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Breast Cancer | Tumor
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CURE's breast cancer page is an extensive resource of cancer information featuring the latest breast cancer news, expert oncologist insights on the latest cancer treatments, oncology research, advocacy efforts, and medical data on breast cancer.
A Long Family History of BRCA
Three sisters trace their family's experiences with breast and ovarian cancer across generations.
A woman living with metastatic breast cancer shares how her relationship with her non-biological sister who was adopted from Korea transformed after they both received a cancer diagnosis.
FDA Speeds Up Review of Enhertu for Previously Treated Unresectable/Metastatic HER2-Breast Cancer
After the drug showed promising results in the DESTINY-Breast03 trial, the FDA granted Enhertu a priority review, meaning that it plans to make its approval decision on it by the end of the second quarter of 2022.
How Can We Get Young Women to Get Annual Mammograms?
One breast cancer survivor shares the experience she had with her daughters in trying to get them to understand the importance of participating in preventive screenings.
Higher BMI in Adulthood May Limit the Immune System's Ability to Fight Breast Cancer
New findings demonstrated that adult patients with breast cancer and increased BMI had an association with different types of immune cells around their tumors that may affect how their body attacks the cancer cells.
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to decide on whether to approve certain cancer regimens within the first few months of the year. Here's what patients with cancer should know.
Keytruda/Chemo Combo Is 'Great News' for Patients With TNBC, 'But We Need Much More'
An expert discusses improvements in survival outcomes for patients with triple-negative breast cancer who received Keytruda plus chemotherapy — now considered the standard of care — but urges that more researched is always needed for this patient population.
Aromatase Inhibitors Reduce Recurrence Risk, But Not Death Rates, in Premenopausal Patients With Breast Cancer
Premenopausal women with ER-positive breast cancer experienced a decreased rate of recurrence when given an aromatase inhibitor, compared with those given tamoxifen. However, more research is still needed, an expert said.
Novel Drug Combo Induces Encouraging Results in Patients With Heavily Pretreated Breast Cancer
The use of Faslodex plus the investigational drug samuraciclib was considered safe in individuals with heavily pretreated hormone receptor-positive breast cancer.
Cancer Drug Approvals from 2021 That Patients May Have Missed
2021 was full of research advancements and FDA drug approvals that continue to improve cancer care for patients with a variety of malignancies.
Second-Line Enhertu May Be 'Standard of Care' for Patients with HER2-Positive Metastatic Breast Cancer
The use of Enhertu may also be beneficial across HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer subgroups including patients with and without brain metastases.
Study Results Champion Keytruda/Chemo as 'New Standard of Care' in TNBC Subset
The combination of Keytruda and chemotherapy improved survival rates in patients with PD-L1—positive metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.
The 5 Most-Read Breast Cancer Articles of 2021
December 22nd 2021
CURE® takes a look back at its top-performing breast cancer articles of 2021.
Metastatic Breast Cancer: 'It's What You Can't See That's Killing Me'
A woman with metastatic breast cancer writes a poem about the dark reality of the disease that hides below the surface.
Pre-Surgical Keytruda Provides Promising Advancement in TNBC Treatment
Findings from a clinical trial showed that adding Keytruda to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with triple-negative breast cancer significantly improved outcomes and was overall safe and tolerable for patients.
5 Cancer Clinical Trials You May Have Missed
There are many cancer clinical trials that patients can enroll in across the United States. Here is a snapshot of some of the more recent ones.
Male Breast Cancer Survivor Went From Feeling Alone to Feeling Connected to All Survivors
One male breast cancer survivor explains why he considers his cancer experience an "adventure into the unknown," where he draws inspiration from every survivor he meets.
Oncolytic Virus Clinical Trial Opens for Patients With Advanced Breast Cancer
City of Hope has opened its first-in-human clinical trial for an investigational therapy in patients with advanced breast cancer.
Lynparza After Chemo May Not Greatly Impact Quality of Life in High-Risk Early Breast Cancer Subset
Although patients treated with Lynparza after chemotherapy may experience side effects such as fatigue and nausea/vomiting, these symptoms resolved after treatment was completed in patients with high-risk early breast cancer.
Triplet Regimen Extends Time Before Brain, Spinal Cord Metastases Worsen in Patients With Breast Cancer
A three-drug regimen was shown to lengthen the amount of time before cancer progressed to the central nervous system — known as central nervous system progression-free survival — in certain patients with breast cancer.
Experimental Drug Plus Chemo Boosts Survival in HER2-Positive Metastatic Breast Cancer
The use of pyrotinib — an experimental drug — plus the chemotherapy capecitabine extended survival compared with Tykerb and capecitabine among patients with pretreated HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer.
Novel Drug Elicits Favorable Outcomes in Advanced, Metastatic TNBC
Early-phase study results showed that treatment with a novel drug elicits promising outcomes in patients with advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.
Immunotherapy Before Surgery May 'Increase the Chances' Patients Are Cured of TNBC
Clinical trial results show that adding Keytruda to chemotherapy prior to surgery for triple-negative breast cancer can improve outcomes and hopefully "increase the chances for patients to be cured," according to an expert.
Black Patients More Likely to Experience Treatment Changes That May Worsen Breast Cancer Outcomes
Treatment modifications in the pre-surgery setting led to a lower rate of pathologic complete response in Black patients with breast cancer, the researchers found.
Study Confirms Adding Ibrance to Endocrine Therapy May Not Improve Outcomes in Early Breast Cancer
The addition of Ibrance to endocrine therapy was not associated with preventing disease recurrence in patients with hormone receptor (HR)–positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)–negative early breast cancer, according to final results of the phase 3 PALLAS trial.
Medication Used to Treat Diabetes Fails to Improve Breast Cancer Outcomes
Researchers hypothesized that metformin — a medication that helps lower insulin levels in patients with diabetes and is associated with inducing weight loss — might improve breast cancer outcomes.
Novel Drug Has Potential to 'Become New Standard of Care' in Advanced, ER-Positive Breast Cancer
The use of elacestrant, an investigational therapy, elicited a 30% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death compared with standard of care in a group of patients with estrogen receptor (ER)–positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer.
Novel Drug Combo Doubles Progression-Free Survival in HER2-Negative Metastatic Breast Cancer
Ibrance plus Faslodex improved progression-free survival in certain patients with metastatic breast cancer, compared with those who continued to receive an aromatase inhibitor.
Black Women With Breast Cancer Have a Higher Risk of Developing Lymphedema Than White Women
Black race is associated with a 3.5-fold increased incidence of lymphedema in women with breast cancer treated with axillary lymph node dissection and radiotherapy, according to recent data.
CURE® Honors Patients, Advocates, Oncologist in Inaugural Metastatic Breast Cancer Heroes™ Award Program for Increasing Awareness
CURE's Metastatic Breast Cancer Heroes™ Award Program expresses gratitude to the heroes who impact the lives of patients with metastatic breast cancer.
What a Mother of a Cancer Survivor Really Wants for Christmas
A mother of a young breast cancer survivor shares the letter she wrote to Santa explaining her only Christmas wish.


Modern-day advocates for atheism tend to assume, and imply, or even dogmatically assert, that biological evolution is "on their side". They don't detect any miracles in it, so they infer (illogically and incorrectly) that it has nothing to do with G-d. That is not true, but, let me immediately admit, to say what G-d has got to do with it is not easy. I will attempt to say something about that in this post. Before I do, let's at least drop the false idea that biological science is all done by confident atheists while some confused theists try to refute it, and other timid theists go along with it. There are, sadly, some confused theists who try to refute good evidence using poor arguments, but this is not the main picture. The mainstream scientific community, as a matter of fact, is made up of a mix of people. In the biology and zoology labs in most major universities you will find some thoughtful Christians doing high-calibre biological research, alongside their colleagues. They are a minority, but the truthfulness of their or anyone else's ideas is not measured by counting heads.
Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that there were no miracles on planet Earth before the Neolithic period (9000 BP). Here, by a "miracle" I mean a process falling sufficiently outside the ordinary patterns of nature that it could not be attributed to those patterns, nor to inspiration nor providence, nor to chance. If this is the case then of course when looking at the fossil record, and the genetic record, and the chemistry and the geology, and so on, you will not ever discover, in any specific process, the finger-print of some influence outside what could happen within the parameters allowed by the ordinary patterns of the natural world. That doesn't mean there is no meaningful sign or "finger-print" to discover; it means that the meaningful sign, if it is there, is expressed in step with or in tune with those patterns, and it is also expressed by the process as a whole. It is not a finger-print but a hand-print.
My allusion to fingers and hands conjures up some rather unhelpful anthropomorphic images. Let's throw out those images, then, and simply ask: does this whole process of biological history signal anything? Does it have any significance?
Various writers have attempted to express something of what they see as the possible significance here. Bertrand Russell, for example, concluded that the lesson was that impersonal, thoughtless force and chance is all you can find outside the human race, but humans somehow have more to offer. Some writers express their dismay at the unrelenting suffering they see. But those same writers also often say the whole process impresses them in a rather more positive and fulfilling way, and they devote much time and energy to exploring it in detail. The suffering is there, but so is the life. The death rate is precisely one hundred percent for all organisms that ever experienced life. And yet death is not the overall winner. Life is still ongoing, after all: death has not won yet. The big picture, so far, is neither stasis nor decay but the realization of ever-changing varieties of wonderful life.
Some writers say this ever-changing variety is simply that: change, but without any sense of direction. I think this is a half-truth. The true part of this half-truth is that we don't find the idea of some sort of over-arching directive force (directing towards increased complexity, for example) either necessary or useful in making sense of biological history. Nevertheless the fossil record and the genetic record is not one of mere change. There is clear and abundant evidence of not just change but also development. Simple life-forms come first; complex ones later (alongside further simple ones). You won't find any rabbits, nor any creatures with a skeleton, nervous system and regulated body temperature in the pre-Cambrian period. This is too obvious. But a rabbit is not just different from a bacterium; a rabbit is a richer realization of the verb to be. That is what I mean by development as opposed to mere change. The whole story is somewhat like an example of percolation: at every stage, life on Earth percolates into the available adjacent space of ecological niches, and what is available is significantly influenced by what has gone before. "Tools" such as nuclei, cell-walls, sexual reproduction, eyes and livers are handed on and built upon or reconfigured.
At the molecular scale there is the driving force provided by the solar-powered heat-engine which provides low-entropy light and drives chemical reactions. At the large scale there is, instead of a driving force, simply the meaning of the verb to be. This large-scale aspect is not a force but a space of possibility, waiting to be populated. It is the truth about the ways in which things can be, especially things that have to live alongside one another. Evolution on Earth cannot go absolutely anywhere. It cannot go in all directions, completely randomly. It can only go into the space of possibility, not impossibility. It can only explore the class of all ways of living alongside one another that can persist on Earth.
Conditions are sometimes harsh. In periods of climate change, large numbers of species have died out altogether, and this has happened several times. This is why people are sometimes drawn to talk of farce. Or, to take another tack, if you weigh up the biomass, you find it is mostly bacteria, then insects, with mammals and humans coming down the list a bit. So if you think mass is the main indicator of significance, then you would say life on Earth is mostly about bacteria, with some incidental complex creatures providing some of the habitat. However, I don't think any sane human being can seriously assess the overall significance or meaning of living things by counting how many kilograms they weigh. In any case, this essay is not addressed to anyone who thinks that (with such a person, I would have to start a long way further back).
If anyone thinks that a rabbit is no more worthy of attention than a dead piece of fur flapping in the breeze, then this essay is not addressed to such a person.
Sometimes people feel that questions about meaning are not well-posed questions. Perhaps they are non-questions. If you found some random scratches on a stone, it would be simply a waste of time to ask "what do they mean?" in the sense of some sort of written message. That would be an example of a category error, or a failure to understand what sort of thing you are dealing with. The only "meaning" such scratches have is that something randomly scratched the stone. But if you found the Rosetta stone, then you would be right to ask what the scratches on it mean.
Asking about the meaning, if there is one, of life on Earth is very close to asking about the meaning, if there is one, of the whole Universe. I think it is right to be hesitant about volunteering answers to questions as big as that. But we can't help but answer, up to a point, because we have to live. What I do today is my answer, whether I like it or not. I detect what I think matters in the world around me, and I contribute to that. This is what we all do.
This is no small issue, either. We talk of things going wrong when someone suffers some affliction, a cancer or a famine or an enslavement. We say we are trying to make things right or better when we study medicine or develop agriculture or liberate slaves. These are all judgements about value and significance. They are saying that life on Earth is not a farce. They amount to saying that we see ourselves as some sort of trustees, who think there is something worth preserving and improving, and we have volunteered for the job of preservation and improvement. Starvation and shared food are not just different ways that things happen to fall out. One is objectionable, one is not.
Instead of passively voicing abstract answers to abstract questions that are too large for us, we have to be. But there are many things a human can be. Most of us feel that, even after looking squarely at all the parasitism and pain, the mass extinctions and the locust swarms and the predation, nevertheless this story of life on Earth is tremendously valuable, and even, yes, good. Every parent has voted that it should continue.
So what has G-d got to do with it? By "G-d" we mean the reality that both sources the universe as a world with its own integrity as a world, and that also continuously relates to that world, on every level. Not by overturning it, but by working with it. An atheist will want to say that that reality is something strictly abstract and impersonal, such as "mathematics" or "the laws of nature". The theist asserts that there is more to G-d than that. We are not talking about anthropomorphic super-beings. But we are talking about the human experience of being known, and the experience of sharing the world. We show the world to G-d, and G-d shows the world to us. Also, certain people have told us that our truest parent is one that understands the nature of poverty and suffering, as well as the nature of joy, and these people seem to be among the wisest and best among us.
We are also talking about the fact that our genetic inheritance is not enough for us. One of the important lessons of evolutionary biology is that genes do not make us good. At the level of inherited nature, you and I are not, deep down, innately committed to good. Deep down we are thoroughly compromised, and have to make an effort at good, finding the strength to do this, if we ever do find it, somewhere other than in our genes. (This truth about human nature is plain enough from observing what humans do, and it was asserted by Christian thinkers well before the modern era; evolutionary biology has added some confirming detail.) But that other component—the one that does not come from our genes—is also at work in human history, and something like it has been at work in biological history. In unconscious living things it is an astonishing, continually reasserted, deep resource of beauty somehow woven in to the very fabric of the world—the deep beauty that Carl Sagan and Albert Einstein, among many others, talked about. In conscious living things it is a hunger for truth and goodness, a hunger that is met, deep in who we are, through a process we do not comprehend, but whatever is the reality at the source of it, that is our truest parent.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


A facilitator's guide for support groups for women with experience of violence, substance use and/or mental health concerns.
Making Connections is a guide to help service providers from anti-violence and mental health and addiction sectors facilitate a support group for women with experiences of abuse, substance use, and mental health issues.
The aim of the Making Connections curriculum is to provide women the opportunity to connect and heal. Making Connections supports women to gain a new perspective on their abuse and how it has affected their safety and health.
Along with a facilitator's guide, we have developed a work book for women participating in the sessions to assist them throughout the twelve-week support group.
Making Connections was developed and piloted by BC Women's Hospital + Health Centre with the generous financial support from the Canada Post Foundation for Mental Health and the Canadian Women's Foundation. The project would not have been possible without the partnership and dedication of the BC Society of Transition Houses.
Many courageous and wise women contributed to the development of the Making Connections curriculum. We gratefully acknowledge their contributions and commitment to this project which helped make the curriculum relevant and reflective of the needs of women with experiences of abuse.


I tied a couple more variations of the Hedgehog. Brothers to the original Chartreuse Hedgehog.
Take a look , Let me know what you think.
Harley has spawning browns written all over it IMHO!
I am waiting on some more Dumbell eyes and some more Rabitt strips of different colors before I can tie anymore. I will tell you this. The undulation in the water is spectacular on Harley !
I will tie you all up a few!
Beautiful flies Rock. I could see Harley on my fly line up in the Quetico National Forrest......getting engulfed by a monster bronze back!
Weekend trip with my brothers.. where to go?


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Archive | July, 2017
Strangers in the Night: Recovering the Risks of Friendship, Dr. Robert Zuber
Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light. Helen Keller
Great perils have this beauty that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers. Victor Hugo
The language of friendship is not words but meanings. Henry David Thoreau
This week at the UN "featured" what appears to be a growing rift between the increasingly abusive and defiant government of Burundi and the concerns of the international community; a lack of "positive news" (ASG Muller) on still-besieged areas in Syria with nothing even approximating positive news on Yemen or Gaza; and renewed violence in the Central African Republic which mourned a new round of peacekeeper casualties.
Given all this, and throw the DPRK into the mix, and it surely must seem like a policy cop-out to reference this International Day of Friendship, one of the UN's "can't we just all get along" moments that might well seem superfluous to the serious policy challenges on our plate, including those related to the vast human mobility which seems now to have stretched our resources and caring capacities up to and even past their limit.
So much of migration now is what the UN policy community refers to as "irregular," what the rest of us might well refer to as "forced." People on the move less for economic opportunity or a fresh start but to escape horrific conditions of war and its remnants, of drought and its famines, of atrocities and their multiple scars. Families escaping bombs they neither built nor dropped; drought and food insecurity from climate change they did virtually nothing to impact; atrocities perpetrated against them based on culture and genetics more than on any active political resistance or military threat.
And, as we know, the uncertain path forward for many fleeing insecurity is lined with more of the same. Securing adequate family sustenance can be every bit as much a challenge on the move as it was in the drought and conflict zones from which they fled. Traffickers abound and prey on vulnerabilities of all kinds, offering false hope to persons otherwise verging on "no hope" at all. Abuses at the hands of those ostensibly providing "protection" simply magnify the insecurity, especially for children cut off from any modicum of protection that families might otherwise have provided. And that barbed wire at the end of what is often a long and life-threatening journey is perhaps the strongest sign of people once betrayed by much of global governance and the human family who have been forsaken yet again.
As we have noted often, and as has been carefully and compassionately documented in "Turning Strangers into Friends," edited by Liberato Bautista on behalf of Churches Witnessing With Migrants (CWWM), the "regular" migration that is the goal of UN policy deliberations can be fraught with its own dangers: hostility at airports and border crossings; icy stares from persons on the street who believe that any stranger represents a danger; threats from states to deport even single parents from family units; employers all-too-willing to cheat or abuse employees on the assumption that legal systems are mostly disinterested in migrants' rights.
And as Bautista and colleagues have summarized in their Talking and Doing Points issued prior to their recent Berlin consultation, these are only a few of the factors that compromise the safety and dignity of "uprooted peoples," factors that demand good policy from institutions like the UN but also more consistent and person-centered hospitality from those who claim to value dignity for all. The UN is trying to do its part to overcome some residual state resistance to the establishment and dissemination of a Global Compact on Migration that will hopefully facilitate safer, orderly and more "regular" migration patterns. A Compact-related consultation held at the UN this week, chaired ably by Mexico and Switzerland and featuring Special Representative for International Migration Louise Arbour, stressed a number of important points for the migration policy community including the right of voluntary return, the importance of protecting (and even expanding) remittances, the need for more accurate data on all aspects of human mobility, the value of providing proper "documentation" for migrants and rethinking restrictions on "dual citizenship," the many cultural and capacity benefits of "diaspora outreach," and the need to step up "conflict prevention" efforts to help stem the flow of persons who feel that they have no option but to flee bombs overhead and landmines under foot.
There was even welcome discussion of the importance of moving beyond "whole of government" to "whole of society" approaches to addressing migration's opportunities and challenges. This point had particular resonance for us. "Turning strangers into friends," accompanying those in ways we would wish to be accompanied, is not only about having the right national and global policies, not only about having the most progressive words appear in our declarations and resolutions, but about having the proper dispositions in communities; about seeing ourselves, indeed our common survival, reflected in the often fearful eyes of those who now appear as strangers to us.
This disposition remains in distressingly short supply, both within and outside communities of faith.
Even in a city like New York, which prides itself on its many cultures and more recently its resistance to new US federal policies clamping down on migrants of all stripes, there is a need to up our game on the hospitality, "mercy" and friendship called for by the CWWM. For too many of us, even now, the promise of diversity is only casually engaged. We sample the food of migrants but rarely share their dreams. We attend the festivals of migrants but are mostly absent from their logistical challenges and major life transitions. We are tolerant of migrants' presence but mostly stick closely (on and off our phones) to our smaller, like-minded circles.
With all due regard for the "compassion fatigue" that seems to be sweeping the planet, and with all blessings extended to those who put their safety on the line every day to care for the otherwise forsaken, hospitality and friendship for migrants must become a long-term commitment for more of the rest of us. This is not some pious liberal call, but rather stems from a belief — abundant evidence for which emerges regularly from UN conference room — that the factors pushing people to risk the lives of their children to escape the carnage of their daily lives are likely to grow in number and intensity, at least for the time being.
So while we are urgently figuring out a plan to regulate the growing ranks of the unregulated, while this clock counting down the deadline for our common survival is still ticking, we have urgent work to do ourselves, to do on ourselves. We have to find better ways to keep our hearts open, to offer friendship and hospitality that is not about charity but about, as noted by Lester Ruiz, "the opportunity to live well together in the context of our shared differences." And we must learn how to accompany others recovering from a displacement they so often did not choose, in part as a means of learning how we would wish to be accompanied when it is our turn to face grave insecurity.
This is friendship in the best sense, the friendship that walks in as others are running out, that absorbs anxieties when others are pushing them away, and that elicits practical offers of hospitality beyond the boundaries of personal convenience. This is the friendship I have been blessed to receive over and over in my life. This is friendship worthy of our times, practices that can bring deeper meaning to policies directed towards that "fraternity of strangers" longing to find their way home.
Tags: Friendship, hospitality, migrants, UN
Culture Club: Linking Policy and Inspiration in UN Contexts: Dr. Robert Zuber
To build a world without fear, we must be without fear. To build a world of justice, we must be just. And how can we fight for liberty if we not free in our own minds? How can we ask others to sacrifice if we are not ready to do so? Dag Hammarskjöld
Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. Aristotle
Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste. Charlotte Brontë
Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again. Dag Hammarskjöld
This week marks what would be the 112th birthday of the legendary Dag Hammarskjöld, one of the very few persons whose mention still evokes awe inside the UN even if most of his thoughtful wisdom has been relegated to the sidelinesof "quaintness" by a political system that has become much too "inspiration resistant."
As many of you know, Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash under what are still deemed to be suspicious circumstances. These have been the subject of General Assembly resolutions and a 2015 Panel of Experts report that has stoked further interest in what we still don't know about the crash, what intelligence files might still exist that could shine light on what is a yet-unresolved 56 year old tragedy.
It is relatively easy, I suppose, to revere figures from our past as they are no longer around to annoy us or get in our way. And it is relatively easy to sideline the values-driven perspectives of a Hammarskjöld as the product of a global order characterized by considerably fewer (almost entirely western) centers of political and economic influence than what we know today. To be clear, the UN of Hammarskjöld's time had to accommodate far fewer member states represented by far more male delegates. Beyond the rightful preoccupations of the time with decolonization, the dominant, bipolar power dynamics were focused on how to prevent the early stages of "cold war" from becoming dangerously heated.
But that the values of Hammarskjöld might not any longer be wholly "appropriate" to the activities and constituencies of the UN does not imply that issues of the UN's culture and purpose to which he pointed should be abandoned outright. Our dreams and aspiration to clean the messes we failed to prevent and fix what is broken — these still matter. Our need to embody the courage, forgiveness and other traits of character that we expect from those we deign to lead — this still matters, too. The importance of aspiring to be more than just "good enough" in these dangerous and treacherous times — this perhpas matters more than ever.
There are places throughout the UN where vestiges of this interest in how we do our general business, including our obligations to one another, remains. In the Security Council debate this week on African Peace and Security, and during meetings of the Peacebuilding Commission, the Japanese Ambassador both lamented and challenged the current proclivity inside the UN to "chase conflict," a chase that exhausts human capital, compromises the trust of peoples and states, and creates both massive victim heartbreak and senseless finger pointing by states who never seem to get around to pointing fingers at themselves.
In this current Security Council configuration elected members Sweden and Uruguay are among those that continue to press regularly for a more thoughtful, humane policy culture. Sweden has kept up pressure on colleagues to honor promises to gender equity, to the rights of displaced persons, and to full-spectrum, collaborative engagements on peace and security with the Peacebuilding Commission and other UN and regonal entities. Uruguay for its part has demonstrated a relentless regard for the anxious impatience of the wider UN membership with progress on peace, as well as the will to do what few other state representatives in New York are encouraged or authorized to do – remind the large powers of their occasional duplicities on armed violence, on respect for human rights, on protection of civilians, and on their rush to coercive responses to conflicts that require above all else honest political dialogue.
Beyond the Council, also noteworthy for us this week was a presentation in the Economic and Social Council High-level segment on the eradication of poverty by Fatoumata Jallow-Tanbajang, Minister of Women's Affairs of Gambia. The Minister, whose country recently and only narrowly avoided a major crisis of political transition with its related allegations of theft and corruption, could have been forgiven for taking a "fingers crossed" approach to the general implementation of the sustainable development goals, not to mention her country's own potential to meet their SDG targets.
She did nothing of the sort. Instead, Minister Jallow-Tanbajang laid out one the most hopeful, inspiring messages of the entire week. She spoke honestly about addressing the "diaspora" arising in part from years of political turmoil that drained the talent now badly needed at home. She stressed concrete efforts to bring about social cohesion in a state "that has been divided for too long." And, quite remarkably, she advocated for both "freedom" and "happiness" as viable indicators of development success, understanding that the quality of societies is at least roughly equivalent to the quality of the lives of its inhabitants. As a statement on the importance of promoting a humane and sustainable national culture, this was without peer.
Indeed, there are many times when we find ourselves longing for more of this honest, determined, people-centered discourse. Global Action is fortunate to have among the more diverse cohorts of interns and fellows of any group at the UN. It is an important commitment for us – a testament both to the vast pools of talent that lie still unrepresented in this world, and the need for this talent to spend enough time inside the UN to determine if there is room for them here, room where they might cultivate their policy voices and become models for the world they are anxious themselves to build.
The answer is often, sometimes wistfully, "no."
As I understand it, this "no" is not a rejection of the opportunity which the UN presents or the extraordinary learning space it represents; nor is it an indictment of what or how much the UN is doing to engage global threats. There is simply no way, in our view, to argue that the UN is not addressing the most crucial issues of our times, from oceans to nuclear weapons. It is, though, an open (if respectful) question as to whether the general UN culture is honest enough, thoughtful enough, determined enough, to deliver on its essential promises. The issue here, certainly for our young people, is not if our policies are pointed in the right direction, which they most assuredly are, but whether our hearts and hands are directed similarly. This matters to them, as it should matter to us all.
The "dream of a miracle" to which Hammarskjöld attested is hopefully one that has not gone out of style, has not been doused by our political maneuvering and predatory economics, let alone by our institutional incapacity to concede and forgive. As the Gambian minister noted this week, "We have suffered, but we are not crying. We will stand tall." If we are to stop chasing conflicts rather than resolving them; if we are to find the persistence needed to bring the hope of sustainable development to wary and oft-neglected communities; if we are to retain the interest of the young talent that has been attracted by our lofty promises; then we will need to stand taller in this global policy space as well, mastering even more than we have at present the determination to fix what is broken and clean what is soiled.
Show and Tell: Advertising Tools and Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, Dr. Robert Zuber
I regard it as a waste of time to think only of selling: one forgets one's art and exaggerates one's value. Camille Pissarro
I wish that television would stop selling our hatred of ourselves, and start seducing us with our love of ourselves. Dan Harmon
If government were a product, selling it would be illegal. P. J. O'Rourke
This was "experts" week at the UN's High Level Political Forum (HLPF), organized under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council. The task of the HLPF is "follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals" (SDGs) with an emphasis on six of the goals (such as health, gender, oceans), as well as on voluntary national reviews of SDG progress.
The global backdrop for this HLPF cried out for clarity and inspiration. For instance, many readers of this blog will have seen footage of an iceberg the size of the state of Delaware breaking off from Antarctica, an event that might not have been the direct result of climate change per se but which portends additional ice-shelf cleavage with ever-greater risks to the rising (and desalinization) of our seas.
Moreover, the Security Council gathered this week to assess the ever-deteriorating situation in Yemen, now characterized by almost unimaginable rates of famine and cholera. As is often the case in the Council, Uruguay issued its thoughtful warning, looking permanent Council members (the UK and US) in the eye while reminding them that it is their weapons sales that are enabling so much of the Yemeni carnage.
And of course, there are the ubiquitous nuclear provocations emanating from North Korea (DPRK) with resulting (and also provocative) military exercises from the US and South Korea, a scenario as likely to spark new conflict as to calm its prospects.
The "experts' week" of the High Level Political Forum largely dodged such security and climate concerns – a well-attended, early-morning side event on the human rights dimensions of development was a relatively rare exception. Instead, other helpful sessions called attention to gaps in data and access to scientific research relevant to sustainable development. Moreover, some of the "spotlight" on development funding added excellent value, especially that which sought to understand the nature and challenges of corporate finance in the overall development agenda. What was missing for us is analysis of the implications from the vast sums already being pledged by state and non-state entities to clean up horrific messes in the aftermath of the devastating climate disasters and armed conflicts raging worldwide. The more funding is required for such victim response, the less is available to build the health, nutrition, and gender architecture, let alone for poverty alleviation and infrastructure development.
Despite a spate of human-made crises testing the limits of human response, there was in evidence a fair amount of "salesmanship" at this HLPF "experts' week." We are used to some of this at UN Headquarters – endless events promising audience "dialogue" but which are really opportunities for UN agencies and carefully selected NGOs to promote their relevance to the governments on which they largely depend for funding. These podium-focused, statement-driven, speaker-overloaded events, which largely obscure what is often considerable audience expertise, often add more sales potential than policy significance. Indeed, much of this HLPF "experts week" was more like "show and tell" and less like an open-ended conversation about relevant tools, needs and challenges with diverse peer stakeholders.
The nature of "the sale" has always been an interest of mine, in part because I'm so inept at it. Unlike some people who scroll through commercials to get to the programs, I will spend occasional evenings doing the opposite – focusing on commercials instead of programs and discovering the following:
There are some incredibly clever people working in advertising; in an age that is suspicious of organized religion and has largely abandoned psychology, advertisers seem to have forged the principle path to our souls, convincing most of us that, in essence, "we are what we own."
Where advertisers target young people, and they do quite often, they clearly see them mostly as distracted narcissists. According to commercials, young people do little but party, drive hot cars on deserted urban streets, stare at their phones and go on holidays; all with ample quantities of time and money. Aside from their consumption patters, they apparently aren't to be taken seriously any more than poor, disabled or indigenous people are to be taken seriously.
The essence of advertising remains as it has been – describing/inventing a problem for which a particular product becomes a kind of "savior." Sadly, the problems that advertisers address seem as petty and distracting as ever, especially problematic given the global crises clamoring for attention.
Advertisers don't worry about whether their products are actually needed or particularly relevant to the lives they touch. And they certainly don't concern themselves with the implications of acquisition for emotional or fiscal health, let alone for the ability to obtain more essential goods and services. Once advertisers convince you to purchase, the job is done.
Advertisers keep tight control over their narrative. There is little doubt expressed, no shortage of enthusiasm for the brand, no contrariness emanating from the "real people" who increasingly populate commercials. With few exceptions (and there are some) advertisers only acknowledge competitors to expose their flaws, their limitations, none of which apparently pertain to the product they themselves are offering.
Given this overview, it might seem impertinent to call attention to the "salesmanship" of something as important as the HLPF, but the reference is not completely without merit. Most HLPF events were, indeed, tightly managed with emphasis on what we're doing more than on what we've neglected. Discussions on specific tools too often obscured the contributions of the larger sector and even more often neglected discussion of the tools we still need and have yet to develop. And while some states (Belgium, Finland, Argentina and others) tried to open up space for youth and persons with disabilities, grumblings in the hallways regarding the absence in sessions of the people living in poverty, indigenous persons and other "marginal" stakeholders were frequent.
And through all of this, as our interns would likely attest, there was a decided lack of bold inspiration, a clear show of unscripted determination that we can get through this deep valley of deprivation if only we can find ways to commit more and pull together better, to include more and listen better. (Indeed, this was the way in which the HLPF was least like a sales event.)
Starting Monday, a steady stream of ministers will come to the UN to report on progress on national implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. These ministers will surely tell us what they're doing to achieve SDG targets or, more to the point, what they want us to believe they are doing. What we are sure to hear less about (and need to hear more) is which of their commitments are actually taking root, actually mobilizing public participation, actually impacting public attitudes and the behaviors that flow from them.
And many UN agencies and NGOs will be following these potential funders with interest, anxious to convince officials that what these stakeholders are doing is good (which it certainly is) and sufficient (which it certainly is not). Indeed, we are collectively losing ground in several critical areas, including with regard to the security arrangements that can provide a predictable and rights-based development environment, and the climate arrangements that can possibly keep us under the 2 degree threshold on which our future upon this planet likely depends.
With all due deference to the many, mostly useful policy tools and suggestions on display at the HLPF, and while endorsing the importance of preserving the indivisibility of the SDGs, we must not take our eye off these larger threats. If we fail on climate and security, we risk an endless string of gender-balanced armed conflicts; technologically advanced cities under water; sustainable farms "baked to a crisp;" and educated children who find themselves graduating without a viable, livable planet to inherit.
This would be the ultimate, tragic irony for our global system: so many billions having been spent to promote community well-being and political and economic inclusion on a planet that at times seems on its way to becoming a war-ravaged hot-house. Unless we can together find ways to inspire deeper commitments to peace and climate health, including among our development and other UN sales partners, this is one irony that we might not be around long enough to assess.
Tags: climate, development, peace
Truth or Consequences: The UN Takes a Risk on Sustainable Security, Dr. Robert Zuber
Security is mostly a superstition. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. Helen Keller
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. Dwight D. Eisenhower
Distrust and caution are the parents of security. Benjamin Franklin
It was a pretty good week at the UN for the young people of the world, those who are destined to inherit the consequences of our wars and famines, our grave challenges and too-often incomplete policy responses.
Media headlines have recently focused on North Korea missile launches and G-20 divisions largely involving the United States and climate change, and there were certainly some tense moments this week in the Security Council as US Ambassador Haley threatened colleagues with unilateral action in the absence of a viable, collective response to North Korean "provocations."
But for the most part, at least at the UN, it was a hopeful time for the planet. In the Economic and Social Council, Secretary General Guterres outlined his "8 Point Plan" for the UN development system that wisely focuses on service results and less on bureaucratic structures, "more on people and less on process. " And the Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) hosted two days of important discussions designed to honestly assess and carefully address what was seen by presenters as a growing threat by terrorists to civil aviation.
Beyond this, there were two other events of considerable significance at the UN that would have done well to take greater note of each other.
As we mentioned last week, the UN has been involved in a process to prohibit the development, possession, stockpiling and certainly the use of nuclear weapons. The so-called "Ban Treaty" was adopted on Friday to thunderous and well-deserved applause. The 122 states that supported adoption –none of which were weapons-possessing states nor the principle, alleged "beneficiaries" of nuclear weapons "umbrellas" – believe that they have set in motion a process that will eventually lead to the total elimination of such weapons. Whether that happens or not, whether the treaty ultimately strengthens or weakens the resolve of nuclear weapons states to invest in weapons development and modernization, the adopting states have declared once and for all their rejection of deterrence-based security doctrines; indeed their full independence from the erstwhile allures of nuclear weapons culture. As such, the "space" for that culture has shrunk once more, hopefully soon to be replaced by a security culture that is far more people centered and far less weapons driven.
One of the "complaints" about the Ban Treaty is that it didn't go far enough when it had the chance to do so, didn't enact prohibitions that sufficiently covered all aspects of what had become a dominant, pervasive and dangerous nuclear weapons culture. Some of these alleged deficits were a function of the limited time granted to negotiators; some were surely related to relatively weak structures of governance and accountability within the treaty: and some were surely based on the fear of some that strict and comprehensive prohibitions would only increase the prospect that nuclear weapons states would choose to maintain their distance from the treaty, thus making the goal to which the treaty points – weapons elimination – that much less likely.
Perhaps ironically and at virtually the same moment that the "Ban Treaty" was being adopted in UN Conference Room 1, a complementary event was called to order upstairs. Chaired by Panama on behalf of the Human Security Network, a group of over a dozen member states committed to the full implementation of General Assembly resolution 66/290, this gathering underscored the degree to which human security "recognizes the interlinkages between peace, development and human rights, and equally considers civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights."
All presenters at the session highlighted one or more aspects of these bold and comprehensive linkages. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed reinforced the degree to which a human security framework is well suited to address poverty in all its aspects and manifestations as well as provide a framework for preventing conflict and addressing natural disasters and climate-related impacts. Other speakers on the panel used the examples of disaster response (Mexico) and refugee flows (Jordan) to underscore the "human security" priorities of sound risk assessment, comprehensive analysis, local capacity assistance, and the cooperative, diverse stakeholder engagement specifically urged by Panama.
We heard only one vague reference to the "Ban Treaty" adoption in this Human Security session, and there was certainly no recognition of the latter in the former. But from our standpoint these rooms were clearly pulling in similar directions, trying to address not only weapons, but their culture; not only conflicts but their multiple triggers and enablers. As with the "Ban Treaty," the large and powerful states were almost entirely absent from the Human Security discussions. Thus it was left to both rooms –mostly independently of one another–to create signposts towards a more just and hopeful world while exercising only limited control over the consequences of their decisions.
Ultimately, of course, the challenges we face are not just about policy, but also about us, about our creeping inability to tolerate any risk in matters personal, professional and political that isn't guaranteed to succeed. We should be reminded that the "daring adventure" that is our collective life requires, in part, people who are willing to take the dare, who are committed to deep thinking and bold action, who are prepared to manage carefully and then acknowledge gracefully the intended and unintended consequences of even our best policy efforts. Within the political limitations of the rooms in which they found themselves, stakeholders at the UN this week seemed more willing than usual to take the dare, to uphold the truth they behold and manage as best they can the consequences of the truth lying (at least for now) a bit beyond their gaze.
At one of the CTED briefings on aviation safety, one of the few questions posed was asked by one of our Global Action interns, who wondered why we struggle as a community with risk assessment, why we spend so much energy running after threats whose challenges seem always one step ahead. For many of our young people, such questioning corresponds to a deep anxiety – that those at the UN and elsewhere currently in charge of global policy don't often enough "level" with themselves and the rest of us about the state of global affairs as a precursor to deeper commitments to assessing global risk and promoting resilience – resilience in the form of diverse, local actors (including younger actors) with the skills and resolve to create context-specific analyses and responses to the challenges that affect them most directly.
Such honest "leveling" is important, especially for an often suspicious and cautious generation that wonders if we collectively have what it takes to survive current challenges; but that also wonders if they themselves have what it takes to detour from the straight and narrow highway that older persons have often placed them on and embrace that "daring adventure" wherein lies fresh energies, ideas and experiences. We will need plenty of all three from this generation – and then some – if we are to continue on our "human security" journey: towards honestly analyzing global trends, making and sharing relevant connections, enabling a more diverse array of stakeholders, and managing consequences when our best policy efforts don't completely work out the way we planned.
Tone Deaf: Restoring Attention to How and What We Influence, Dr. Robert Zuber
Of course you will insist on modesty in the children, and respect to their teachers, but if the boy stops you in your speech, cries out that you are wrong and sets you right, hug him! Ralph Waldo Emerson
The way glass can be molded or blown or cut into any kind of shape made me think about how we as people – our characters or souls – can be shaped or changed by outside influences. Lisa Kleypas
The squirrel that you kill in jest dies in earnest. Henry David Thoreau
As readers of this space know, we don't spend much time analyzing national issues per se except when they begin to overwhelm multilateral space, when implications for national behavior create tensions – or lessons – for that space that we feel need to be highlighted. We seem to be in one of those moments now with respect to the US and its relationship to the global community. Thus on the eve of the July 4th holiday, we offer a few sobering thoughts on the current state of our wobbly and occasionally destructive national influence.
The departure point for this post is a book that recently crossed my path and then utterly consumed my interest. "Hitler's American Model" by James Whitman is a book that I wish I had written, or rather that I wish I had the skill to write. There is no time or room here for a thorough review of his argument, but in an age characterized by ever-more violent entertainment, gross economic inequalities, apoplectic media personalities and seemingly endless White House images of aging white males and their multilateral hostilities, it is important to take stock of not what we do or fail to do, the influences that our actions and inactions can (and do) have on others.
The premise of the Whitman book is to revisit what was clearly a fascination by German Nazis in the 1930s with what was considered by far too many at the time to be an "innovative" system of race laws – specifically anti-miscegenation laws – that were in vogue in the US and for which the US was dubiously pegged at the time as a "global leader." In addition to this particular dimension of influence, Whitman deftly points out the degree to which that fascination spread beyond Jim Crow to the US's westward conquest of native peoples as well as efforts to maintain "second class citizen" status for some major immigrant groups including Filipinos, Chinese and Japanese.
Whitman both skillfully characterizes this fascination and then carefully delineates the limitations of his analysis. He does not maintain that Nazi preoccupations represented the only (or even primary) influence to emanate from "New Deal America." He does not maintain (nor do we) that the US is the source of all racist malevolence in the world. Nor does Whitman attempt to posit causal linkages between the US "common law" model which reinforced so many efforts to "keep foreign elements out of the gene pool" with what became a mass, grotesque genocidal project aimed at Jews and others. Ironically, at least in the early years of the Nazi regime, much of US race-based and overtly anti-miscegenation lawmaking was actually deemed "too harsh" by some leading Nazi lawyers, in part a function of the latitude granted to US judges to adjust the law to "real life circumstances," many such "circumstances" being themselves avowedly and often violently racist.
In telling this difficult story, in positing this uncomfortable relationship, Whitman is claiming not imitation but influence, not "copy-catting" but cutting and pasting. He is not seeking to blame one state for the conduct of another but is, in an uncomfortably jarring manner, reminding all of us that we bear some deep responsibility not only for what we do, but what our behavior enables in others; not only the damage we create directly via our own initiatives, but the tacit permission to damage that our actions inadvertently or otherwise grant to those within our various "orbits" of influence.
This "news" regarding the complexities and urgencies of influence is not news at all to anyone raising or educating children, settings where occasions for influence are always present and where, as children leave home and school to start their adult sojourns, we are left to ponder whether the content and strength of our influence were indeed calibrated correctly. Were we the "do as I say, not as I do" parents, the ones who attempted to repair with reproving words the damage caused by our own sometimes willful neglect and self-damaging habits? Were we the teachers who represented ceilings for students rather than floors and who scorned those who called out our mistakes (in my own case mistakes made several times an hour) rather than applauding them for respecting truth even more than they respect authority?
There is influence-insight here for our geopolitics as well. Indeed, the continued existence of nuclear weapons is one instance of a security policy grounded in a fundamental hypocrisy: that the weapons which some states overly rely on for their own national security are somehow grave violations of international law when found in the hands of others. Indeed, if the current "Ban Treaty" negotiations concluding this week at UN headquarters (negotiations that do not include nuclear weapons possessing states nor many other states whose security is tied to "nuclear umbrellas") are to truly "move the pile," it is likely to be in its determination to demystify the general authority and influence of nuclear weapons, undermining both the avowed "need" for these weapons and the signals such weapons send to the rest of the global community. Such "signals" have too-long suggested that our menacing arms race and wildly expensive arms modernization are both self-justifying and worthy of envy by both state and non-state actors alike. In this instance, as is the case with other policies and practices at the UN and in other multilateral settings, we are still pumping out messages to other entities that establish a baseline of influences and permissions that might well fail to serve any national interests, let alone a global interest.
Through our family life, our social policies, our political and legal institutions, and long before the relentless, annoying intrusions of social media, we have been sending complex messages to others, messages that influence what is possible, but also what is permissible. As the young (still) have their views of the world influenced by families and schools, people from many cultures and walks of life worldwide continue to take their cues from our major global institutions and global capitals. Sadly, some of those contemporary "cues" are coming via the broken politics within and beyond Washington, our unresponsive and predatory economics, our mean-spirited responses to migrants, our massive arms spending, even some of our multilateral policy stalemates and "tone deaf" policy compromises here in New York.
On this 4th of July, we in the US have much of our own to sort out, including leadership in retreat from global challenges and multilateral institutions, our double-standards regarding the legitimacy of armed violence, attempts to gradually dismantle our "rainbow" and replace it with various "shades of white," and our ongoing, habitual neglect of the people who grow our food, protect our water, serve in our security sector and have largely (and often needlessly) been left behind by the too-rapid assaults of a globalized world.
Each of these concerns represents both an internal tribulation and a clear message that we send out to others, a message not only about what we are prepared to do but also to what we, tacitly or otherwise, have agreed to lend our permission. Simply put, we all need to be more attentive to how and what we influence, to better ensure that the messages we communicate have consequences with which we are prepared to live. The Whitman book is a chilling example of what we as a species remain capable of perpetuating once we delude ourselves into thinking that no one else is paying attention.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Williams F1 - Seriously how good is this guy?
Seriously how good is this guy?
He is closing in on all of Michael Schumacher's records.
Ladies and gentlemen when we look at Lewis Hamilton are we looking at the best ever?
Re: Seriously how good is this guy?
Hamilton looked killer good in his junior career and he looked killer good in his F1 rookie season against Alonso and now here in 2019 he looks killer good.
Love him or hate him he probabaly will end up being he best ever.
Definetely one of the best ever but where exactly you should place him among drivers of other eras like Fangio, Schumacher and Senna, is impossible to judge.
I rate him higher than Alonso, though, which is not something obvious to everyone.
Alonso is great but similiar to Vettel. He must be undisputed nr 1 in his team. Lewis on the other hand not so much. But is he better than any other great champion ? Hard to tell...different cars, tech, tracks, tires. For me every driver who won the Big Thing is more or less equal. In this sport the quick car was all it was to get you on top line. Talent was to get you on the grid. Combination of both could make you a WDC.
On the other hand, I would rate Hamilton the best driver of the era which I have been following (from 2007 onwards) and since I think the level of drivers has been steadily increasing in the last 30 or so years, due to things like more focus on overall fitness (better training regimes, nutrition etc.), better simulators and more competitive feeder-series, there is some logic to saying that Hamilton is the best F1 driver ever.
I see potential in Verstappen to be even better but we need to wait another decade or so.
What I find amazing is I remember hearing Alan Jones saying he does not think anyone will break Michael Schumacher's records ever and Lewis Hamilton is closing in on them...Amazing.
Mate in my life I have had to cut two of my family members and two of my close friends down from the ceiling, I found them hanged, they were dead their tongues were so blue I actually thought they had something in their mouth but it was just because their tongues were so blue, I will never forget this and it happened 4 times to me....So be careful what you post and don't F#%@ing judge me, you know nothing about my life.
siwy_dymek I don't want you feeling sorry for me because my life has been bad but just watch how you speak to me, because my life is like this "How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can't Even Smile Today"
Records are meant to be broken. No one owns them forever. There will be the next superstar in F1. Just look across to other sports.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 16/03/2019 11:19 by phatjack.
Sometimes posters say some hurting nasty stuff to other posters on the internet and they don't even know what the other poster might have been through in their life.
Anyway back to Lewis Hamilton.
True phat...But some records just seem out of reach sometimes.
I guess in theory he could get to 94 wins this year! If the Ferrari is really half a second off and say he wins 3 races to 1 for Bottas then he will be mighty close. I reckon he wants to get over 100 poles and 100 wins, plus 8 titles. He is young enough to do all of that and more.
We should not forget that there were less races per year in Shumacher's dominant days and even less in Senna's.
Ozzy I really think when Hamilton retires he will actually be the greatest ever....Amazing.
He will likely have most of the records for most this and that. Already got it for poles and that's on a similar ratio to Senna and Clark. People will say he has the best car but all the greats do. Look at Schumy. He was usually in a top car and got 68 poles from 308 entries. HAM is on 84 out of 230.
I think he is top 2 in my time watching F1. I would put him with Senna as the most out and out talented drivers. Prost was very good because there was so much less data in those days and he was very clever. But I don't think he would challenge Hamilton if he were in the same era. Schumy? Obviously a very quick and clever driver with a great strategy team around him. I was never a fan of his and it was frustrating just how smart he and his team were at just winning races. Again, I think he would struggle to match HAM in the same car.
At the end of the day, we'll never know.
I believe, even if he's not the best, he'll be the best as he gets better every year.
Hamilton was a weak driver. If his dog had the runs, he would have an awful weekend. But his consistency has grown. His focus has become unparalleled, albeit at times he still shows his insecurity if things doesnt go the way he wants it to go. His raw speed is amazing. Havent seen that since Raikkonen during his prime at Woking. He simply is the most complete and the fastest driver on the grid.
That being said, I do dislike the guy. I dislike his forced and acted attitude/personality. I dislike his "wannabe gangster" way of life. But that is just my opinion. It appears that he needs all of that to be on top of the world and as long as this way of life works for him, its all okay. I cant see him declining any time soon. And for me, he is the no.1 title favourite already after just 1 race.
I hop[e that Hamilton never replaces Schumacher as the all time record holder. I would simply hate to see Schumacher have his place in F1 history diminished..


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ou've recently switch to a plant-based diet. You're sleeping better. Your digestion's on track. Your blood pressure's stabilized. But now…you've been invited to a holiday party. It could be Aunt Martha's or the yearly office shindig. One thing you know is, aside from a plate of carrots and hummus there isn't going to be a plant-based dish in sight. So, how do you navigate the holiday festivities with flare and aplomb? Here's how to be the best plant-based holiday party guest.
News Flash: With famous athletes like Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and celebrities like Ellen Degeneres it's hard not to hear about the benefits of plant-based eating. Plant-based is going mainstream. You're the hip one here, you're in the know, so no apologizing for or defending your dietary choices at a party. Most people don't care. So this year, instead of worrying about what you'll eat, show your host some love and bring a gift of a delicious calorie-friendly and plant-based dessert.
From Yiddish nudyen, to be a tedious, bore. The saying "Wear the world lightly" is a great mantra for parties where you might encounter blowback about what you eat or your political views. Remember it is a party, not a seminar. No need to preach about your plant-based diet or get upset. Be prepared with a come back, "Yeah, I like eating this way, tastes good and I feel great." That's all you need to say. Most people won't belabor the point. If they do, direct them to a few of your favorite plant-based websites and move on to another guest.
Pro plant-based Tip: If you are really stuck at a place where there's nothing to eat but the proverbial meat and potatoes. Eat the potatoes, i.e. veggies. Stack up your plate with every veggie available and leave the meat to carnivores. Laugh about how much food you can eat. Remember people are attracted to openness, joy, and humor. Stay positive and keep it light.
Good manners never get old. In a time of texts and quick phone calls, put a little flare in your appreciation with a hand-written thank you note. It only takes a few minutes to write and send – plus, your host/hostess will be delighted. This is a great gesture for more than formal occasions. Try it after you next informal get together. A brief thank you note mentioning a fun memory of the evening grounds you in gratitude and is uplifting to your host.
We have a variety of tasty, plant-based Thanksgiving recipes to provide fresh new ideas for a healthier, heartier holiday feast!
When I start to see fresh organic cranberries pop up in the grocery store, I buy as many bags as I can fit in my freezer. I love cooking with fresh cranberries and freeze them so that I can make my cranberry dishes all year. My kids devour my Curried Cranberry Sauce (page 204), which is a year round staple in our house, as well as this wonderful grain dish. Quinoa has a fall feel to me, perhaps because its flavor is so nutty. Combined with squash and cranberries, this dish takes all the good smells and tastes of the season and makes them into a beautiful meal.


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Yes, IT still matters
Martin Slofstra
Nicholas Carr
CIOs in traditional roles will disappear, says author
EDGE: Did you ever think the Does IT Matter debate would rage for this long?
CARR: This month is actually the third anniversary of the Harvard Business Review article and the discussion and debate still seems to be going strong. I knew that what I was writing was controversial, and I thought it would stir up a little conversation for a couple of weeks, but there is no way I would have predicted we would be talking about it three years later.
EDGE: Some of the debate seems to have come out of a fundamental misunderstanding of your premise. Some people seem to think you were saying IT is irrelevant.
CARR: There is still some of that but that was particularly true of the first wave of responses when people were responding to the title without having necessarily read the piece. I'm saying IT is essential but has lost most of its power to give a company strategic advantage over its rivals.
EDGE: But there is still a lot of talk about competitive advantage and IT. Is it the wrong question to ask just now or did it lose its relevance over time?
CARR: I would say both. The IT industry, or the vendor side, has really always used as part of its marketing pitch a suggestion that IT was central to strategy and a way to get an advantage. And you can understand why. By getting across that message, you are telling people to buy your latest products or they are going to fall behind and get creamed competitively. It is a compelling marketing message but essentially that is all it is, a marketing message.
EDGE: For CIOs though, who are asked to think in terms of competitive advantage and business strategy, where does this leave them? Do CIOs matter?
CARR: Obviously, it depends on how you define the CIO role. The CIO role varies from company to company and it is has been changing over time. But I would argue that the classic, traditional CIO as the person who oversees a company's information technology and its deployment, that role is becoming less important, and over the long term, it will disappear. Now having said that, we are seeing some CIOs move out of the technology world into more of a consulting role in helping businesses figure out what information they need, when they need it and how to best get that information. That role will remain and grow more important.
EDGE: But if I'm a CEO, and I am staffing my senior executive team, do I need that? Do I need a business strategist, or should I not already be getting that from my finance person, my sales/ marketing person and my manufacturing person?
CARR: If we are talking about the future when the technological role has faded away, I think in a lot of companies, they won't need the information specialist. That role will just merge into traditional business functions such as the CFO, or marketing or business unit managers. But when you look at large companies with many different businesses, they often don't have anyone who can see, or look at the information requirements of all the businesses. And if you don't have somebody doing that, the danger is that every individual business will manage information from its own narrow perspective. You will lose a lot of the potential for commonality of needs across the company.
EDGE: Beyond Does IT Matter, what is the next big question that an organization should be asking?
CARR: The next big question is what IT assets do we have to own and what can we just replace by renting the capabilities over the Internet. The fundamental shift of building it yourself, to maintaining it yourself, to the shared utility model, in the years ahead, a lot of companies will have a lot of opportunities. We don't need to own this server, this data centre or these applications, we can free up a lot of capital by renting these services over the Internet. I think that is the next big transformation that CIOs and CEOs will struggle with.
EDGE: Some people would call that outsourcing but is it more than that?
CARR: You can define it as outsourcing in the same way you can now buy electricity as outsourcing but I would argue really it is different from what we now know as outsourcing. Outsourcing is taking the existing IT model, which is, we take a lot of equipment and applications we own, and let us just move that to an outside supplier. That is still an inefficient way of managing IT because everything is dedicated and everything is fragmented. With a utility or on-demand model, you suddenly have shared access, shared resources and the only thing you own is the data and the personal configuration of the shared software.
EDGE: You obviously pay close attention to the way technology is marketed and now we are hearing it is all about business transformation. Is there a valuable message in that?
CARR: I think there is a valuable message in all that, but let's face it, there are also a lot of vendors or re-engineering consultants who were saying the same thing about ten years ago. It's good advice to focus on the processes, and go to the technology from there. But you still have to recognize that is a marketing pitch. There are a lot of IT companies that have realized that the technology has become commoditized and there really is no money to be made from things like servers, so they are moving up to a service or consulting role.
EDGE: It also seems that this industry has lost its excitement and the buzz is gone. Look at the demise of Comdex. Now it's all about business cases and return on investment.
CARR: For the longest time, there was a belief in Silicon Valley, and elsewhere in the information technology business, that this is an industry that would be forever young, and that the rules that governed the evolution of all the other industries of the Industrial Age somehow did not apply to IT. But what we have found over the last five or six years is that IT looks a lot like any other industry and that it is maturing. A lot of the basic products are commodities, and a lot of the basic production functions are moving offshore, and so, it begins to look more normal and more average. On the other hand, it looks less exciting.
EDGE: You still have those who argue that the greatest advances in IT are yet to come. Look at the way Microsoft and Yahoo and Google are slugging it out for control of content on the Internet.
What is your take on that?
CARR: We are finally getting to the point where the Internet will be a true, universal distribution platform for hardware and software and it will be incredibly disruptive for the industry. Whether it will be Google versus Microsoft. SAP versus a service-company, or open source versus closed source, we will see a lot of competitive battles being played out for who is going to make the most money in this industry. For the user, though, it becomes much more cut-and-dry, which is to say: 'Yes, so these capabilities are going to be available to all of us, because by nature, utility services are available to everyone.' But that is a very different question from: 'How do we innovate to do things differently from our competitors?'
Nicolas Carr
Former Harvard Business Professor Nicholas Carr is author of the highly controversial book, Does IT Matter?
The Incredible Shrinking CIO
EDGE, IT
Remote work is here to stay in the software and IT industry, says Commit
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Top 10 tech companies in B.C.
Tech sector jobs booming, with developers and system admins in highest demand, says Randstad


The families of the two men killed on the boat driven by Miami Marlins star Jose Fernandez are seeking additional damages from his estate — which could total $6 million — because the pitcher had drugs and alcohol in his system.
According to court documents obtained by The Blast, the families of the men — Eduardo Rivero and Emilio Macias — want to amend their wrongful death lawsuit against Fernandez to include punitive damages.
The victims believe punitive damages are warranted following the investigative report about the crash. The report said Fernandez' boat was traveling 65.7 miles per hour before impact with the jetty, he had cocaine in his system and had a BAC of 0.147.
Fernandez, Rivero and Macias all died in an early morning boat crash on September 25, 2016.
The wrongful death lawsuit originally sought $2 million in compensatory damages. Florida law allows for punitive damages equal to three times the compensatory damages awarded.
Fernandez's estate is attempting to have the entire lawsuit dismissed. They deny he caused the crash and blame the men for their own injuries.


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Public Safety and Solicitor General : 46
Government Operations : 46
Victoria : 44
Abbotsford : 1
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Showing results 21 - 30 of 46
B.C. prepares for heat wave, thanks people for taking steps to help
Wednesday, August 11, 2021 11:15 AM
The Province is reaffirming to British Columbians that the health authorities, Emergency Management BC (EMBC) and BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS) remain geared up and ready to help people through another heat wave.
Province, Canada to match Red Cross donations to help people affected by wildfires
Monday, July 12, 2021 12:40 PM
To help people affected by the wildfires burning around B.C., the Province will match all donations to the Canadian Red Cross, up to $20 million.
Cocktails-to-go are in the mix for restaurants, pubs
Thursday, July 8, 2021 1:00 PM
Pubs and licensed restaurants are now allowed to provide piña coladas with pizzas and mojitos with main courses for takeout or delivery.
B.C. lends support to temporary patios going permanent
Tuesday, June 15, 2021 11:30 AM
More than 2,000 temporary patios authorized to serve liquor during the COVID-19 pandemic can apply to become permanent under amended provincial liquor regulations.
ICBC issues second COVID-19 rebate
Friday, June 11, 2021 8:15 AM
ICBC will issue a second COVID-19 rebate in recognition of lower claims costs due to fewer crashes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
New ICBC fairness officer role approved
Friday, June 4, 2021 11:00 AM
A new ICBC fairness officer will focus on ensuring the corporation's decisions, actions and practices are transparent and fair, while further strengthening public trust in ICBC as dedicated to caring for people who are injured in a crash and providing affordable auto insurance coverage.
Unpaid COVID-19 fines may lead to driver's, vehicle licence denial
Wednesday, May 12, 2021 1:40 PM
People who leave COVID-19 fines unpaid may be unable to obtain or renew a B.C. driver's licence or vehicle licence under proposed legislation introduced today.
Enforcement measures build on success of non-essential travel restrictions
Friday, April 30, 2021 10:00 AM
To help keep communities safe and protect British Columbia's health-care system from COVID-19, the Province has authorized site-specific road checks on travel corridors between regions to help enforce the non-essential travel restrictions that were announced on April 23, 2021.
Major ICBC premium savings, better care start May 1
Thursday, April 29, 2021 9:00 AM
Saturday, May 1, 2021, marks the start of a new era for ICBC as the corporation launches Enhanced Care coverage and transitions to a new care-based model.
Province introduces travel restrictions to curb spread of COVID-19
Friday, April 23, 2021 9:40 AM
To help keep communities safe and protect British Columbia's health-care system from COVID-19, the Province is introducing travel restrictions that limit non-essential travel in B.C.


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Taylor Swift posts 2009 diary entry revealing how she really felt about Kanye West crashing her speech at the MTV Music Video Awards
By Isabel Thomson Officer| 5 months ago
It goes down as one of the most iconic moment's in pop culture history.
When Kanye West rushed the stage at the MTV Music Video Awards in 2009 and took the microphone from Taylor Swift, the singer was speechless.
Kanye West crashes Taylor Swift's MTV Video Music Awards acceptance speech in 2009. (Getty)
Now 10 years later, the 29-year-old has given fans a snippet of what was going through her mind at the time.
Sharing an excerpt from her diary as part of the deluxe version of her seventh album Lover which dropped on the weekend, the entry dated September 18, 2009 — five days after the legendary incident took place — details how stunned the experience left the 'Me!' singer.
NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 13: Kayne West (L) jumps onstage as Taylor Swift accepts her award for the "Best Female Video" award during the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall on September 13, 2009 in New York City. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic) (FilmMagic)
"Ahh… the things that can change in a week. If you had told me that one of the biggest stars in music was going to jump on stage and announce that he thought I shouldn't have won on live television, I would've said, 'That stuff doesn't really happen in real life,'" read the entry.
"Well… apparently…. It does," she wrote.
At the time, Swift was 19 when the controversial 42-year-old rapper interrupted her speech to say that the award should have gone to Beyoncé.
Taylor Swift's diary entry about Kanye West. (Lover)
"Yo Taylor, I'm really happy for you, I'm a let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!"
Apologising afterwards, West wrote on his blog, "I'm sooooo sorry to Taylor Swift and her fans and her mum. I spoke to her mother right after and she said the same thing my mother would've said. She is very talented! … I really feel bad for Taylor and I'm sincerely sorry!"
Long implying that her 2010 song 'Innocent' was written about West, in the liner notes of her album Speak Now, the Grammy-winner wrote, that it was an "open letter" to forgive someone for "what he said in front of the whole world."
Kanye West (left) and Taylor Swift (Getty)
Many years later, Swift and West's feud would reignite when the 'Gold Digger' hitmaker called Swift "that bitch" in his song 'Famous'.
Adamant that she never approved of the lyric "I made that bitch famous", in 2016, Kim Kardashian responded by leaking an edited phone conversation between Swift and West discussing the track.
Will 2019 be the year West and Swift put their differences aside? We'll just have to wait and see...
A history of 50 Cent's petty feuds with other celebrities
Auto News: 2020 Holden Colorado spy photos show an all-new model is still years away - caradvice.com.au


This set of 4 hand blown crystal wine rinsers are the perfect accessory for a variety of uses. Filled with nuts or crackers for hors d'oeuvres they hold the ideal amount. Better yet, one of my favorite vessels for flowers, placed down the length of a table, these hold the perfect arrangement that has a low profile, never blocking the view of the guests across the table. Either Bohemian or made in England or France, the quality and workmanship speaks for itself. The amethyst color is vibrant and even the base is cut with a 16 point star.


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Albemarle – miasto w Stanach Zjednoczonych, w stanie Karolina Północna, w hrabstwie Stanly. W 2000 roku liczyło 15 680 mieszkańców.

Przypisy

Miasta w stanie Karolina Północna

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