The First Judicial District Commission on Judicial Performance unanimously recommends that Judge Margie L. Enquist BE RETAINED.
Judge Enquist was appointed to the First Judicial District Court in October, 2004. Prior to her appointment, Judge Enquist was a Deputy District Attorney in the First Judicial District. Judge Enquist received her undergraduate degree from Metropolitan State College and her law degree from the University of Minnesota. Judge Enquist has continued to be active in the local community sharing legal knowledge and perspective with both attorneys and citizens within the judicial district. Judge Enquist has shown initiative by taking a leadership role to establish a special court to serve veterans and others who are in the judicial system due to mental health issues.
Judge Enquist is generally viewed as fair and timely in her decisions. Among attorneys responding to the survey, 76% recommended retention, 14% not to retain, and 10% made no recommendation regarding retention. Among non-attorneys responding to the survey, 81% recommended Judge Enquist be retained, 13% not to retain, and 6% made no recommendation regarding retention. Judge Enquist's survey scores reflect two areas in which she is striving to grow. First, Judge Enquist has been described by some attorneys as showing a lack of patience, perhaps due to her serious demeanor during the courtroom process. Judge Enquist is aware of the need to reflect more acceptance and appreciation toward those appearing in her courtroom. Second, while 83% of non-attorneys surveyed perceived Judge Enquist as non-biased in criminal cases, 51% of surveyed attorneys perceived Judge Enquist as biased toward prosecution. Judge Enquist is aware of the need to convey her sense of fairness, through active listening and openness to what attorneys and witnesses have to say.
The Commission is impressed with Judge Enquist's positive strides and dedication. She has shown initiative with the newly-formed Veteran's Court and with other new court processes available to improve service to the community. Based on these findings the Commission unanimously recommends Judge Enquist BE RETAINED.


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MEMBERS' SHOWCASE
John Dempster
Great review of last week's Slam...
Here's a great review of the Slam from Margaret Chrystall on the What's on north web site:
THE first Highland Literary Salon of the year started with workshop exercises for writers to warm up the voice – the one taught by lecturer Tara Taylor-Craig called "The Siren" could get you arrested.
But it looked as if the writers' readings – or "slam"– due to follow the workshop was going to come from a select few.
A quick break between events gave people the chance to get a drink. And it must have been then, as you looked at the twinkling lights along the river from the windows of the Glenmoriston, that they came.
Out of the darkness, with the soundless approach of a starving zombie army, lots of writers were suddenly there behind you - luckily just waiting patiently for their turn to read, not rip the living flesh from your bones. Maybe got an idea what to write for next time, though...
Those who wanted to read put their name on a list and were introduced by programme coordinator Paul Shanks. The salon's chair Drew Hillier was given the uncomfortable task of calling time on each writer once each had had five minutes' reading time. But the vintage car horn was only sounded to ensure enough time for everyone to get their turn.
The variety of the writing shared with the room was ambitious. Though billed as a prose and poetry slam, within that there were almost as many genres as shades of imagination. And the only similarity between the work of the 16 writers who got up the courage to read was the high quality.
We got an extract from an in-progress crime novel, a "timely satire" mentioning Brexit , an award-winning short story, a cautionary tale about a young litter bug, a published travel book, a description of how it feels to grow wings and some rap by a female writer who shares her name with a Victorian literary legend.
One writer even managed to pack in "a monologue, a flow of consciousness and a poem" in less than her five minutes.
Poems had subjects from a hermit crab to a long, ingenious tour de force that could change the way you think about cockroaches forever, finally the last lyrical poem called Just Look made what Paul called a "poignant ending" to the slam.
For anyone who fancies the challenge of reading their writing to a receptive audience, the next slam event is in July though there are many workshop-and-author events in between.
The next Highland Literary Salon event is a meet and greet – also at the Glenmoriston Hotel – on Tuesday, February 28 at 7.30pm to share ideas for the salon's future.
Graham Bullen presents his first novel, The Quarant
Good beginnings: a workshop with Cathy McSporran
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text:
30 positions in japan
Within 5 km of japan
Uni Job 18
Research Job 7
PhD 4
Postdoctoral 2
Undergraduate 2
University of Maryland University College 7
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University 3
Tohoku University 3
Humboldt-Stiftung Foundation 2
Princeton University 2
CNRS 1
Ghent University 1
Harvard University 1
International Christian University ; 1
Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) 1
Nagoya Institute of Technology 1
The University of Queensland 1
The University of Tokyo ; 1
Times Higher Education 1
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University of North Texas at Dallas 1
University of Victoria, Canada ; 1
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Project Assistant Professor
The University of Tokyo ; | Japan | 12 days ago
Context The University of Tokyo is currently looking for an enthusiastic scholar with a commitment to high-quality education to join our international team in the ALESS and ALESA programs. For more on these programs please see the official site at: http://ale.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ale_web/ . Required...
H/F confirmed researcher in multifunctional materials
CNRS | Japan | 22 days ago
The laboratory aims at further developing its expertise on the modeling at mesoscopic scale of electro/magneto strictive materials. The dielectric, mechanical, magnetic and electrical conduction heterogeneities are responsible of multi-physics couplings enabling electromechanical and...
FOCUS Resilience Trainer - Okinawa, Japan
University of California, Los Angeles | Japan | about 1 month ago
Job Duties Job Qualifications Job Duties Responsibilities FOCUS, or Families OverComing Under Stress, is a program that helps military families manage the challenges of deployment and reintegration. As the FOCUS Resilience Trainer, your key duties include: •Facilitate delivery of the FOCUS...
Faculty Position in American Literature and American Studies
International Christian University ; | Japan | 22 days ago
International Christian University (ICU) is a private and bilingual university that provides a first-class liberal arts education to a culturally and religiously diverse international student community. ICU's educational mission is based on Christian and democratic principles. ICU has...
Ito Foundation Scholarship for Study in Japan
Princeton University | United States | about 1 hour ago
Description The Ito Foundation for International Education Exchange awards scholarships to promote mutual understanding between Japan and other nations and to nurture people who can make a positive contribution to the world. The foundation offers a scholarship to Princeton students who intend to...
Bridging Scholarship for Study in Japan(link is external)
The Bridging Project offers scholarships to American undergraduate students participating in study-abroad programs in Japan. Funding from private foundations and major U.S. corporations, through donations to the nonprofit US-Japan Bridging Foundation , makes it possible to award about 100...
Tenured Associate or Full Professor - Transcultural Japan
University of Victoria, Canada ; | Victoria North, British Columbia | Canada | 22 days ago
The Department of Pacific and Asian Studies at the University of Victoria invites applications for a tenured Associate Professor or Professor specializing in Transcultural Japan, with a prospective start date of July 2021. In accordance with the University's Equity Plan and pursuant to Section...
UNT Program Director in Japan
University of North Texas at Dallas | Remote, Oregon | United States | 29 days ago
Position Details UNT System Overview Welcome to the University of North Texas System , or UNT World as we like to call ourselves. UNT World includes the University of North Texas in Denton , the University of North Texas at Dallas and the University of North Texas Health Science Center in...
Postdoctoral Researcher in Research and Development Center for Earthquake and Tsunami Forecasting
Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) | Japan, | Japan | about 1 month ago
Available Position JAMSTEC is recruiting one position as a Postdoctoral Researcher. (CGP20-003) Recruiting Department Earthquake and Tsunami Monitoring Group, Research and Development Center for Earthquake and Tsunami Forecasting (FEAT), Research Institute for Marine Geodynamics (IMG) Job...
Assistant Campus Director, Futenma Campus
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University | United States | about 1 month ago
Assistant Campus Director, Futenma Campus - (200404) Description Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University - Worldwide is announces an exciting opportunity at the Futenma Campus location. The Assistant Campus Director (ACD) participates in the general administrative responsibilities of the campus....


text:
Airline Wanted to Charge Passenger $117 for Urinating in a Bottle When All Lavatories Broke
by Gary Leff on May 22, 2017
Airlines have been cutting back for years. Before it was basic economy and seat fees, there were checked bag fees, and the elimination of free meals onboard that we used to all think were disgusting anyway.
Frustration with seeming 'cuts' in airline perks dates back farther though. In 1987 Alaska Airlines promoted their full service, asking when the cuts would end, with a commercial highlighting a man who wanted to use the lavatory but who didn't have any change to get in.
We know that airlines can fly without operative lavatories at all though.
And also that every time Ryanair has been out of the news, its CEO Michael O'Leary makes an outlandish claim about making people fly standing up or charging for use of the lav. The idea there is any publicity is good publicity, especially if it communicates the underlying message that Ryanair is cheap.
Here's one fee that I never thought I'd expect an airline to want to collect though, an £90 penalty (US$104) for urinating in a bottle when all of a plane's lavatories were out of service. Paging United Airlines President Scott Kirby who once tried to charge for water when he was President of US Airways, who knew that an airline could earn more force feeding water to passengers?
The lavatories on a Ryanair flight from Leeds to Faro, Portugal had all its lavatories go inoperative.
When you've got to go, you've got to go. So a man went in a bottle. And a member of the cabin crew thought he saw the man splash onto that flight attendant's jacket.
Witnesses claim the cabin crew were angry after some of the urine splashed on one of their jackets.
The video, filmed by a friend, shows one of the members of staff pointing his finger and asking the man: "If I go and pee on your luggage, would you like it?"
…[T]he young man couldn't hold it in any longer and went to the front of the plane where the cabin crew sit for privacy.
She said he was relieving himself into the bottle when he was caught by a furious air hostess who ordered him to pay 90 euros, claiming he had committed an "aviation offence".
United may say they'll no longer call the police on their customers except when safety is at stake, but Ryanair makes no such promises. They called the police to meet the aircraft.
A Ryanair spokesman said: "The crew of this flight from Leeds Bradford to Faro requested police assistance upon landing after a passenger became disruptive inflight.
"The aircraft landed normally and the passenger was removed and detained by police upon arrival.
"We will not tolerate unruly or disruptive behaviour at any time and the safety and comfort of our customers, crew and aircraft is our number one priority.
"This is now a matter for local police."
However another passenger reports that the man "was spoken to by the officers but matters weren't taken any further."
There's video of the altercation:
Ryanair used to say they were thinking about charging to use the lavatory. It turns out their flight attendants threaten to charge passengers for not using the lavatory.
So if you thought United's and American's 'Basic Economy' fares where you're not permitted to bring a full-sized carry on onboard are bad, there are certainly worse fees out there!
(HT: Ken A.)
Hope they play that video on the news all over Europe so the FA's are hooted at and scorned wherever they go. Instead of helping pax who may have bladder or prostate issues (as 20% of men do) they were bullying him about it after he had no choice but to relieve himself in a bottle. Just the idea he had to pee in a bottle should make the airlines fall all over themselves apologizing, but not in this world where the FA's think they have police powers and can humiliate someone ever greater than they already have with their out-of-service loos.
We are not taking this any longer. No matter if fat bloated Trumpian authoritarian bootlickers want to enforcecorporate rule, we will beat you back with video for the world to see. You'll never step out your door again without being recognized as that thug who bullied someone for having to go to the bathroom when you'd locked them all! Buh bye!
djibouti says:
I'm confused why he didn't use the bottle in the lav itself? Did they lock the doors and refuse to let anyone even in, flush or no flush?
If so, FAs had it coming. I probably wouldn't have been polite enough to bother using the bottle.
AlohaDaveKennedy says:
Geez – what's with Greg? The Airline Deregulation Act which started this downward airline spiral was passed in 1978 when Carter was president, not Trump. But I guess it is an inconvenient truth to point that fact out?
If you got to go you got to go.. I have IBS and have to urinate often what do they expect?
The guy sitting in the seat looks like Lucky.
Maybe it was shot when he was flying doing his college years 🙂
Andy 11235 says:
@djibouti Usual procedure is to lock the door when a lavatory on an airplane or train is out of service. This is to prevent a passenger from forgetting and possibly causing flooding or a backup.
Obviously, the flight crew absolutely handled this poorly. Having said this, I can't help but think the issue may have been alleviated if the passenger had politely gone to a crew member, explained the bladder issue, and requested some accommodation.
madguy says:
Sorry @AlohaDaveKennedy but the "inconvenient truth" to point out is that your attempt, in typical Trumpian-fashion, to try and deflect blame to someone else (an administration that has been out of power for nearly 40 years) is undermined by the fact that we are not talking about a U.S. carrier here. It is Ireland's pride-and-joy – Ryanair! So, the Airline Deregulation Act, for all it's plusses and minuses, is thoroughly irrelevant here. Rather inconvenient for you, I'm afraid.


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What Happened To Weiku.com?
Home » Chapter 1. Sourcing » What Happened To Weiku.com?
Weiku.com was an e-commerce platform that catered to global markets. The site connected suppliers and buyers of different product categories, including apparel, leather, textile, beauty, school supplies, motorcycles, and automobiles. The majority of buyers using the e-commerce platform lived in the US, India, China, and Pakistan.
Today, buyers attempting to search for products on Weiku.com are told that the site can't be reached because its IP address cannot be located. What could have happened to the platform that would eventually become—or at least claimed to have become—China's biggest e-commerce company?
In this article, we try to find out what happened to Weiku.com. We follow its history, claims about ranking products fairly, and some of the controversies that dogged the platform during its lifetime.
The History of Weiku.com
Weiku.com was established in 2003 by Hangzhou Weiku Information Technology Co., Ltd., a company that described itself as "a high-tech enterprise which operates e-commerce platforms for global markets." Its headquarters were in Hangzhou, China.
Weiku indicated that its mission was "to integrate the global trade leads and to benefit both the buyers and sellers." It added, "and our vision is to let the world be different with Weiku."
Hangzhou Weiku Information Technology also operated other websites that are no longer active:
DZSC.com: Assisted buyers from China searching for integrated circuits and electronic parts.
SeekPart.com: Was a global platform for mechanical parts. It helped small and medium enterprises connect with buyers.
LEDEase.com: Served buyers and sellers across the world. For buyers, the site provided the best LED resources. Sellers used the website as a multi-information channel for connecting with global customers.
Registering an Account
To use Weiku.com as a supplier, buyer, or both, you had to register an account on the site first. The registration involved providing basic details such as your name, surname, and company details, including the name of your business and account number. You would then create a username and password.
After registration, the second step was membership approval. Once approved as a member, you could then place an inquiry.
An example of an inquiry from a customer would read like: "This is Mr. Rahma Ibrahim from TESCO POLAND LTD Vietnam, I am interested in purchasing your Kosso Wood, Tali, Teak and Doussie, and I sincerely hope to establish a long-term business relationship with you in the future."
On the other hand, a supplier would have something like: "We do wheelchair services at US Airports. [We] have developed metal-free 100% plastic wheelchairs and baggage carts. Please call to discuss if you are interested."
Striving To Rank Products Fairly
The goal of any supplier listing their products on an e-commerce platform like Weiku.com is to have their products listed in a way that ensures consumers will find them as quickly as possible. In this regard, Weiku.com indicated that it adopted "fair B2B in-station research for effective supply and demand information."
According to Weiku, its in-station ranking system differed considerably from the "bidding ranking" used by many traditional ranking arrangements. A bidding ranking system involves suppliers bidding for a top post in search results through an auction determining how much each click on a particular keyword will cost.
Instead of basing its ranking system on bidding ranking, Weiku.com says that it adopted "the principle of natural order, reflecting the activeness of both buyers and suppliers." The natural order ranking system focuses on trading volumes, quality, and integrity when determining where to rank a specific product.
Weiku reveals that it embraced the natural order system because such a system "can continuously stir suppliers to provide better products and services for buyers." Also, "It helps to improve purchasing efficiency and safety on a B2B marketplace, leading to mutual benefits for both buyers and suppliers."
The Controversies
Like any other e-commerce site, Weiku.com had its fair share of challenges, ranging from complaining customers to accusations related to allowing peddlers of synthetic opioid drugs to advertise their products.
Limited Trustworthiness
Look at customer reviews of Weiku on the review site WebWiki.com. You will realize that the e-commerce site had limited trustworthiness. Out of five points, Weiku.com has a rating of 1.8.
Reviewers complained about an array of things, including being ripped off or conned by people selling stuff. For instance, one reviewer says, "I was conned out of 300 USD by a user, and when I reported it to Weiku, they didn't even care enough to connect me back."
Another Weiku.com user on ScamGuard.com says, "There's all these people saying they are legitimate pharmacy sellers and ask for Bitcoin and wire transfers, but if you call the numbers they have listed, they either don't work or are Google Voice numbers." The reviewer continues and says that these scammers would then ask you to pay for the product, and if you did, they would come back asking for more money for shipping until they have taken as much money from you as they possibly can but still fail to supply the product.
Listing Fentanyl
In November 2017, The New York Times reported that "On Weiku.com, a website based in the eastern city of Hangzhou, close to 100 Chinese companies say they sell fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid."
Even though fentanyl is approved in the US for treating pain, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that "Rates of overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone, which includes fentanyl and fentanyl analogs, increased over 16% from 2018 to 2019."
The New York Times reports that Weiku removed and banned all search results for fentanyl on its website after the newspaper had called the company for comment. However, the publication says that a Weiku representative informed the newspaper "that the company banned the advertising of fentanyl on its website but that sellers circumvented the prohibition by making slight tweaks to the forbidden search term."
What Then Happened To Weiku.com?
Weiku.com remained online until August 2019. By 29 August 2019, an attempt to access the site brought back the message: "HTTP Error 404. The requested resource is not found." On the last day when the website was captured and stored in the internet archives, there was no indication from its owners that they had plans to shutter it.
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Chapter 1. Sourcing (106)
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JHI Circle of Fellows Spotlight—Leena Manimekalai
January 24, 2023 by Sonja Johnston
Leena Manimekalai is a published poet and award-winning filmmaker from the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu whose works promote human rights, particularly those of marginalized people, such as the Dalit, Refugee, LGBTI+ community. Her fifteen plus films have covered subjects such as caste, gender, globalization, art therapy, student politics, Tamil right to self-determination, eco feminism, Indigenous and LGBTI+ rights. Her films have been internationally acclaimed and have also generated reprisal, censorship attempts and death threats. She is a BAFTA India Breakthrough Talent, 2022 and has recently completed an MFA (Film) at York University. She joins the JHI in 2022-23 as our Artist-in-Residence.
JHI: Can you give us a short summary of your work?
LM: My chosen fields of creative practice are poetry and cinema. I am a poet, screenwriter, film director and producer. I chose being a storyteller because I am very good at it. It is the gift my mother and grandmother have passed on to me. I hear my own voice very clearly when I tell stories, be it mine or others. If you go through my filmography, you will get to know that the stories I chose to tell would have never been told without me. As a perpetual asker of uncomfortable questions, I constantly try to shed light on unseen, unheard, unaccounted, unvalued human lives and struggles. My films and poems are my show of solidarity to the communities whose stories I try to amplify. Solidarity is always a chain reaction. Nobody is a nobody here until there is one more soul to care, love and support.
JHI: What project(s) are you working on at the JHI and why did you choose it (them)?
LM: During my tenure, I will be meditating on the subject of labour. My films on gender, caste, refugees, queer communities, while shedding light on the invisibilized lives and stories also captures the plight of indentured labour. I see myself in the mirror that my work of art holds high. As a queer female Tamil shudra indie artist from a third world country like India, why is my art non labour? I will be investigating why cultural work remains a blueprint to precarity and marginalisation, with specific pointers to where I come from.
JHI: What are you hoping to experience as a JHI Fellow? What are you most looking forward to (or what have you enjoyed the most so far)?
LM: It feels special to be in the midst of brilliant minds and scholarship from various disciplines and fields of research. It is definitely stimulating to be part of the discussions during Thursday lunches and presentations. I look forward to learning more and making connections that may nurture my creative work and collaborations that may lead to significant cultural productions.
JHI: Share something you read/watched/listened to recently that you enjoyed/were inspired by?
LM: I recently traveled to Amazon and spent quality time with climate action groups and activists. The whole experience is so compelling and rewarding. I am inspired by the resilience of Indigenous communities who are at the receiving end of human greed. As someone who has centered my two decades of art practice in people participatory movements, I am truly driven to join the climate action and be the creative tool for the communities to be heard, seen and cared for.
JHI: What is a fun fact about you?
LM: I procrastinate so much that I lose the sense of time and space at times. I eat cereal for dinner and drink wine early in the morning when I stay in that bubble.
JHI Circle of Fellows Spotlight


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


nice to see more and more android icinga clients show up. but one feature that i am missing on all of them would be the use of the <a href="https://developers.google.com/android/c2dm/" title="Android Cloud to Device Messaging Framework" (Push messages via google servers). So instead of polling the monitoring server, the server would inform the application that something has changed on the state of the monitored services and THEN the icinga client would pull the updated states list from the server. but the implies that there is an extension to icinga, or at least another server/script that runs on the server and does the polling.. some kind of middleware that then sends out the messages.
Anyway, a push solution wouldn't be that bad – but then it should be implemented directly on your server and not via google.
– still use a pull from the client at certain intervals, but this intervals could be much longer than normal. and by using the c2dm the client would be informed instantly if there is a change on the monitored data.


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TMS Links
151 BRIEF
Government to consider impact of McCloud ruling
Swansea pension fund commits to fossil fuel investment reduction
Shared service predicts half million pound overspend
CIPFA welcomes MPs' call for greater whistleblower protections
Merseyside Pension Fund invests in social outcomes fund
Court dismisses legal challenge to Birmingham sprinklers spending
LGPS
David Green
Dan Bates
Richard Harbord
Stephen Sheen
James Bevan
Cllr John Clancy
David Crum
Graham Liddell
Ian O'Donnell
Jackie Shute
Q&A: LPP's Mike Jensen talks pooling, equities and the future for Sterling
in Interviews · LGPSi · Treasury
Photo: Tina Miguel
Mike Jensen is the co-chief investment officer of the Local Pensions Partnership. He spoke to Room151's Peter Findlay about his support for recent regulatory change, pooling, equities and the future for Sterling.
Room151: Mike, is the LGPS in good shape now? Do the 2016 regulations give you a platform to work from?
Mike Jensen (MJ): The regulatory change is absolutely fantastic. If you compare the final regulations to our submission (to DCLG), then of course you can see that we're happy with the way things have played out. We are extremely pleased not just for us but for the LGPS generally because the previous regulatory framework was definitely a block on doing a number of sensible things.
Subscribe to our LGPS Quarterly Briefing and be first to receive more content like this.
The regulatory framework pre-November 2016 was unhelpful especially in the areas of risk management and efficient portfolio construction, and government hadn't provided a suitable regulatory framework for proper risk management and proper liability and asset work to be done.
What it does bring with it, obviously, is a number of challenges in how to implement the regulations. I think LPP (Local Pensions Partnership) is in a fairly good place though because these are things that we've been working on for some time as the joint venture started several years before the government agenda.
Specifically, it's the risk-based aspects of the regulatory freedoms that the constituent parts of the LPP had already been taking which will now flow through into LPP. But generally, I think the LGPS is in substantially better shape than the market perception.
R151: We're running another piece in this issue of the LGPS Quarterly Briefing by Terry Crossley who is concerned that the scheme's local democratic status has been weakened and that the pools are lacking geographic and functional coherence.
MJ: As I say, the LGPS, as an aggregate entity, is in better shape than the perception. I think it's more sustainable than the perception and from here on in we can make it cheaper to manage than the past 30-40 years. Those are all plusses. I also think Terry's got a point to a certain extent about the functioning of the pooling agenda. I don't have much of an insight into the way the other pools are being run but we set up our venture based on our perception of what was needed rather than the government imperative that came later. We've had a two-year head start and make no mistake, it is a big slog.
The fact that the government imperative has now essentially become very similar to our original structure, including the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) authorisation piece, which we think is fundamental, is a happy coincidence for us. But I'm not entirely sure where some of the other pools have got to in understanding, or accepting, that agenda or how they plan to implement it. I'd be very interested to see how they can take that through to any sort of endgame.
Now, that said, because we've got the experience, it's beholden to us to offer whatever assistance we can. Obviously, we've got a good description of how we dealt with the FCA process, and government processes, and we wouldn't want to be proprietorial over those pathways.
R151: So is the timetable reasonable, in terms of the transition of assets and so on?
MJ: It is incredibly tight, but I think it's rightly tight because this needs to be done quickly. There is a generational opportunity here to restructure and reshape the LGPS and I don't think that's just about pooling but, more importantly it's about the way the LGPS does its business; the way it invests, the way it manages risk and the way it manages its liabilities. Pooling is probably essential to achieve the other pieces but pooling is by no means as important as those other pieces.
R151: What are the big benefits?
MJ: It's cheaper. It's fundamentally cheaper to manage in-house. But that comes with costs, very manageable costs and demonstrably cheaper costs than doing it the old fashion way, but it takes resourcing and it takes gaining the appropriate skills. But we've already demonstrated just with the pooling of listed equity that all of these benefits are real and we're only three months in to that. It's very clear that this works.
That work can then be taken on into the other areas relatively easily although there may be some blowback in certain areas of private markets where there are still issues of access and intellectual capital. One of the things LPFA (London Pensions Fund Authority) and Lancashire did early on, which helps with the LPP's development on that front, is direct investment in infrastructure. We have five years of track record between us now, and that plugs in nicely to the government's agenda of LGPS assets being used more to fund UK infrastructure and global infrastructure. We're totally behind that and our combined allocation now to infrastructure is getting on for 12.5%.
R151: What's your take on the separation of asset allocation which sits at the administering authority and investment which now sits with pool?
MJ: Any investment consultant would tell you the most important decision you'll ever make is the asset allocation and consequently the individual authorities are still taking the most important decision.
So, the key thing is that they get suitable advice. Now where does that advice come from? Well, the pool is obliged to be a source of that advice to a certain extent, but the individual funds' independent advisors or independent consultants have a very important role to play there.
It puts a spotlight very clearly on the consulting firms. Their business model in the past with LGPS has been driven more by manager selection, that end of the operation, but, frankly, the really important piece of work is allocation. I think now they will find themselves very much in the spotlight to give really clear, really well researched, really well modelled asset/liability advice.
R151: Does it put pressure on the investment pools to be all things to all comers? Potentially you end up with very different asset allocation strategies feeding into the same investment team?
MJ: We'd like to be as broad as possible. We've delineated around seven or eight separate pools of capital within LPP. So, for example, we have a liquid equity pool and inside that pool there can be any number of variants of liquid equities. The asset allocator, the administering authority, sees a liquid equity pool and they make their allocation to the pool and then it's down to us to manage the investments.
R151: So, there can be quite a bit of buying and selling going on within the pools of capital?
MJ: There can be. Let's take credit for example which is a very cyclical business. You may feel that at this stage of the cycle, senior secured loans is the best place to be and you might not want any money in distressed debt but, two years on, that view might have changed significantly. So, we might be quite active in reallocating within the credit pool. In listed equity you can move quality based, to small cap, to emerging market, to wherever and those transitions can be made at very short notice and very efficiently. So yes, that can be done and probably should be done when appropriate.
Other areas, like property, infrastructure and private equity, for example, that's much less of an issue because we're talking about long-term investment of assets.
R151: How does LPP grow?
MJ: Well, firstly pools aren't finalised yet. So that's interesting and I think the assumption that the pooling model is that you pool and then you do everything the government requested you to do — so everyone has to go down the FCA route — is open to question. Maybe you'll get pools that have the full offer — from the very front end to the final FCA authorised piece — and others that don't and who look for collaborative working with those that do. That's still to be resolved.
The one thing we're trying very hard to do is be as open as possible with anybody who wants to talk to us. We know where we are going. We know what we have established. We are confident that we have set things up completely in line with the government directive. The issue is still scale but we can deal with that in several ways.
Does a pool have to have partners alone to demonstrate its size and capacity, or can we have partners and clients? Can it have collaborative working on specific areas like infrastructure, for example, where currently the LPP pool members are in a JV with funds from the Northern Powerhouse's pool?
Also, as far as I'm aware, the way government has structured this there is no restriction on (clients) being LGPS only. Where that then takes us is probably not a question for now, but it's certainly something we need to be open about.
Photo: Pixabay, CC0
R151: Going back to investment cycles where do you stand on the great rotation from bonds to equities? Institutional investors like pensions have to hold bonds to some extent don't they?
MJ: Yeah, the capital rules across the insurance industry and the banking industry just guarantee that there's a huge pool of especially liquid, especially high grade fixed income that just has to be there. As long as monetary authorities are still churning QE, which frankly I think they will have to for an awful lot longer than the market generally thinks.
That's a very difficult area from a pension fund perspective. If we're looking to close down our overall risk over time, naturally you'd expect us to be buying index linked gilts, at RPI minus 150, 175 in some places. Can that work in the current regulatory framework? Probably not! As a CPI fund, that's less of an issue, perhaps, than it might be for commercial or corporate schemes, but it's a much more difficult move now that it would have been five years ago.
R151: And do equities look overvalued to you?
MJ: Equities look … I wouldn't say they're overvalued but they're certainly fully valued, and an awful lot of the equity book performance over the last five years has been driven by QE and if QE is pulled back, which I don't think it will be, but if it is, then equity performance could be hit very badly.
Actually, the expectation that there are a series of rate rises either in the US or in Europe is rubbish. So, the expectation that there may be a crash in the equity market is also rubbish, short-term.
That said, there are a number of geo-political issues, which could trigger something, and if that happens then I would say you invest in equities quite heavily on the down trade. There's a fantastic opportunity actually … I don't want to say it's unusual, because as it turns out nothing is unusual, but there's a dynamic in the equity derivative market at the moment that gives you protection against down moves in the equities market and the ability to "re-up" into equities after a major fall without having to liquidate other assets. You can get very substantial protection and almost get paid for doing it.
R151: When we spoke last year, before the referendum, you were very concerned about the value of Sterling in the event of Brexit. You were proved right – now what's the long-term view of Sterling and how does it shape investment strategy?
MJ: Fundamentally, I've been a Sterling bear for 37 years, and since we started this journey in 2011, I've taken the view that parity in cable (British pound vs the US dollar) is inevitable at some stage. My original target for the last calendar year was 118.30. My target for this calendar year is 105.50, with a longer term view of 95.70. Yesterday (11-01-2017) we saw an attempt to break 120; we had a bounce-back today but fundamentally I think that (trend) is there.
For a holder of UK assets with Sterling liabilities, obviously, you're insulated to some extent but there may be opportunity costs.
Now, these two funds (LPFA and Lancashire County Pension Fund) have taken a very global approach. So, both funds have relatively high exposure to non-Sterling assets. In the case of Lancashire, it's close to 80% and in the case of LPFA it's 65-70 %, I think.
Last year our performance was stellar. This year performance is stellar, so far, and a lot of that is based on foreign exchange rates and I see no need to change that for the minute. The fundamentals of the UK economy, particularly the productivity paradigm, is the thing that keeps pressure on Sterling.
Really though, the story here is dollar strength. There are not enough dollars in the world by a long way. And as long as there are not enough dollars in the world, dollar strength is more or less guaranteed. I think that's absolutely crystallized by the fact that a Trump victory should have been detrimental to the dollar, if only in the short term, but it wasn't.
If anything was going to cause a shock it would have been political rather than financial and it hasn't.
So, the underlying issue in the global economy is there are not enough dollars. So, either they need print more which they're not doing now because they have definitely turned off QE. I still think they'll reverse that decision either late this year, or early next year, but for the moment they are not going to. So, where do those dollars come from? Well, the answer is nowhere.
R151: So if you're looking beyond the UK for big returns in future, where do you look?
MJ: Well, I don't think there are big returns in investment any more. Those people making the asset allocations need to accept that this is a declining return world we live in and, from a risk perspective, maybe you allocate a little bit to "shoot-the-lights-out" trades but they shouldn't be the main driver of investments.
R151: Is it time to stop thinking about equities, fixed income, conventional asset classifications and time to start thinking about demography, climate change, artificial intelligence and these sorts of factors?
MJ: You have got exactly the three things on my radar. Demographics, front and center, are way up there and this is going to be really, really important going forward for investors. This has to be part of your investment decision making process and also part of your asset allocation decision making process.
For for some time now there has been a general acceptance that demographics is a problem in the developed world. What's less clear is that it's also a problem in the emerging world, which is far more complicated and layered than the demographic time bomb in the developed world, which by now we pretty much have a handle on. Of all the factors you consider when looking at asset allocation I think demographics should be 50% of your call, especially for the long-term investor like the LGPS.
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text:
<configuration>
    <appender name="file" class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.RollingFileAppender">
        <file>\${user.home}/Library/Logs/${project.name}/application.log</file>
        <rollingPolicy class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.TimeBasedRollingPolicy">
            <fileNamePattern>
                \${user.home}/Library/Logs/${project.name}/application.%d{yyyy-MM-dd}.archive.log
            </fileNamePattern>
            <maxHistory>20</maxHistory>
            <totalSizeCap>100MB</totalSizeCap>
        </rollingPolicy>
        <encoder>
            <pattern>%d{ISO8601} %-5level %logger{36} - %msg%n</pattern>
        </encoder>
    </appender>
    <root level="info">
        <appender-ref ref="file"/>
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</configuration>


text:
Q: Why is caching causing my code to run slower? Non-cached:
var sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();
foreach (var str in testStrings)
{
    foreach (var pair in flex)
    {
        if (Regex.IsMatch(str, "^(" + pair.Value + ")$", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.ExplicitCapture))
            ;
    }
}
Console.WriteLine("\nRan in {0} ms", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds); // 76 ms

Cached
var cache = flex.ToDictionary(p => p.Key, p => new Regex("^(" + p.Value + ")$", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.ExplicitCapture | RegexOptions.Compiled));

var sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();
foreach (var str in testStrings)
{
    foreach (var pair in cache)
    {
        if(pair.Value.IsMatch(str))
            ;
    }
}
Console.WriteLine("\nRan in {0} ms", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds); // 263 ms

I don't know why it's running slower when I pre-compile all the regexes. Not to mention the iterator on flex should be slower too, because it needs to do more calculations.
What could be causing this?

Actually, if I take off the Compiled switch it runs in 8 ms when cached. I thought "compiled" would compile it upon construction of the regex. If not, when does it do so?

A: Regex's are in fact cached not just on first use, but upon construction (taking a look at the 4.0 code in reflector, it may not be precisely so in other frameworks).
As so, the big differences here are:

*

*There's some trivial string concatenation in the latter that isn't in the former, along with the overhead of construction outside of the compilation of the Regex.

*There's a different collection being iterated through in the latter than in the former.

It's not clear what sort of collection flex is. If it's not a dictionary, then I wouldn't be at all surprised by this, as dictionaries aren't terrribly fast at enumeration and hence most other collections will beat it.
This aside, it really isn't a case of caching in the latter, since it's caching something that's already going to be retrieved from an in-memory cache, so there's no reason to suspect the latter would be any faster.

A: The problem is with the RegexOptions.Compiled flag. That actually makes it run a lot slower. Jeff sort of explains this in his blog. Without this flag, the cached version is much faster.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: linux bash: when opening xterm with -e, the varaibles are not getting defined I am trying a simple xterm command:
xterm -hold -e "hare=0;echo $hare"

it will open xterm with blank
What i observed is variable hare is not getting defined inside the -e quotes
where as:
hare=0;xterm -hold -e "echo $hare"

it opens an xterm showing 0
i have to define variables in the -e quotes and do something. Is it possible or not. I want xterm to access the outside variables and also the variables defined in the -e

A: Variables are expanded inside double-quoted strings, so the variable is being expanded by the original shell, not the shell in the xterm. Use single quotes.
xterm -hold -e 'hare=0; echo $hare'

If you assign the variable in the original shell, you need to export it so it will become an environment variable that's inherited by child processes:
hare=0
export hare
xterm -e 'echo $hare'


TEC Rear Footpeg Blanking Covers- This part is designed to fit all years and engine sizes of Triumph Hinckley Twins but NOT the Bobber. This means it will fit all years and models of Hinckley Bonneville, T100, T120, SE, Scrambler, Thruxton, Thruxton R, Street Twin, Street Cup, Street Scrambler, America and Speedmaster Fits both air-cooled and water-cooled models.
Black anodised covers with "T" Logo.
Really tidies look of the bike when rear pegs are removed.


i am very excited to be participating in the bloggers give back project!
many talented bloggers are donating items to be auctioned off for a family in need.
the auction starts december 15th, and there are some great items up for auction. this would be a great chance to nab something for yourself while doing some good.
be sure to check out what is up for auction here. and, all the details on how to bid are here.
up for auction will be a pair of my angelica earrings, from my armelle jewelry shop. click here to make a comment to bid on the earrings when the auction opens december 15th! good luck!
and, if you have something to donate, be sure to contact them before the auction starts, it's for a great cause!
you're such a saint! love these earings!


The laws regarding bequeathing an inheritance that apply in Bedfordshire give a great deal of freedom regarding the disbursement of assets. Receiving an inheritance while in the process of a divorce, however, brings two distinct legal fields into effect. In order to decide on a fair divorce settlement, a court may include a recent inheritance as being part of a couple's financial assets. The possible conflicting aims of inheritance law and family law can lead to a legally complex and technical case.
In a situation where a couple's assets are insufficient to provide housing for both parties after the divorce, a court that is seeking to provide an appropriate settlement may choose to include a recent inheritance when making its decision. The argument that the inheritance is not an asset that was accrued together by the couple is outweighed by the need to provide both parties with a new beginning. In seeking to achieve this goal, the court has the discretion to overrule the wishes of the person leaving the bequest.
Attempting to exclude an inheritance from proceedings by placing it into a discretionary trust is sometimes viewed unfavourably by the courts. A discretionary trust is a legal vehicle that can be used to hold the assets of an inheritance under the guardianship of a trustee who administers it on behalf of the beneficiary. Such an arrangement, if created purely for the intention of excluding assets from a settlement, can be reversed by the court.
Although family law often dictates that a fair divorce settlement involves an equal division of the marital assets, individual circumstances may have a significant effect on the final divorce settlement. If people are uncertain regarding the legal merits of their situation, they may wish to consult with a solicitor who is experienced in family law matters so that they may discuss their concerns.


text:
Disturbing Charges Against Fashion Mogul Peter Nygard Are at the Center of True Crime Podcast 'Evil By Design'
The host of the investigative true crime podcast "Evil by Design" has been on the trail of allegations against fashion mogul Peter Nygard for 10 years. In December, Nygard was arrested on charges of forced sex trafficking and trafficking of minors, among others. Host Timothy Sawa joined LX News to talk about his decade-long efforts to shed light on these allegations.
Updated on February 2, 2021 at 1:19 pm


text:
Seven from MVFC lead way in STATS FCS Top 25
(STATS) - Conference play is beginning to take over the college football schedule and the FCS has a diverse group leading the way into the most heated part of the season.
The first six teams in Monday's STATS FCS Top 25 were from different conferences, there were seven conferences among the top 10 teams and nine different conferences plus an independent team were represented in the rankings, with a team from three others among the first five just outside the national media poll.
Yes, let the conference craziness begin.
"You have great examples from Stony Brook over Richmond two weeks ago to Elon over William & Mary this past week," James Madison first-year coach Mike Houston said, reflecting on CAA Football results, "that they understand that they've got to bring their best each and every week" in conference games.
North Dakota State had a bye this past weekend, but the five-time defending FCS national champion maintained its hold on No. 1, collecting all 164 first-place votes. The Bison (3-0) were one of a season-high seven Missouri Valley Football Conference teams in the Top 25.
Then a roll call of other top FCS conferences followed with No. 2 Sam Houston State (3-0) from the Southland, Jacksonville State (3-1) from the Ohio Valley, Eastern Washington (3-1) from the Big Sky, Chattanooga (4-0) from the Southern and Richmond (3-1) from CAA Football.
James Madison (3-1) moved up four spots to No. 7 after it won its CAA opener against Maine. Western Illinois (3-0), The Citadel (3-0) and defending Big South champion Charleston Southern (2-2) rounded out the Top 10.
Western Illinois beat Northern Illinois 28-23 this past Saturday to become the fourth Missouri Valley team to defeat an FBS program this year. Nine of the 10 teams to topple a team from the bowl subdivision in the opening month of the season have Top 25 rankings.
Montana (2-1) dropped five spots to No. 11 following its 42-41 loss at Big Sky nemesis Cal Poly, which has beaten the Grizzlies in three straight seasons.
Northern Iowa (1-2) checked in at No. 12 followed by Eastern Illinois (3-1), FCS independent Coastal Carolina (3-1), South Dakota State (1-2), poll newcomer Cal Poly (3-1), Villanova (3-1), Illinois State (2-2), William & Mary (2-2) and Youngstown State (2-1).
Rounding out the rankings were No. 21 Albany (4-0), MEAC power North Carolina A&T (2-1), McNeese (2-2) and two other newcomers, Indiana State (3-1) and Harvard (2-0). On Saturday, Indiana State beat Illinois State in the season's first Missouri Valley conference matchup while Harvard won its Ivy League opener against Brown.
Stony Brook, which lost to Sacred Heart from the Northeast Conference just one week after beating Richmond, Colgate and Portland State dropped out of the Top 25.
A national panel of sports information and media relations directors, broadcasters, writers and other dignitaries select the STATS FCS Top 25. In the voting, a first-place vote is worth 25 points, a second-place vote 24 points, all the way down to one point for a 25th-place vote.
The Top 25 is released every Monday afternoon during the regular season, except for Sunday morning, Nov. 20, prior to the selection of the 24-team FCS playoff field. A final Top 25 will follow the FCS championship game, which will be held Jan. 7 in Frisco, Texas.
College football odds: The 4 best futures bets to make now
Alabama must replenish its receiving corps for 2022 season
Georgia's win over Alabama sparks debate on college dynasties
How Stetson Bennett went from walk-on to national champion


Roses Cleaning Service is located at the address 2332 Lindell Ave in Murphysboro, Illinois 62966. They can be contacted via phone at (618) 684-5924 for pricing, hours and directions.
For maps and directions to Roses Cleaning Service view the map to the right. For reviews of Roses Cleaning Service see below.


text:
Michael Brown was shot by Ferguson police. Now his mom may soon oversee them.
vincent_admin April 3, 2019 April 3, 2019 Comments Off on Michael Brown was shot by Ferguson police. Now his mom may soon oversee them.
Lesley McSpadden could be elected to the Ferguson City Council on Tuesday.
It's been nearly five years since Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old, was shot and killed by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. It was an event that reverberated around the country, driving increased national attention to the ways that police violence affects communities of color, fueling increased calls for police reform and accountability.
On Tuesday, Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, could get the chance to push for institutional change in the city and oversee the very police force whose officer shot her son. She's running for a spot on Ferguson's City Council and could be elected Tuesday night.
McSpadden (who sometimes goes by Lezley) formally announced her campaign to represent Ferguson's Third Ward last August, as she stood steps away from where her son was fatally shot in 2014. "Almost four years ago to this day, I ran down this very street, and my son was covered in a sheet," McSpadden said during a press conference last year.
She moved into the district shortly before announcing her candidacy, and has made her son's death a central pillar of her campaign, saying that one of her top objectives for the city is to improve police accountability and reform. McSpadden has also called for improved community mental health resources, and better after-school programs for local children.
McSpadden is also a member of the "Mothers of the Movement" — a group of black women who have lost children to the police and vigilante violence that played a central role in the national rise of Black Lives Matter. McSpadden is the second woman in this group to run for political office; in 2018, Lucy McBath, whose son Jordan Davis was shot and killed in 2012, won her congressional election in Georgia's Sixth District.
"I don't want my children to grow up in a city where what happened to Michael can happen to anyone else," McSpadden explained in a May 2018 op-ed for the Root months before formally announcing her campaign. "We need to rebuild the entire system from the inside out. The only way that can be done is by having people, like me, who have been harmed by the system working inside it to make the right change that is needed."
McSpadden says that her personal experiences make her the right fit to represent Ferguson
McSpadden is in a competitive race in a predominantly black district, and will need to defeat two other candidates to win her seat. Fran Griffin, a black mother and local community organizer who sits on several community boards, is also running for the position, and has the support of some local activists.
McSpadden also faces incumbent council member Keith Kallstrom, who is white. On policing, Kallstrom has backed increasing salaries for officers, and has stressed his support of the Ferguson Police Department's ongoing reform efforts three years after entering a consent decree (a formal police reform agreement) with the Justice Department.
Both of her competitors have more experience in local politics, and McSpadden's critics argue that she hasn't been a reliable voice on local issues in the time since she's moved into the third ward. But Brown's mother says that she brings an important perspective to the council. "I wanted to go back and do something right in a place that did something so very wrong to my son, and I think that's what my son would want as well," McSpadden said in a recent interview with the Associated Press.
If she does win on Tuesday, McSpadden's victory would be the latest high-profile electoral success for police reform supporters in Ferguson. Her current campaign has been compared not only to McBath's political campaign last year, but also the 2018 campaign of Wesley Bell, a former Ferguson City Council member who defeated the incumbent St. Louis County prosecutor, Bob McCulloch — the man who failed to secure an indictment against Wilson in 2014 — last August.
McSpadden says that she wants to bring a change to the city. "It took me a while to figure out how I can be most helpful in returning to some light after being in so much pain," she recently told Essence, a news outlet geared toward black women. "I'm wanting to save a life, save another child's future which means helping the children, helping the mothers and helping the families."
HR experts: We'd nip Biden's behavior in the bud
Andreessen Horowitz isn't alone in leaving behind VC as we know it — and more company is coming
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Manchester United vs Tottenham: Live streaming, TV channel, team line up and kick-off time for Premier League match
Michael Cohen pleads guilty to 8 federal crimes
Immigration minister blocks Britons who sought help on Twitter
Why 'one app to rule them all' is not the future of digital health
Labour leadership hopefuls make final pitches for support
Annan: Earth loses a statesman, heaven gains
Daenerys was right: King's Landing had to burn
The last 24 hours in the Ukraine drama were the worst for Trump yet. Here's what happened.
A flood of fake installers will really update Flash for you – but also install cryptocurrency mining malware
Alabama just passed a near-total ban on abortion
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In my last post, I explained that social media data can be used to bolster PR efforts. E.g., knowing that KDnuggets scores higher than the NY Times for social media engagements about machine learning can be a big deal if you work in that space (and that is not just a hypothetical – it is the exact scenario their system uncovered, as I shared).
The graph below shows total engagements for machine learning topics. What forms of engagement does it cover? What is total vs. average engagement?
This chart is a ranking of publishers based on the total engagements their web content about machine learning drove. Content can vary significantly in the online attention it gets; two stories from the same publication have no guarantee of achieving the same reach or level of success, so social engagement is a good way to benchmark how content is doing on a more granular level.
This engagement comes across the social spectrum, and can be anything from a reaction/share/comment on Facebook, to a Twitter influencer share, to a pin on Pinterest. Total engagement is the sum of engagements across all the articles for whatever topic you're looking at, while average engagement is the total engagement divided by the number of articles published, which gives an idea of the rough level of engagement you can expect on social.
This fact that this graph is based on total engagement is part of the reason why Forbes is ranked at the top. Their average engagement is reasonably high, and they published a high number of articles on the topic. If we looked at average engagements per article, that might change the ranking a little.
How does an article get in the ML "bucket"?
Our data sources from headlines, subheads, keywords, and the metadata. We also have the capability to do a full text analysis, but we didn't do that for this particular search.
It depends what you're looking for. If you're looking for the impact of the average piece of content, then yes, average might be better. If you're looking to discover niche websites you might not have been aware of to see who has an audience that is consistently engaging with the type of content you want to place in publications, then total engagements is a good way to do that. The Times is always going to have a high average because of the nature of the publication, but they may also only publish one article on it per quarter. If you can be that article that's great, but it's also about finding the best alternatives!
Will you be looking at other content consumption metrics?
We always have more things in the pipeline! We already track comments made on the Facebook post itself, and for native content we can even break down by reaction. As we said in the webinar, a simple view count doesn't really count for much anymore, especially on social. What you want is an active audience, not a passive one that may be viewing and not taking anything in, which is why we principally have this focus on engagement data.
Prediction is one of the key capabilities of our Spike product. We use an algorithm to measure all the articles we're tracking and make predictions about what level of engagement they're going to achieve in the next x number of hours. So within a matter of minutes of publication, we'll have an idea of what's pre-viral, as it were, what everyone's going to be sharing in the next few hours.
As a publisher, or even a brand that has any kind of newsroom, you can use this to get ahead of the game, and make sure that it's incorporated into your content schedule.
Our Chrome extension has this same predictive capability and it'll show you who's been sharing it so far, but you'd have to already have a hunch about what's going to be successful. It's great for checking a hunch, but it won't show you all the successful content on a topic like Spike does.
Can this feature spot rising news stories to support PR newsjacking?
It's applicable in the same way. When I say "content," I was counting news within that, so as you can see with that Flynn story shown, we were predicting it was going to be a huge story very early on, and it turned out to be just that. We can search by keyword, website, or Facebook page to see what's predicted to be successful. So what Spike can help you do is make sure you're the first to know about the next hot story, and by definition you'll have a head start to get in touch with the relevant people because you'll know about it before others. It can also do the opposite and tell you when a story isn't going to be big and when it's not worth making the effort!
This entry was posted in PR Tech, Social Media, Tech, Tech PR, Technology and tagged engagement, media relations, PR, social media. Bookmark the permalink.


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Gilbert "Gil" Evariste' Cormier
Gilbert "Gil" Evariste' Cormier Rayne, LA - Funeral services will be held on Wednesday, May 3, 2017 at a 10:00 am Mass of Christian Burial at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Rayne, LA for Gilbert "Gil" Evariste' Cormier, 77, who died Monday May 1, 2017 at residence in Rayne, LA. Interment will be in the St. Joseph Cemetery #2, Mausoleum in Rayne, LA. Rev. Samuel Fontana, Associate Pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church will be the Celebrant of the Funeral Mass and will conduct the funeral services. Survivors include wife of 53 years, Mary Jane Menard Cormier of Rayne, four daughters, Susanne Cormier Vasseur of Mamou, Wendy Cormier Stelly and husband Gerald of Duson, Angela Cormier Fontenot and husband Michael of Scott, Dawn Cormier of Rayne, eleven grandchildren, Natalie Constantine and husband Josh, Summer Credeur and husband Jean, Michelle Stonecipher, Claire Thomas and husband Calvin, Jordan Cormier and wife Chelsie, Nickolas Morvant, Kelbi Stutes, Charisse Morvant, Dylan Morvant, Hunter Ahlers, and Lexie Ahlers, eleven great grandchildren, three sisters, Anna Menard of Rayne, Marie Johnson of Kenner, Rita Cormier and husband Eric of Rayne, two sister in laws, Mary Cormier of Crowley, and Bertha Cormier of Rayne. He was preceded in death by father, Joseph Cormier, mother, Elise Credeur Cormier, seven brothers, Albert Cormier and wife Irene, Gertis Cormier, Sr. and wife Yolande, Percy Cormier and wife Lillian, Louis Cormier and wife Gladys, August Cormier, Fernest "Johnny" Cormier, Junius Comeaux and wife Judy. Pallbearers will be Jordan Cormier, Nickolas Morvant, Dylan Morvant, Hunter Ahlers, Koye Credeur, and Gerald Stelly. Mr. Gil worked for the Daily Advertiser as a operator, then went on to open Gil's Upholstery for 40 plus years. After his retirement he enjoyed spending time drinking coffee with life long and new friends. He loved to go fishing and always said "No such thing as a stranger, just friends he had not met". He always would tell his children to use your common sense. A Rosary will be prayed Tuesday, May 2, 2017 at 7:00 pm in Gossen Funeral Home in Rayne LA. The family requests that visitation be observed in Gossen Funeral Home in Rayne LA on Tuesday May 2, 2017 from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm and on Wednesday May 3, 2017 from 8:00 am to 9:30 am. Friends may view the obituary and guestbook online at www.gossenfuneralhome.net. Arrangements have been entrusted to Gossen Funeral Home, Inc. of Rayne, LA, (337) 334-3141. Gossen Funeral Home, Inc.
Gilbert "Gil" Evariste' Cormier Rayne, LA - Funeral services will be held on Wednesday, May 3, 2017 at a 10:00 am Mass of Christian Burial at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Rayne, LA for Gilbert "Gil" Evariste' Cormier, 77, who died Monday... View Obituary & Service Information
The family of Gilbert "Gil" Evariste' Cormier created this Life Tributes page to make it easy to share your memories.
Gilbert "Gil" Evariste' Cormier
Rayne, LA - Funeral services...


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European Parliament elections were held in Italy on 10 June 1979. They were held a week after general election and the failure to hold the two elections together caused much controversy for wasting public money.

Electoral system
The pure party-list proportional representation was the traditional electoral system of the Italian Republic since its foundation in 1946, so it was naturally adopted to elect the Italian representatives to the European Parliament. Two levels were used: a national level to divide seats between parties, and a constituency level to distribute them between candidates. Italian regions were united in 5 constituencies, each electing a group of deputies. At national level, seats were divided between party lists using the largest remainder method with Hare quota. All seats gained by each party were automatically distributed to their local open lists and their most voted candidates.

Results
This election taking place just a week after the general election, it obviously gave a similar result. However, the minor importance of the European ballot caused a lower turnout, which particularly punished the two major parties, the Christian Democracy and the Italian Communist Party. The small Italian Liberal Party had a breath of fresh air from this vote, doubling its percentage compared to seven days before.

External links
Italian Minister of Interior

Italy
European Parliament elections in Italy
European

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Mariah Carey and Fiance Have Broken Up...
courtesy of iTunes
Looks like a 35-carat diamond ring does not but everlasting love, at least in the case of Mariah Carey and fiance James Packer. The songstress and mother of two with ex-husband Nick Cannon, has allegedly parted ways with Packer after over two years together. Packer proposed earlier this year where Carey boasted about how heavy her ring was. It was an Australian tabloid that first reported the break-up yet neither parties have commented on whether this is true or false. For all we know, the two could be using the rumors as a diversion to tie the knot but let's be real; Carey's marriage track record has not been all that good. She was married to Tommy Mottola for five years, a marriage that made Carey miserable as she claims he was controlling.
She was then married to "America's Got Talent" host Nick Cannon for over six years, which whom she shares custody of their twins, Monroe and Moroccan, now 5. Now, it seems as though it is all over for her and Packer but we will just have to wait for confirmation. We will see the couple together starting early December as Carey will have her own E! dock-series, in which Packer will appear. What do you think? Will Carey and Cannon get back together or is she still going to walk down the aisle for the third time? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter @3icecubes.
Labels: America's Got Talent, E!, James Packer, Mariah Carey, Nick Cannon, Tommy Mottola
Carole Radziwill Still Speaking Out About RHONY...And Needs to STFU!
photo courtesy of bravotv.com Though she left the 'RHONY' after season 10 (last season), Carole Radziwill still seemingly w...
Reconnecting With Romi!
For those of you who have been on social media and were big "The Real L Word" fans, as I was, you pretty much know, via photos...
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RHOC: Why Three Ice Cubes is Team Emily NOT Team Tamra!
photo courtesy of bravotv.com As the season 13 finale of the RHOC approaches (it is literally just a handful of hours away), it is ti...
3icecubes
Mandi's 3 Ice Cubes


Many famous people hate the idea of being called a brand? Should you care? What is it? People confuse image consulting and personal branding so today Timothy is talking practical steps of building a personal brand and the difference between marketing and branding.


I have always wanted a cast iron pot and never had one until now. I found a great line of products from Fagor. This included the Michelle B chicken fryer with glass lid cast iron skillet that I got to review.
The first thing that attracted me to this pot is its bright lemon-lime color. It is so fun! My husband and I just purchased our first home and are going to paint the kitchen a shade of green. This skillet will look great in there. Also, it is a lite pot and has 50% less weight than a typical cast iron pot. This is great because you get all of the benefits of cast iron without being too heavy. They are also designed to go from the stovetop or oven right to the tabletop.
The pot has a nonstick interior and silicon handles. I have found that it is very easy to use and to clean. I love my new cast iron chicken fryer! Any of the products from Fagor would be great as a gift for someone who likes to cook. Check out Fagor for all of their kitchen products.
***You can purchase these on Amazon.com for $69.99 and they also come in blue or red.
That's such a gorgeous cast iron pot!
I love this bright lemon-lime color! Perfect!Nice looking chicken fryer!


A Comprehensive Handbook Full of Tips to Help You Find Your Motivation!"
Do you tend to set lofty goals, but quickly lose motivation to work toward them, ultimately abandoning them when you face challenges?
Do you lack the motivation you need to reach your goals?
Do you wish you have more self-discipline?
Do you want to change your mindset, so you can finally accomplish your goals, but don't know where to start?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then the problem may be a complete lack of motivation.


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Broken Rites Australia - researching the Catholic cover-up
Black Collar Crime
Paedophile priest Peter Searson worked under various bishops in Melbourne
By a Broken Rites researcher
For years, the Melbourne Catholic Archdiocese knew that Father Peter Searson was committing sexual offences against boys, girls and women but he was allowed to continue in parishes. The Victoria Police investigated Searson for sexual offences in parishes but found it difficult to extract evidence from "loyal" church people. Eventually, after 35 years as a priest, the police managed to charge Searson with physical assault. Thus, Searson's abuse became public. The church authorities were forced to dump Searson from parish work. Hoping to protect the church's public image, the church also removed his name from the published list of retired priests.
Originally a Marist Brother
Broken Rites research has ascertained that Peter Lloyd Searson was born on 4 April 1923 in Adelaide, South Australia, where he was a pupil at Sacred Heart College, a Marist Brothers school in Somerton Park. He was recruited to become a Marist Brother, and he adopted the "religious" name "Brother Bonaventure". (There was a "Saint" Bonaventure in medieval Europe but Peter Lloyd Searson was certainly no saint.)
The Broken Rites research confirmed that Peter Searson's name is included in a list of Marist Brothers who entered the Melbourne province of this religious order. (The Melbourne province provided Marists for South Australia and Western Australia, as well for Victoria.)
In the 1950s, Brother Bonaventure Searson taught at a Marist Brothers college in Mount Gambier, South Australia. A former Mount Gambier student, born in 1942, told Broken Rites in 2002 that he was a boarder at the school in the 1950s. Brother Bonaventure, he said, had a fetish for strapping students on their naked buttocks.
On 25 July 2012 an ex-student from this Mount Gambier school extracted an out-of-court settlement from the Marist Brothers for mental and physical abuse inflicted on him by Brother Bonaventure in 1957-58.
It is believed that, at some time, Brother Bonaventure Searson also taught at the Marist Brothers' Red Bend Catholic College in Forbes, western New South Wales. This school was administered by the Marists' Melbourne Province.
Becoming a priest
In the late 1950s, for some reason, the Marist order and Brother Bonaventure Searson parted company.
He then was accepted into a seminary to train as a priest, becoming ordained as Father Peter Searson in Rome on 7 April 1962 at the age of 39. He worked as a military chaplain in Europe in 1962 but, from 1963, he spent the rest of his priestly career in the Melbourne diocese. In the 1960s he worked as an assistant priest in Melbourne suburban parishes at Carlton, South Melbourne, Camberwell South and Mount Waverley.
It is believed that there were complaints about him in the 1960s. In the early 1970s he was at the Altona parish.
Chaplain to the blind community
Broken Rites has discovered that, in 1974-75, Searson was listed as the chaplain to Melbourne's blind community. It is not clear why he was assigned to such a sensitive position, dealing with vulnerable people with a disability.
He led pilgrimages for the blind to the Holy Land and the sacred shrines of Europe.
A man ("Bruce") told Broken Rites in 1997 that in 1974 he was engaged to a young woman ("Sue") who was a nursing assistant, caring for blind people at the Villa Maria Society while Searson was the chaplain there. Bruce was a Catholic but Sue was not, so Sue (then aged 18) was sent to Father Searson for Catholic religious instruction. According to Sue, Searson quizzed her about her sex life and gave her "sex education" by mauling her genitals, saying that it was all right for priests to do this. He allegedly told Sue (who was not blind) that he needed to do this kind of thing when he was "helping" blind people. Sue's complaint went to the Melbourne archdiocesan authorities in 1974 but no action was taken.
Searson at Sunbury parish
In 1978-1984, Searson was the Parish Priest in charge at Sunbury (Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish) in Melbourne's outer north-west. Here there were complaints about Searson sexually harassing children at the parish primary school. Searson was taking children, one at a time, from the classroom to his study to give them "sex education". During Confession, a girl in Grade Six was required to sit on Searson's knee, while Searson fondled her intimately. In addition, he was alleged to have indecently touched a boy. However, these families did not want to tell the police.
This Sunbury situation was recalled a decade later in an article in the Melbourne Sunday Herald Sun (23 March 1997). The paper reported:
"According to police sources, he [Searson] had been interviewed by Community Policing Squad police at Sunbury in 1982 following complaints from a lay teacher and parishioners...
"According to police, the parents of the alleged Sunbury victim decided aginst taking action and charges were never laid...
"At the time, Fr Searson denied the allegations, but conceded to a ban which prevented him from taking children into the confessonal and his presbytery."
Searson at Doveton parish
In 1984 Searson took charge of the Holy family parish at Doveton, an area of low-economic status near Dandenong, in Melbourne's outer south-east.
At Doveton there were again complaints about him touching or sexually harassing children.
Detectives from the Victoria Police investigated Searson in the 1980s but families were reluctant to allow their children to make a signed police statement. This made a prosecution impossible.
Although families were reluctant to speak to police, some families were prepared to speak to the church authorities. This evidence was not made available to the police.
At Doveton there were also complaints about Searson being aggressive towards children and about him being authoritarian in the school and the parish. At least one family moved their children from Searson's school to another school.
Meeting of parents
The Dandenong Journal of 27 October 1986 reported that a meeting of fifty parents at the Doveton parish school petitioned the archdiocesan office, seeking the removal of Searson as parish priest. The vicar-general of the Melbourne archdiocese at that time was one of Melbourne's four auxiliary bishops, Bishop Hilton Deakin. Searson was not disciplined and therefore a number of parents withdrew their children from the school. Searson began retaliating against staff who had supported the parents. The school principal, Graeme Sleeman, resigned.
In April 1987, a Mass was held to celebrate Searson's silver jubilee as a priest. The Dandenong Journal (23 April 1987) reported: "Twenty-six priests, including Monsignor Kevin Toomey, concelebrated eucharist with Fr Searson, and the homily was delivered by a long-standing friend who is acting as regional bishop, Dr Hilton Deakin."
More trouble in the 1990s
In early 1996, detectives investigated Searson regarding a complaint by an adult female and had a liaison meeting with the vicar-general (administrator) of the Melbourne archdiocese, Monsignor Gerald Cudmore.
The archdiocese now realised that, with the police involvement, the Searson matters could become a public embarrassment for the church. In late 1996, the Melbourne archdiocese appointed a senior barrister, Peter O'Callaghan, QC, as its Commissioner on Sexual Abuse. O'Callaghan's role was to receive, and adjudicate on, all complaints concerning Melbourne clergy. A number of Searson victims contacted O'Callaghan, who then began investigating Searson. Broken Rites believes that some of the material reviewed by Peter O'Callaghan QC concerned Searson's earlier parishes, such as Mount Waverley in the 1960s, as well as Sunbury and Doveton in the 1970s and 1980s.
In March 1997, the Melbourne Archdiocese issued a media release (drafted with the help of a public relations firm, Royce Communications), announcing that he had suspended Fr Searson from parish work indefinitely pending an inquiry by the archdiocese's Commissioner on Sexual Abuse, Peter O'Callaghan QC, into certain "serious" allegations against Fr Searson.
Reporting this media release, the Melbourne Herald Sun said (on 20 March 1997): "Father Searson ... has been ordered to go on administrative leave until the allegations have been investigated."
Newspaper controversy
In a letter to a suburban newspaper, Melbourne priest Father Michael Shadbolt criticised the church for publicly naming Searson after his suspension. Fr Shadbolt, who was then an assistant priest at Hampton Park (south-east of Melbourne), suggested that the identity of accused clergy should not be revealed until they were brought before the criminal justice sysem. Shadbolt, however, knows that, too often, the church has protected the offenders, preventing their cases from reaching the criminal justice system. Broken Rites, on the other hand, has given victims the contact details of the child-abuse unit in the state police force, where victims can tell their story to a detective.
Interviewed by the Herald Sun (4 April 1997, p.23), Peter O'Callaghan, QC, declined to comment on the specific case of Fr Searson but he said that placing a priest on "administrative leave did not in any way mean a decision had been made as to whether or not the complaint had been made out."
"Any priest subject of a complaint is entitled to and will be afforded natural justice," Mr O'Callaghan said.
It is interesting that, by 2000, Father Shadbolt had been appointed as the Parish Priest to succeed Searson at Doveton.
Searson in court
Hampered by insufficient co-operation from church sex-abuse victims, the police finally managed to summon Searson to court for physical assault. Broken Rites alerted all media outlets about the court listing. In Dandenong Magistrates Court in December 1997, Peter Searson pleaded guilty to physically assaulting a 12-year-old altar boy. Searson (then aged 74) was placed on a six-months good-behaviour bond.
According to the Dandenong Examiner (9 December 1997) and the Dandenong Journal (8 December 1997), the court was told that Searson struck two altar boys over the ears at the Doveton parish primary school in 1996 because he claimed they had giggled during Mass. He is alleged to have said: "When I was younger, that's what happened to me."
One boy's mother complained to the school but Searson denied the allegation. The mother then told the police and Searson again denied it, saying he merely "touched" the boy on the head. The boy stuck to his story and told police: 'I'm angry that a priest has lied. People will think that I'm the liar."
The second altar boy signed a police statement in support of the other boy's complaint. Searson's lawyer claimed the priest was pleading guilty to save himself and the boys the ordeal of testifying on oath. The prosecutor said the boy was quite willing to testify on oath. The guilty plea, however, made this unnecessary and saved Searson from the perils of cross-examination.
"Retired"
From 1998 onwards, after Peter Searson's court case (and the resulting publicity), the annual editions of the Australian Catholic directories listed Searson as "retired". Beginning in 2006 his name vanished from the Catholic directory altogether, although he continued to be listed in in the Telstra telephone directory (living in Camberwell in Melbourne's east) until he died a few years later.
Broken Rites and "Four Corners" TV program
In 2014, Broken Rites research was used in Australian television program Four Corners, giving examples of the Catholic Church's cover-up of sexual abuse, including at Melbourne's Doveton parish. The Broken Rites research showed how the Melbourne Archdiocese leadership sent a succession of sexually-abusive priests to this parish. For example (you can click on any of the following names).
Fr Tom O'Keeffe. The church finally says 'Sorry' to O'Keefe's victims.
Fr Bill Baker. An archbishop covered up Baker's crimes.
Fr Vic Rubeo. The church harboured this offender for three decades.
Fr Peter Searson.
Broken Rites is proud to have helped Four Corners with our research.
You can still watch this episode of Four Corners (entitled "In the Name of the Law") on the FOUR CORNERS website.
Since 1993, Broken Rites Australia has been researching the cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Too often, the church supported the offending clergy while ignoring the victims. For example, Broken Rites has shown how the church shielded the criminal priest Father Gerald Ridsdale for 32 years without reporting his crimes to the police. Finally, in 1993, some Father Ridsdale victims contacted the police. These victims also contacted the newly-formed Broken Rites.
This photo demonstrates why Broken Rites was needed. In the photo, Catholic priest Gerald Ridsdale (left, in sunglasses and hat) walks to court, accompanied by his support person (a bishop), when Father Ridsdale was pleading guilty to his first batch of criminal charges in May 1993. But no bishop accompanied the victims, who felt deserted by the church leaders. Therefore, since 1993, Broken Rites research has supported many of the Catholic Church's victims, as shown on this website. Read More


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