition program where we are hoping to develop future Olympians. We strive to instill discipline in the children that will carry over into all aspects of their lives. To be in this program the child must maintain a C average and must be at least 8 years of age.
Instructional Boxing is a class designed to enhance the physical and mental well being of youth by implementing the techniques and exercises of boxing in a fun yet productive way. No need to worry, this is an INSTRUCTIONAL CLASS ONLY! NO CONTACT BETWEEN STUDENTS WILL BE MADE!
The Exercises: are upbeat and fun, mainly focusing on stretching, footwork and punches that improve the cardiovascular system. Boxing exercises are a great way to burn some of that extra energy kids tend to use sometimes unproductively.
The Techniques: used in the sport of boxing are a form of art which requires a certain level of discipline from the student such as concentration and focus. With continued use these techniques can strengthen the confidence of youth and could be developed into a means of self defense.
Classes and Time: It is recommended that no more than three sessions be taken a week. Each session will be an hour and a half long with one ten minute water break. Classes are held at the GGBA.
Rates and Schedule: Rates will depend on the size of the group. ($5 -$7 per student per session). Schedule is flexible, but we work on a first come first served basis. Available hours are between 8:00am to 5:00pm Monday through Friday, (During summer break).
Learning Lab Before the Jab This after-school tutoring program is designed for youth ages 6-12 to assist with reading, math and other school related assignments. There will be an in-house computer lab to teach keyboarding, basic programming and other computer related skills. Tutors will be college students earning a degree in the above mentioned fields of study.
Walk With Me Teenagers (ages 13-17) constantly face many difficulties today. Meeting the needs of disadvantaged and troubled youth is what this program will address. In this program peer pressure is used in a positive way. Here youth are steered to make positive choices by (1) learning to identify negative situations and environmental stressors that influence behavior. (2) learn how to confront the issue in a positive way. (3) equip the student with the necessary tools through the use of the "group effect" to allow them to walk out of the environment in which they have been trapped in to areas of productive and successful living.
(1) Discovery: Here the youth are taught to look inward to identify hidden talents.
(2) Cultivation: In this phase youth will develop their newly discovered gifts and talents.
(3) Utilization: In this phase everything comes together bringing forth the gift in a variety of means then the most feasible application of the gift is then sought.
Life Skills (Mentoring) This is a mentoring program available to youth of all ages in the program that provides one to one mentoring and teaching. This program will equip the student with the opportunity to connect with program staff with whom they can identify.


"This Dakar has been a tough one, the body is definitely feeling very second hand," says current Cross-Country Rallies World Champion and the most epic winner in Dakar history. Toby Price did the impossible: He endured the insane pain which drove him crazy, and occasionally having to rev the bike with his left hand. There were moments, especially in the stages 3 and 7, when he already felt beaten; the win was far away on the other side of pain. After ten bloody battles, he won the war with inhuman will, and consistency. "I am so glad I didn't give up," said Price after crossing the finish line.
On the rest day in Arequipa, the 2016, 2017, and 2018 Dakar winners of the bike category, who would later finish on 1-2-3 spots of the podium, were being interviewed by several media. There were a lot of laughs and banter, even though none of them believed they could win this year. Despite sitting in 2nd place of the general standings, Sam Sunderland had to open stage 6, and that meant a sure loss of time. Matthias Walkner was 7th overall, Toby Price 4th, and all three were carrying injuries. It indeed has been a very tough one, and that's why we did a special debrief, asking them how they would unwind afterwards.
He broke a bone during his first slightly more daring motorcycle race, rolled his car in his first 4-wheel race, and, maybe it's a good thing he is not flying planes. The latest price he paid was a broken scaphoid, a souvenir from the final test last December. The injury was far from healed when on January 1 he boarded a plane to Lima. Like a casino gambler who beat the dealer, he grabbed the jackpot.
We were sitting in a hotel in Lima after the Dakar celebrations, when he said: "Back home, I am going straight to the hospital first, that's pretty much my second home." His doctor would later tell him the bone was about to collapse, and another screw was needed. "There is a question mark hanging over the trip I have already organized. I should go to Vietnam with my family and friends, but unfortunately this is a motorbike tour we are talking about. In the land of old Chinese bikes I would ride a KTM 690 ENDURO R, and I am so excited about that. If everything goes well with my wrist, I will soon check off my bucket list the second biggest cave in the world, and a golden bridge held by big rocky hands. Though the best of all is that I am gonna have a KTM motorcycle, hoping to get some pretty amazing footage and some cool stuff for my vlogs. From there, I don't know exactly, but for sure I will book a holiday also on my own, some nice place with white sand and crystal water, where I can drink from a coconut and let my body recover," he explained his plans.
Hurting his ankle in the 5th stage didn't slow down the 2018 Dakar winner. Shining on the toughest stages where riding and navigational skills were fundamental, Matthias Walkner finished the 41st Dakar edition as runner-up. Even though he didn't win, he is convinced he rode his best Dakar so far. "Now I deserve to party a bit, because I worked really hard for this Dakar. It's not easy to start with number one, it sure adds extra pressure," he admits. But since there are some medical issues on his to do list, party time will be short and sweet. "In my first two weeks back I've got some press stuff to attend to around Austria, and to cheer on my friend Marcel Hirscher." At the end of January Matthias went to one of the most famous downhill ski races in Kitzbühel, before visiting the night race in Schladming. "This is what helps me relax, watch a good ski race and hanging out with friends." At the time of writing, Matthias already successfully underwent knee surgery, and is waiting to have the pin taken out of his femur. "It's going to be three or four months of recovery, and then, in the summer, I hopefully will be ready to race again, at least on two wheels," the car enthusiast explained. The last Dakar came with a special prize, a brand new KTM X-BOW, and now it's the time to take it onto the racetrack.
This year's Dakar was a bit of a rollercoaster for the 2017 Dakar winner Sam Sunderland. Only on the last stage he was granted the removal of the one-hour penalty issued for missing the start of stage 8 and was promoted to third place. "This Dakar was really, really tough on every level: physically, mentally, and emotionally. I had so many ups and downs, that I feel completely drained. Drained, but happy, we could say, because obviously this is a big achievement for KTM. On day 8 it still didn't look like it would happen, we fought till the last meter. The top ten riders were really strong, and it wasn't clear which one would dominate. It was more about who would make the least mistakes. Saying that, I feel really tired and just want to relax. I want to go home, and finally see my dog. He's with some friends now, but I know, he misses me likewise. Everybody loves Oli," he smiles and adds: "Wouldn't hurt to spend some time with my girlfriend too, to go for some nice food and just be together." Otherwise Sam confesses he has a bit of a bad habit. "I play too much PlayStation, with teenagers over the world. I know it's not very healthy, but it's my way of relaxing. Of course, nothing compares to walking Oli in the beautiful Andorran mountains. I am happy to have moved here to live, the nature here is truly amazing. Besides that, Andorra it's close to Spain, if you want some extra sunshine," says a citizen of the world, while he prepares his ticket to Paris.
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Johann Carl Jacobj (* 14. Oktober 1780 in Lübeck; † 16. Mai 1847 in Hamburg) war ein deutscher Kaufmann und Hamburger Oberalter.

Leben
In Lübeck geboren, kam Jacobj als Kaufmann nach Hamburg und eröffnete eine Handlung mit dem späteren Oberalten Friedrich Hinrich Suse unter dem Namen J.C. Jacobj & Suse. Als Hamburger Bürger versah Jacobj verschiedene bürgerliche Ämter. So wurde er im Jahr 1809 an den Admiralitätszoll gewählt, 1810 zum Adjunkten und an den Mehlkauf, 1816 zum Subdiakon und zum Verwalter des Waisenhauses. Im Jahr 1818 wurde er als kaufmännischer Richter an das Niedergericht gewählt. 1819 wurde Jacobj Steuerbürger, 1823 Bancobürger, 1827 Diakon, 1828 Jurat und übernahm 1830 als Vorsteher die Verwaltung des Krankenhauses. Am 18. April 1845 wurde Jacobj für den verstorbenen Georg Ehlert Bieber zum Oberalten im Kirchspiel Sankt Nikolai gewählt und führte dieses Amt zwei Jahre bis zu seinem Tod.

Stiftung
In seinem Testament stiftete Jacobj die Johann Carl Jacobj Familienstiftung. Diese Familienstiftung hatte den Zweck notleidende Nachkommen und Geschwister seiner beiden Frauen zu unterstützen. Nach dem Aussterben seiner Nachkommen sollten ein Teil der Zinsen der Hamburger Allgemeinen Armenanstalt zukommen.

Seine Nachkommen riefen 1869 eine weitere Stiftung, die sogenannten Oberalten Johann Carl Jacobj Gotteswohnungen ins Leben. Diese Wohnungen waren  für "unbemittelte gottesfürchtige Leute, vorzugsweise Wittwen oder bejahrte Jungfrauen christlichen evangelischen Glaubens" als Freiwohnungen bestimmt. Die Stiftung existiert noch heute in der nach der Stiftung benannten Straße Beim Jacobjstift im Hamburger Stadtteil Winterhude. Das von Distel & Grubitz entworfene Stiftsgebäude aus dem Jahr 1929 steht unter Denkmalschutz.

Familie
Jacobj war zweimal verheiratet. Die erste Ehe ging er 1809 mit Friederike Wilhelmine Sonntag (1783–1818), Tochter des Hamburger Kaufmanns und Senators Claus Hinrich Sonntag (1745–1818), ein. Aus dieser ersten Ehe stammt der Hamburger Kaufmann Friedrich Wilhelm Jacobj (1818–1881), dessen Sohn Carl Jacobj (1857–1944) Arzt und Pharmakologe wurde. Jacobj ging nach dem Tod seiner ersten Frau eine zweite Ehe im Jahr 1819 mit Susanna Henriette Dumas (1791–1841), Tochter des französisch-reformierten Predigers in Stade, Altona und Hamburg Henri Georges Joachim Dumas (1761–1817), ein. Aus dieser zweiten Ehe stammt der Jurist und Richter Daniel Heinrich Jacobj (1820–1886).

Literatur

Einzelnachweise

Unternehmer (19. Jahrhundert)
Unternehmer (Hamburg)
Richter (deutsche Geschichte)
Oberalter
Deutscher
Geboren 1780
Gestorben 1847
Mann

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
RR 2-95.doc
September 5, 2017 | Author: matinikki | Category: Withholding Tax, Tax Refund, Income Tax, Taxes, Government Finances
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January 3, 1995 REVENUE REGULATIONS NO. 02-95 SUBJECT : Implementing Republic Act No. 7833, An Act to Exclude the Benefits Mandated Pursuant to Republic Act No. 6686 and Presidential Decree No. 851, as Amended, and other Benefits from the Computation of Gross Compensation Income for the Purposes of Determining Taxable Compensation Income, Amending for the Purpose Section 28 (b) (8) of the National Internal Revenue Code, as Amended TO
All Internal Revenue Officers and Others Concerned
SECTION 1. Scope. — Pursuant to Section 245 and 72 of the National Internal Revenue Code (NIRC), as amended, in relation to Section 3 of Republic Act No. 7833, these Regulations are hereby promulgated to implement the provisions of Section 28 (b) (9) (6) of the NIRC, as amended, excluding from the computation of gross compensation income, for purposes of determining taxable compensation income, the 13th month pay and other benefits. SECTION 2. Definition of Terms. — For purposes of these Regulations, the following definitions of words and phrases are hereby adopted: a)
"Act" — refers to Republic Act No. 7933.
b) "Exclusions" — shall mean the total benefits which are not included in the computation of gross compensation income for purposes of determining taxable compensation income and are, therefore, exempt from the withholding tax on wages. c) "Gross compensation income" — means all remunerations for services performed by an employee for his employer, whether paid in cash or in kind, unless specifically excluded under Secs. 27 and 28 of the NIRC, as amended. d)
"Immediately succeeding payroll period" — refers to the payroll period beginning January, 1995.
e) "Other benefits" — refer to all benefits other than the 13th month pay, such as, the annual Christmas bonus given by private offices, 14th month pay, mid-year productivity incentive bonus, gifts in cash or in kind and other similar benefits received by an official or employee for one calendar year in an amount not exceeding Twelve Thousand Pesos (P12,000.00) as maximum limit. f) "Taxable compensation income" — means gross compensation income less personal and additional exemptions provided for under Sec. 29 (l) of the NIRC, as amended. g) "13th month pay" — refers to the mandatory one month basic salary of an official or employee of the National Government, Local Government Units, agencies and instrumentalities, including government-owned and -controlled corporations, and of private offices received after the 12th month pay. h) "Total benefits" — refer to the sum of all the benefits received by an official or employee for one calendar year in accordance with the provisions of the "Act." i)
"Which shall be integrated in" — shall mean "which shall be added to".
SECTION 3. Benefits Exempted from Income Tax. — For purposes of determining the taxable compensation income, the following benefits shall be excluded from the gross compensation income, viz: a) 13th month pay equivalent to the mandatory one (1) month basic salary of officials and employees of the Government (whether national or local), including government-owned and -controlled corporations, and of private offices received after the 12th month pay beginning CY 1994; and b) Other benefits, such as, Christmas bonus given by, private offices to their officials and employees, productivity incentives bonus, loyalty award, gifts in cash or in kind and other benefits of similar nature actually received by officials and employees of both Government and private offices in an amount not exceeding Twelve Thousand Pesos (12,000.00) for one (1) calendar year. The above-stated exclusions [(a) and (b)] shall cover benefits paid or accrued beginning January 1, 1994 but shall be limited only to an amount not exceeding Twelve Thousand Pesos (P12,000.00) in the case of the "other benefits" contemplated under paragraph (b) above, provided, however, that when added to the 13th month pay, the total amount of tax exempt benefits shall not exceed Thirty Thousand Pesos (P30,000.00). ILLUSTRATIONS: CASE NO. 1. During CY 1994, Mr. "A", and official of a private corporation, received the following 13th month pay and other benefits from his employer, such as:
13th month pay
P30,000.00
Other benefits: Christmas bonus P15,000.00 14th month pay 30,000.00
Mid-year productivity bonus
———— ———— TOTAL BENEFITS RECEIVED for CY 1994
P85,000.00 ========
In this illustration, Mr. "A" shall only be exempted on his 13th month pay of P30,000. His "other benefits" amounting to P55,000 are subject to the withholding tax on wages. CASE NO. 2. On the other hand, Mr. "B", a government employee, received the following 13th month pay and other benefits, such as:
13th month pay/Christmas bonus
Other benefits: Productivity incentives bonus
Cash gift1,000.0013,000.00 ———— ———— TOTAL BENEFITS RECEIVED for CY 1994
Mr. "B" shall only be exempt on a total of P20,000.00, representing 13th month pay of P8,000.00 plus "other benefits" of P12,000.00 only. SECTION 4. Computation of Refundable/Creditable Taxes Withheld on the Exempt 13th Month Pay and Other Benefits. — (a) In general. — The employer shall compute the refundable/creditable amount of taxes withheld on the exempt 13th month pay and other benefits of employees through the annualized computation prescribed in Section 71(8)(2)(b) of Revenue Regulations No. 6-82, as amended by RR No. 4-93, implementing R.A. No. 7497, otherwise known as the "Final Withholding Tax on Compensation Income." (b) Refund/Credit to Employees of Excess Taxes Withheld. — Any excess in the taxes withheld resulting from the annualized computation shall be credited/refunded to the employees. In return, the employer is entitled to deduct the amount refunded/credited from the remittable amount of taxes withheld from compensation income in the current month in which refund/credit was made, and in the succeeding months thereafter until the amount refunded/credited by the employer is fully repaid. ILLUSTRATIONS: 1.
The year-end adjustment computation resulted to a REFUND.
(aa)
Employee with Only One Employee During the Year.
ABC COMPANY Employee "A" (single) ————————— Salaries
10,000.00 —————
Gross Compensation Income Less:
Non-taxable
P100,000.00
Benefits: 13th month pay P12,000 Other benefits
10,000 22,000.00 ———
———— P78,000.00
Personal Exemption
————— Taxable Compensation Tax Due Less:
P7,785.00 Tax Withheld
(13,675.00) —————
AMOUNT TO BE REFUNDED by ABC CO. to Employee "A"
(P5,890.00) ========
on or before JANUARY 25, 1995 OR TO BE CREDITED against Taxes Withheld due from the Employee for Succeeding Month/s Beginning following Sample Computation No. 1 (cc). (bb)
Employee with Successive Employment Within the Year.
Employee "B" (single) ————————— ABC Co. DEF. Co. (Previous Employer) Jan.-June, 1994
(Present Employer)
Nov.-Dec., 1994
Salaries/Allowances
Salaries P20,000.00
13th month pay 8,000.00
Less: Personal Exemption
ADD: Income From 9,000.00Previous Employer
LESS: Net Taxable
Non Taxable
Income 91,000.00
13th Month Pay TAX DUEP11,965.00
ABC Co. P12,000
TAX WITHHELD
P11,965.00 DEF Co. 8,000
*Other Benefits ABC Co. P10,000 DEF Co. 3,000 ——— P13,000 10,000 30,000.00 ———
———— P101,000.00
9,000.00 ————
Taxable Compensation Income
TAX WITHHELD ABC Co. P11,965.00 DEF Co. 3,279.66
(15,244.66)
AMOUNT TO BE REFUNDED BY DEF Co. to EMPLOYEE "B" on or before JANUARY 25, 1995
(P3,089.66)
OR TO BE CREDITED against Taxes Withheld due from Employee for Succeeding Month/s beginning January 1995. (Please see Sample Computation No. 1 (cc).
Crediting of Refundable Amounts Against Taxes Withheld Due From Employees For The Succeeding Month/s.
Amount of refund to be credited against taxes withheld due from Employee "B" [Based on Sample Computation No. 1 (bb) above) beginning January, 1995 — P 3,089.66 —————————————————————————————— Computation of Taxes Withheld for the month of January, 1995
Salaries/Allowances Taxable: P10,000.00 ——————————————————————————————
Tax Required to be Withheld for the month of January, 1995 (Use Line 2 Col. 8 of the Withholding Tax Table):
Less: Refund for CY 1994 due to Non-Taxability of Bonus and Other Benefits beginning Jan. 1995
(3,035.66)
———— Balance to be credited in succeeding month/s (P1,730.00)
February. 1995 Tax Required to be Withheld for the Month of February
Amount to be credited for February
———— Balance of Amount to be Credited for the Month of March (P370.34)
March. 1995 Tax Required to be Withheld for the Month of March P1,359.66 Amount to be Credited for March
———— Amount to be Remitted for March on or before April 10, 1995
======= 2.
The year-end adjustment resulted to a COLLECTIBLE AMOUNT (instead of a refund).
During CY 1994, an employee (single) of a private corporation, received the following compensation, month pay and other benefits:
P5,000/mo. x 12 mos.
Cash gift
Total Gross Compensation Income P85,000.00
Less: 13th Month Pay Other Benefits ———
Gross Compensation Income After Deducting Exclusions Under RA 7333 Less: Personal Exemption
———— Taxable Compensation Income Tax Due
Tax Withhold Jan.-Nov., 1994
P393.80/mo. x 11 mos.
————— Tax Collectible to be Withheld from P1,593.20 December salary
Note: NO REFUND OF WITHHOLDING TAX FOR BONUS AND OTHER BENEFITS WOULD RESULT DUE TO UNDER WITHHOLDING IN PREVIOUS MONTHS OF THE YEAR. SECTION 5. Refund/Credit of Taxes Withheld from employees Separated from Employment. — a) An employee separate from the service of his previous employer but is presently employed by another employer shall be refunded/credited the taxes withheld on his exempt 13th month pay and other benefits by his present employer. The present employer shall compute the aforesaid excess withholding tax using the annualized computation set forth in Section 7I (B) (2) (b) of RR No., 6-82, as amended by RR No. 4-93. (b) An employee who has been separated from a previous employer but has no present employment shall claim his refund of excess tax withheld on his 13th month pay and other benefits by filing with the BIR a refundable income tax return for CY 1994, provided that the refundable ITR for 1994 reflects the taxes withheld on his 13th month pay and other benefits. SECTION 6. Concurrent Multiple Employments. — An employee is employed by two or more employers at the same time during the taxable year shall be refunded/credited the taxes withheld on his 13th month pay and "other benefits" by his main employer, e.g., the employer paying the highest wage/salary. The said main employer shall determine the maximum allowable 13th month pay and "other benefits" received from both main and secondary employer/s in annualizing the taxable compensation income at year-end adjustment. For this purpose, the secondary employer/s shall furnish the main employer a certification as to the amount of the 13th month pay and other benefits received by the employee. SECTION 7. The Employee's Withholding Statement (W-2). — The employer shall furnish each employee with the original and duplicate copies of BIR Form W-2 showing the name and address of the employer, employer's TIN, name and address of the employee, taxpayer/employee's TIN, amount of exemptions claimed, the sum of compensation paid (excluding the total nontaxable benefits), the amount of tax due and the amount of tax withheld during the calendar year. The statement must be signed by both the employer or other authorized officer and the employee and shall contain a written declaration that it is made under the penalties of perjury. If the employer is the Government of the Philippines, its political subdivision, agency or instrumentality or government-owned or controlled corporation, the statement shall be signed by the duly designated officer or employee. SECTION 8. Annual Return of Income Tax Withheld on Compensation. — Every employer or other person required to deduct and withhold the tax shall, on or before January 31st of the succeeding year, file with either the Collection Agent or authorized Municipal Treasurer or Revenue District Officer or Commissioner of Internal Revenue the Annual Return of Income Tax Withheld on Compensation [BIR 1743-1R (Annex "A")] to be submitted with an alphabetical list of employees both in duplicate copies. The Annual Return of Income Tax Withheld on Compensation must show the following: a)
Withholding agent's registered name, address and taxpayer's identification number (TIN);
Amount and date of remittance for the 12 months of one calendar year; and
Name of Bank, Bank Code/ROR (if any).
The alphabetical list of employees must show the following: a)
Name and TIN of employees/taxpayers;
b) Gross compensation paid by all present and previous employers for the calendar year segregating the taxable from the non-taxable compensation income; c)
Amount of exemptions;
Tax required to be withheld computed in accordance with Section 21(a) of the Tax code;
Tax withheld by all present and previous employers for the calendar year; and
Adjustment, if any.
The alphabetical list of employees shall be prepared indicating separate listings of the following: a.
Employees as of December 31 of the taxable year;
b. Employees terminated prior to the year-end adjustment computation showing the month of termination/month of last payment of compensation during the year of termination; c.
Employees (non-resident citizen) whose services are rendered abroad; and
Alien employees subject to final withholding tax.
SECTION 9. Transitory Provision. — Employers who have already given the 13th month pay and "other benefits" to their employees and had withheld and remitted the tax due thereon prior to the approval of R.A. No. 7833 on December 8, 1994 shall, in annualizing and computing the annual income and the tax due from their employees, exclude the 13th month pay and "other benefits", which shall be limited only to an amount not exceeding Twelve Thousand Pesos (P12,000.00) in the case of the "other benefits" contemplated under Sec. 3, par, (b) of these Regulations and provided, further, that when the amount of these said "other benefits" is added to the "13th month pay" contemplated under Sec. 3, par. (a) also of these Regulations, the total amount of tax exempt benefits shall not exceed Thirty Thousand Pesos (P30,000.00). SECTION 10. Repealing Clause. — All laws, decrees, orders, rules, and regulations and other issuances inconsistent with the "Act" and these Regulations are hereby amended, modified or repealed accordingly. SECTION 11. Effectivity. — These Regulations shall take effect fifteen (15) days after its publication in a newspaper of general circulation. ROBERTO F. DE OCAMPO Secretary of Finance Recommending Approval: LIWAYWAY VINZONS-CHATO Commissioner of Internal Revenue
Footnotes * The maximum allowable deduction for "Other Benefits" is P12,000.00. However, since the total 13th month pay and 'other benefits' should not exceed P 30,000, only P10,000.00 'other benefits" can be added to P 20,000, representing Mr. "B's" total 13th month pay from his previous and present employers.
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text:
Baeognatha es un género de himenópteros apócritos de los bracónidos. Contiene 9 especies:

Especies
 Baeognatha babiyi	Zettel 1990;
 Baeognatha armenica	Telenga 1955;
 Baeognatha canariensis	Szepligeti 1908;
 Baeognatha niger	Telenga 1955;
 Baeognatha javana	Bhat & Gupta 1977;
 Baeognatha luzonica	Bhat & Gupta 1977;
 Baeognatha marshi	Bhat & Gupta 1977;
 Baeognatha muesebecki	Bhat & Gupta 1977;
 Baeognatha relativa	Bhat & Gupta 1977.

Referencias

Enlaces externos

 En ION

Agathidinae
Géneros de himenópteros


The Kanab Cowboys overcame losing two of their best players last Friday night in Salina, as they edged the North Sevier Wolves 22-20. It was bittersweet revenge for Kanab, as the Wolves kept the Cowboys from winning their third 1-A state title in four years last November.
Senior running back and stud receiver Justin Orton injured his knee early in the second half and never returned. He is getting an MRI on Tuesday to see the severity of the injury.
Linebacker and guard Dason Ott was thrown out of the game for defending his quarterback Craig Brinkerhoff, who was getting mugged at the bottom of a pile.
After Orton ran one in for a score in the first quarter from 41 yards out, the extra point attempt was blocked.
North Sevier scored their first touchdown of the game later in the first period when Zach Wilcox returned a blocked Cowboy punt 24 yards to the end zone.
Brinkerhoff hooked up with Kade Quarnberg for a 41 yard touchdown pass play for the only score of the second frame. Orton ran in the two-point conversion and Kanab led 14-7 at halftime.
North Sevier scored the only touchdown in the third quarter when QB DawltonVeater hooked up with Derrick Christensen on a 24 yard pass. The extra point kick was no good and Kanab led 14-13 going into the fourth period.
A 10 yard touchdown pass from Brinkerhoff to Quarnberg pushed their lead to 20-13. A two point pass conversion from Brinkerhoff to tight end Rhees Jackson was the difference in the victory, as Wilcox scored from six yards out later in the fourth to make the final 22-20.
The Cowboys have a big game this week when they host Beaver, who suffered their first loss of the season last Friday to American Leadership Academy 21-14. Beaver lost five fumbles in the contest.
In other 2-A action, South Summit, South Sevier and Millard remained undefeated, while San Juan suffered their first loss of the year to Durango, Colorado, 21-20. South Summit defeated 3-A Delta 27-7, while South Sevier won a big Sevier County battle over Richfield, 28-7. Millard toppled Grand 21-14 in another battle of unbeatens. Parowan picked up their first win of the season, beating up on Gunnison 28-8.


text:
Q: Read docx file from VM and write it down to a stream I have a .docx file located on my virtual machine desktop which I want to write down to a stream.
So far this is what I have tried
byte[] buffer = new byte[32768];
string path = @"\\officeblrhome.somedomain\UserData$\username\Desktop\filename.docx";
var memoryStr = new MemoryStream();
memoryStr.Write(System.IO.File.ReadAllBytytes(path), 0 , buffer.Length);
using (WordprocessingDocumenet doc = WordprocessingDocument.Open(memoryStr, true)

And I get the an error that the file contains corrupted data. Is it possible that my path is wrong? If it is how to get the valid path from the VM? The word file itself is not corrupted.

A: I made few changes to the code and seems that it's working
byte[] buffer = System.IO.File.ReadAllBytytes(path);
stream.Flush();
stream.Position = 0;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Thanksgiving is a time for us to reflect on the bounty of our lives. We wish all a Happy, Healthy Thanksgiving.
Here is a sample of what our students are thankful for.
I'm thankful for living in a country where I'm free to say whatever I want.


As of tomorrow, you should find "tstfupgd.zip" in the file library.
This replaces the tstf451.exe and fixes a bug with loading track bed files.
The new release also keeps the auto registration form visible throughout the registration dialogue.


text:
Patrick Bet-David and Wife, Jennifer, buy Fort Lauderdale Waterfront Home for $20.4 Million
Patrick Bet-David and (inset) Vince Virga with the property (Twitter)
Published by The Real Deal South Florida, June 10, 2021
Author and social media influencer Patrick Bet-David paid $20.4 million for a waterfront mansion in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on June 7, 2021, setting a record for the Bay Colony community. Bay Colony is a Gated Waterfront Community that's located in Northeast Fort Lauderdale. The sale beats the previous Bay Colony record of $11.5 million for a property that sold in early 2020.
Bet-David and his wife, Jennifer, acquired the six-bedroom, 10,436-square-foot home at 141 Bay Colony Drive, property records show. The Point Lot property, with 800 feet of waterfront and Boat Dockage, was built in 2015. The Virgas paid $3.6 million for the lot in 2010. Vince and Joyce Virga sold the 1.1-acre property. Vince Virga is co-founder and co-chair of SkillStorm, a Fort Lauderdale-based tech employment firm.
Tim Elmes of the Elmes Group at Compass represented the buyer and seller. The mansion, with seven bathrooms and two half-bathrooms, a putting green, private beach and saltwater lap pool, was most recently asking nearly $25 million. The house has Calacatta Gold kitchen countertops and a temperature-controlled wine cellar.
The buyers sold their home in Plano, Texas to move to South Florida. The couple first moved to Boca Raton, where Patrick Bet-David opened an office for his media company, Valuetainment. He's also the founder and CEO of a financial firm called PHP Agency and has written books, including "Your Next Five Moves."
South Florida Luxury Homes
Fort Lauderdale Waterfront Homes
Homes for sale in Bay Colony in Fort Lauderdale
Las Olas Isles Waterfront Homes
Harbor Beach Homes in Fort Lauderdale
Fort Lauderdale Luxury Condos
Four Seasons Ft. Lauderdale Hotel & Private Residences
Lighthouse Point Waterfront Homes
Palm Beach Waterfront Homes
Palm Beach Oceanfront Condos
West Broward Luxury Homes
Harbor Islands Waterfront Homes
Miami Oceanfront Condos
Miami Waterfront Homes


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Yearly Reader
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Why is My Team Wearing Pink—And Other Complaints About Baseball's "Special" Jerseys
While there's good heart to acknowledge behind baseball's special event uniforms, isn't this an exercise in fashion that's starting to get out of hand?
By Eric Gouldsberry, This Great Game—Posted June 19, 2017
During the 1970s, when legendary actor Laurence Olivier was in the midst of a string of films portraying frail Jewish characters, critic Roger Ebert remarked: "Laurence Olivier has such a great British accent—I wish he'd use it again someday."
Fast forward to today, where all 30 MLB teams have such nice uniforms.
I wish they'd wear them again someday.
Yet again, under an edict from the commissioner's office, all teams recently wore a variation of their uniforms and caps with light blue, almost teal tones—a look that came off more as a nod to the 1993 Florida Marlins than to their actual goal of celebrating Father's Day and raising awareness for prostate cancer. This came on the heels of camouflage caps worn during Memorial Day weekend and the pink hues that saturated jerseys for Mother's Day. Oh, and there's an upcoming weekend where players will be allowed to put whatever name they want on the back of their jerseys, borrowing a page from the long-extinct XFL—where one player famously requested the name "He Hate Me" above his uniform number.
Call me a traditionalist, but I've got to tell you that I've reached special uniform fatigue. I get that all of this is for a good cause and that it generates strong awareness—even in this divided world of ours, nobody is going to argue that cancer is good—but do we have to be reminded every time we look at the uniform?
Can we tone it down and maybe put an auxiliary patch on the jersey above the heart or on the sleeve, and leave the rest of the uniform be? Or maybe place something graphic on the side of the cap, like they've done in the World Series since 1996?
Ah, but the money. That's the bottom line in all of this. After the special uniforms are worn and done with—you can't have Father's Day every weekend, after all—MLB auctions off the jerseys to the highest bidder. The MLB web site has an auctions page for just that purpose; a quick glance as this was being written noticed a Jose Altuve "Camo" jersey from Memorial Day weekend ready to sell for a minimum of $1,150. A similar uniform worn by San Francisco reliever Hunter Strickland reached $1,500 before MLB pulled it—because of the notoriety Strickland gained from wearing it while engaging in a heated on-field fistfight with Washington star Bryce Harper. Baseball just didn't think it was cool to profit off a jersey that was meant to commemorate veterans who fought to preserve democracy—not a ballplayer's fragile ego.
You would hope that the profits from these online auctions go to relative charities—cancer research, veterans groups, etc.—and they probably do. But you got to bet the house that MLB is also doing this to swill a little coin into their coffers, because it knows that there are people out there who will want to get the latest cap, the latest jersey, the latest little variation—however crazy it might look. Baseball didn't become a multi-billion-dollar business without tugging at every little rope of revenue deep within the stream.
Look, I'm all for the pregame ceremonies, between-innings tributes and awareness promotions, both in the park and on the air. The "Stand Up to Cancer" bit done every postseason, where fans are asked to raise signs with the name of someone they know who's been affected by cancer? Thumbs up to that. But don't let it interfere with the game. And when I say that, I mean let's not be graphically reminded every waking second when we see a team like, say, the Oakland A's forced to shed their traditional Kelly green and gold in favor of red, white and blue because it's the Fourth of July weekend.
I understand that the future of the world is hardly riding on this. Heck, the future of baseball is hardly riding on this. Some people will take my argument, shrug their shoulders and chortle, "So what?" But it bugs me. I want to see the Dodgers wear Dodger Blue. I want to see the Pirates wear black and gold. I want to see the Diamondbacks wear…well, anything but those gradated charcoal kits. Leave the tributes to a well-promoted sideshow and milk it for all it's worth. But lay off the brands, those familiar jerseys and caps that have taken years and millions in marketing research dollars to cultivate, grow and become tradition.
So please, MLB, proceed with more appropriate discretion. If not, then be careful for what you wish for. I'll know you've jumped the shark when you honor Elvis Week in August by making the ballplayers wear leather jackets and frilly jumpsuits.
After Further Review: Making the Right Call on Replay As baseball struggles to grasp video replay, here's our suggestion on how to expand upon it and make it efficient—if not flawless.
THIS GREAT GAME
Have a comment, question or request? Contact us at This Great Game.
© 2020 This Great Game.


Their latest findings support broad deployment of battery-powered defibrillators, known as AEDs for short, in public spaces where large gatherings occur, such as senior care facilities, hospitals, sports stadiums, community centers, shopping malls, airports, and the lobbies of large hotels and office buildings.
The team's study results, to be presented Nov. 5 at the American Heart Association's annual Scientific Sessions in Orlando, Fla , are among the first conclusions to emerge from a landmark series of studies, known as the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium, designed to reveal the best life-saving techniques for cardiac emergencies.
Every year, experts say, more than 300,000 Americans of all ages die from sudden cardiac death. A good many of them are seniors.
In the latest work, researchers found - in real-life, emergency situations - that use of the laptop-size devices by random bystanders more than doubled survival rates among victims felled by a sudden heart stoppage due to a heart attack or errant heart rhythm. Each device, which costs, on average, more than $2,000, is equipped with a digital instruction screen that provides simple, step-by-step directions.
???Our results were emphatically clear,??? says principal investigator, Myron ???Mike??? L. Weisfeldt, M.D., a cardiologist at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. ???Good Samaritans, when given access to automated defibrillators in potentially fatal emergencies, save lives.
???This is a serious matter of public health policy and similar to previous discussions about placing fire extinguishers near building exits, wearing seat belts while driving, or manufacturing cars with airbags,??? says Weisfeldt, the William Osler Professor of Medicine at Hopkins and past president of the American Heart Association (AHA).
Previous research has shown that time is critical in saving the majority of people from sudden cardiac death. Care must be provided as rapidly as possible, he says, within five minutes of the heart attack, and must employ the physical chest compressions that are part of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and, if needed, a defibrillator.
Currently, Weisfeldt says, AEDs are used mostly by paramedics and other emergency medical workers who have additional training in CPR. But often, he notes, bystanders first on the scene of an emergency are available to provide life-saving aid before ambulances can arrive.
As part of the study, conducted in 11 major cities in the United States and Canada from December 2005 through November 2006, researchers closely monitored the circumstances surrounding nearly 10,000 incidents of cardiac arrest called into 911 emergency telephone lines. Pulled from each medical file were details about use of CPR and a defibrillator.
Overall results showed that 7 percent of patients returned home after a hospital stay. One hundred and forty-nine received a shock from an AED used by a bystander. This amounted to a survival rate of 36 percent among these patients.
Among the bystanders who rushed to help, some were nearby police (23 percent), or health care workers (42 percent). Locations varied from sports stadiums to indoor lobbies and seniors' housing complexes.
If results from the original study population of 20 million are extrapolated to the general population of the United States and Canada (roughly 360 million), an estimated 522 lives are saved.
???This research is the closest thing to the real-world experience of life-threatening, sudden cardiac death that we have,??? says Weisfeldt. He plans to educate Maryland state officials on the benefits of increased public access to AEDs. ???Government, community and business leaders need to carefully consider increased access to automated external defibrillators when making healthy public policy.???
The state of Maryland made the devices mandatory on-site equipment, in 2006, for all public sports games.
At The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Weisfeldt notes, the surprise death of a colleague in 2003 propelled hospital staff to place 23 AEDs in heavily trafficked spaces and corridors. Across town at the University's Homewood campus, more than 100 of the devices have been placed.
The study, set to continue through 2010, was funded by the U.S. National Heart and Lung and Blood Institute, a member of the National Institutes of Health.


ATLANTA, Ga., July 4.---Billy Cullop, 4 year old son of Walter (Nick) Cullop, center fielder of the Atlanta club and home-run leader of the Southern Association, was killed Saturday morning when he fell from a window on the third floor of an apartment-house. The child succeeded in pushing aside the protecting screen.
Cullop, who hit forty home runs for Omaha in the Western League last season, is playing with Atlanta under option from the New York Americans. He has registered twenty-one home runs here, getting one Friday and two Thursday.


Get more mileage from your workout with the Nike Breathe Miler SS Top. Made from the brand's moisture-wicking Dry fabric, the tee has flatlocked seams to reduce chafing and raglan sleeves for enhanced range of motion.
Our model is wearing a size medium tee. He is 188cm (6'2") tall with a 96cm (38") chest and a 81cm (32") waist.


CRL has adopted and adapted the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia's (ISCA) IS rating framework as a basis to evaluate and improve sustainability performance.
The IS framework is a comprehensive rating and certification tool for evaluating sustainability across project design, construction and operation.
CRL is a pilot project for the use of the IS rating framework in NZ and is targeting an 'Excellent' rating for both the design and construction phases.
Achieve significant reductions in resource use across the infrastructure lifecycle.
CRL has worked with Mana Whenua to identify opportunities to respond to New Zealand's cultural context within this framework, ensuring the sustainability criteria are compatible with te Aro Māori. This work, embedding cultural values across the IS framework, has led to the creation of a custom-made CRL Technical Manual, titled Mahi Rauora Aratohu.
Mahi rauora translates directly to 'work on the health of all things' and aratohu translates as 'pathway marker' but can be interpreted as guidance, meaning this is 'the guidance for our work on the health of all things.' This technical guidance will be used for the remaining contracts.
The CRL has been awarded a "Leading Infrastructure Sustainability (IS) Design Rating for Contract 1 (Britomart Works) by ISCA. leading is the highest possible rating achievement within the IS scheme.
This award follows on from the 'Leading' rating achieved by Contract 2 (Albert St works).
Replacing diesel generators with grid electricity during construction.
Installing tree pits in the street to collect and filter stormwater runoff.