text:
Bilateral X-ray of the hands and wrists of a 54 year old patient with rheumatoid arthritis. On the right hand (left), there is arthritis in the wrist joints. There is a loss of bone space and the bones are beginning to fuse. On the left hand (right), there are bony growths in the left finger joints causing inflammation. Rheumatoid arthritis is a degenerative autoimmune disease that mainly affects the capsule around the flexible joints, causing chronic inflammation. It can be a debilitating and painful condition and can lead to deformities and loss of functioning and mobility.
Image by ZEPHYR, Science Source
The end of inflammation? New approach could treat dozens of diseases.
Cancer, aging, and severe COVID-19 have all been linked to damage from inflammation. Now scientists are flipping their focus to find new drugs that may revolutionize treatments.
ByConnie Chang
Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, Lauren Finney Harden had always had allergies. But after she moved to New York City for her first job in 2007, inflammation "just exploded" throughout her body.
"I had insane full-body rashes and strange gastro issues. I'd get massive burps that made me feel like I needed to throw up, but nothing would come up but air," she says. Eventually, she was diagnosed with lupus, a disease in which the immune system attacks the body's own tissues and organs. She was put on a drug called prednisone, a corticosteroid that tamps down inflammation.
But the cure, at times, felt worse than the disease. "I looked four months pregnant all the time," Finney Harden says, "and I'd get cold sores every other week; my body could not fight off anything."
Finney Harden's experience is unfortunately a common one with traditional autoimmune treatments like prednisone. A broad immunosuppressant, prednisone works by disabling the production of pro-inflammatory molecules that are crucial for the body to mount an immune defense. So while prednisone—and drugs like it—are adept at quickly snuffing out inflammation, they leave the body vulnerable to any bug it encounters, and they can come with toxic side effects.
"Simply stopping inflammation is not enough to return tissue to its normal state," says Ruslan Medzhitov, a professor of immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine. This approach ignores the other side of the inflammation coin: resolution. Resolving inflammation is an active, highly choreographed process for rebuilding tissue and removing the dead bacteria and cells. When that process is disrupted, inflammatory diseases arise.
In the early 2000s researchers began to recognize the role of inflammation in conditions as varied as Alzheimer's, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, prompting them to recast inflammation as the unifying explanation for a myriad of ailments, including those we develop as we age. Even aging itself, and its associated pathologies, is driven by persistent inflammation.
"Until relatively recently, we believed that inflammation just stopped," says Molly Gilligan, an internal medicine resident at Columbia University who studies how the immune system impacts cancer development. Immunologists thought that products of inflammation—molecules that trigger it and dead cells and tissue—are eventually metabolized, or spontaneously dissipate on their own.
The reality is more complicated, and recognizing that could have game-changing effects on how we treat a wide swath of diseases.
Why is inflammation dangerous?
Inflammation evolved to serve an important function: It rids our bodies of stuff that doesn't belong, including foreign invaders like bacteria and viruses, tumor cells, and irritants like splinters.
"A classic example of inflammatory onset is the bee sting—the site becomes hot, red, swollen, and painful," says Derek Gilroy, a professor of immunology at University College London. This response comes from a series of biological changes: blood vessels dilate to deliver white blood cells to the site of injury, making tissues turn red. Fluid also floods the site, causing swelling. The molecules that trigger these vascular transformations precipitate the itching, pain, and fever associated with inflammation.
White blood cells, the body's first responders, then swarm and kill the invaders. Under normal circumstances, this carnage is contained, with the initial inflammatory response subsiding within 24 to 48 hours.
When inflammation becomes chronic, though, the chemical weapons deployed by front-line immune cells often damage healthy tissue, and our bodies become collateral damage. The price exacted includes worn joints, damaged neurons, scarred kidneys, and more. Autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, characterized by pain and worsening disability, have long been associated with persistent inflammation.
In extreme cases, such as the cytokine storms associated with sepsis or severe COVID-19, inflammation can destroy and disable multiple organs, leading to catastrophic system failure and death.
What happens after inflammation?
Medzhitov likens an infection to a broken pipe that has flooded an office with water. Fixing the pipe might stop water from streaming in, but it doesn't restore the office to its previous, functional state. Similarly, inflammation has a clean-up phase known as resolution, and it proceeds in a series of highly coordinated steps.
Like inflammation's onset, its resolution is orchestrated by an army of signaling molecules. Among the most intensely studied are the specialized pro-resolving mediators, or SPMs, which were discovered in the 1990s by Charles Serhan, a professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School. Serhan was inspired by his postdoctoral mentor, Bengt Samuelsson, who uncovered how fatty molecules called lipids trigger inflammation. Serhan was searching for similar molecules when he identified lipoxin. But to his surprise, rather than inciting inflammation, lipoxin seemed to hamper it.
Over the next several years, Serhan and his colleagues identified additional SPMs. These molecules are derived from essential fatty acids such as those omega-3s famously found in cold-water fish like salmon and sardines. But they are difficult to study in the lab. "One of the main challenges is that they have short half-lives, so the body metabolizes them very quickly," Gilligan says. Because of this, researchers who work on them often turn to synthetic versions of the molecules, or mimetics, which are simpler, more stable, and cheaper to produce.
Catherine Godson, a professor of molecular medicine at University College Dublin, has long been interested in diabetes, given its impact on global public health as the most common cause of kidney failure. When she learned of SPMs, she was excited by the idea of encouraging resolution to treat diabetics, a "population with a particularly high risk for infection."
In mice with diabetic kidney disease, scarring from kidney inflammation gradually destroys the organ. Her team is testing the therapeutic potential of a lipoxin mimetic in these and other animal models. They've also looked at the mimetic's effect in human tissue in lab cell cultures taken from patients with atherosclerosis, an inflammatory disease of the blood vessel wall. In both cases, inflammatory factors plummeted when the mimetic was introduced; for the mice, the kidneys recovered their function in a stunning reversal of established disease.
Gilroy notes, however, that the story on SPMs is incomplete. "While lipoxins are present at levels in the body that indicate that they're important in resolution, other SPMs such as resolvins require more evaluation," he says.
Manipulating macrophages
Scientists speculate that one way lipoxins and other pro-resolution molecules work is by interacting with immune cells called macrophages.
Because they're so abundant during inflammation, macrophages have traditionally been thought of as pro-inflammatory cells, says Gerhard Krönke, an immunologist and rheumatologist at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. "But a paradigm shift in the last decade or so suggests that macrophages are pivotal players in the resolution of inflammation."
Gilroy agrees, calling macrophages "linchpin cells at the juxtaposition of inflammation and resolution: It can go one way if we're healthy and the other way if we're not."
Initially, when the danger posed by invaders is at its peak, the macrophages drawn to the area are inflammatory—secreting pro-inflammatory cytokines and amping up production of antimicrobial agents. But this balance shifts as the tide of the confrontation turns. After the number of viruses declines, the debris left behind—viral remnants, dead immune cells, and other waste—must be collected and cleared away before it sparks another cycle of inflammation. That's when the macrophages switch gears.
Attracted by "eat me" signals expressed on the surface of dying cells, macrophages readily engulf and clear cellular corpses from the environment. But it's not just about clearing the wreckage—this act also flips a genetic switch, reprogramming macrophages to restore balance to the system and heal the tissues.
"Macrophages start to produce factors that tell the local tissue, Don't recruit any more inflammatory cells here, or, Let's proliferate and start repairs there," says Kodi Ravichandran, an immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis whose research focuses on how dead cells are cleared from the body.
Clearing away cellular debris
Now consensus is building that many of the illnesses attributed to inflammation—both chronic and acute—can be traced to a failure in resolution. Often that translates into a failure to clear away dead cells.
"If you knock out receptors in the macrophages of mice that recognize dying cells, for example, they become incapable of eating up these cells, resulting in a lupus-like disease," with symptoms such as arthritis and skin rash, says Krönke.
A similar mechanism is at work in older people, says Gilroy. As we age, the body loses a protein that recognizes dying cells; this blocks macrophages' ability to find and eat debris. Locked in a pro-inflammatory state, these macrophages continue to produce molecules that amplify the inflammatory response early on.
Perhaps COVID-19 has been more severe in older populations "because they've lost some of the pro-resolution pathways with age," suggests Luke O'Neill, an immunologist at Trinity College Dublin. He notes that COVID-19 has also been problematic for people with genetic differences that impact immune function, resulting in overactive inflammatory responses or underactive pro-resolving ones. His group and others have demonstrated that macrophages primed for inflammatory action play a significant role in critical COVID-19 cases, and they are currently testing pro-resolving strategies to combat this effect.
Cancer's course, too, is affected when inflammation fails to resolve. The soup of toxins, growth factors, and other inflammatory by-products that accompany inflammation spurs cancer's growth and spread. Many conventional treatments end up exacerbating the problem, according to Dipak Panigrahy, an assistant professor of pathology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
"Chemotherapy and radiation are like sledgehammers," Panigrahy says. "They may kill the tumor, but the debris they create stimulates inflammation, which feeds circulating tumor cells that survive the treatment."
A decade ago, Panigrahy was puzzling over this conundrum when he met Serhan at a conference on lipids in Cancún, Mexico. "I had just presented my research on cell death in cancer and how there's no way to clear the resulting debris when I heard Serhan's talk about how he discovered these lipids that eliminated debris," he says. The two Boston-based researchers have shared a close collaboration ever since.
In proof-of-concept experiments conducted on mice, Panigrahy's group was able to prevent tumors from recurring after surgery by dosing the animals with mimetics of resolvin, one of the pro-resolving mediators discovered in Serhan's lab. Phase one clinical trials for pancreatic, brain, and colon cancers will begin this year, says Panigrahy.
Long COVID and inflammation
Although much work remains to decode its secrets, "long COVID likely results from a catastrophic failure of appropriate immune response and resolution," Gilroy suggests.
Meg St. Esprit is part of a large cohort of COVID-19 survivors who continue to suffer symptoms months after the virus has passed. She and her family contracted the disease in November 2020, and for seven days the mother of four in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was beset by a high fever and severe headaches. Debilitating fatigue, vertigo, and brain fog soon followed. But while her husband and children recovered, St. Esprit's symptoms lingered, and new ones emerged.
Since her bout with COVID-19, she has developed blood clots and myocarditis—dangerous consequences of inflammation. It's also as if her entire body has gone haywire. "Different parts of it regularly flare up now," she says. "My thumb joints swell to twice their normal size, my knee puffs out like a grapefruit, and I've had hives more times than I can count."
Drugs to tweak the natural inflammatory process would thus be a powerful tool in our arsenal for long COVID as well. Even now the hunt is on. O'Neill and colleagues, for example, are testing molecules in clinical trials that push macrophages to be pro-resolving. SPMs are being tested extensively in animal models of diseases like cancer and sepsis, and more modestly in small patient trials studying eczema and periodontal disease.
But Gilroy cautions that the answer may be more nuanced than anti-inflammatory versus pro-resolution, and that drugs targeting both approaches may be needed.
"It's like driving a car at full speed," he says. "In order to stop, you take your foot off the accelerator, which would be like dampening inflammation's onset. And then you apply the brakes, or in other words, promote its resolution."


Feedbooks has a free ebook of The Great Gatsby available to download (the picture link on the left goes to Barnes & Noble's copy, which is $11.99 for the ebook). I've downloaded it and started looking through it, and it seems to be nicely formatted, with none of the typos or formatting issues that seem to be common in some cheap or free classics. I'm not sure whether The Great Gatsby is actually part of the public domain, though, so it's up to you whether you feel right about downloading it.
I actually reread the book a couple months ago, but looking through my posts, it looks like I actually forgot to review it. Whoops! I'll do that soon.


Wealth management giant St James's Place published its annual results this week. Here are the key things we learned from its 93-page report and analyst presentation.
Advice giant St James's Place (SJP) announced its annual results this week. We have pulled together some of the most notable elements of the full 93-page report, along with a couple of the key talking points that arose from the executive team's presentation to City analysts, which was chief executive Andrew Croft's second since taking the helm.
2018 was a tricky year for all wealth managers and even SJP is not immune to market shocks, but it weathered the sell-off better than most.
Assets under management (AUM) fell from a peak of £100.6 billion last September to finish the end of 2018 at £95.6 billion, up slightly from £90.7 billion 12 months earlier. After January's market rally AUM has since risen to £102 billion.
Last year SJP made the audacious assertion it could hit 15-20% gross inflows each year, and in 2018 it managed to achieve this target (again).
Gross inflows for 2018 were £15.7 billion (up from £14.6 billion) and net inflows were at £10.3 billion (up from £9.5 billion). This did show a £5.4 billion outflow for the business but the growth is still remarkable.
However the firm's chief executive Andrew Croft warned today this pace of growth is slowing.
'Challenging external factors, like those currently being experienced, are not in our control and the pace of fund flows has moderated compared with last year,' he said.
We live in an increasingly unpredictable world, but one thing which does provide certainty is SJP's ability to deliver strong profits year-after-year. 2018 was no exception to this with the advice giant posting profit before shareholder tax of £211.9 million, up from £186.1 million in 2017.
EEV operating profit (which takes account of future income) was up by 9% at £1 billion.
SJP's share price was down 3.6% in hours after trading but it has since recovered.
Last year saw SJP move its client assets onto the back-office platform Bluedoor, run by DST. The migration saw £24 billion of accumulation pensions and £5 billion of drawdown money move onto Bluedoor, with the remainder of assets set to be moved this year.
These big replatforming projects rarely come cheap and SJP's accounts showed it had spent a further £35.8 million on the migration last year, bringing the total replatforming bill to date to £236.4 million.
In a presentation to City analysts this morning, SJP chief operations technology officer Ian Mackenzie said that migration work will be finished 'over the coming months'.
'We will have done something very few have done before – we will have launched a new platform, we will migrate to a new platform, we will switch off the old one, and we will have done so with minimal impact to our clients and partners,' he said.
SJP's advice charging structure is often the subject of debate and this year costs and charges will be disclosed in fresh detail due to new Mifid II disclosure requirements. (We reported on SJP's efforts around cost disclosure recently).
However all its recent accounts show an upward trajectory for SJP's advice fee revenues.
For 2018 SJP made £743.2 million from post-RDR advice charges, up from £656.5 million in the previous year.
As concerns surrounding the supply of financial advice within the UK mount, it seems SJP is having a more positive time.
SJP's partnership model now has 3,954 advisers within it, which is an 8% increase on 2017 numbers.
'We welcomed a net 293 new advisers through a combination of our experienced adviser recruitment channels and our academy initiative,' the company said.
Perhaps this is one reason why Andrew Croft claims in the company's annual results the business is performing well, relative to the sector.
SJP has a big vision for how to increase young blood in financial planning, and its academy is undoubtedly the healthiest looking of all the big firms.
The company spent £10 million on it in 2018, which it believes is an investment in the profession and the future of the company.
Last year 142 people graduated from the SJP academy and next generation academy, and at the end of 2018 379 people were taking part in the programme. The company's paraplanning academy saw 50 'partner support staff' become fully diploma qualified in 2018.
SJP is still paying a large amount in industry levies which support the safety nets available to consumers should things go wrong.
SJP's Financial Services Compensation Scheme levy fall last year with a contribution after tax of £12.8 million in 2018, compared to £17.1 million the previous year.
However its regulatory fees increased post-tax from £6.8 million to £8.1 million. We know this is something all IFAs are keeping a close eye on, so it will be interesting to see how this changes and develops over time.
Comment: When will the SJP cavalry ride in to force FSCS reform?
SJP bought out Bristol-based private client broker and asset manager Rowan Dartington for £34 million in July 2015, describing the purchase at the time as an 'excellent platform' for further growth.
An update on the purchase in the annual results today showed Rowan Dartington is now managing £2.3 billion in total funds. It now has operations in Hong Kong, and SJP wants to expand its reach to Singapore.
Is SJP building a hotel?
The fine details in the company's accounting for 2018 reveal an investment in a hotel development.
The business notes a 'funding commitment' of a £20.3 million for 'a hotel development on a freehold site owned by the group'. Building works are set to take place 'over the next two years,' the business said. The site has been pre-let to a hotel operator, with the lease completing on delivery of the finished building.
So will we be able to spend a night at the SJP-inn?
Apparently, the development is held within the company's property fund, which is invested in by clients and managed by external fund manager Orchard Street.
'There's not any more to it than that and certainly no SJP hotel on the horizon,' a spokesperson said.
In its analysts presentation this morning, SJP managing director Ian Gascoigne said new entrants to the wealth management market 'underestimate' the challenge.
'It's no surprise other businesses want to enter the market, but these businesses always underestimate the challenge of building distribution,' he said.
In the same analysts presentation, Gascoigne outlined the company's predictions for IFA supply in the next few years, and it presents SJP - in his opinion - with an enormous business opportunity.
'78% of all our advisers are under 55 - the average age of IFAs is 60. There's an advice gap, we've got the right age group and a growing distribution, so we are confident about the future,' he said.


We have worked closely with Origin to find you the most affordable aluminium front door within their range. This SE04 door panel with standard black handles is not only contemporary but sleek and impressive!
Our exclusive Front door offer is available on any size of this 7016 Anthracite Grey panel combination which includes; Black standard handle, Black gasket and Q-lon with a standard weathered or mobility threshold.
If you are interested in this front door or would like more information please visit our showroom, call or email the office. Do not forget if you would like to change this panel the full Origin range is still available with 100's of colours and combinations for you to explore.


WASHINGTON – Republican presidential contenders on Friday scolded Congress for extravagant spending of tax dollars, and Rudy Giuliani blamed the issue for GOP losses in last year's elections.
"We lost control of Congress because we were just like the Democrats as far as spending is concerned -- shame on us," Giuliani told the anti-tax group Americans for Prosperity.
Mitt Romney said: "It's time for Republicans to act like Republicans" and he promised to veto any spending increase that is more than the inflation rate minus one percentage point.
Fred Thompson made a joke of lawmakers' free-spending ways, saying that as a senator from Tennessee, he once "accidentally spent some of my own money."
Arizona Sen. John McCain also railed against too much spending, saying in a speech Thursday night that Democrats "will tax, spend, regulate and dictate for the benefit of special interests and partisan objectives."
Giuliani and Romney spent much of their speeches ridiculing Hillary Rodham Clinton and other Democratic candidates.
Giuliani quipped that "Republicans are amateur spenders, and Democrats are professional spenders."
Romney mentioned Clinton's argument that she is a candidate of change and said: "I think she would change America, and we'd go from prosperity to poverty."
Giuliani drew applause dozens of times as he described how he cut income and business taxes, slashed welfare rolls and trimmed employees from his city's payroll as mayor of New York. His record on taxes is an advantage for Giuliani, who is at odds with social conservatives who typically hold sway over Republican primary elections.
Yet Romney has argued Giuliani is vulnerable on the issue because the former mayor fought to eliminate a line-item veto, which a president can use to reject spending, and because Giuliani maintained a commuter tax in New York. And Romney advertises that he has signed a pledge not to raise taxes, which Giuliani has refused to do.
"Actually, as governor, I used the line item veto more than 844 times," Romney said. "I can't wait to do it in Washington."
At the presidential level, the line-item veto was short lived. Congress passed it in 1996, President Clinton used it in 1997, and the Supreme Court struck it down as unconstitutional in 1998.
One of Clinton's line-item vetoes kept New York from raising taxes on hospitals. Giuliani filed a lawsuit resulting in the high court's ruling.
Taxes have sparked pointed exchanges, as Giuliani's campaign responded that Romney offered no tax cuts during his four years as Massachusetts governor and allowed taxation on out-of-state residents working in Massachusetts, of vacation pay, deferred compensation and other income. A Giuliani campaign release referred to "Romney's Taxachusetts."
Giuliani's campaign also pointed out Romney refused to sign a no-new-taxes pledge in 2002.
Other GOP hopefuls -- former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback and Texas Rep. Ron Paul -- also addressed the group. Brownback argued for fixing Social Security with private savings accounts, saying, "if the money is in personal accounts, the government can't spend it."
Giuliani, who leads the GOP presidential field in most national polls, and Romney drew hoots and cheers when they described Clinton's idea of giving a $5,000 savings bond to every U.S.-born baby. The audience was receptive; members' name tags bore Ronald Reagan's picture.
Giuliani said the price tag of Clinton's proposal would be more than $20 billion and joked about the cost of printing bonds with Clinton's picture on them.
"This costs money -- it doesn't come from trees; it doesn't come from heaven," Giuliani said.
Clinton and top-tier Democratic rivals Barack Obama and John Edwards would pay for their more costly proposals by repealing tax cuts.
Giuliani argued for indexing the alternative minimum tax to inflation and repealing the estate tax, saying the tax reductions would actually generate tax revenues and not cost money because they would stimulate the economy.
By the time he left office as mayor, Giuliani said, "we were collecting 41 percent more revenue from the low taxes than we were collecting from high taxes."
Thompson said that approach works: "When you have tax cuts, revenue isn't lost. The taxpayer knows where it is; it's in his pocket." He and Romney both pledged to cut corporate taxes.
Romney also said he would make President Bush's tax cuts permanent, have more marginal tax rates, hold the line on Social Security taxes and would not tax interest, capital gains and dividends for people making less than $200,000 a year.


text:
O Brisbane Roar Football Club é um clube de futebol da cidade de Brisbane, na Austrália, fundado em 2005.

História
O Brisbane RFC compete na principal competição do país, a A-League, sob licença da Federação Australiana de Futebol.

O clube foi formado em 1957 como Hollandia-Inala, e tornou-se Lions de Brisbane, antes de se transferir para o Queensland Roar, jogando com esse nome desde a temporada inaugural de 2005-2006 da A-League até a temporada 2008-09. Desde que ingressou na A-League, o clube venceu duas campeonatos da Premierships, três campeonatos e competiu em quatro competições da Liga dos Campeões da AFC, com uma quinta participação marcada para a temporada 2017/2018.

O Brisbane Roar detém o recorde de maior invencibilidade no nível mais alto de qualquer campeonato australiano de futebol, que é de 36 partidas sem derrota.

O clube joga em casa no Suncorp Stadium , um local multiuso de 52.500 lugares em Milton, com o treinamento da equipe First em Ballymore Stadium, que também hospeda a equipe administrativa do clube. No início de 2018, o clube será transferido para um Centro de Excelência de US $ 9 milhões em Logan, que receberá treinamento, ciência esportiva e instalações médicas para a equipe da Liga, equipe da Liga Mundial e mais 16 equipes de desenvolvimento de jovens; o novo CoE também receberá a equipe administrativa do clube.

O time de juniores compete na Liga Nacional da Juventude e as equipe feminina compete na W-League. A partir de 2014, as equipes de jovens e mulheres também competem no NPL Queensland para manter a forma física e desenvolver suas habilidades. A equipe de juniores compete na divisão masculina sênior, enquanto a equipe feminina compete na divisão de meninos do U15. Os jogos de jovens e mulheres são disputados em vários locais em Brisbane, incluindo o Parque Goodwin, o QSAC, o AJ Kelly Park, o Perry Park e ocasionalmente o Suncorp Stadium.

Títulos

Elenco atual
 Atualizado em 16 de março de 2021.

 Legenda
 : Capitão
 : Jogador suspenso
 : Jogador lesionado

Ligações externas
 O. S.

Clubes de futebol fundados em 2005

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
US-Turkey Relations
July 15 Coup Attempt
SETA Leadership Program
Young Scholars on Turkey
Washington Gündemi
SETA DC
Turkey's Domestic and Foreign Policy After the Elections
SETA Foundation Posted On June 28, 2018
On June 28, SETA Foundation at Washington DC hosted an event, "Turkey's Domestic and Foreign Policy After the Elections." The panelists discussed the results of the elections and its impact on US-Turkish relations and the Turkish political system. The panelists were Ambassador James Jeffrey, Philip Solondz Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Burhanettin Duran, General Coordinator at the SETA Foundation; Mujeeb Kahn, University of California, Berkeley; Michael Reynolds, Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University; and Daniel Serwer, Academic Director of Conflict Management at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Kilic Bugra Kanat, Research Director at the SETA Foundation at Washington D.C. moderated the event.
Burhanettin Duran reflected on the how the elections were critical for Turkey. He noted that the elections were elections of transition, concerning the future of Erdogan, and were the first true elections of electoral alliances. He commented on the parliament moving forward, saying that HDP will be influential in parliament. He also said the alliances formed prior to the elections may create new coalitions and difficulties for political party actors.
Mujeeb Kahn provided a US perspective on the elections. He argued there is legitimation in the questions circulating about whether the elections are free and fair. He believed that they were free, but not fair due to an unlevel campaign period. He also said the elections showed there was great voter interest in Turkey's democracy. He stated that Turkey has a democracy, but it is flawed and the US should be critical of Turkey by recognizing this. He also called for the democracy to be institutionalized and for an independent judiciary.
Michael Reynolds reflected on the concerns that the US and Turkey's relations will further sour now that Erdogan is re-elected. He contended that anti-American sentiment is not due to Erdogan. It exists in Turkey, however the US should not blame Erdogan for being the source. He argued that Erdogan can be flexible when it is in Turkey's best interest. He mentioned that he is unsure whether HDP will work with either coalition in the parliament.
Daniel Serwer presented an argument that the elections were neither free nor fair. He commented that the opposition is fragmented, but believes that they may play a constructive role even though it will be difficult. Moving forward on relations between the two countries, he argued that there needs to be compromise and that the countries will have to work on each situation one at a time.
Ambassador James Jeffrey asserted that this is not a one man rule that Turkey is transitioning too. He discussed that Erdogan will be there when he is needed, such as supporting the coalition to defeat ISIS in Syria. He stressed the concern of Turkey having both S-400s and F35s due to US technology being at risk of Russian's stealing the information.
Flickr Album Gallery Pro Powered By: Weblizar
SETA Foundation
info@setadc.org
Erdoğan's Qatar visit and new Gulf balances
Who cares about 'where Turkey is headed'?
Erdoğan's two critical meetings at Rome summit
New road map for Turkish foreign policy
The US and Earth: 'Don't Look Up,' 'Armageddon,' 'World...
'America is back': Has Biden restored US foreign policy...
Event Summary: Mohammed bin Salman: Icarus of Saudi...
A Private Reception with His Excellency Recep Tayyip...
Private Roundtable with H.E. Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu,...
The Middle East's future with the Taliban
How to handle the chaos of the second Taliban era
What does the Afghan crisis mean for Turkey?
What should Turkey do against the Afghan migration?
Busting the myths about Turkey's migrant question
How to discuss the Syrian, Afghan migrant issue
The populist coup in Tunisia
The symbol of rebuilding the TRNC
Remembering Turkey's July 15 coup attempt
Donald Rumsfeld's legacy on US foreign policy
The Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) at Washington, D.C. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, independent, nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. dedicated to innovative studies on national, regional, and international issues concerning Turkey and US-Turkey relations.
Demokratların Seçim Reformu Çabaları Çıkmazda
Anayasa Mahkemesi Biden'ın Aşı Mecburiyetini Engelledi
Senato Kuzey Akım-2 Yaptırımlarını Reddetti
Address: 1025 Connecticut Ave. NW Suite 410 Washington, D.C. 20036
Email: info@setadc.org
© Copyright 2018 The SETA Foundation at Washington D.C.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


In a society in which people still claim the Holocaust did not happen, and in which there are resounding claims that the American president is, in fact, a Muslim born on foreign soil, is it any surprise to learn that the greatest figure in the history of Western civilization, the man on whom the most powerful and influential social, political, economic, cultural and religious institution in the world -- the Christian church -- was built, the man worshipped, literally, by billions of people today -- is it any surprise to hear that Jesus never even existed?
That is the claim made by a small but growing cadre of (published ) writers, bloggers and Internet junkies who call themselves mythicists. This unusually vociferous group of nay-sayers maintains that Jesus is a myth invented for nefarious (or altruistic) purposes by the early Christians who modeled their savior along the lines of pagan divine men who, it is alleged, were also born of a virgin on Dec. 25, who also did miracles, who also died as an atonement for sin and were then raised from the dead.
Few of these mythicists are actually scholars trained in ancient history, religion, biblical studies or any cognate field, let alone in the ancient languages generally thought to matter for those who want to say something with any degree of authority about a Jewish teacher who (allegedly) lived in first-century Palestine. There are a couple of exceptions: of the hundreds -- thousands? -- of mythicists, two (to my knowledge) actually have Ph.D. credentials in relevant fields of study. But even taking these into account, there is not a single mythicist who teaches New Testament or Early Christianity or even Classics at any accredited institution of higher learning in the Western world. And it is no wonder why. These views are so extreme and so unconvincing to 99.99 percent of the real experts that anyone holding them is as likely to get a teaching job in an established department of religion as a six-day creationist is likely to land on in a bona fide department of biology.
Why then is the mythicist movement growing, with advocates so confident of their views and vocal -- even articulate -- in their denunciation of the radical idea that Jesus actually existed? It is, in no small part, because these deniers of Jesus are at the same time denouncers of religion -- a breed of human now very much in vogue. And what better way to malign the religious views of the vast majority of religious persons in the western world, which remains, despite everything, overwhelmingly Christian, than to claim that the historical founder of their religion was in fact the figment of his followers' imagination?
The view, however, founders on its own premises. The reality -- sad or salutary -- is that Jesus was real. And that is the subject of my new book, "Did Jesus Exist?"
It is true that Jesus is not mentioned in any Roman sources of his day. That should hardly count against his existence, however, since these same sources mention scarcely anyone from his time and place. Not even the famous Jewish historian, Josephus, or even more notably, the most powerful and important figure of his day, Pontius Pilate.
It is also true that our best sources about Jesus, the early Gospels, are riddled with problems. These were written decades after Jesus' life by biased authors who are at odds with one another on details up and down the line. But historians can never dismiss sources simply because they are biased. You may not trust Rush Limbaugh's views of Sandra Fluke, but he certainly provides evidence that she exists.
The question is not whether sources are biased but whether biased sources can be used to yield historically reliable information, once their biased chaff is separated from the historical kernel. And historians have devised ways of doing just that.
With respect to Jesus, we have numerous, independent accounts of his life in the sources lying behind the Gospels (and the writings of Paul) -- sources that originated in Jesus' native tongue Aramaic and that can be dated to within just a year or two of his life (before the religion moved to convert pagans in droves). Historical sources like that are is pretty astounding for an ancient figure of any kind. Moreover, we have relatively extensive writings from one first-century author, Paul, who acquired his information within a couple of years of Jesus' life and who actually knew, first hand, Jesus' closest disciple Peter and his own brother James. If Jesus did not exist, you would think his brother would know it.
Moreover, the claim that Jesus was simply made up falters on every ground. The alleged parallels between Jesus and the "pagan" savior-gods in most instances reside in the modern imagination: We do not have accounts of others who were born to virgin mothers and who died as an atonement for sin and then were raised from the dead (despite what the sensationalists claim ad nauseum in their propagandized versions).
Moreover, aspects of the Jesus story simply would not have been invented by anyone wanting to make up a new Savior. The earliest followers of Jesus declared that he was a crucified messiah. But prior to Christianity, there were no Jews at all, of any kind whatsoever, who thought that there would be a future crucified messiah. The messiah was to be a figure of grandeur and power who overthrew the enemy. Anyone who wanted to make up a messiah would make him like that. Why did the Christians not do so? Because they believed specifically that Jesus was the Messiah. And they knew full well that he was crucified. The Christians did not invent Jesus. They invented the idea that the messiah had to be crucified.
One may well choose to resonate with the concerns of our modern and post-modern cultural despisers of established religion (or not). But surely the best way to promote any such agenda is not to deny what virtually every sane historian on the planet -- Christian, Jewish, Muslim, pagan, agnostic, atheist, what have you -- has come to conclude based on a range of compelling historical evidence.
Whether we like it or not, Jesus certainly existed.
Bart Ehrman is the author of 'Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth,' now available from HarperOne.


Some kind Of social media following is essential for the majority of businesses. However, getting things moving past the starting blocks (and past a handful of followers who are mostly family and friends), may feel like an uphill struggle.
CrowdFire came to my attention Once I looked For a means to develop my Twitter account. I've been using it myself now for many months, and I'm quite happy with the outcomes. I am therefore pleased to eventually get around to sharing them. So let's begin.
CrowdFire Is a web-based utility which"plumbs from" to your social media accounts. It also has performance for LinkedIn Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook. CrowdFire helps you automate the repetitive tasks involved with gradually growing a following on social media.
For example, when I set up the Twitter Accounts for this site, I follow along in the expectation they'd accompany me back and interact later on, and would spend time daily identifying people in the house freelancing and working markets. CrowdFire helps you makes it fast to include them and locate these people. Even more it makes it possible to keep track of people who don't follow you back or those who are inactive and not really worth following, which means you can keep the list of people you follow in check.
It will Plenty more besides; It finds relevant content you can share to help you maintain your accounts busy and alive, suggests tweaks to your own accounts to help them function better, and does it all with an extremely contemporary"bot" style interface which only takes a couple of minutes every day to manage.
For Example, on a typical day, it will give me a choice of relevant content to pick from to share on my timeline. It will suggest some accounts for me to unfollow because they have not reciprocated in following me. Next, I'll get a listing of suggested new reports to follow because they have been tweeting about keywords and phrases that are relevant, or since they're fans of folks in my niches.
On some Days, I will acquire additional jobs, such as feeding in much more relevant keywords, checking my automatic message to individuals who follow me, or checking that the info in my"About" section stays relevant. One feature I especially like is that if the system notices I keep ignoring a task, it is going to provide the option of suspending it so it doesn't bother me with it to me.
What CrowdFire basically does for me is almost Fully automate a task that has been previously taking 20 minutes each day (and often not getting done due to other pressures). But I can always grab two moments every day to perform it.
Most Importantly, my follower rely on Twitter continues to rise at a good rate, and climbs with applicable followers, thanks to the fact they're people I know are considering homeworking and design.
It's also very important to reemphasize my Followers are. They're followers who retweet them , interact with my posts, like them , and click through the website. This is incredibly important, if not one of those people ever look at your content, as there's no point using a big follower number for dressing.
The amounts above prove that I can carry on doing What I am doing and steadily boost my Twitter after (at least until I'm after 5000 people, if things get a little more difficult). As you can see below, I tipped on the 2000 mark!
All these Numbers make CrowdFire worth each penny. And it is likely to do all this using the version that is free too — albeit in a dramatically slower rate , due to this follow / unfollow limits imposed.
Users that gave Crowdfire a Positive review stated that the app is a great tool for scheduling posts on social accounts from a single stage. They also shared that it permits them to track their neighborhood and include the followers of the competitors.
When I Sat down to write this, I knew downsides and I'd struggle, and having reached this point in typing this up, that stuggle remains!
This is A fantastic thing, since it ensures you glance at. It stops you treating the whole thing as an automatic exercise and being idle. However, it has made it all take a bit longer.
A user who left a positive Review of Crowdfire on G2 Crowd said that the app is his favourite tool for managing the Twitter followers of his brand. He shared that his favourite feature is that the one that permits him to incorporate their competitors' followers for their own list. He also added that Crowdfire has a great iPhone program.
How to Make a Facebook Company Page in 6 Steps — A Facebook business page is a completely free profile you can make for your regional business, manufacturer, or product. Have a look at this article.
The Top 26 Instagram Marketing Tips from the Experts — Businesses have to optimize Instagram's potential to engage clients and attract new ones. In this article, find out what the pros believe are the best ways to market on Instagram.
There was no mention of a Free trial on Crowdfire's website. But users that are interested may subscribe to their plan and start utilizing their services.
Yes. You can cancel your paid Subscription anytime and still continue using your plan that is continuing until the end of the current billing period. Following that, your accounts will be converted to the Free program.
It's Possible to test out what CrowdFire offers without spending any money at all, but as you can see in the above, you're limited to one account per network. You are also restricted in indicated content you are given to share, and in terms of how a lot of people unfollow each day can be followed by you.
Using CrowdFire is a little bit of a"no brainer" if you are keen to develop your social media profile. It makes it possible to do the kind of things a social media agency would charge you for, however all in a few minutes per day, at a low price or for free.
It pays dividends to pay attention to Who you are following, and it is always vital that you supply your followers if you are going to keep them curious. Using CrowdFire doesn't do everything for you!


On the margins of the Africa CEO conference, the European Investment Bank, the long-term lending institution of the European Union, and Bank of Kigali today agreed their largest ever cooperation to support new business investment across Rwanda.
Under the agreement, the European Investment Bank will provide RWF 30 billion to support investment by Rwandan firms engaged in a range of productive sectors.
This credit line will address the need for longer-term business funding, essential to accelerate economic growth, creating skilled jobs, increasing export revenues and improving tax revenues for national socio-economic development.
The RWF 30 billion of new financing from the European Investment Bank will be matched by Bank of Kigali and unlock a total of RWF 60 billion of new private sector investment across Rwanda.
Ambroise Fayolle, Vice President of the European Investment Bank said that accelerating private sector investment is crucial to create jobs, unlock opportunities and enable businesses to succeed and the European Investment Bank is committed to supporting private sector investment in Africa.
"In recent years, companies across Rwanda have benefited from excellent cooperation between the European Investment Bank and the Bank of Kigali. The new RWF60 billion engagement agreed today, our largest ever cooperation with the largest commercial bank in Rwanda, will ensure that many Rwandan companies build on their strengths and contribute to sustainable economic development in the heart of Africa" he said .
BK's CEO, Dr Diane Karusisi, said the banks is committed to serving the business community and supporting priority sectors in line with Rwanda's development agenda.
She added addressing the need for affordable and long-term business financing enables the private sector to become the leading player in the development of the country by steering a transformational and industrial economy.
"We have found the right partner in European Investment Bank to ensure that financing is not a bottleneck to creating a vibrant private sector in Rwanda," she said.
Ambroise Fayolle and Dr Diane Karusisi formally agreed the new private sector cooperation in the presence of the Ambassador of the European Union to Rwanda.
EU Ambassador to Rwanda, Nicola Bellomo, who was at the signing ceremoney, said that unlocking private sector growth is crucial for sustainable development, jobs and prosperity.
The European Union welcomes the new cooperation between the European Investment Bank, the Bank of the European Union and the Bank of Kigali.
"This builds on the EIB's support for the private sector across Africa and the joint commitment of the African Union and European Union to support sustainable investment and jobs," said Bellomo.
The European Investment Bank has provided RWF 63 billion to private sector investment in Rwanda in cooperation with the Bank of Kigali since 2009. Previous engagement has directly supported the creation of an estimated 760 new jobs.
This new European Investment Bank backed credit line is built on this proven success and represents the first dedicated support for investment in foreign currency. This reflects the investment needs of internationally active companies and reduce currency exchange costs faced by the Rwandan private sector.
With the support of the European Union, the European Investment Bank has provided complementary technical assistance to its partner banks across East Africa over the past years.
The new private sector initiative includes a dedicated regional RWF 5 billion technical assistance programme. This will allow best practice learnt from private sector schemes elsewhere to be shared with Bank of Kigali and its beneficiary companies.
This will include training to improve banking and credit risk management, environmental and social best practice and sector specific skills such as agriculture value chain financing.
In recent years, the European Investment Bank has supported Rwandan businesses investment in cooperation with BRD, I&M Bank, KCB Rwanda, BK, East Africa Development Bank, Trade and Development Bank and AB Bank for a total of RWF 117 billion.


text:
Q: Element "webBrowser". How to wait for the page to load? Document structure
"Form0" - Form
- - "panel2" - Panel
- - - "Frm5UC" - Custom item
- - - - "webBrowser1" - Browser
Application logic:
- go to the page in "webBrowser1";
- enter login;
- enter the password;
- click the "Login" button.
If I execute the logic through the code (this is the "Method_0 ()" method), the form does not have time to load in the "Authorization ()" method.
I get "webBrowser1.Document = null",
error "Object link does not indicate an object instance."
If I do everything through the interface, then everything works.
How to make the logic run programmatically?
private void Frm5UC_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            webBrowser1.Visible = true;

            // *** TESTS ***
            Method_0();
        }

        #region *** TESTS ***
        public void Method_0()
        {
            Method_1();
            // Method_2();
        }

        public void  Method_1()
        {
            textBox2.Text = "_domain_com";
            textBox1.Text = @"domain_com/login/";

            button1.PerformClick();
        }

        public void Method_2() // Авторизация
        {
            Authorization();
        }
        #endregion *** TESTS ***

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            webBrowser1.Navigate(textBox1.Text);
        }

        private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            Authorization();
        }

        public void Authorization() // Авторизация
        {
                foreach (HtmlElement he in webBrowser1.Document.GetElementsByTagName("input"))
                {
                    if (he.GetAttribute("name") == "login[login]")
                    {
                        he.SetAttribute("value", "login798");
                    }
                }

            // Code "enter password"
            // Code "Press the button"
        }

Update.
I try to use the event "DocumentCompleted".
Added the variable "bool statusAuthorization;".
As a result:
- a page with fields for entering login / password opens;
and nothing else happens.
The code does not enter the login / password.
I try to do debugging.
Steps through the entire code.
No errors. Everything works, but the form with the browser does not open.
If I log in through the interface, then everything works.
bool statusAuthorization;

    private void Frm5UC_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
            webBrowser1.Visible = true;

            statusAuthorization = true; // !!! CHANGES

            // *** ТЕСТ ***
            Method_0();
    }

        private void webBrowser1_DocumentCompleted(object sender, WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventArgs e)
    {
        if (webBrowser1.ReadyState != WebBrowserReadyState.Complete) return;

        if (statusAuthorization == true)
        {
            Authorization();
        }
    }

        #region *** TESTS ***
        public void Method_0()
        {
            Method_1();
            // Method_2();
        }

        public void  Method_1()
        {
            textBox2.Text = "_domain_com";
            textBox1.Text = @"domain_com/login/";

            button1.PerformClick();
        }

        public void Method_2() // Авторизация
        {
            Authorization();
        }
        #endregion *** TESTS ***

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            webBrowser1.Navigate(textBox1.Text);
        }

        private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            Authorization();
        }

        public void Authorization() // Авторизация
        {
                foreach (HtmlElement he in webBrowser1.Document.GetElementsByTagName("input"))
                {
                    if (he.GetAttribute("name") == "login[login]")
                    {
                        he.SetAttribute("value", "login798");
                    }
                }

            // Code "enter password"
            // Code "Press the button"

            statusAuthorization = false; // !!! CHANGES
        }

Update
Result: the form loads again and again.
private void Frm5UC_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            string s = "stop";
            webBrowser1.Visible = true;

            webBrowser1.DocumentCompleted += new WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventHandler(DocumentCompletedHandler);

            // *** ТЕСТ ***
              Method_1();
        }

     private void DocumentCompletedHandler(object sender, WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventArgs e)
            {
                //Done!
                Authorization();
            }

A: Try this:
bool statusAuthorization;

private void Frm5UC_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
        webBrowser1.Visible = true;

        statusAuthorization = true; // !!! CHANGES

        // *** ТЕСТ ***

}

    private void webBrowser1_DocumentCompleted(object sender, WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventArgs e)
{
    if (webBrowser1.ReadyState != WebBrowserReadyState.Complete) return;

    if (statusAuthorization == true && webBrowser1.Document != null)
    { Method_1();
        Authorization();
    }
}

    #region *** TESTS ***

    public void  Method_1()
    {
        textBox2.Text = "_domain_com";
        textBox1.Text = @"domain_com/login/";

    }

    private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {Method_1();
        Authorization();
    }

    public void Authorization() // Авторизация
    {
            foreach (HtmlElement he in webBrowser1.Document.GetElementsByTagName("input"))
            {
                if (he.GetAttribute("name") == "login[login]")
                {
                    he.SetAttribute("value", "login798");
                }
            }

        // Code "enter password"
        // Code "Press the button"

        statusAuthorization = false; // !!! CHANGES
    }

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: How to git reset --hard HEAD^ root of repo without affecting submodules After making a temporary commit to the root of a repo, which has submodules, I haphazardly ran git reset --hard HEAD^ with the intention of just deleting said commit on the master's root - but to my dismay affect all submodule repos too....
I just wanted to delete the head commit on the root repo.
Is there a better/safer way to accomplish this task without affecting the submodule repos ?

A: The default default for git reset is --no-recurse-submodules (as is true for checkout / switch as well).  However, if you've set recursion to be on by default by configuring submodule.recurse to true or 1 or otherwise enabled, you can always pass an explicit --no-recurse-submodules option to override your override.  You can also run git -c submodule.recurse=0, as noted in the git config documentation.


text:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE TS>
<TS version="2.1" language="cs_CZ">
<context>
    <name>UDMX</name>
    <message>
        <location filename="udmx.cpp" line="101"/>
        <source>This plugin provides DMX output support for Anyma uDMX devices.</source>
        <translation>Tento plugin přidává podporu DMX výstupu pro Anyma uDMX zařízení.</translation>
    </message>
    <message>
        <location filename="udmx.cpp" line="195"/>
        <source>Do you wish to re-scan your hardware?</source>
        <translation>Přejete si znovu prohledat Váš hardware ?</translation>
    </message>
</context>
<context>
    <name>UDMXDevice</name>
    <message>
        <location filename="udmxdevice.cpp" line="118"/>
        <source>Unknown</source>
        <translation>Neznámý</translation>
    </message>
    <message>
        <location filename="udmxdevice.cpp" line="139"/>
        <source>DMX Frame Frequency</source>
        <translation>Frekvence DMX rámce</translation>
    </message>
    <message>
        <location filename="udmxdevice.cpp" line="142"/>
        <source>Bad</source>
        <translation>Špatné</translation>
    </message>
    <message>
        <location filename="udmxdevice.cpp" line="144"/>
        <source>Good</source>
        <translation>Dobré</translation>
    </message>
    <message>
        <location filename="udmxdevice.cpp" line="146"/>
        <source>Patch this device to a universe to find out.</source>
        <translation>Připojit toto zařízení pro vyhledání ve větvi.</translation>
    </message>
    <message>
        <location filename="udmxdevice.cpp" line="147"/>
        <source>System Timer Accuracy</source>
        <translation>Přesnost systémového času</translation>
    </message>
    <message>
        <location filename="udmxdevice.cpp" line="152"/>
        <source>Unknown device</source>
        <translation>Neznámé zařízení</translation>
    </message>
    <message>
        <location filename="udmxdevice.cpp" line="154"/>
        <source>Cannot connect to USB device.</source>
        <translation>Nelze se připojit k USB zařízení.</translation>
    </message>
</context>
</TS>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Give that big birthday some added emphasis with our bold cake featuring bright stripes made with Sugar Sheets!
Bake and cool one-layer square cake. Place on foil-wrapped cake board, cut into a 13 x 13 in. square. Ice smooth with white buttercream.
Using Slide-N-Cut Edge Cutter, cut four 9 in. strips, 2 in. wide, along the length of Green Stripes Sugar Sheets! For center diagonal stripe, align end of two strips together. Trim strips as needed to fit corners and cake sides. Attach using piping gel. Position two remaining strips 3 in. from each side of center strip. Trim to fit and attach using piping gel.
Using Slide-N-Cut Edge Cutter, cut five strips, 1 in. wide, along the short edge of Bright Green Sugar Sheets! Position two strips, centered between Green Stripe strips. Trim to fit and attach with piping gel.
Using Slide-N-Cut Edge Cutter, cut an 8 x 8 in. square from Light Green Sugar Sheets! and a 6 x 6 in. square from White Sugar Sheets! Attach white square to green square using piping gel. Attach to cake using piping gel. Using black FoodWriter and cutters as guide, trace numbers on back side (shiny side) of Bright Green Sugar Sheets! Cut out with scissors. Attach numbers to center of white square using piping gel.
Using Slide-N-Cut Edge Cutter, cut 6 strips, 1/2 in. wide, along the length of Light Green Sugar Sheets! Attach around base of cake using piping gel.


To add a widget, long press an empty space on your Android 'desktop' and select 'Widgets'. You will then be presented with a full list of Widgets. Simply select 'WorldMate' from the list.
WorldMate's widget will not appear on the widgets list if WorldMate is not installed on your device's internal memory (but on an external memory card).
On your device please go to: Settings ->Applications -> Manage applications ->Select WorldMate ->Move to phone -> then restart your device to apply changes.
After doing so, you will be able to see the widget in the widgets list and add it to your Android's home screen.


Overlooking the Mohawk River, the Gilbert boasts a queen sized bed and a spacious sitting area. The room has a flat screen TV/DVD player, comfy robes, also in-room Keurig coffee maker and a refrigerator for your convenience. The bathroom includes a tub with a shower. Every guest at the Inn at Stone Mill can enjoy a continental breakfast or stop by the Cafe at Stone Mill on the first floor for that morning pick me up.
The Gilbert is named after the Gilbert Knitting Co. at the intersection of West Main and Furnace Streets. As early as 1831 there was a water-powered paper mill on this site. After a series of other mills came and went, the Gilbert company began with J.J. Gilbert as a principal owner in 1872. Read more about the History of the Mill.


The entry 'Atheism 2.0' was posted on January 23rd, 2012 at 10:54 am	and last modified on March 20th, 2012 at 11:14 pm, and is filed under Courage, Esoteric Minutiae. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


text:
Unrest across Iran continues under state's extreme gender apartheid
27 Sep 2022, 22:38 GMT+10
Unrest continues to erupt across Iran following the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, who died after being arrested and reportedly beaten by Iran's morality police.
The Iranian force took Mahsa (Zhina) Amini into detention on Sept. 16, 2022, for not wearing her hijab according to the rules.
As of Sept. 26, at least 41 people have been confirmed killed and hundreds have been arrested and wounded in protests that erupted after Amini's death.
As a Kurdish-born scholar and a professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Central Florida, I have previously written about gender in Middle Eastern cultures and Iranian protests.
With the exception of bland condemnations, the discrimination against women in Iran is often overlooked while the world focuses on limiting the country's nuclear capabilities.
Some scholars and activists have criticized international law for its lack of initiative and public action in recognizing Iran's systematic discrimination against women as gender apartheid and acting to prevent it.
But many discriminatory laws, including those forcing women to cover their head and face with a hijab, honor neither tradition nor religion and are applied to women of all ethnicities and faiths.
After all, Amini was not a Shiite woman by ethnicity or religion.
Iran's gender apartheid
The 1979 Islamic Revolution established a republic that implements similar inhumane policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practiced in South Africa under the government's former brutal apartheid regime.
The laws and policies in Iran establish and maintain domination by men and the state over women and their right to choose their own clothing or obtain a divorce. Systematic gender inequalities are prescribed legally and enforced by the regime to deny the women the "right to life and liberty" and "basic human rights and freedoms," which according to Article II of the United Nations' Apartheid Convention in 1973, are considered "the crime of apartheid."
For example, according to Article 18 of Iran's Passport Law, a married woman still needs written permission from her male guardian to travel abroad.
Women in Iran are unable to hold any positions within the judicial, religious and military systems, nor are they able to serve as members of the Assembly of Experts, the Expediency Discernment Council or the Guardian Council, the three highest councils in the Islamic Republic.
Women under law cannot be president or supreme leader of Iran. According to Article 115, the president of the Islamic Republic must be elected from among the "religious and political men."
In addition, the Iranian state has added discriminatory features to the criminal code - one such feature is the principle that the value of a woman is one-half of the value of a man.
That principle applies in matters involving compensation for a killing and in what a son or daughter receives from a family inheritance. They also apply in the weight given to legal testimony or in obtaining a divorce.
Such laws, policies and practices continue to mark women as lesser citizens, legally and socially unequal.
Segregation in daily life
The state also has imposed systematic segregation in schools, hospitals, universities, transportation, sports and other major areas of day-to-day life.
For many decades, Iran's gender apartheid had relegated women to the back of the bus with a metal bar segregating them from men.
Under the government's direction, universities have set limits on women's options and have banned them from many fields of study.
Iran has generally barred female spectators from soccer and other sports stadiums since the 1979 revolution.
Clerics play a major role in decision-making and have argued that women must be shielded from the masculine atmosphere and sight of semi-clad men during sporting events.
Under such discriminatory policies, the Persian terms such as za'ifeh, meaning weak and incapable, has found its way into Persian dictionaries as synonyms for "woman" and "wife."
'Women, life, freedom'
Iran's notorious extrajudicial morality police have terrorized women for decades.
Like the articles of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, principles of the morality police are founded on an interpretation of canonical Shiite texts and are implemented through modern tools of control and prosecution.
In international criminal law, specific unlawful acts that are committed within a system of oppression and domination are considered crimes against humanity.
As set out in the U.N.'s Apartheid Convention, these crimes include denial of basic rights that prevent a racial group or groups from participating in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country.
Most known for the brutal regime in South Africa, apartheid comes from the Afrikaans word meaning "apartness." It was the ideology that was introduced in South Africa in 1948 and supported by the National Party government.
The compulsory hijab is at the center of what I call Iran's extreme gender apartheid, where a misplaced headscarf can result in up to 15 years in prison, lashing, fines and inhumane and unlawful arrest and death.
Several anti-compulsory hijab movements emerge every few years in Iran, such as in the case of Zhina Amini.
In the Kurdish language, her name originates from "jin," the word for woman and shares a root with the word for life, "jiyan."
Those Kurdish words are at the heart of the most used slogan by the Kurdish Female Fighters against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and by women across Iran today against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Add in "azadi" - the Kurdish word for freedom - and the slogan "Jin, Jiyan, Azadi" means "Women, Life, Freedom" and is resounding among protesters in streets throughout Iran and the world to dismantle the state's gender apartheid.
Author: Haidar Khezri - Assistant Professor, University of Central Florida


Ares -- who has invaded Olympus, attempted to take over earth, stood at the walls of Troy, and fought toe to toe with and against Earth's greatest heroes - has turned his back on Olympus and centuries of brutal warfare to begin life anew on Earth with one goal: to raise his child. But what happens when Olympus - under siege and in danger of falling - calls on its most violent son to come to its rescue? And what happens if Ares refuses?


text:
El monumento a los mártires del 9 de enero de 1964 es dedicado por la Autoridad del Canal de Panamá (ACP) a los mártires del 9 de enero de 1964.  Fue diseñado por Alcides Ponce Patiño, Evángelo Vamvas y Tamara Salamín, trabajadores canaleros de la sección de Arquitectura de la ACP.

El monumento está ubicado en la Plaza del Centro de Capacitación Ascanio Arosemena (antigua Escuela Secundaria de Balboa) y fue inaugurado el 9 de enero de 2003.

Historia

El monumento consta de una entrada con columnas que "representan al istmo panameño flanqueado a ambos lados por piletas reflectivas que aluden a los dos océanos". En la parte central del monumento, se halla la base restaurada del asta original de la bandera, sitio exacto del inicio de la confrontación del 9 de enero de 1964. Esta base está rodeada por 21 columnas con placas que llevan los nombres de cada uno de los 21 mártires de la gesta patriótica, con el objetivo simbólico de "custodiar la base".  Los nombres de los caídos, grabados en el tercio inferior de las placas de granito, simbolizan "La vida truncada"; mientras que "el tragaluz sobre la base permite que la claridad del sol y la luz de las estrellas bañen con la verdad y la paz la memoria de los mártires".

Para honrar especialmente la figura de Ascanio Arosemena, se ha colocado una columna ligeramente desplazada hacia el centro y de cara al cerro Ancón.

El conjunto incluye también una plaza de la bandera que, al estar ubicada en un lugar diferente al original, "simboliza un nuevo comienzo para la Nación".

Referencias

Monumentos de Panamá
Memoriales
Historia de la Ciudad de Panamá
Cultura de la Ciudad de Panamá


The world recognizes teens as the "leaders of tomorrow," but God uses them today in kingdom ministry. Together with children and adults, the teens meet on Sundays in Room L104 in the basement, which we call The Table. The mission of this youth group is to build a stronger relationship with Christ and with each other.
For a limited time, our youth group shirts are for sale once again. This year we also have youth/junior sizes, as well as long sleeves! This is the LAST YEAR for THIS DESIGN. These are the shirts we often wear when doing off-campus youth events. This order will close Sunday, May 14th. And will be available for pick-up Sunday, June 4th.
Our teens are led by Tika Blough, a graduate of Olivet Nazarene University ('13), with a B.A. in Christian Education. Her husband, Owen Blough (Olivet '12, B.S. in Engineering) is also present and assists in the weekly teaching and activities of the group.
Julie Jenkins is the youth group's assistant leader, who helps in the planning, coordinating, and teaching of the teens. Julie has a B.S. in Education, and has had over 15 years of experience teaching in Michigan's Public Schools. She also has had much experience leading and teach teenagers in a church setting.
During this time, our students are encouraged to "Bring It" to The Table as they discuss topics that are not often talked about in Church, as well as what it means to be Salt & Light.
The teens and their leaders gather once again to break it down; Christianity that is, into the basic elements that Christ calls us to in Matthew 5:13-16.
For downloadable permission and activity forms, documents, and the annual calendar, please visit our Forms & Documents page.


text:
"Rich Media" eCommerce: Do Pretty Carts Really Work?
Thread: "Rich Media" eCommerce: Do Pretty Carts Really Work?
Even in Blue Voda (using the Ad Banner Rotator tool), the ability to include images in what used to be limited to Flash enviornments has a dramatic impact on Customer Experience - and whether or not they became paying customers.
This is an article discussing the perspectives of "presentation" and available solutions (platforms/carts) that have been implemented to enhance both Customer Experience and profitability from Tiger Direct, one of the fastest-growing online merchants.
I have included a link for shopping carts resources at the end of the article - remember that VodaHost can support any of the mentioned technologies, and it is always up to you how far you wish to ascend to the top of online success!
Beyond Zoom
Rich media applications take product display to a new level—but do they pay?
By Mary Wagner
TigerDirect Inc.'s vice president of creative Dan Brown cares about one thing: conversions. His team works hard at developing creative for TigerDirect.com, building on a base of specs and product information from manufacturers. But he's betting that additional new content from some 40 manufacturers, enriched by technology provider WebCollage Inc. and delivered via the web to TigerDirect.com for customer viewing, will accelerate his progress.
At Anthropolgie.com, Ranjana Sharma, manager of e-commerce, already knew that the drop-off rate at some points along the check-out route was higher than she wanted. One hypothesis: sticker shock at checkout, given the price points of some of the merchandise.
Seamless process
"The total value of the order might be beyond the expectations of the customer. We have to make the whole process more seamless," she says. The goal: a more user friendly experience that lets shoppers clearly see what's going on in the cart as it happens while speeding them toward checkout. Sharma will test out a solution to that issue with a new, rich-media shopping cart from Allurent Inc. that provides just that experience soon after Anthropologie relaunches its web site this fall.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, e-retailers are hoping that moving pictures—rich media videos and interactive product demonstrations in 3-D—are worth dollars. They're experimenting with a new generation of online renderings that look photorealistic but do something a photo can't: allow the viewer to virtually disassemble the product or flip it upside down to see how it works. They're trying out rendering that's more advanced, which allows shoppers to fill an online room with virtual furniture, created in the color and style of their choosing and positioned according to their whims.
Resource-rich brand manufacturer sites lead the way in putting up advanced rich media product displays such as product configurators. For example, Ford Motor Co. launched a combination of rich media elements on its site, and realized a 467% increase in referrals to its individual brand sites, according to Jupiter Research Inc.
But such rich media applications are now trickling down to retail sites, for a couple of reasons. For one, web developers are always ahead of the mainstream e-commerce market, and innovations developed for games or used in computer-assisted design and in entertainment media are beginning to affect both consumers' expectations of content on retail web sites and sites' ability to deliver on those expectations.
"For a time, it may have been new for retailers and a bit too on the edge for them to consider," notes Mark Zohar, CEO of 3-D animation technology provider View22, who counts a number of game developers on his staff as the company expands its target market beyond manufacturers to retail. But much has changed over the past two years, Zohar adds, with the success of X-Box and multi-player online environments such as Second Life but one of those factors.
Another factor driving the appearance of advanced rich media features on more retailer sites is the fact that more manufacturers are now willing to provide the enriched content they've developed for their own sites to retail partners for free. WMH Tool Group, for example, is working on a project with technology provider Scene7 that will syndicate current product images to Lowes' and other retailer partners through Scene7's dynamic imaging platform. The syndication, expected to go live in the next few months, will provide end users with zooming and 360 rotation of product images supported by Scene7's image servers. "This is something that is going to be requested by almost any major Internet retailer and eventually by all of them," says WMH Tool Group IT director Rich Dase.
Yet another factor is that some forms of rich media are now easier for retailers to add to their sites themselves. Newer platforms have trimmed production costs and integration difficulties so as to allow retailers to offer visitors functions such as product enlargements and alternative views and image sizes. New technology from provider RichFX Inc., for example, compresses the rich media authoring process to a single window on the back end; essentially, one-click rich media creation.
It's not only visual enhancement to content that's extending the reach and marketing power of online stores beyond their earlier, more limited formats: some are experimenting with audio as well as video podcasts. Including those it originates and those it syndicates from other sources, Bodybuilding.com, for example, is now distributing eight audio podcasts and one video podcast, all launched within the past 12 months. Using the services of technology developer Outhink Media, Tower Records has launched a dedicated web site, Towerpod.com, that lets site visitors assemble their own podcasts from a music library containing thousands of selections already licensed for such distribution.
Retailers also are finding that Flash and similar technologies aren't the only way to enrich content and grab customers' attention. New web-based technology is letting manufacturers easily syndicate content they originate to describe their products—including extensive HTML content—to retailer sites, adding what can be hundreds of pages of expanded product information to a site.
For some applications, retailer investment in enriched content is minimal and the return isn't measured directly in sales. Bodybuilding.com, for example, pays some of the outside podcasters whose podcasts it syndicates through RSS a few hundred dollars each. It spends a few hundred on production costs of the podcasts it originates, pays for extra bandwidth and keeps a dedicated web developer on staff to handle the podcasts. CEO Ryan DeLuca says the podcasts are another way to encourage repeat visits and lifelong customer loyalty, a strategy the company has pursued with the extensive informational content it posts on the site. "We get a more loyal user base coming back to the site, and some of them are going on to the store," he says.
Elsewhere, investment in different types of rich media applications is higher, and ROI becomes an issue for whoever—retailer or manufacturer—is footing the bill. The prospective upside is that more compelling site content will directly or indirectly spur sales. But as with any other technology deployment, it can be a balancing act that weighs resources against potential gain.
An open question
As far as analysts such as Forrester Research's Sucharita Mulpuru are concerned, the issue of retailer ROI on 3-D animation, for example—one rich media application now getting a try-out from some online retailers—is still an open question.
"The biggest challenge to incorporating something like this is the IT integration time it requires," she says. "One has to feed quite a bit of data on the products that may or may not already exist and then plug it into a site's architecture. And then after all that, the tool may or may not drive incremental revenue. Any sites incorporating such a feature are certainly ahead of the curve."
In fact, they are far enough ahead of the curve that even many who are adopting rich media don't yet know what they're going to get out of it. TigerDirect, which had been producing a limited amount of Flash-based product content on its own, started receiving enhanced Flash as well as expanded HTML content from manufacturer partners through technology platform provider WebCollage only five months ago. It doesn't yet have hard data demonstrating the effect of expanded rich media content on sales.
Anthropologie.com's new Flash-built cart from Allurent streamlines checkout into a pageless application that eliminates the click-and-wait restrictions of the former cart, showing running totals of each item as added, continuously-running visuals of each item as added and a continuously-running window that shows visuals of selected cross-sells. Not yet live with the new cart, Anthropologie has expectations, but results are in the future.
Upping the add-to-cart ratio
With retailers pioneering advanced forms of rich media still gathering data on how it's affected their sites, vendors are conducting tests at sites hosting rich media and making those aggregated results available to prospective customers. In an A/B test this summer across multiple retailers, manufacturers and products and across millions of consumers, for example, WebCollage found that shoppers served a product page offering a link to "see product information from manufacturer" featuring rich media and expanded HTML content, added products to their carts 6% to 15% more often than shoppers who weren't served the link, depending on the product and the retailer.
Such data suggest the strategy at retail sites has evolved—or should evolve—from an earlier emphasis on how many clicks it takes to find and buy something, says Eli Singer, WebCollage CEO. "Today, the thinking of retailers is that their sites are there not only to serve people who already know what they want to buy. Most of the 95% of the people who come to a site and don't convert are there because they are still choosing. They want advice." If they don't find it on the site, Singer says, they'll have to go somewhere else to get it.
That perspective moves retailers' use of rich media on a site beyond a question of cost versus direct ROI into the realm of the cost of doing business. And that's where technology vendors believe it's headed in retail, following an adoption curve similar to that of earlier enhanced content applications. "When retailers climbed on board with zoom, everybody had to do it as a cost of entry. And we believe 3-D will come to that stage fairly soon," says View22's Zohar, whose company, with clients such as Kohler Co. and Deere and Co., supplies 3-D technology to web sites on a hosted basis.
Downscale
Rich media to help sway a decision on pricey faucets, bathtubs and even tractors is one thing, but is there a payoff in applying it to an inexpensive toy? Toy manufacturer Hasbro Toys and Games thinks so—it's had interactive video product demos on its site for five years. It uses Exemplum Inc. to create video demonstrations of dozens of toys. Hasbro produces the videos and sends them to retail partners' sites at no charge to the retailer.
Hasbro was looking for a way to approximate online the "try-me" packaging critical to its success in stores; that is, toy packaging open enough to allow access to a button that allows the toy to be tried out before it's purchased. "'Try me' became very important to show feature benefits, because a lot of these decisions are made at the point of sale," says director of Internet marketing services Jan Rimmel. "So I looked at demos as 'try me' packaging and our merchandising strategy for online."
The toys for which videos have been produced range in price from $5.99 to $99—at the low end, well below the price of and margin on digital cameras, designer fixtures and other products accorded rich media treatment on retail sites. But Hasbro doesn't use a toy's price as the determining factor in deciding which products get demos.
According to Joe Chasse, Internet project manager, marketing services at Hasbro, "We look at the importance of supporting the product, and it's not based on the minimum price. We compare the demos to other means of promoting the product online and offline, so the rich media demos are still cost effective when compared to other mediums."
Hasbro also justifies the expense of creating the demos by broadly distributing them to retailer partner sites. "We have multiple distribution platforms for them," says Rimmel. "If we just showed them on our site, it probably wouldn't pay off as much because our margins are not as significant compared to something like the consumer electronics category. But by distributing them to every partner site we have seen a very positive ROI in general."
Settling the question
Given the ability to measure consumer actions that's a distinguishing feature of the online environment, it follows that the industry service providers who offer such measurement services are beginning to figure out how to measure the impact of rich media on retail sites and thus get closer to settling the question of direct ROI.
In June, web analytics provider Omniture Inc. launched one of the first tools to measure the performance of rich media on sites. Measuring the performance of rich media applications such as Flash has to date been a cumbersome process, requiring developers to manipulate data through both JavaScript and ActionScript, which is the programming language for Flash. Omniture's ActionSource solution eliminates the programming language translation barrier by capturing data directly from ActionScript independent of JavaScript interaction, the company says.
Omniture is deploying the new analytics functionality with a number of retailers. However, the experience of a media company already using the tool illustrates how it works. Scripps Network's House and Garden Television channel used ActionSource on the Flash-based media player on HGTV.com to measure traffic and conversion off streaming video which ran on the site during a recent promotion. The event, the HGTV Dream Home Giveaway, was a live on-air special immediately followed by a live online broadband presentation.
On-air, HGTV encouraged visitors to go to HGTV.com for live continuation of the on-air event: site visitors could, via the live video, tour the home for the first time with the winner who'd just been announced on the TV program. In one hour, HGTV.com registered more than 500,000 requests to its server, including 120,000 first-time visitors to the site as determined by the identification of unique IDs. The analytics tool also determined that 55,000 site visitors logged on to the live video.
Listening for clicks
ActionSource is built so as to allow site operators to measure Flash activity without having to code individual elements of the Flash application. The supporting feature, called AutoTrack, "listens" for click action to determine if the click is related to a button or to movie clip activity. It can automatically capture and send that data for reporting, according to Omniture.
And as part of a new service that hosts and produces podcasts and optimizes them for search, OneUpWeb in August launched PodTractor, which tracks the podcasts. Among other metrics, the service measures for podcasting retailers when, where and by whom the podcasts are downloaded; data that can be applied across the retailer's marketing program.
While representing varying levels of sophistication, retailers' use of enriched content is on the rise. The longer-established and more basic forms of rich content such as zoom are approaching the standard of best practice for retailers of scale. Rich content such as podcasts, video demos and product configurators, are heading toward more widespread adoption.
Leading sites' use of such features, whether complex or simple, reflects a truth that bears consideration for every online retailer in plotting the future: it takes a lot more in the way of product display today to get shoppers to push the Buy button at a site than it did yesterday. And given the pace of web development, it will take even more tomorrows.
:: Internet Retailer Magazine, September 2006
. VodaWebs....Luxury Group
* Success Is Potential Realized *
Re: "Rich Media" eCommerce: Do Pretty Carts Really Work?
Here is a list of VodaHost supportable technologies that you can discover yourself:
Click Here for the Internet Retailer Guide to Providers of Rich Media
narobe
Thanks for that, very intresting
suzannema2001
Look at the date of this post, and where we are today .... almost all the carts (and the cart templates) now include Flash sections, clever ways to show merchandise, and RSS feeds along with "customer/potential customer subscriptions" to "follow" items and specials .... and Google has even cracked and allowed tagging of video and other media types!
Quick Navigation Reviews - Share Your Thoughts Top