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E-Discovery For Defendants 2.0
More than three years ago, back in February, 2008 we put up a post about e-discovery for defendants. After the usual lamentations about how e-discovery imposed asymmetrical burdens on defendants – since defendants have a lot more "e" to discover – we offered what we hoped were some helpful hints and observations about how that asymmetry could be reduced to some extent.
Over the years, we've returned to the subject occasionally.
Well it just so happens that the topic of the latest PLAC spring conference was the impact of social media on the litigation process in product liability litigation. One of the topics was – you guessed it – e-discovery for defendants.
To recapitulate:
Most of the people in this country (71%) use sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and the like. Most people means most plaintiffs. Thus, a defendant in a product liability suit needs to have an e-discovery strategy. There must be quality control. A lot the private eyes that we use for surveillance and other forms of information gathering directed against plaintiffs probably are not schooled in the ethics of social media investigation.
One thing that's happened recently is that various groups have started weighing in on what's "ethical" in terms of social media investigation. Here's an opinion issued by the Philadelphia Bar Association. It concludes attorneys can't use agents to "friend" witnesses (and presumably parties) in order to examine their Facebook-type accounts to look for cross-examination fodder. Here's an even newer opinion from the New York City bar restricting attorneys from contacting witnesses on social networking sites and using "trickery" to seek online material for litigation purposes.
The ethics issue that we raised in our original post – that defense attorneys should avoid trying to "friend" plaintiffs to get a look at non-public parts of their social media webpages – has also been the subject of an ethics opinion, saying that it's a no-no. No surprise there. But the opinions agree that it's perfectly OK to use the public portions of an opponent's pages for litigation purposes.
There's also no impediment to seeking social networking webpage information through discovery. One line of discovery that should be pursued is a complete list of a plaintiff's Internet aliases, which could be extensive and vary from site to site. But be careful what you ask for, since the plaintiff could make the same requests of your client or its employees. At the outset, it's probably best just to get a list of aliases and sites. That seems to us to be classic "reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence" inquiry.
More intrusive discovery – the substance of a plaintiff's activities on such sites, probably needs to be more finely tailored, to sites that seem relevant to the litigation:
[T]he appropriate scope of relevance is any profiles, postings, or messages (including status updates, wall comments, causes joined, groups joined, activity streams, blog entries) and SNS applications for [plaintiffs] for the [relevant time] period . . . that reveal, refer, or relate to any emotion, feeling, or mental state, as well as communications that reveal, refer, or relate to events that could reasonably be expected to produce a significant emotion, feeling, or mental state.
E.E.O.C. v. Simply Storage Management, LLC, 270 F.R.D. 430, 436 (S.D. Ind. 2010) (discovery in a case alleging emotional distress). Or, as a Canadian court put it:
I do agree . . . that mere proof of the existence of a Facebook profile does not entitle a party to gain access to all material placed on that site. Some material may relate to matters in issue; some may not. Rule 30.06 requires the presentation of some evidence that a party possesses a relevant document before a court can order production. Most often such evidence will emerge from questions asked on a party's examination for discovery about the existence and content of the person's Facebook profile. Where the party's answers reveal that his Facebook profile contains content that may relate to issues in an action, production can be ordered of the relevant content.
Leduc v. Roman, 2009 CarswellOnt 843 ¶33 (Ont. Super. Feb. 20, 2009).
Another thing that potentially makes plaintiff e-discovery easier – at least from Facebook – is the recent addition of an option by which a user can download to a "zip" file all the material, whether text, videos, or photos, that a user (presumably the plaintiff) has ever placed on his/her page. Here's a description of how that works. We don't know whether other, similar sites also provide this option, but once you have obtained the plaintiff's affiliations through discovery, then you can try finding out. Particularly with this kind of tool available, there should be no doubt that a plaintiff had custody and control over his or her own social media postings. See Arteria Property PTY Ltd. v. Universal Funding V.T.O., Inc., 2008 WL 4513696, at *5 (D.N.J. Oct. 1, 2008) ("no reason to treat websites differently than other electronic files"; party with control over the content posted on a website held to be in control of the content, even if an intermediary runs the website).
And then there's the lovely matter of litigation holds. For you non-lawyers (if for some bizarre reason you're still reading), a "litigation hold" what a possessor of potentially discoverable information does to preserve documents and e-documents when litigation is threatened or filed. Every pharmaceutical mass tort, and a lot of cases that aren't pattern litigation, prompt the targeted defendants to issue one or more "litigation holds" to stop the routine destruction of potentially discoverable information (both paper and electronic) to avoid the plaintiffs trying to accuse them of spoliation of evidence.
One of the opening rituals of many mass torts is the plaintiff side typically rushing into court to get the court formally to order the defendant to put in place the most onerous litigation hold regime that the plaintiff can think of. That sort of thing has heretofore been asymmetrical – only defendants have been the targets of litigation hold motions.
We think that should change.
Defendants should consider tit for tat. If the plaintiffs are seeking court orders to prohibit the defendants from writing over or otherwise destroying electronic files, then defendants are equally justified in putting plaintiffs under the same obligations with respect to social media. Plaintiffs should be equally subject to litigation hold orders. Just as plaintiffs delight in determining how thoroughly defendants disseminate litigation holds throughout their organizations (and in seeking sanctions if the defendants didn't go far enough to suit them), so should defendants hold opposing counsel to analogous obligations. Not only should courts order plaintiffs in mass torts to cease and desist from deleting information from their social media sites, they should be subject to the same obligations as defendants to demonstrate that plaintiff-side litigation hold orders are thoroughly disseminated and properly understood. In short, make the plaintiffs' lawyers actually talk to their clients. Indeed, since plaintiffs are generally less knowledgeable about what a litigation hold order requires them to do than custodians of corporate records, it is probably more important to require direct contact to ensure that hold orders on the plaintiff side are in fact appreciated by relatively unsophisticated plaintiffs. We're not aware of this yet being done yet in the United States – by all means tell us if we're wrong – but a litigation hold order precluding plaintiff from deleting social media information was recently issued in Canada. See Sparks v. Dubé, 2011 CarswellNB 80 ¶¶52-58 (N.B.Q.B. Feb. 4, 2011).
Defendants should consider seeking appropriate litigation hold orders to prevent plaintiffs in mass tort litigation from destroying relevant information on social media sites. Depending upon what injuries are alleged (such as diabetes), other potential causes of such injuries (most conditions have non-drug/device-related risk factors), and what damages are claimed (such as being totally disabled), the amount of relevant information to be gleaned from a plaintiff's social media sites could be extensive.
At the PLAC meeting, we also discussed the burgeoning social media/discovery precedent that's coming into existence. Back when we first posted on e-discovery for defendants, we could find only one case, Mackelprang v. Fidelity National Title Agency, Inc., 2007 WL 119149 (D. Nev. Jan. 9, 2007), addressing social media and discovery. Mackelprang held that social media (MySpace, in that case) was generally discoverable, id. at *7, but from the plaintiff and not by means of a subpoena to the social media site itself:
The proper method for obtaining such information, however, is to serve upon Plaintiff properly limited requests for production of relevant email communications. . . . [N]othing in this Order prevents Defendant from conducting appropriate discovery to determine whether the Myspace.com accounts do, in fact, belong to Plaintiff.
Id. at *8.
Another reason to avoid subpoenaing social networking sites in the first instance is uncertainty over whether they are protected from direct discover under the federal Stored Communications Act ("SCA"). Although the SCA has usually been limited to email and other private communications, we've come across a case holding that even publicly available social media "walls" might be subject to the SCA, and thus immune from subpoena:
With respect to the subpoenas seeking Facebook wall postings and MySpace comments, however, the court concludes that the evidentiary record . . . is not sufficient to determine whether the subpoenas should be quashed. . . . This information admits of two possibilities; either the general public had access to plaintiff's Facebook wall and MySpace comments, or access was limited to a few. . . . Because it appears, however, that a review of plaintiff's privacy settings would definitively settle the question, the court . . . vacates [] and remands [for] . . . a fuller evidentiary record regarding plaintiff's privacy settings and the extent of access allowed to his Facebook wall and MySpace comments.
Crispin v. Christian Audigier, Inc., 717 F. Supp.2d 965, 991 (C.D. Cal. 2010). The court did observe that applying this pre-Internet statute to current social media was difficult:
[T]he difficulty in interpreting the statute is compounded by the fact that the [SCA] was written prior to the advent of the Internet. . . . As a result, the existing statutory framework is ill-suited to address modern forms of communication like Facebook and MySpace. Courts have struggled to analyze problems involving modern technology within the confines of this statutory framework, often with unsatisfying results. . . . [U]ntil Congress brings the laws in line with modern technology, protection of the Internet and websites such as these will remain a confusing and uncertain area of the law.
Id. at 988 (citations and quotation marks omitted).
Of course, whenever a plaintiff gets to select, in the first instance, what online materials are to be produced, there will be an incentive to cheat. Such cheating can result in sanctions – such as required production of everything on a social media site. Bass v. Miss Porter's School, 2009 WL 3724968, at *1 (D. Conn. Oct. 27, 2009) (in camera inspection revealed that plaintiff had withheld a large amount of relevant Facebook images and text; production of entire Facebook page ordered).
As for the most basic question, a bunch of cases have now held that a plaintiff's relevant postings on social media – whether "public" or "private" – are proper subjects of discovery in civil litigation. Simply Storage, 270 F.R.D. at 434 ("a person's expectation and intent that her communications be maintained as private is not a legitimate basis for shielding those communications from discovery"); Bass, 2009 WL 3724968, at *1 (the "relevance of the content of Plaintiff's Facebook usage as to both liability and damages . . . should not be limited to Plaintiff's own determination"); Ledbetter v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 2009 WL 1067018, at *2 (D. Colo. April 21, 2009) ("the information sought within the four corners of the subpoenas issued to Facebook, My Space, Inc., and Meetup.com is reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence"); Beye v. Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, 2007 WL 7393489, at *2 n.3 (D.N.J. Dec. 14, 2007) ("requir[ing] production of entries on webpages such as 'MySpace' or 'Facebook' that [plaintiffs] shared with others"); McCann v. Harleysville Insurance Co., 910 N.Y.S.2d 614, 615 (N.Y.A.D. 2010) ("the court abused its discretion in prohibiting defendant from seeking disclosure of plaintiff's Facebook account at a future date"); Romano v. Steelcase Inc., 907 N.Y.S.2d 650, 655 (N.Y. Sup. 2010) ("it is reasonable to infer from the limited postings on Plaintiff's public . . . profile pages, that her private pages may contain materials and information that are relevant to her claims"; plaintiff could not "hide relevant information behind self-regulated privacy settings"); McMillen v. Hummingbird Speedway, Inc., 2010 WL 4403285 (Pa. C.P. Jefferson Co. Sept. 9, 2010) ("no 'social network site privilege' has been adopted"; when "a person's social network sites contain information relevant to the prosecution or defense of a lawsuit . . . access to those sites should be freely granted"); cf. B.M. v. D.M., 2011 WL 1420917, at *5 (N.Y. Sup. April 7, 2011) (plaintiff's admissions in blog were relevant and admissible).
Finally, there are a fair number of Canadian cases that also address discovery of social networking material. These cases have (probably to the profound discontent of some Tea Party elements) been cited in several of the U.S. decisions on the subject. See Kent v. Laverdiere, 2009 CarswellOnt 1986 ¶33 (Ont. Super. April 14, 2009) (plaintiff claiming disfigurement and reduced enjoyment of life had to produce social networking photographs showing her in healthy state and/or enjoying life); Leduc, 2009 CarswellOnt 843 ¶23 (that "a person's Facebook profile may contain documents relevant to the issues in an action is beyond controversy"); Id. ¶ 32 ("[a] party who maintains a private, or limited access, Facebook profile stands in no different position than one who sets up a publicly-available profile"); Bishop v. Minichiello, 2009 CarswellBC 871 ¶¶53-56 (B.C. April 7, 2009) (granting production of plaintiff's hard drive to determine how much time plaintiff spent on Facebook); Murphy v. Perger, 2007 CarswellOnt 9439 ¶20 (Ont. Super. Oct. 3, 2007) (plaintiff has no "serious expectation of privacy" in private social media site to which over 300 people have access).
With the use of social networking sites becoming ubiquitous, e-discovery by defendants should no longer be the exception, but the rule, in drug and device personal injury litigation. In mass torts, defendants should, as much as possible, treat such e-discovery on par with e-discovery demands made by plaintiffs, and seek to include provisions dealing with social networking information in MDL-wide pre-trial orders governing both preservation of evidence and discovery generally.
Posted in Discovery
Tags: E-Discovery


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Q: using data.table to speed up rollapply I am new to data.tables so apologies if this is a very basic question.
I have heard that data.tables significantly improves computational times when working with large amounts  data, and so would like to see if data.table is able to help in speeding up the rollapply function.
if we have some univariate data
xts.obj <- xts(rnorm(1e6), order.by=as.POSIXct(Sys.time()-1e6:1), tz="GMT")
colnames(xts.obj) <- "rtns"

a simple rolling quantile with width of 100 and a p of 0.75 takes a surprisingly long time...
i.e. the line of code
xts.obj$quant.75 <- rollapply(xts.obj$rtns,width=100, FUN='quantile', p=0.75)

seems to take forever...
is there anything that data.table can do to speed things up? i.e. is there a generic roll function that can be applied?
perhaps a routine to convert an xts object to a data.table object to carry out the function in a speeded up manner and then reconvert back to xts at the end?
thanks in advance
hlm
p.s. I didn't seem to be getting much of a response on the data.table mailing list so am posting up here, to see if I get a better response.
p.p.s having a quick go with another example using dataframes the data.table solution seems to take longer than the rollapply function, i.e. shown below:
> x <- data.frame(x=rnorm(10000))
> x.dt <- data.table(x)
> system.time(l1 <- as.numeric(rollapply(x,width=10,FUN=quantile,p=0.75)))
   user  system elapsed
   2.69    0.00    2.68
> system.time(l <- as.numeric(unlist(x.dt[,lapply(1:((nrow(x.dt))-10+1), function(i){ x.dt[i:(i+10-1),quantile(x,p=0.75)]})])))
   user  system elapsed
  11.22    0.00   11.51
> identical(l,l1)
[1] TRUE

A: datatable is quite irrelevant here - you're essentially running sapply on a vector, that is pretty much the fastest operation you can get (other than going to C). data frames and data tables will always be slower than vectors. You can gain a bit by using a straight vector (without xts dispatch), but the only easy way to get this done quickly is to parallelize:
> x = as.vector(xts.obj$rtns)
> system.time(unclass(mclapply(1:(length(x) - 99),
                      function(i) quantile(x[i:(i + 99)], p=0.75), mc.cores=32)))
   user  system elapsed
325.481  15.533  11.221

If you need that even faster, then you may want to write a specialized function: the naive apply approach re-sorts every chunk which is obviously wasteful - all you need to do is to drop the one element and sort in the next one to obtain the quantile so you can expect roughly 50x speedup if you do that - but you'll have to code that yourself (so it's only worth if you use it more often ...).

A: data.table works quickly by splitting the data by a key. I don't think data.table currently supports a rolling key, or an expression that in the by or i arguments that would do this.
You could use the fact that subsetting is faster for data.table than a data.frame
DT <- as.data.table(x)
.x <- 1:(nrow(DT)-9)
system.time(.xl <- unlist(lapply(.x, function(.i) DT[.i:(.i+10),quantile(x,0.75, na.rm = T)])))
   user  system elapsed
   8.77    0.00    8.77

Or you could construct key variables that will uniquely identify the rolling ids. Width = 10, therefore we need 10 columns (padded with NA_real_)
library(plyr) # for as.quoted
.j <- paste0('x',1:10, ':= c(rep(NA_real_,',0:9,'),rep(seq(',1:10,',9991,by=10),each=10), rep(NA_real_,',c(0,9:1),'))')

 datatable <- function(){
   invisible(lapply(.j, function(.jc) x.dt[,eval(as.quoted(.jc)[[1]])]))
x_roll <- rbind(x.dt[!is.na(x1),quantile(x,0.75),by=x1],
  x.dt[!is.na(x2),quantile(x,0.75),by=x2],
  x.dt[!is.na(x3),quantile(x,0.75),by=x3],
  x.dt[!is.na(x4),quantile(x,0.75),by=x4],
      x.dt[!is.na(x5),quantile(x,0.75),by=x5],
      x.dt[!is.na(x6),quantile(x,0.75),by=x6],
      x.dt[!is.na(x7),quantile(x,0.75),by=x7],
      x.dt[!is.na(x8),quantile(x,0.75),by=x8],
      x.dt[!is.na(x9),quantile(x,0.75),by=x9],
      x.dt[!is.na(x10),quantile(x,0.75),by=x10],use.names =F)

setkeyv(x_roll,'x1')

invisible(x.dt[,x1:= 1:10000])
setkeyv(x.dt,'x1')
x_roll[x.dt][, list(x,V1)]}

l1 <- function()as.numeric(rollapply(x,width=10,FUN=quantile,p=0.75))
lapply_only <- function() unclass(lapply(1:(nrow(x) - 9), function(i) quantile(x[['x']][i:(i + 9)], p=0.75)))

benchmark(datatable(),l1(),lapply_only(), replications = 5)
##            test replications elapsed relative user.self
## 1   datatable()            5    9.41 1.000000      9.40
## 2          l1()            5   10.97 1.165781     10.85
## 3 lapply_only()            5   10.39 1.104145     10.35

EDIT --- benchmarking
data.table is quicker than rollapply and raw lapply. I can't test the parallel solution.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Clarie Coast, called Wilkes Coast by Australia, () is that portion of the coast of Wilkes Land lying between Cape Morse, at 130°10′E, and Pourquoi Pas Point, at 136°11′E. It was discovered in January 1840 by Captain Jules Dumont d'Urville, who recognized the existence of land lying south of the ice cliffs to which he applied the name Côte de Clarie, after the wife (Claire-Fortunée Roze) of Charles Jacquinot, the captain of his second ship, the Zélée.

It was also spotted by the US Exploring Expedition in Feb. 1840.

References

Coasts of Antarctica
Landforms of Wilkes Land

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Ferndown allotment plot will become dementia project
The plot had been abandoned
Marilyn Barber
Just one cheque for the Ferndown dementia steering committee to put to good use from the left, Victoria Coe, Sam Atkins, Gina Smith, Lisa Sanders, Michael Deane, Harry Worth, Karen Grant-A'Court, Jackie Dunning and Kate Morris
An abandoned allotment plot in Ferndown is being transformed for the use of those living with dementia.
Green-fingered volunteers set about the task after learning that the St Leonard's Community Hospital was to lose its garden for development.
The Ferndown Dementia Friendly Town steering group, chaired by Harry Worth, secured the plot from the town council.
A fundraising effort was launched and it allowed raised beds to be installed, along with paths laid and wood chippings added. A dilapidated shed has also been replaced with a summer house.
Guide to gigs for East Dorset
As well as the town council and the Douch Family Funeral Directors branch AE Jolliffe and Son, the Ferndown RBL Club, Dudsbury Golf Club, Colten Care's Fernhill Dementia Home and Rotary Club of Parley have all helped raise the amount required.
Letter: Steven Lugg from Ferndown explains why he won't seek re-election to district council
The Mayor of Ferndown, Councillor Mrs Cathy Lugg, will open the new facility on 7th October.
Emma Regan, from Douch Family Funeral Directors, said: "This is an important community project which we are proud to be involved with.
"Many of our staff have had 'dementia friendly' training and understand how important things like this can be for those with dementia.
"The RBL Club, Dudsbury Golf Club and Rotary Club of Parley have all come together with other volunteers to make it a reality.
"The allotment will be a fine addition to the town's facilities and as well as helping those living with dementia will hopefully produce some lovely vegetables.
"There will be a grand opening with dignitaries and volunteers attending.
"The steering committee is looking forward to having a number of different types gardening clubs set up at the allotment.
"These will include those for people with dementia, befriending groups and others in the community."
Stour and Avon

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Will Park Ji-sung Start in Manchester United's Premier League Opener?
Posted July. 29, 2005 03:04,
Will Park Ji-sung Start in Manchester United's Premier League Opener?. July. 29, 2005 03:04. by Jae-Yun	Jung jaeyuna@donga.com.
Park Ji-sung , who is currently playing in Asia Tour matches wearing the red uniform of Manchester United, is generating intense interest among Manchester United fans.
The Manchester Evening News reported on July 28 that Park Ji-sung is emerging as a potential starting member for United's Premier League opening match against Everton on August 13. In an article that noted Park Ji-sung as a possible replacement for veteran Ryan Giggs, the paper commented that there had been a lot of adverse criticism when Park was first recruited, but that Park had blasted away such concerns in just four preseason matches.
The article also included praise from United coach Alex Ferguson who said, "Park Ji-sung is doing very well for us. He's very flexible and fast, and I was deeply impressed by his energy."
As Park rapidly rises in the public eye as a possible successor to Giggs, the debate among Manchester fans has also heated up.
A netizen identifying himself as "Komodo" stated, "Park Ji-sung is very fast, and participated the most aggressively in the match. He should play in Giggs' place in the season opener. I'd really like to see him on the field."
On the other hand, another netizen with the nickname "Nevs" defended Giggs, saying, "Giggs is still the best left wing in Europe. A Manchester United without Giggs will not be the same Manchester United as before."
Manchester United fell to the Kashima Antlers, 1-2 in exhibition play on July 28. United will play another exhibition match against the Urawa Red Diamonds on August 30 at Saitama Stadium in Japan.
Jae-Yun	Jung jaeyuna@donga.com


text:
by David Sunfellow | Apr 30, 2022 | 0 - Dark Night Of The Soul, 0 - Distressing Near-Death Experiences, 0 - Drug-Induced Experiences, 0 - Exceptional Spiritual Experiences, 0 - Experienced Hellish Realms, 0 - Suicide, 1 - Encountered Demonic Beings, 1 - Encountered God, 1 - How Realities Are Created, 1 - Shadow Issues, 1 - The Power Of Prayer, 2 - Encountered Deceased Family Members, 2 - Encountered Deceased Friends, 2 - Encountered Jesus, 2 - Encountered Spiritual Beings, 3 - Atheists, 3 - Buddhists, 3 - Christians, 3 - Delogs, 3 - Historical Accounts, 3 - Jews, 3 - Tibetan Book Of The Dead, 3 - Tibetan Buddhism, 5 - Researchers, 6 - NDE Books, Alexander Batthyany, Alon Anava, Angela M, Angie Fenimore, Arthur Yensen, Barbara Rommer, Bryan Melvin, Carl Knighton, Cathleen C, Curtis Childs, David Parnell, David Sunfellow, Ellen F, Emanuel Swedenborg, Esther Korsandi, Frances Z, George Ritchie, Howard Storm, Jeff Coulter, Jeffrey Long, Jim Woodford, Ken Vincent, Kevin Williams, Matthew Dennis Sheila Linn, Matthew Dovel, Maurice Rawlings, Megan Griffith, Mellen Thomas Benedict, Mickey Robinson, Nancy Evans Bush, Plato, PMH Atwater, Rajiv Parti, Ronald Reagan, Ryan Grassmeyer, Samuel Bercholz, Sandra Rogers, Socrates, Tamara Laroux
Post Views: 1,151 The illustration of a hellish realm that appears at the top of this page comes from near-death experiencer Samuel Bercholz's book, A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir. ……………. Emanuel Swedenborg On Hell &...
by David Sunfellow | Apr 29, 2022 | 0 - Dark Night Of The Soul, 0 - Distressing Near-Death Experiences, 0 - Exceptional Spiritual Experiences, 0 - Experienced Hellish Realms, 0 - Near-Death Experiences, 0 - Near-Death-Like Experiences, 0 - Suicide, 1 - Encountered Demonic Beings, 1 - How Realities Are Created, 1 - Shadow Issues, 7 - IANDS, 7 - NDERF, 7 - NHNE, Amphianda Baskett, Barbara Rommer, David Sunfellow, Jeffrey Long, Ken Vincent, Nancy Evans Bush, PMH Atwater, Raymond Moody
Post Views: 503 The illustration of a hellish realm that appears at the top of this page comes from near-death experiencer Samuel Bercholz's book, A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir. …………. The following conversation, which took place...
Anita Moorjani
by David Sunfellow | Dec 3, 2021 | 0 - Exceptional Spiritual Experiences, 0 - Near-Death Experiences, 0 - Out-Of-Body Experiences, 1 - All Knowingness, 1 - How Realities Are Created, 1 - Life Review, 1 - Miraculous Healing, 1 - Personal Predictions, 1 - The Purpose Of Life, 1 - The World Is A Dream, 1 - Verified Veridical Perceptions, 2 - Encountered Deceased Family Members, 2 - Encountered Deceased Friends, 2 - Encountered Spiritual Beings, 3 - Hindus, 5 - Authors
Post Views: 32 Anita Moorjani was born in Singapore of Indian parents. At the age of two, Anita moved to Hong Kong where she grew up speaking English, Cantonese and Sindhi, an Indian dialect. In April of 2002, Anita was diagnosed with cancer (Hodgkin's Lymphoma)....


text:
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas: US Can No Longer Mediate Israel-Palestinian Talks
– Abbas: US Can No Longer Mediate Israel-Palestinian Talks:
With the US so heavily committed to supporting Israel, and protecting them from any UN resolutions, it's always been difficult for the Palestinian leadership to trust the US to be an impartial moderator for peace efforts. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says Wednesday's move by President Trump to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital has effectively ended that entirely.
Abbas says there is no way at this point that the Palestinians can trust the US to be a mediator, saying Trump's move encourages Israel to continue the occupation and expansion of settlements, undermining the two-state solution.
Read morePalestinian President Mahmoud Abbas: US Can No Longer Mediate Israel-Palestinian Talks
Categories Global News, Politics Tags Donald Trump, Global News, Government, Israel, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestine, Palestinians, Politics, Trump administration, U.S. Leave a comment
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas invited to White House by Donald Trump
March 10, 2017 by Infinite
– Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas invited to White House by Donald Trump:
A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the U.S. president on Friday invited him to visit the White House to discuss resuming peace talks, the first contact between the two leaders since Donald Trump took office in January.
Spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh said Abbas received "a very important call" from Trump in which he was invited to the White House, and that he would attend "very soon."
White House press secretary Sean Spicer confirmed the invitation to Abbas.
H/t reader squodgy:
"Erm….what the hell is going on?
Can he really be siding with the people who the Rothschilds want eliminated?
Or is it all some kind of charade?"
Abbas is a Freemason, like Trump, Putin, Obama, Clinton, Bush, ….
– The Prophecies Of Alois Irlmaier – The Roadmap To WW3 – The 3 Days Of Darkness (Worse Than WW3):
"Everything calls peace, Schalom! Then it will occur – a new Middle East war suddenly flames up, big naval forces are facing hostiley in the Mediterranean – the situation is strained. But the actual firing spark is set on fire in the Balkan: I see a "large one" falling, a bloody dagger lies beside him – then impact is on impact. …"
Categories Global News, Politics Tags Donald Trump, Global News, Government, Israel, Mahmoud Abbas, Middle East, Palestine, Palestinians, Politics, Trump administration 1 Comment
Egypt Lifts Gaza Blockade, Allows Palestinians Free Entry – Israel Announces That It Is Demolishing 8 Palestinian Villages (Video)
July 24, 2012 by Infinite
Egypt is allowing Palestinians free entry to its territory in a landmark move ending part of a longtime blockade on Gaza. It was imposed by Israel with the help of Egypt five years ago, after Hamas took control of the Palestinian territory. But with a president from the Muslim Brotherhood now leading Egypt, the move is widely seen as a friendly gesture to Hamas – an offshoot of the Brotherhood, which operates independently.
Categories Global News, Politics, Society Tags Egypt, Gaza, Global News, Government, Israel, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinians, Politics Leave a comment
Israel: Influential Rabbi Ovadia Yosef Calls For Palestinians To 'Perish From The World'
May 5, 2014 August 31, 2010 by Infinite
Netanyahu distances himself from his own policy?
Now listen to Benjamin Netanyahu:
– Benjamin Netanyahu: 'America is something that can easily be moved.' 'The world won't say a thing.' 'The world will say we're defending.'
Firebrand: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said Palestinians and their president Mahmoud Abbas should 'perish from this earth'
Aug. 31 (Daily Mail) –Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has distanced himself from an influential rabbi after he said Palestinians and their President Mahmoud Abbas should 'perish from the world'.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual head of the religious Shas party in Israel's government, gave a fiery sermon as Middle East peace talks were set to begin next week.
The 89-year-old rabbi – founder of the ultra-orthodox Shas Party – said: 'Abu Mazen and all these evil people should perish from this earth.
'God should strike them and these Palestinians – evil haters of Israel – with a plague.'
Mr Netanyahu said Israel wanted to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians that would ensure good neighbourly relations.
A statement from his office said: 'The comments do not reflect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's view or the position of the government of Israel.'
It added that Mr Netanyahu is going to the peace talks with a goal of 'reaching an agreement with the Palestinians that will put an end to the conflict'.
Mr Abbas' government responded angrily and demanded that the Israeli government put a stop to what it described as a 'culture of hatred in Israel toward Palestinians'.
Peace talks: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has distanced himself from the comments ahead of negotiations with the Palestinians next week
U.S. State Department spokesman P.J.Crowley condemned the rabbi's comments in a statement, saying they were 'not only deeply offensive, but incitement such as this hurts the cause of peace'.
Read moreIsrael: Influential Rabbi Ovadia Yosef Calls For Palestinians To 'Perish From The World'
Categories Global News, Politics, Society Tags Benjamin Netanyahu, Global News, Government, Israel, Mahmoud Abbas, Ovadia Yosef, Palestine, Palestinians, Politics, Religion, Society 3 Comments
Israel allows shipment of 1,000 rifles to reach Palestinian security forces in the West Bank
September 7, 2008 by Infinite
JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel allowed Palestinian security forces in the West Bank to receive a shipment of about 1,000 Kalashnikov rifles and tens of thousands of bullets in a step aimed at bolstering the moderate Palestinian government there, an Israeli defense official said Friday.
Shipments of this type remain sensitive for Israel because weapons provided to Palestinian security forces during peace talks in the 1990s were used against Israelis when those talks broke down in violence in 2000. But balancing those concerns are fears that if moderate forces are too weak they might lose control of the West Bank to Hamas, the hardline Islamic group that seized power in the Gaza Strip last year.
The weapons shipment reached the Palestinians through Jordan about one week ago, the Israeli official said. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas arranged the transfer when they met August 31, he said.
Read moreIsrael allows shipment of 1,000 rifles to reach Palestinian security forces in the West Bank
Categories Politics Tags Ehud Olmert, Gaza, Government, Israel, Mahmoud Abbas, Military, Politics Leave a comment


An important bankruptcy opinion just down from the 1st Circuit in In re Nosek. The issue in the case was the practice of the lender (Ameriquest), of crediting the debtor's payments under a chapter 13 plan to missed payments first before crediting them to currently due payments. This is Ameriquest's practice outside bankruptcy and it continued to do the same inside bankruptcy.
The debtor complained, arguing that this payment allocation system violated the bankruptcy code. The practical effect (simplified) of the allocation system was that it meant that the debtor's account never appeared to be current in Ameriquest's system. Nosek claimed that she was going to try to refinance her mortgage but was, or would have been unable to do so, because of Ameriquest's payment allocation system. She never actually submitted an application (in light of the fact that this was 2004 at the heyday of subprime refinance lending, she should probably be happy that she was unable to refinance!).
The bankruptcy court initially awarded Nosek $250,000 for pain and suffering from the experience under section 1322(b) of the bankruptcy code. On appeal the district court reversed, saying that for damages to be awarded the court would have to proceed under section 105. On remand, the banrkuptcy court again entered judgment for $250,000 for pain and suffering but then added $500,000 punitive damages against Ameriquest. The court relied on the holding that Ameriquest violated section 1322(b) as the predicate basis for the award of damages under section 105. The district court affirmed.
The 1st Circuit has now entered judgment reversing liability and thus the award of damages. This is a hugely important case, because as bankruptcies rise--especially for homeowners--the underlying practice in Nosek is likely to recur. Affirmance would have required lenders to change their payment posting policies in bankruptcy, either requiring them to adopt new rules that would apply equally both inside and outside bankruptcy or to have two different systems depending on whether a debtor is in bankruptcy. Obviously, affirmance of such huge damages would also have spawned a race to the courthouse to challenge Ameriquest's practices across the country and probably many other lenders that post payments differently from how the bankruptcy court wanted payments posted here. When I spoke at the Tidewater Bankruptcy Conference last January, we dedicated a good portion of our panel to a discussion of the bankruptcy court's holding in the case.
The system [Ameriquest] was using has design flaws that inevitably lead to a showing that [Nosek is] behind in her payments. It did not distinguish between pre- and post-petition obligations which contradicts with [sic] 11 U.S.C. § 1322(b) which provides for the curing of any default over the course of the plan, a plan which is binding on [Ameriquest]. . . .
With this language, the court implied that Ameriquest's accounting threatened Nosek's opportunity to cure her pre-petition default pursuant to § 1322(b) and the Plan. Ameriquest contests the bankruptcy court's conclusion that the company defied the text of § 1322(b). It argues that the language of § 1322(b) does not impose obligations on any party, let alone a lender. We agree. The plain language of § 1322(b), relied upon by the bankruptcy court to find a violation of the Code, does not impose any specific duties on a lender. It merely lists elements that a Chapter 13 debtor may include in her plan. Accordingly, there is no basis for concluding that Ameriquest violated the text of § 1322(b).
The Plan language says nothing about how Ameriquest must account for pre- and post-petition payments during the course of the repayment period if payments are short, late, or not made at all. Simply put, the terms of the Plan itself do not provide the specificity required to invoke the enforcement authority of § 105(a).
As the plaintiff alleging a violation of the Bankruptcy Code or a related court order, Nosek had the burden of establishing that her cure rights pursuant to § 1322(b) and the Plan were violated or at risk of being violated by Ameriquest's accounting practices. Yet the bankruptcy court concluded that Nosek had not shown any economic harm resulting from Ameriquest's accounting, whether in the form of late fees, finance charges, or an improper notice of default. In addition, the court also rejected Nosek's claim that the Payment History she received prevented her from refinancing her loan. Addressing this issue in the context of Nosek's various state law claims, the bankruptcy court found that any damages based on Nosek's inability to refinance her loan on more favorable terms "would be mere speculation." The court found that Nosek "did not provide a basis to award actual damages. No documents were offered as evidence of the proposed refinancing. No testimony was proffered refinancing was even offered; there was no evidence of the terms of a refinancing which [Nosek] could expect to receive."
Notwithstanding Nosek's failure to prove actual damages sufficient to sustain a Chapter 93A claim, the bankruptcy court concluded that Ameriquest's accounting practices violated Nosek's cure rights pursuant to § 1322(b) and her Chapter 13 Plan, providing a predicate for a damage award under § 105(a). In essence, the court found that Ameriquest's slowness in crediting Nosek's payments to the proper account and its failure to distinguish between pre- and post-petition payments constituted violations of the Bankruptcy Code and her Plan. This conclusion was erroneous. Although a debtor need not show proof of economic damages to establish that her cure rights have been violated, she must at least establish that her right to cure the pre-petition default provided by the Chapter 13 plan has been impaired or threatened by the creditor's actions. Nosek's subjective fear of such impairment, based on a document prepared by Ameriquest for internal purposes only, and in the absence of any evidence that the company regarded her as in default on the basis of its accounting practices, does not suffice. Indeed, Ameriquest stated that its internal records showed that Nosek was considered current in her payment history. The Payment History document, provided only to Nosek on her request and admittedly difficult to decipher, did not show to the contrary. Nosek offered no other documentation indicating that her cure rights were at risk.
Notwithstanding these legal conclusions, we are not unsympathetic to Nosek's predicament as a debtor seeking to satisfy the terms of her Chapter 13 Plan and stave off foreclosure of her home. Her circumstances are all too common today.15 Given their prevalence, it is troubling that Ameriquest had not established a more efficient and accurate way of handling the accounting issues revealed by this case at the time of trial. We fully understand the bankruptcy court's concerns about the practices that it described.
Nevertheless, the bankruptcy court's legitimate concerns did not justify the remedy that it invoked. Nosek did not demonstrate here that Ameriquest's accounting practices caused her any economic harm or threatened her right to cure her pre-petition default. Morever, even if such a threat had been demonstrated by those practices, there was no language in Nosek's Plan, as it was confirmed, or in § 1322(b), that addressed how Ameriquest was to apply the payments it received from Nosek or from the trustee. Under such circumstances, the Plan would have to be amended to prescribe the accounting practices necessary to protect Nosek's right to cure before Ameriquest could be sanctioned for a violation of an order of the bankruptcy court. In the absence of such specificity, there was no violation of § 1322(b) or the Plan and therefore no basis upon which to award Nosek damages under § 105(a). Because the bankruptcy court's judgment in the adversary proceeding is vacated, the order confirming Nosek's Third Amended Plan, which was based on the erroneous damages award, also must be vacated.
I had an error in the facts when I originally typed this. I meant to say that Nosek claimed that she was unable to refinance as a result of Ameriquest's actions, rather than that she was unable. So she was not rejected for a refi; in fact, she never actually applied. I've corrected the text.
I understand why the court would not find in Nosek's favor, given that, "Nosek did not demonstrate here that Ameriquest's accounting practices caused her any economic harm or threatened her right to cure her pre-petition default."
If she had provided such evidence, it seems to me that things should have gone differently. However, the court says that even if she had it would not matter, due to the absence of language in the Plan or 1322(b) that specified how to apply payments. I'll just grant that this is true, not knowing otherwise. My question is why the law in these cases, or the bankruptcy Plans that are devised, does not make it clear that a person who is current on payments should no longer be considered "late" in the way that resulted from Ameriquest's applying her payments to earlier debts and never to current ones? Shouldn't it specify that as long as the person is fulfilling the terms of the Plan, she should be considered as making current payments in good standing? Otherwise, why bother to go through the bankruptcy proceeding at all? She could have just continued making payments on the late balance, and her status wouldn't have changed (at least with respect to Ameriquest), right?
I hope someone can help clue me in here, because with the current significant of this issue I'd like to better understand how it works.
so, will ameriquest's "victory" simply compel more Ch. 7 liquidations?
I am not going to question Professor Zywicki's motives here, though I have my doubts.
But basically, you have a clearly unconscionable term of a credit agreement here. There is no reason in the world why a lender should get to allocate payments in such a way to ensure that the debtor remains in default despite making scheduled, agreed-upon payments.
And as for the big policy argument-- that lenders might have to change their terms for borrowers in bankruptcy-- this is facetious. Lenders change their terms all the time. They change interest rates from month to month. They put reservations of rights in agreements and then change terms through mailers. They know how to change the terms in THEIR favor.
The court held that for there to be a violation of section 1322(b), the lender has to violate an express provision of the debtor's chapter 13 plan. That didn't happen here because neither the code nor Nosek's plan speaks to the issue of how payments should be posted to the debtor's account.
So from now on, debtors seeking CH13 are advised to explicitly include a provision in their plan specifying that payments made after bankruptcy may only be applied to current balances.
Am I missing something very important here?
Affirmance would have required lenders to change their payment posting policies in bankruptcy, either requiring them to adopt new rules that would apply equally both inside and outside bankruptcy or to have two different systems depending on whether a debtor is in bankruptcy.
The plain language of § 1322(b), relied upon by the bankruptcy court to find a violation of the Code, does not impose any specific duties on a lender. It merely lists elements that a Chapter 13 debtor may include in her plan. Accordingly, there is no basis for concluding that Ameriquest violated the text of § 1322(b).
As I read it, the court is basically saying "If the debtor had explicitly included this in the plan we would have ruled for her, but since she didn't, tough luck". Given this ruling, isn't any bankruptcy attorney worth his salt going to include something saying how the lender should handle payments made under the plan?
It could even end up making things worse for the lender if different debtors use different plans. Rather than setting up payment systems for debtors inside and outside of bankruptcy, lenders may have to set up many different payment systems for debtors in bankruptcy.
I'm not going to mention Dilan's questioning of Professor Zywicki's motives, either.
After a quick review of the Opinion, my view is that Ameriquest was a fool to allow the Bankruptcy Court to keep this case - especially after the Bankruptcy Court first ordered sanctions against Ameriquest, and "ordered the Debtor to file an adversary against Ameriquest." That should have been a pretty good clue that the Bankruptcy Court already was predisposed to hammer Ameriquest, and letting that same Court try the Adversary was foolhardy. It has long been my opinion that the 1984 amendments to Bankruptcy Jurisdiction, 28 USC Sections 157-158, did not really fix the constitutional problems identified in Marathon v. Northern Pipeline, 458 U.S. 50 (1982), and that a creditor in this position ought to assert early and often that he objects to the Bankruptcy Court's jurisdiction and demands an Article III tribunal. This is not a question of whether Congress granted the Bankruptcy Court jurisdiction over the case -- clearly, it did in 28 USC 157; rather, it's a question of whether such a grant of jurisdiction, over the objection of a party (compare CFTC vs. Shor, 478 U.S. 833 (1986)), violates Article III of the Constitution. Can Congress require the litigation of a purely private dispute in a non-Article III tribunal over the objection of a party? Not unless "all of the essential attributes of the judicial power" are retained by an Article III tribunal.
Yes, Ameriquest ultimately won this case, but really only because the Bankruptcy Court decided liability on summary judgment, so the District Court reviewed it de novo. If Ameriquest had gone to trial in the Bankruptcy Court, the Bankruptcy Judge could have thoroughly hosed it with factual finding reviewable only on a "clearly erroneous" standard under Bankruptcy Rule 8005 (I have a REAL problem with Bankruptcy Rule 8005 - and so did Rehnquist in Marathon, see 458 U.S. at 90, Rehnquist, J., concurring).
Professor Kerr, your fellow conspirator is quite smart and scholarly, and is clearly an expert on the bankruptcy laws. He is also quite pro-creditor. And he's making a pretty bad policy argument here. When you see a really smart ideologue making a bad argument, draw your own conclusions.
I have been the lawyer for a creditor a lot, which is often a nasty business. Usually the debtor is a decent sort who got shafted by fate--like a working man who's wife gets cancer the same month his lifetime employer decides to change the health plan to pay only half those expenses so that there is more money for officer bonuses--or a small businessman who poured his whole life into a business only to get caught in a downturn and who gets nailed by his customers not paying.
Other time it is not so nasty, a serial filer or a Trump type who is trying to jam his debts into sub entities and ride into his next phase of life with a Florida mansion and lots of goods in his kids' names.
When it is nasty, I remember that the congress sets limits on how bad it can be, in a highly structured and supervised system. Then I see the court giving a big business a free pass in flat out violating and law and screwing a debtor to squeeze a few mone pennies out of them, and I get upset. Mad at the business? Sure. A lot more mad at the judges who swung the meaning of the law to help the CEO's bonus at Ameriquest instead of enforcing the law as written.
What's striking to me about the bankruptcy and district court opinion is that she suffered no economic harm, yet she received $750,000 in damages.
I've had a $200 debt on my credit report that's clearly an error that I've never bothered to sue to get rid of because the filing fees would be more than the amount and it's had no apparent effect on my credit (never brought up when I bought my car, my home, or applied for creidt cards). After reading Nosek, I now know that the pain and distress of this lottery tick -- I mean egregious credit error should be worth at least a cool million.
The District Court Should Have Reversed Because Ameriquest's Conduct Did Not Violate Section 1322(b) of the Bankruptcy Code.
The Bankruptcy court held Ameriquest in contempt because one of Ameriquest's internal accounting methods supposedly violated Nosek's plan. One of the unstated premises in the bankruptcy court's order is that all Chapter 13 bankruptcies are administered in a uniform manner. They aren't. A national mortgage servicer like Ameriquest therefore must work with differing procedures that often times make little or no distinction between payments for "pre-petition" or "post-petition" debts. Moreover, the accounting method giving rise to contempt here was purely internal and never would have been communicated to the outside world had Nosek not asked for it. Ameriquest's conduct did not violate Bankruptcy Code section 1322(b).
A.	Suspense Accounts Are Necessary in Order for Loan Servicers to Track Pre-Petition and Post-Petitions Payments in Chapter 13 Bankruptcies.
There are no statutes or uniform national rules governing the manner in which Chapter 13 debtors must pay their mortgage obligations. Some courts and Chapter 13 trustees require debtors to pay post-petition, "ongoing" mortgage payments through the trustee ("through the plan") in cases where the trustee is also curing the accumulated pre-petition mortgage arrears. These are known as "pay-all" jurisdictions. Other judges and trustees allow the debtor to make such "ongoing" payments directly to the secured creditor; still others allow the debtor to make all payments directly to the creditor. See, e.g., In re Clay, 339 B.R. 784, 785 (Bankr. D. Utah 2006) (describing the different payments practices in Chapter 13 cases throughout the country).
On a daily basis, mortgage lenders and their servicers receive and process payments for thousands of borrowers in Chapter 13 bankruptcy cases. Because of the wide disparity of payment practices, these payments come from different sources, often without any indication of what the payment is for or who the payment is from. In the present case, for example, Ameriquest received a cashier's check dated August 7, 2003 in the amount of $700.11. Handwritten on that check was the notation: "Loan #421-9515 Ch 13 Case No. 02-46025 JBR." These was no indication as to whether this check was to be applied to Nosek's "ongoing" mortgage payments or to her pre-petition arrearages.
Faced with ambiguous payments like this, mortgage servicers such as Ameriquest can either: (1) reject ambiguous, insufficient or partial payments; or (2) accept such payments and determine the proper application of payments at a later date. If the payment is accepted, most servicers (including Ameriquest) place it into a temporary internal account called a "suspense account." These type of suspense accounts are internal bookkeeping entries; they are not communicated to the outside world, including the borrowers.
Most of the national mortgage servicers use a loan servicing program called Mortgage Servicing Platform ("MSP"). Based on the data entered into the program (i.e., the original amount borrowed, the applicable interest rate(s) and payments received), MSP indicates contractual amounts owed. Under MSP, loan payments are applied according to the standardized provisions in nationwide loan documents.
Chapter 13 bankruptcies involuntarily thrust lenders and their servicers into a setting in which they must alter their normal accounting methodologies and loan servicing protocols. Accounting for Chapter 13 borrowers is a manual process. The MSP system is not designed for the numerous variances associated with Chapter 13 cases throughout this country. At present, no computer program exists that is capable of accounting for payments by Chapter 13 borrowers under the bifurcation scheme that is usually used in most Chapter 13 cases. The unique aspects of each individual Chapter 13 case and the wide disparity of payments practices throughout this country deprive lenders and loan servicers of the full benefits of MSP.
When payments are received for borrowers in Chapter 13, mortgage companies input the payments into MSP. For internal purposes only, they sometimes place these payments into a suspense account until the proper bankruptcy allocations can be made (if they can be made). Once that determination is made, the monies are moved from suspense and applied effective as of the date the payment is originally received. Thus, no penalties or additional interest accrue as a result of payments first being placed into suspense. Because this is a manual process, there can be delays in making the internal credits and debits between the suspense account and a borrower's main account.
The use of a suspense account allows a Chapter 13 debtor to receive credit immediately for her payment, while allowing the lender and its loan servicer time to allocate the employee resources necessary to process and correctly apply payments for bankrupt borrowers under both regimes-the methodology for applying payments under the applicable loan documents and the borrower's Chapter 13 plan (assuming a plan has been confirmed). If, at the end of the Chapter 13 plan a debtor has fully performed her obligations, both under the Chapter 13 plan and the loan documents, that debtor's loan balance will be the same regardless of whether payments are applied according to the loan documents or applied according to the methodology for curing past defaults under the Chapter 13 plan.
B.	Under § 1322(b)(2), the "Application of Payment" Provision in a Home Mortgage Cannot be Modified.
As discussed above, Chapter 13 debtor is permitted to propose a plan that cures pre-petition defaults under its home mortgage loan over the life of its plan. 11 U.S.C. § 1322(b)(5). Except for this one permissive right, no other provision of the underlying loan documents can be modified, including provisions governing how payments must be applied.
Other than Good, there are no other reported decisions (of which Ameriquest is aware) addressing the issue of whether a Chapter 13 debtor is permitted to modify the application of payment provisions in her loan documents. Nor is there any decision addressing whether confirmation of a Chapter 13 plan that includes a home mortgage "cure" consistent with § 1322(b)(5) results in the automatic modification of the application of payment provisions within the loan documents for a home mortgage. Certainly, there are no controlling cases within this Circuit on these issues. In the absence of controlling law or statutes on what the Good court described as "an interesting issue of bankruptcy law" (207 B.R. at 688), imposing $750,000 of contempt sanctions cannot be justified.
Interestingly, the First Circuit ignore the Good decision. Yet, it appears to have rejected the argument that the provisions of a home mortgage loan governing the application of payments cannot be modified.
This remains an open issue--and most bankruptcy judges will be loathe to tell creditors how they must internally account for payments.
This is particularly true in light of the fact that most Chapter 13 cases never result in a confirmed plan, let alone a fully consummated plan.
The Bankruptcy court held Ameriquest in contempt because one of Ameriquest's internal accounting methods supposedly violated Nosek's plan.
Well, that's one lie right off the bat. This isn't an "internal" accounting method. This is an accounting method that affects people who contract with the firm.
An INTERNAL accounting method is something that only affects the enterprise and its shareholders, e.g., expensing stock options.
Faced with ambiguous payments like this, mortgage servicers such as Ameriquest can either: (1) reject ambiguous, insufficient or partial payments; or (2) accept such payments and determine the proper application of payments at a later date.
Or, it can credit the payment in the manner most favorable to the customer. Which is what it should be doing anyway.
The lender didn't consider the debtor in default. It considered her "current" on her post-petition payment schedule, and referred to her as such in their internal documents.
What the lender refused to do was offer the debtor refinancing on her home. The debtor apparently claimed this was entirely the result of the lender's internal policies regarding the crediting of her payments, and that those internal policies violated the Bankruptcy Code. Basically, she was claiming the lender ought to ignore her pre-petition arrears when deciding whether to refinance her mortgage.
The practical effect of letting the Bankruptcy court's ruling stand would have been to force home mortgage lenders to offer refinancing on their most favorable terms to debtors in bankruptcy, and to put at risk the balance of arrears each debtor currently owes at the time of petition.
While this might be great for debtors who manage to accumulate large arrears before filing for bankruptcy, it would also have the effect of generating enormous uncertainties for lenders that choose to exercise such forbearance. This would make early foreclosure a much more attractive option.
What the lender refused to do was offer the debtor refinancing on her home.
I don't see anything in the post that says she wants to get financing from Ameriquest. If your account looks past due, it gets reported to credit report agencies as such, so you cannot refinance from anybody, not just Ameriquest. This ensures that the customer is stuck with her mortgage with Ameriquest and cannot get a lower rate in the future from any other company, which means Ameriquest will have no incentive to get her a lower rate, either.
You're joking, right? A creditor doing anything in a manner favorable to the customer without being forced to?
Tatil -- you're right that the debtor was trying to get financing from someone other than Ameriquest, but neither Prof. Zywicki's post nor the opinion says anything about her status being reported to credit agencies. From the opinion, what it looks like was happening is that Ameriquest's computer system put all her payments into a "suspense account," and then a bankruptcy specialist would check that sum and manually update that she had made the right payments. Moreover, the bankruptcy court, which was obviously sympathetic to her claims, found that she had not suffered any economic harm.
No, no, all I said was that the case was important because it could be expensive--I didn't say that it was right or wrong. Yeesh.
I'm one of those nasty creditor's lawyers.
Concerning CDU's question about what debtor's lawyers worth their salt should do - in the district where I practice (Southern District of Texas) there is a uniform Chapter 13 plan that contains provisions about how the ongoing mortgage payments are to be treated.
I thought that was the case everywhere.
So I'm guessing that Ameriquest would lose that case if it happened here.
That you see it as the morally correct choice does not count as an answer.
I'm not saying you're wrong. Just curious what your reasoning is.
It seems to me that since Ameriquest had a secured loan that she was still in arrears to them even though she was current post-plan. I don't think that those past-due payments just go away. It would seem to me that the bank could correctly report to credit agencies that the debtor never made those payments. Does the Bankruptcy Act require the suppression of factually correct information?
Affirmance would have required lenders to change their payment posting policies in bankruptcy, either requiring them to adopt new rules that would apply equally both inside and outside bankruptcy or to have two different systems depending on whether a debtor is in bankruptcy. Obviously, affirmance of such huge damages would also have spawned a race to the courthouse to challenge Ameriquest's practices across the country and probably many other lenders that post payments differently from how the bankruptcy court wanted payments posted here.
Sure looks like you are making a policy argument in favor of the case's holding, not simply saying it is important.
As for Jmaie's question as to why the creditor should credit a payment in the manner most favorable to the consumer, there's at least 2 reasons: (1) this is actually standard commercial practice-- it's the default rule under contract law and you actually need to have a contract provision even in situations of equal bargaining power to get around it; and (2) when you are dealing with consumer credit, the reasonable expectations of consumers should be enforced against terms that were not bargained for between the parties (this is standard unconscionability law).
The debtor's contention is that if you credit the payments correctly, the debtor would not still be in default. And the Court's holding seems to be that even if that is true, it wasn't in the plan and therefore the District Court has no power to alter the accounting of the payments.
In other words, if you are correct, you may have a strong argument for resolving the case in favor of the creditor, but not on the grounds that were relied upon by the District Court.
There's nothing in the opinion that I see where Ameriquest ever claimed that the debtor was in default. Indeed, the opinion says the opposite: "Yet the bankruptcy court concluded that Nosek had not shown any economic harm resulting from Ameriquest's accounting, whether in the form of late fees, finance charges, or an improper notice of default." (And in another section: "Nosek's subjective fear of such impairment, based on a document prepared by Ameriquest for internal purposes only, and in the absence of any evidence that the company regarded her as in default on the basis of its accounting practices, does not suffice.") And again, for Houston Lawyer, there's nothing in the opinion saying that Ameriquest ever reported her as delinquent to a credit agency, or told the other potential lender that she wasn't current on her loan.
The issue addressed by the court was purely internal to Ameriquest's accounting systems, except when she was trying to refinance her loan. Then Ameriquest sent the other lender a "Payment History [that] contained the total amount that Ameriquest determined was due on the Note, the contractual due date of each payment, the amount Ameriquest had received, the date on which a payment was recorded, and a column stating that each payment had been placed in an escrow account called a 'suspense account.'" The "suspense account" category was in there because Ameriquest's computers apparently couldn't handle receiving payments that didn't match up with the loan amounts and so had to be manually adjusted by a person. Another lender should be able match up the payments and the required dates to see that she was current. At bottom, the debtor saw an entry on the payment history she didn't understand, and convinced a bankruptcy judge this so freaked her out that she was entitled to $750,000.
You have the facts slightly wrong. Ameriquest never sent the 12 month payment history to anyone other than Nosek's attorney, at his written request. That was done in May of 2004.
Nosek's attorney theen gave the payment history to his client. She then said she suffered emotional distress as result of her reading of the 12 month payment history.
In fact, the record (according the Bankruptcy Court in its decision) indicates that Nosek attempted to refinance the loan in December 2003--5 months before she received the payment history! Nosek never shared that payment history with anyone else.
Dlisted -- thanks and fair enough. So the Payment History with the "suspense accounts" never went to the other potential lender or anyone else? That makes it even worse ... I really wonder what the Bankruptcy Court was thinking when it made its award.
The bankruptcy court was probably thinking this was about the umpteenth time a debtor had been in court complaining about the way Ameriquest had applied what were supposed to be post-petition ongoing mortgage payments.
Therein lies the problem. The bankruptcy court started with an erroneous belief, i.e., that the Bankruptcy Code somehow requires lenders to change the contractual methodology for crediting payments, and instead credit payments in the same manner in which the Bankruptcy Code permits repayment in Chapter 13 cases.
As the First Circuit decided, the Bankruptcy Code does not impose that obligation. Nor should it.
Most Chapter 13 cases never result in a fully performed plan. Rather, as happened twice with this debtor, her bankruptcy cases were dismissed because the debtor failed to make the required payments to the Chapter 13 trustee.
When the plan was confirmed in this debtor's third Chapter 13 case, it was 14 months after the filing date. This situation is not atypical.
What is a lender supposed to do with respect to any post-petition payments that have actually been received while it awaits a ruling on the confirmability of the debtor's Chapter 13 plan.
A lender should be entitled to continue to credit payments in accordance with the terms in the loan documents. Bear in mind that we are dealing with uniform provisions in Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac mortgage/deed of trust documents.
BUT, if a lender improperly charges late fees, or seeks a lift stay order, or takes other steps to enforce its rights and remedies while a debtor is post-petition current in all of its payments, then that lender deserves to be punished.
In the Nosek case, the lender never took any of those steps AND Nosek never suffered any economic harm by this accounting methodology. Yet, the Bankruptcy Court awarded her $750,000 in contempt sanctions on account of her $90,000 loan.
That may be an erroneous belief. Nonetheless, it's an erroneous belief that seems to be shared by most Bankruptcy Judges I've run into. They seem to think that payments provided for in the plan ought to be applied the way the plan states. And I've noticed an increasing frustration with the situation where a debtor performs a plan, gets a discharge, and then finds out the mortgage company has been charging late charges the entire time and claims that the debtor is many months in arrears.
As I said, in the district where I practice, the Uniform Plan specifically mandates application of the ongoing mortgage payments. I was surprised that the plan in Nosek seems not to have contained similar provisions. I assume that if the plan specifically ordered application of the payments in a specific way, then 105 would support some kind of sanctions against the creditor, although what the court did in Nosek was certainly extreme.


(For ): It is the group of symmetries of a regular -gon in the plane, viz., the plane isometries that preserves the set of points of the regular -gon.
The dihedral groups arise as a special case of a family of groups called von Dyck groups. They also arise as a special case of a family of groups called Coxeter groups.
Note that for and , the geometric description of the dihedral group does not make sense. In these cases, we use the algebraic description.
Generalized dihedral group: This is a semidirect product of an abelian group by a cyclic group of order two acting via the inverse map.
Coxeter group: Dihedral groups are Coxeter groups with two generators.
Note that all dihedral groups are metacyclic and hence supersolvable. A dihedral group is nilpotent if and only if it is of order for some . It is abelian only if it has order or .
2 1 Cyclic group:Z2 Not usually considered a dihedral group.
12 6 dihedral group:D12 direct product of the dihedral group of order six and the cyclic group of order two.
here denotes the degree, or half the order, of the dihedral group, which we denote as .
order Cyclic subgroup of order , quotient of order .
exponent Exponent of cyclic subgroup is , elements outside have order .
nilpotency class when , none otherwise Nilpotent only if is a power of .
max-length 1 + sum of exponents of prime divisors of The dihedral groups are solvable.
composition length 1 + sum of exponents of prime divisors of The dihedral groups are solvable.
number of subgroups is the divisor sum function and is the divisor count function.
number of conjugacy classes if is odd, if is even.
number of conjugacy classes of subgroups where is the largest odd divisor of subgroups inside the cyclic part. For odd divisors, one external conjugacy class of subgroups per divisor; for even divisors, one external conjugacy class per divisor.
Abelian group no for For , the elements do not commute.
Ambivalent group yes Elements in the cyclic subgroup are conjugate via , elements outside have order two.
Subgroups of the form , where . The number of such subgroups equals the number of positive divisors of , sometimes denoted . The subgroup generated by is a cyclic group of order .
Subgroups of the form , where and . The number of such subgroups equals the sum of all positive divisors of , sometimes denoted . The subgroup of the above form is a dihedral group of order .
In particular, all subgroups of the dihedral group are either cyclic or dihedral.
Dicyclic groups whose order is a power of are termed generalized quaternion groups.
This page was last edited on 8 March 2013, at 08:07.


The open design of the Aspects Peanut Silo is a favorite for many species of birds. The wire mesh secures the feed while allowing ample space for many birds to feast. The wire mesh used in this feeder is stainless steel and the die cast top and bottom feature a powder-coated Spruce finish to withstand the harsh elements of the outdoors. A protective polycarbonate collar keeps the wire mesh true to form and covers any sharp edges. There is a triangular director placed at the base of the tube to be sure all food is easily accessible to the birds. It includes a 5" wire loop or it can also be pole mounted with a 3/4" adaptor.
Recommended types of seed: small whole peanuts, black oil sunflower, or any available peanut mixtures.


Tenure: Flat & parking spaces - Leasehold (88yrs remaining). Warehouse & workshops - Freehold. Vacant possession on completion.
A SUBSTANTIAL FREEHOLD PROPERTY ARRANGED OVER TWO FLOORS WITH THREE BEDROOMS AND A WAREHOUSE/GARAGE.
***STILL AVAILABLE CONTACT US FOR FURTHER DETAILS*** FORMERLY PART OF THE CO- OPERATIVE STORE. A substantial freehold property arranged over two floors. The ground floor briefly comprises workshops/garage currently used as a garage but previously used as a warehouse. To the first floor there is three bedroomed living accommodation. Externally parking is provided for three vehicles. WITH POTENTIAL FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT (subject to the relevant planning consents) or business premisses. VACANT POSSESSION.
Flat & parking spaces - Leasehold (88yrs remaining). Warehouse & workshops - Freehold. Vacant possession on completion.
The property is well placed for all local amenities with first class shopping facilities available in the centre of Hessle and good schools within walking distance. Good road and rail connections together with a mainline train station are also in the vicinity.
Ground Floor: Entrance, Office, Shower Room, Wharehouse, Workshop One, Cold Store, WC, Workshop Two, WC 2. First Floor: Landing, Lounge, Kitchen, Bedroom One, Bedroom Two, Bedroom Three, Bathroom. Outside: Parking is provided for three vehicles.


Palm Endoscopy Center has multiple GI endoscopy procedure rooms with state-of-the art safety and diagnostic equipment, in addition to recovery bays for added privacy and convenient parking. We are confident that patients will find Palm Endoscopy Center to be a very pleasant, safe and convenient alternative to hospital-based endoscopy.
Our physicians and staff are committed to providing our patients with exceptional care through personal attention and trusting relationships.
Our physicians and staff are committed to providing our patients with exceptional care through personal attention and trusting relationships. Your patient satisfaction is our ultimate goal. You can access quality measures and statistics for Ambulatory Surgery Centers in the state of Florida here. Specific information about our facility can be found here.
You can also find data on health care costs on a local, national, and state level here. The service bundle information is a non-personalized estimate of costs that may be incurred by the patient for anticipated services. Actual costs will be based on services actually provided to the patient.


text:
Athlete of the Week: 'Biz' Graeff, Jackson
ELIZABETH 'BIZ' GRAEFF
Jackson, senior, girls swimming
WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT SWIMMING I love our team this year. We are all very close and support each other in and out of the pool.
FAVORITE MEMORY IN SWIMMING Winning the Federal League with the boys team this year because it was gratifying to see how our team's hard work had finally paid off.
WHAT GOT YOU INTERESTED IN SWIMMING I started swimming at Branhaven when I was 7. I was originally interested in the swim team because I would always watch all the older kids having fun at practice and meets.
WHAT'S THE TOUGHEST THING ABOUT SWIMMING Staying mentally positive throughout the season and knowing that in the end you have worked your hardest and everything you've done will guarantee success.
FAVORITE CLASS Material Science
FAVORITE TEACHER Mr. Lautzenheiser
WHAT'S IN YOU IPOD Everything except rap
FAVORITE MOVIE "Tangled"
FAVORITE BOOK "The Fault In Our Stars"
FAVORITE TV SHOW "American Horror Story"
WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO SPEND A DAY WITH My older brother Ben. He is my role model and we always have a fun time together.
SOMETHING ABOUT YOU PEOPLE DON'T KNOW I really love wearing holiday socks.
WHAT ARE YOUR COLLEGE PLANS I plan to swim at the U.S. Naval Academy.
WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN 10 YEARS Serving our nation and pursuing a graduate degree.
Graeff helped Jackson win a second straight Federal League girls swimming title a week ago when the Polar Bears beat rival Hoover to wrap up the championship. Graeff delivered wins in the 50 freestyle and 100 backstroke, as Jackson went 6-0 in league dual meets. She earned All-Ohio and All-American honors a year ago for Jackson, reaching the state meet in three events — 50 freestyle, 200 freestyle relay and 200 medley relay. Graeff finished in the top eight in each, highlighted by helping the Polar Bears place fourth in the 200 freestyle relay. Earlier this season, she set pool records at Perry in each of those events. Graeff also has a 4.4 grade-point average.


text:
А́ла-Су́лкиоя́рви () — озеро на территории Лоймольского сельского поселения Суоярвского района Республики Карелия.

Общие сведения
Площадь озера — 1,1 км², площадь водосборного бассейна — 149 км². Располагается на высоте 144,0 метров над уровнем моря.

Форма озера лопастная, продолговатая: вытянуто с севера на юг. Берега каменисто-песчаные, местами заболоченные.

Через озеро протекает река Муаннонйоки.

В озере расположены четыре небольших острова без названия.

Населённые пункты возле озера отсутствуют. Ближайший — посёлок Райконкоски — расположен в 5,5 км к югу от озера.

Код объекта в государственном водном реестре — 01040300211102000013896.

См. также
 Озёра Карелии

Примечания

Бассейн Муаннонйоки
Озёра Суоярвского района


Pulled a piece of firewood out of the pile and made this shallow bowl. I don't know the species of wood, it may be from a California Pepper Tree. About 6.5" across. Finished with Hut Crystal Coat.
You never know what beauty lurks inside a piece of firewood. Nice job bringing it back to life.
I think you better make another bowl out of the left over piece, nice colours!
I like the rescued wood use too.
DBB, It's incredible what creations you can make out of a piece of (s)crap.
When trying to define a piece of timber you cannot identify, adopt the practice of Binomial nomenclature (but with steroids).
LOSR – Log On Side of Road.
BOOMBY – Branch Out Of My Back Yard.
IHANI – I Have Absolutely No Idea.
Very nice bowl. if only everyone could see what is hidden in firewood, they would probably switch to coal!


Contact us if you need more details on China Professional Manufacturer Outdoor Exercise Equipment with High Quality. We are ready to answer your questions on packaging, logistics, certification or any other aspects about China Fitness Equipment、China Outdoor Fitness Equipment. If these products fail to match your need, please contact us and we would like to provide relevant information.


text:
A decision support tool for multi-disciplinary conceptual design
Conceptual design is perhaps one of the most innovative stages of the design process in which about 70% to 80% of the project resources are committed. Decisions taken at the conceptual stage are normally the duty of senior engineers with experience in the area. It is therefore essential to ensure that the decisions made at this stage are the right ones, otherwise mistakes made can be extremely costly to rectify later on in the design process. This paper reports results of research carried by the authors in the University of Plymouth. A decision support tool is described which uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and visualisation techniques to allow designers from different disciplines involved in the design (the design team) to explore the search and solution spaces widely in order to shortlist candidate compromised designs meeting some of the requirements of multi-disciplinary design. This exploration can result in an agreed framework for further stages of the design. A major benefit of the research reported in this paper is the interactive use of the visualisation tool in exploring solutions generated by the computer. This assists designers in their decision making process. Yaqub Rafiq, BSc, MSc, PhD, CEng, MIStructE Senior Lecturer in Structural Engineering, University of Plymouth Martin Beck, BA, BSc, MSc Lecturer School of Computing Communications and Electronics, University of Plymouth
Design and construction of an environmental enclosure for a submarine refitting dock at Devonport
Devon and Cornwall Branch
Implications of the collapse of the de la Concorde underpass
Increasing female participation in engineering education - Initiatives at The University of Plymouth
This paper examines some of the reasons for the low participation of females in engineering education and careers, drawing upon empirical research from a study of sixth formers' A-level and career choices and their images of engineering as a career. The paper then structuralengineer THE describes and evaluates two initiatives at the University of Plymouth which aim to increase female participation and facilitate the transition from study to careers in the industry. It concludes by considering what more can be done to attract and retain women in engineering education and careers. E. A. Hodgkinson, PhD School of Engineering, Reynolds Building, University of Plymouth, Plymouth
James Sutherland History Lecture
Kenneth Severn Award 2008
Maitland Lecture
Nomograms - a lost but useful art
Taw Bridge, Barnstaple - design and construction
Taw Bridge is a five-span crossing of the Taw estuary in Devon. It forms part of the Barnstaple Western Bypass, a 2.7km relief road scheme, for which a design and build contract was awarded by Devon County Council to Edmund Nuttall Ltd in 2004. The bridge was opened in May 2007. The bridge is a cast in situ post-tensioned concrete box girder with a total length of 409m. The majority of the structure is built by the balanced cantilever method over the estuary, which is a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The substructure comprises two abutments and four piers, the latter being constructed within the estuary using cofferdams. At tender design phase it was recognised that building a temporary causeway connecting the cofferdams to the shore would offer substantial benefits to the contractor and to residents by reducing vehicle movements through the town. The paper presents some of the unusual aspects of the design and construction of the bridge, its materials and the construction techniques assumed in the design and used in the execution. Malcolm Fletcher, MBE, MSc, FREng, FICE Halcrow, Consultant Raj Janmejay, MSc(Bridges), MIE(I) Senior Bridge Engineer, Halcrow Paul Wright, BSc(Hons), MICE Engineer, Halcrow


Located in the county of Hampshire, Winchester is a vibrant heritage destination steeped in history as the former seat of King Alfred, the Great. Being just an hour south-west of London, you will find Winchester has the perfect mix of city life and idyllic countryside surroundings. We've put together some of the best places to visit and also some fun attractions and activities to enjoy with the whole family.
Over 1000 years of history are to be explored at Winchester Cathedral. With it's 12th-century wall paintings, medieval carvings and the illuminated Winchester Bible, a visit to the Cathedral is an inspiring day out for everyone. If you're taking the children, there is a children's trail which offers a fun and informative insight to the Cathedral where they can learn more about some of the characters associated with its past and present. You'll certainly want to be a part of the tour lead by Cathedral Guides to make the most of your trip, and these operate Monday – Saturday starting every hour from 10am – 3pm, included in admission charge.
After (or before) your visit to the Cathedral, head to Wolvesey Castle which is just a stone's throw away. During the Middle Ages, this played home to rich and powerful men - the Bishops of Winchester, who were the relations and advisors of kings. The last great spectacle these now ruins, saw, was the wedding breakfast held by Mary and Philip of Spain in 1554 in the East Hall which was transformed with silk and gold hangings for the grand event. Depending on when you visit take a pair of wellies or good walking shoes as parts of the site are uneven and can become muddy but if you're visiting on a pleasant day, why not pack a picnic and enjoy lunch on the historic grounds.
The English Romantic poet, John Keats once stayed in Winchester during the late summer and early autumn of 1819 and it was here, during this time he penned his ode To Autumn inspired by his daily walks in which he explored the natural beauty of Winchester. He once said, upon reflecting his time there it as "An exceeding pleasant town, enriched with a beautiful Cathedral and surrounded by fresh-looking country". Now, you can follow in the footsteps of Keats' as you journey through the city which begins at the Tourist Information Centre. You will come across King Alfred's statue, the 14th Century Deanery, Winchester College, the water meadows and St Catherine's Hill, just to name a few. You can download this MAP which gives you a detailed written description to help identify all the locations as well a map to trace your steps.
This is potentially one of the oldest working watermills in the UK with a history of over 1000 years. There are lots on hands-on activities and audio-visual displays about milling, as well as regular flour milling and baking demonstrations and you can also learn more about the rich wildlife in the area too including the resident otters! The City Mill is a great, informative place for everyone to enjoy. It is also the official gateway to the South Downs National Park and provides a wide selection of information for those wishing to explore the walks and attractions found within the South Downs.
The Westgate is the last of the main medieval gates into the city that remains to this day. Once a debtors' prison for 150 years, you can see the walls eerily covered in prisoners' graffiti! You will find a vast, unique collection of weights and measures as well as a Tudor ceiling from Winchester College. Go on up to the Westgate roof and take in the spectacular views of the city! There's also the opportunity for your little ones to try on a suit of armour or even give authentic brass rubbing a go.
Embrace your inner wild side at Marwell Zoo and journey around the 140-acres to meet an incredible range of both exotic and endangered species including Snow Leopards, Hippos, Rhinos, Meerkats and so much more! There are daily talks and activities so do check the 'What's On' section before your visit so you can plan your day! You'll certainly work up an appetite with all that exploring but thankfully there are plenty of restaurants and kiosks around to keep you full or if you'd prefer to bring a picnic and enjoy lunch in one of the idyllic spots around the zoo, that'd be lovely too. What's a day out without a souvenir to remember it by… Stop in at the Gift Shop to find the perfect item before you go.
Vary dependent on the time of year. See HERE.
Perfect for a whole family, all-weather day out! There are over 100 exhibits to explore, each one covering a different aspect of science and technology. The Science Centre also has the UK's largest capacity planetarium offering a state-of-the-art digital experience with images projected around a 360-degree domed screen. Discover what goes on in the gut at Colon Café and learn about good and bad bacteria, as well as how what you put in your body affects what comes out! Unleash your inner tinker in The Invention Studio or have a fun family challenge in the Science of Sports Zoe… There is so much to see and do here you won't know where to begin! A new café, The Hub, is now open at the Space Centre so why not stop in for some delicious hot or cold treats or if you'd prefer to bring your own, there are tables provided for picknicking both indoors and outside.
Not far from the heart of Winchester - Home to Peppa Pig World, Paultons Family Theme Park has over 70 attractions and has been voted as the number 1 UK theme park for families by Mumsnet. For those little Peppa Pig lovers, there are 7 fun theme park rides to choose from as well as meet and greets with both Peppa & George! This really is a park to be enjoyed by the whole family, there's something for everyone whether you're seeking your inner adrenaline junkie on The Flight of the Pterosaur or wanting to have a splash around in the Water Kingdom, get up close and personal at Alive! Dinosaur Encounter or head out on the Discovery Trail, there is just so much to do. There are Events & Shows held year round so check HERE for anything up and coming.
Sometimes, when the weather's not great there is still an adventure to be had! This is a brilliant indoor playground where the little ones can play safely and securely whatever the weather, purpose-built for toddlers through to 10-year-olds. The soft play, indoor zone pans three levels and includes a tube slide, aerial runway, cargo net obstacle and tumble rollers. In the adventure zone which is outdoors, they will love the trampolines, climbing frame and slide. For parents, there is a wonderful on-site Bistro which serves a range of hot and cold beverages and food and as it's situated within the Adventure Barn, the restaurant benefits from large windows so you can relax whilst watching over the little ones.
If you struggle to get the kids involved in learning more about the surroundings, this self-guided Treasure Trail will be perfect for you! Suggested for anyone aged 6 or above, the Trail should take around 2 hours to complete and it will take you along a 1.6 mile circuit route. As you start the journey you will need to solve sneaky clues set on existing buildings, features and monuments to discover the location of the buried treasure. The Trail starts at the Guildhall and do take the time to try and get all the correct answers as these are entered into a monthly £100 prize draw so you never know!


Hello all! My goodness, this has been a busy week, what with the eating of turkey and the release of Guardian of the Pumpkin Patch last week. If you still haven't read it, I strongly recommend clicking that there link and giving it a look. With a wild week behind us, and the fact that today I'll be going to my first ever Magic Kingdom Christmas Party, this week's update will be short and sweet. Today we have some amazing fanart of Del Hatherhorne, our main character and not so heroic mouse friend. Check out the art and give these artist some love. They all do commissions and are fast, friendly and wonderful to work with!
First up is a great bust piece from TheCyberSkull, who you can check out by heading to that there link. I love the colors in this piece. I also like that Del looks like a strapping young lad ready to go out adventuring. In some cases, I let the artist choose which character to draw, and everyone so far has picked Del! I think the scarf is just to snazzy to say 'No' to.
Our second piece comes to us from Liz LaRocca who ran a special commission on Animal Crossing themed characters. Well now, given my absolute love of that series, how on earth could I not jump in! I love that Del is reading a book, his favorite past time, and I love that he looks a little glum. Del can sort of be his own worst enemy and this piece really exudes that. Thanks Liz!!
Finally, we have an absolutely adorable piece by Daisy Vayle. There's so much hope in Del's eyes on this one! He looks full of wonder and curiosity! Something I will say about Daisy is that she works super fast and does all sorts of fun styles!
That's it for this week! Let me know which one is your favorite, OR, if you're like me and they ALL ARE!!! If you are interested in doing a commission of some of the Longtails characters, feel free to shoot me a message here, or on Facebook or Twitter. I'll let you know my budget and what I'm looking for and then we can go from there!
In the meantime, have an awesome week and I'll be back with another full blown update next Sunday!!!
The Cyber Skull one is my favorite! 🙂 However, I like them all!


Junk cars are those damaged vehicles which are advisable to the owner to sell its parts rather than trying to repair it. Below is a list of eye-openers in the selection of the best car junk removal company.
Getting to understand the salvage car buyer's reputation is an important matter when it comes to selling the junk car. Dealing with a company with good reputation, it is a guarantee that the customer will be served in the best way possible. Car junk companies with a good reputation, in m cost cases, offers regular payments to the customers. For the car owner to know the best performing car junk dealers, it is important for them to research on the various companies web pages as well as the customers feedback. Damaged car owners can also understand the companies' reputation through their mechanics or from family and friends.
It is a concern for the customer to know the price at which the salvage car company buys the cars. The car owner should always deal with a firm whose business is buying used cars which pay cash. Thus, it is important for one to ensure that the price at which the junk car dealer is willing to pay satisfies the customer.
It is advisable for a damaged car owner to find a dealer who is reliable and trustworthy. The salvage vehicle dealer should offer the customers no doubt on their existence and operation in the market.
It is important for individuals to look out for the local car dealers before selling their used cars. It is convenient, and in most cases, the car owner is likely to be charged less for the towing services. Junk cars can lead to environmental pollution, thus the need for the car owner to sell it to the junk dealers for recycle or proper disposal.
Time is another crucial factor that a damaged car owner should look out for a while electing the best salvage vehicle dealer. Individuals should take their time to look for the firm that offers the conveniences that make it worthwhile to sell their vehicles such as the payment methods, free car removals as well as convenient time for car removal. The main purpose for the junk dealers, normally is to recycle them and thus reduce the chances of polluting the environment thus it is important for individuals to look out for this ability on the dealers.
In most cases the dealer ill want some proofs that the car actually belongs to the customer, thus need to provide ownership documents. Most dealers do not purchase cars that are not owned by the customers, thus title presented as a proof should have the name as it is on the national identification card.


The LM80 Laser is a high performance laser transmitter that accurately measures level, distance and position over long ranges in extreme environments. The LM80 features advanced timing and sophisticated signal processing for pinpoint accuracy at up to 100 m (330 ft.) for level applications and up to 150 m (500 ft.) for positioning applications.
The LM200 Laser is a laser-based distance measuring instrument used in process control systems. The on-board microprocessor calculates distance by multiplying the speed of light by the time it takes for a laser pulse to travel from the instrument to a target and back. The measuring laser uses invisible, infrared light. There is a second, visible aiming laser to help with the alignment of the measuring laser. The laser beams have very little divergence so that accurate targeting is easy even in silos or vessels that have internal structures.


text:
Q: If then else if type to seperate methods I have a method like this:
//in Constant class
MathObject add(MathObject addend){
    if (addend instanceof Constant)
    {
        return new Constant(this.c + addend.c);
    }
    if (addend instanceof Variable)
    {
        return new Sum(this, addend);
    }
    //...
}

I would like to convert that structure into something like this:
//in Constant class
Constant add(Constant addend){
    return new Constant(this.c + addend.c);
}

Addition add(Variable addend){
    return new Sum(this, addend);
}
//...

This way the right method for each object would be found in a more structured way, more important the actual return type is known.
The problem is that for some cases, such as an addition with Product and a Variable it is unknown whether the returned object will be an Addition or a Product, like this:
//in Variable class
MathObject add(Product addend){
    if (addend.contains(this))
    {
        //code
        return new Product(newArray);
    }
    else
    {
        return new Sum(this, addend);
    }
}

The problem I'm having is that when I use such type specific operations (i.e. add(Constant), not new Sum(constant, variable)) on a MathObject, Java will regard its declared type rather than its actual type, throwing an error like: no suitable method found for..., summing all operation methods and saying MathObject isn't in them.
To clarify Constant, Variable and all other objects used here naturally extend MathObject.
contains(Variable variable) is a method to find whether a Product already contains the Variable.
The idea is to be able to do something like this:
new Constant(2).multiply(new Variable(1)).add(new Variable(1)).add(new Constant(1));

Here the multiply and the first add operation will work with type specific methods, but the second will fail because the first will return a MathObject instead of a specific object and Java doesn't check the actual types for method selection.
These are what the different classes look like:
//These are all in different files, silly formatting doesn't allow me to split code sections.
public class Constant extends MathObject{
    public final double c;

    public Constant(double c){
        this.c = c;
    }

    //methods
}

public class Variable extends MathObject{
    public double v;

    public Variable(double v){
        this.v = v;
    }

    //methods
}

public class Sum extends MathObject{
    public MathObject summands;

    public Addition(MathObject... summands){
        this.summands = summands;
    }

    //methods
 }

Is there anything I'm missing? Or is this bad practice (and what is the better then)? Is this even possible or am I doomed to the ugly if statement chain?

A: The problem is you have the wrong abstractions. You need classes like
public interface NumberExpr {
  NumberExpr apply();
  Number get();
}

public class Constant implements NumberExpr {
  final Number val;
}

public class Variable implements NumberExpr {
  final Map<String, Number> symbols;
  final String symbolName;
}

public class Addition implements NumberExpr {
  final NumberExpression op1;
  final NumberExpression op2;
}

It's not clear if you need unary and ternary operators, however just consider the simplest binary operations:
+ op1 op2
- op1 op2
* op1 op2
/ op1 op2

Maybe you have rules for evaluation odrder, precedence and associativity, anyway you'll end up with something like:
new Multiplication(
    new Addition(new Variable("counter", ctx), new Variable("i", ctx))
  , new Constant(Math.PI)
)

Maybe you first need a step to .evaluate() expressions and then .apply(), anyway you get the final result simply by calling .apply() and then .get() on the final result.