text:
By John LaForge, Nukewatch
On Feb. 11, 1985, the cover page of Forbes thundered, "The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale.…"
Fourteen months later, reactor No. 4 at Chernobyl exploded and burned for 40 days, spreading radioactive fallout across the entire Northern Hemisphere, depositing cesium-137 in Minnesota's milk[1] and Japan's topsoil.[2] On March 11, 2011, Japan's worst earthquake and its resulting tsunami destroyed the Fukushima-Daiichi reactor complex which caused three simultaneous reactor meltdowns and the consequent dispersal of large quantities of radiation to the air and the largest ever release of radioactive pollution to the Pacific Ocean in history. This contamination is still ongoing.
So how is it that Congressional representatives, television pundits, FOX ditto heads, and even CNN program directors still promote nuclear power?
Part of the answer comes from American University researcher Judy Pasternak and her students. According to Pasternak's 2010 investigation, the nuclear industry spent $645 million over 10 years lobbying Capitol Hill, and another $63 million in campaign contributions over the same period.[3] Between 1999 and 2008, these millions manufactured the canard that nuclear power is "carbon free," "clean" and can "help fend off climate change." Prior to this spending blitz, the US nuclear power program was, because of the shock of accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986, "pretty well dead in the water" — in the words of economist and author Jeremy Rifkin.[4]
The lobbyists and check writers worked hard spinning the yarn that the richest and most pollution-intensive industrialists on earth were concerned about climate change and wanted to cut carbon emissions — but they didn't convince everybody.
Independent scientists, free of corporate blinders and the market imperative of short term profit, scoff at "green nuke" propaganda. Arjun Makhijani, President of Institute for Environmental and Energy Research, Amory Lovins, co-founder and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, and Rifkin have all demonstrated how a nuclear "renaissance" — to replace the 400 old reactors now rattling apart worldwide and get to the total of 1,600 that Rifkin says are needed for a minimum impact on climate disruption — would require that we build three new reactors every 30 days for 40 years.[5]
The impossibility of such a reactor-building offensive is evident all around the US.
Reactors at Vermont Yankee, Kewaunee in Wis., and San Onofre in Calif. are all down to dismantlement long before their licenses expire. Last November, TXU, Inc., owners of the Comanche Peak station 40 miles southwest of Fort Worth announced the cancellation of their long-awaited expansion. TXU intended to double its poison footprint and add two new reactors, but as Univ. of Texas engineering professor Ross Baldick told Dallas Morning News, "Currently, it's just not competitive with gas. Nuclear's capital costs are so high you can't win on it."[6]
Exelon Corp., the largest commercial reactor operator in the US with 22, announced last June that it would scrap plans to expand production at two sites. The firm said it was cancelling construction at the La Salle station in Illinois and its Limerick site in Pennsylvania.[7] In August, Duke Energy Florida cancelled its two-reactor Levy County project after estimated costs had rocketed 400% about $5 billion each to $24 billion. "It turns out," Time magazine reported, "that new [reactors] would be not just extremely expensive but spectacularly expensive."[8] Duke previously suspended plans for new reactors at Shearon Harris, NC.
Switzerland will phase out all five of its reactors by 2034,[9] and Germany will mothball its 17 by 2022. Italy has renewed its pre-Fukushima promise to go nuclear-free, and Taiwan is on the verge of a phase-out announcement. Venezuela and Israel, both of which had reactor plans, have cancelled them.
The "clean nuclear power" corner notably won the backing of a few VIPs, notably James Hanson, formerly of NASA, and Whole Earth Catalogue founder Stewart Brand. Less well noted is Amory Lovins' scathing deconstruction of the nuclear chapter of Brand's 2009 book Whole Earth Discipline. Lovins sums up "Four Nuclear Myths" this way:
"[E]xpanding nuclear power is uneconomic, is unnecessary, is not undergoing the claimed renaissance in the global marketplace … and, most importantly, will reduce and retard climate protection. That's because … new nuclear power is so costly and slow that … it will save about 2-20 times less carbon per dollar, and about 20-40 times less carbon per year, than investing instead in the market winners: efficient use of electricity and what The Economist calls 'micro-power,' comprising distributed renewables (renewables with mass-produced units, i.e., those other than big hydro dams), and cogenerating electricity together with useful heat in factories and buildings."[10] [Emphasis in original]
Plumes of disinformation
Another part of reactor greenwashing is the powerful influence of mis- and disinformation following the Great East Japan Earthquake, the resulting tsunami, and the catastrophic Fukushima radiation gusher that began March 11, 2011.
In reporting on the contamination of soil, tap water, rain water, groundwater, breast milk, vegetables, fish, baby food, animal feed, beef, and incinerator ash, radiation was and is almost always said to pose little or no "immediate" danger. This minimization is designed to and quite successfully does ease public concern and push Fukushima's ongoing radio-contamination from public consciousness.
Contaminated spinach and milk "do not pose an immediate health threat," NPR's Giles Snyder reported April 19, 2011. The Agence France-Presse reported October 6, 2011, "An exposure of 100 millisieverts per year is considered the lowest level at which any increase in cancer risk is evident." However, as the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission says, "…any increase in dose, no matter how small, results in an incremental increase in risk."[11]
An April 11, 2011 Forbes report flatly misstated the US EPA's published public warning about radiation. Noting that a Phoenix, Arizona, drinking water sample contained 3.2 pico-curies per liter of radioactive iodine-131 from Fukushima, and that the EPA's maximum contaminant level is 3.0, the writer concluded, "EPA does not consider these levels to pose a health threat." In fact, the EPA officially warns that "there is no level below which we can say an exposure poses no risk."
This pattern of misstatement and official falsehood went to the very top of the food chain. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano famously declared March 11, 2011, "Let me repeat that there is no radiation leak, nor will there be a leak."[12] He later asked the public not to overreact to reports of radioactively contaminated food, saying, according to the BBC, "Even if you eat contaminated vegetables several times, it will not harm your health at all."
President Obama followed suit. Six days into the Fukushima disaster, he said, "We do not expect harmful levels of radiation to reach the United States…"[13] Obama's carefully-worded lullaby was immediately translated by Mike Viqueira of NBC News into, "The president said there was absolutely no danger whatsoever," and the by NBC's news anchor who said there was, "no reason to be concerned on the west coast."
If only a president could stem the tide. Seventeen days later, Forbes reported that iodine-131 from Fukushima was found in drinking water in dozens of U.S. cities from California to Massachusetts, from Washington to Alabama. The EPA found either iodine-131 or cesium-137, and even strontium-90, in milk from Washington, Arizona, California, Vermont and Hawaii.[14]
A classic example of the trivialization of radiation risk is a 1989 New York Times report that said, "… [T]he new estimate that radiation is a more potent carcinogen than previously believed should cause no concern for the average person, experts said, because the public is not exposed to enough radiation to exceed levels considered safe."[15] This is perfectly untrue.
What should be reported is that the public is not usually exposed to radiation above permitted levels because safe exposures don't exist. Official government assessments make this absolutely clear.
No safe dose
Authoritative warnings by the agencies that regulate radiation exposure are worthy of a detailed listing because of the literal consensus that's been reached i.e. There is no safe dose, and as Dr. Arjun Makhijani says, "Only zero exposure results in zero cancer risk."[16]
The National Council on Radiation Protection (NCPR) says, "…the Council assumes that, for radiation-protection purposes, the risk of stochastic [random] effects is proportional to dose without threshold…"[17] (Emphasis added) In other words, "… every increment of radiation exposure produces an incremental increase in the risk of cancer."[18]
The EPA says, "…any exposure to radiation can be harmful (or can increase the risk of cancer). ….. In other words, it is assumed that no radiation exposure is completely risk free."[19] Further, "Radiation is a carcinogen. It may also cause other adverse health effects, including genetic defects in the children of exposed parents or mental retardation in the children of mothers exposed during pregnancy."[20]
The Department of Energy says, "[T]he effects of low levels of radiation are … a very slight increase in cancer risk."[21]
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says, "This dose-response model suggests that any increase in dose, no matter how small, results in an incremental increase in risk."[22]
The National Academy of Sciences in BEIR-VII, its latest book-length report on the biological effects of ionizing radiation, says "… that low-dose radiation acts predominantly as a tumor-initiating agent,"[23] and that "… the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans." The committee further judges it unlikely that a threshold exists for the induction of cancers …"[24]
As science has come to understand the toxic, carcinogenic, mutagenic and teratogenic properties of even the lowest radiation exposures, the officially permitted dose — not a safe level — has dramatically decreased.[25] In the 1920s, the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) set the permissible dose for radiation workers in medicine and industry at 75 rem-per-year. In 1936, the limit was reduced to 50 rem-per-year, then to 25 in 1948, to 15 in 1954, and to 5 in 1958[26] — where it remains to this day. (A rem is a measure of the biological damage of a given absorbed dose of radiation.)
Today, the permitted radiation exposure for the public has been reduced to one-20th of what's permitted for nuclear workers, or 0.25 rem-per-year. However, the ICRP's 1990 recommendation to again reduce worker exposures — this time by three-fifths — from 5 to 2 rem/year, has never been adopted by the United States, even after 24 years.
Worst ever radioactive pollution of Pacific Ocean hasn't moved US to test seafood
Radiation exposure and contamination should concern everyone because by all accounts the volume of radioactive materials discharged to the Pacific Ocean by Fukushima is the single greatest radioactive contamination of the sea ever observed.[27] An estimated 27 "peta-becquerels" (27 million billion Becquerels) of cesium-137 had already leaked or been deliberately dumped into the Pacific by October 2011. A Becquerel represents one atomic disintegration-per-second.
Last July, Tokyo Electric Power Co., which owns the Fukushima wreckage, acknowledged that an additional 300 tons-a-day of highly contaminated water is leaking into the Pacific from the six-reactor station — and has been since the beginning of the disaster almost three years ago. The American Medical Association — following the revelation of massive ongoing leaks — called on the US government to "monitor and fully report the radioactivity levels of edible species sold in the United States."[28]
Yet at present, US seafood is not regularly tested for cesium contamination, in spite of the large numbers of fish and other foods that have been found contaminated by Fukushima isotopes — including blue fin[29] and albacore tuna[30] caught off the US West Coast, grapefruit from Florida, and prunes, almonds, pistachios and oranges from California.[31]
In this context, a coalition of public health and environmental groups petitioned the FDA in early summer demanding a drastic reduction in the amount of radioactive cesium allowed in food. The petition by members of the Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network (FFAN) declared that the arbitrarily high 1,200 becquerels-per-kilogram (Bq/kg) US limit is "ridiculous." The standard is between 120 times to 24 times weaker than Japan's. (See chart)
The petition demands that US foods have no more than 5 Bq/kg of cesium-137 and -134, and that all food be tested and labeled with its cesium content. The FFAN reports that the devastated Fukushima reactors continue to leak more than 10 million Becquerels of cesium-134 and cesium-137 per hour into the environment, "with no sign of stopping." The network said it was "alarmed" at the lack of testing currently in place to meet the threat of radioactive contamination in food. Because cesium-134 has a hazardous life of about 10-20 years, and cesium-137 has a hazardous life of about 300-600 years, the FFAN said, the threat of food contamination "is a long-term issue that deserves immediate attention."
Government limits on cesium poisoning allowed in food, in becquerels-per-kilogram below, vary widely.[32]
State Drinking Water Milk & Dairy Foodstuffs Baby Food
Japan (new in 2012) 10 50 100 50
United States 1,200 1,200 1,200 1,200
European Union* 1,000 1,000 1,250 400
Codex** 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000
*Only applied to items produced within the EU. When Japanese agricultural products are imported to the EU, Japan's provisional limits are applied.
**Codex is a part of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
"Nuclear can't compete today"
Well before Fukushima's triple meltdowns staggered nuclear's future, Congress and the industry were struggling to ignore its abandonment by important players around the world and public condemnations made by former supporters, and since March 2011 major figures the world over are saying "No nukes."
Speaking in New York City Nov. 27, World Bank President Dr. Jim Yong Kim said, "The World Bank Group does not engage in providing support for nuclear power. … [O]ur focus is on finding ways of working in hydroelectric power, in geo-thermal, in solar, in wind. … and we don't do nuclear energy." A week earlier, Kim said governments weren't doing enough to confront climate change, revealing that the WBG well knows that nuclear power is no answer.[33]
World Bank directors may have adopted the recommendation of the US Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, which concluded in 2009 that governments can and should help stop nuclear weapons proliferation by "… discouraging … the use of financial incentives in the promotion of civil nuclear power."[34]
More pointedly, Gregory Jaczko, who was Chairman of the NRC when Japan's Fukushima-Daiichi catastrophe started in 2011, warned in 2012 that "All 104 nuclear power reactors now in operation in the US have a safety problem that cannot be fixed and they should be replaced with newer technology…"[35] When he left the NRC, the Times editorialized that "the country is losing a strong advocate for public safety who was always willing to challenge the nuclear industry and its political backers in Congress."
John Rowe, recently retired chairman and CEO of reactor-heavy Exelon Corp., said "unequivocally" in March 2012, "that new ones [reactors] don't make any sense right now…. It just isn't economic, and it's not economic within a foreseeable time frame."[36]
Germany's gas and electricity giant RWE Corp. announced in June 2012 that it would exit the nuclear power sector altogether and invest in solar power. As Germany's largest utility, RWE had been one of the most vehement defenders of nuclear power.[37]
Even the president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, Marvin Fertel, told Scientific American, "We won't build large numbers of new nuclear in the US in the near term … Today, you ought to build gas."[38] Bill Johnson, CEO of Progress Energy, one of the utilities filing for a reactor construction license but with no plans to actually build, said in in the same issue, "Nuclear can't compete today."
A year earlier, Siemens, the largest engineering conglomerate in Europe, fired a shot heard round the world, declaring that — following Germany's decision to close its reactors by 2022 — it would stop building new ones anywhere in the world. Siemens built all of Germany's 17 units. It was the first industry giant to announce such a departure. "The chapter for us is closed," said chief executive Peter Löscher.[39]
Calling new reactors "too expensive," Jon Wellinghoff, the chairman of the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said in 2009, "We may not need any, ever." Wellinghoff directly countered the industry's oft-heard complaint about meeting "base load" needs, saying that renewables "like wind, solar and biomass would be able to provide enough energy to meet base load capacity and future demand," since the US can reduce energy usage by 50 percent.[40]
According to Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of the ubiquitous reactor engineering firm General Electric and one of nuclear power's staunchest defenders, "If you were a utility CEO and looked at your world today, you would just do gas and wind. … You would never do nuclear. The economics are overwhelming."[41]
Asked about Duke Power Florida's August decision to cancel new reactor plans, Peter Bradford, a former NRC commissioner, told the Tampa Bay Times that a nuclear construction boom "was just this artificial gold rush. And yes, it does show the renaissance is dead."[42]
Wind and solar power sprint, nuclear crawls
The US installed 9,922 megawatts of wind power generation in 2009 breaking all previous records. The one-year increase was equal to the building of six large power reactors, or three times the giant 2,700 MW South Texas Project — and all in one/tenth the time it normally takes to build a single new reactor. And wind is now cost-competitive with natural gas for new electric generation. Wind power is being buoyed by an extension of the Investment Tax Credit for renewable energy.[43]
According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), a research group within the Energy Department, wind power generation increased by 17.7 million megawatt hours between 2012 and 2013, while nuclear power generation grew my a mere 2.2 million MWh.[44] On the sunny side, roughly $13 billion was invested in solar power projects in 2013, a tenfold increase over 2007.[45]
This renewable clean power production in the US crossed a major milestone in January 2011, exceeding the amount of electricity generated by nuclear reactors, narrowly out-producing nuclear power during the first three months of 2011.[46] One reason that solar power expansion is sprinting ahead of nuclear, is that its cost has plummeted. Duke University researchers found in 2010 that, "Electricity from new solar installations is now cheaper than electricity from proposed new nuclear."[47]
Gunning the engines while weakening accident cleanup regulations
Reactor "power uprates" boost the output of operating units beyond what their licenses first allowed by packing in more uranium fuel and running them harder. Uprates usually require replacement of giant pipes, pumps, valves, transformers and generators so the additional heat, pressure and steam can be controlled. Some reactors allowed to gun their engines are over 40 years old.
The NRC's record of approving uprate applications is alarming. Since 1977 the NRC has approved 149 uprate applications and has denied exactly one. Nick DiFrancesco, projects manager at the NRC — where the cookie cutter evidently meets the rubber stamp — told Nukewatch, "We don't have a lot of denials."[48]
More frightening still is that of the 23 reactors now operating in the US that are Fukushima clones (GE Mark 1 boiling water reactors, long known to be vulnerable to containment failure during a severe accident). Fifteen of them have been granted power uprates. In fact, seven of the 15 have been granted a second power uprate. Sesquehanna's GE Mark II reactors in PA were granted a hair raising three power uprates. (See chart)
Does your 1971 Caprice run pretty well with the original motor? With the industry and the NRC working overtime to fight or delay post-Fukushima safety improvements, how do you feel about the operators of GE Mark-Ones stomping the accelerator? Are you living within 50 miles of one of these rattle traps?
Fukushima Uprate date 2d uprate date 3d uprate date
Clone Age & % boost & % boost & % boost
Monticello, MN 43 1998 6.3% 2013 12.9%
Hatch, GA (#1) 38 1995 5% 2003 1.5%
Peach Bottom, PA (#2) 40 1994 5% 2002 1.62%
Sesquehanna, PA (#1) 31 [Mk II] 1995 4.5% 2001 1.4% 2008 13%
Source: NRC, "Approved Applications for Power Uprates,"
As the nuclear industry struggles against financial collapse, government regulators seem to have capitulated to political pressure to weaken radiation exposure standards after accidents and thereby save the industry hundreds of billions of dollars. On April 15, the EPA issued new Protective Action Guides (PAGs) for dealing with large-scale radiation releases — like Fukushima. The proposed PAGs represent a preemptive government bailout, because they would save reactor owners the nine-figure costs of currently required decontamination following large radiation releases. Eerily, the new PAGs seem to presume the premeditated inevitability of catastrophic releases that the industry can't afford to withstand. The likelihood of such events was cold-bloodedly conceded by NRC Commissioner James Asselstine who testified to Congress in 1986: "[W]e can expect to see a core meltdown accident within the next 20 years, and it … could result in off-site releases of radiation … as large as or larger than the releases … at Chernobyl."[49]
Now that Fukushima has tripled down on Commissioner Asselstine's radiation roulette wager, real players in big electricity are running for the exits. Unlike Congressional hogs feeding at utility lobbying buffets, or commercial television executives who devour utility advertising checks, Wall Street isn't buying bank-busting liabilities like Fukushima which will cost Japan a minimum of $350 billion and which is relentlessly salting the entire Pacific Ocean with long-lived radioactive materials.
Big investors must smirk at sloganeering about "safe reactor designs" spouted in documentary hoaxes like "Pandora's Promise." They read headlines from Japan and recall the stinging deception purveyed by Lewis Straus of the Atomic Energy Commission who said electricity from reactors would be "too cheap to meter." And they can't forget Forbes' 1985 denunciation of nuclear power as industry's "largest managerial disaster." Only add to Forbes' prescient epitaph that nuclear is also history's broadest and most and persistent health and environmental catastrophe. ####################
— John LaForge
A version of this essay was first published by CounterPunch, Volume 21, Number 2, March 2014.
[1] Duluth News-Tribune & Herald, "Slight rise in radioactivity found again in state milk," May 22, 1986; Minneapolis StarTribune, "Low radiation dose found in area milk," May 17, 1986
[2] Fairlie & Sumner, "TORCH: The Other Chernobyl Report," April 2006, p. 30
[3] Judy Pasternak, "Nuclear power regaining favor," Investigative Reporting Workshop of American University, Jan. 24, 2010
[4] Jeremy Rifkin, "Nuclear power is dead," public address, Wermuth Asset Management 5th annual investors event, March 1, 2013
[5] Jeremy Rifkin, Ibid.
[6] James Osborne, "Expansion of Comanche Peak nuclear power plant suspended," Dallas Morning News, Nov. 8, 2013
[7] Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2013
[8] Time, Dec. 31, 2008
[9] AFP, Geneva, Oct. 30, 2013
[10] Amory Lovins, "Four Nuclear Myths," Oct. 13, 2009
[11] NRC, "Radiation Exposure and Cancer" (Updated March 29, 2012)
[12] Evan Osnos, "The Fallout," The New Yorker, Oct. 17, 2011, p. 48
[13] "Obama Downplays Radiological Impact on U.S., Warns Americans Abroad," ABC World News, March 17, 2011
[14] Forbes, April 3, 11,13 & 27, 2011; and New York Times, March 31 & April 1, 2011
[15] Philip Hilts, "Higher Cancer Risk Found in Low-Level Radiation," New York Times, Dec. 20, 1989
[16] Arjun Makhijani, "Memorandum to NRC Chairman Allison Macfarlane," Science for Democratic Action, June 2013, p. 10
[17] NCRP Publications, "Report No. 136 – Evaluation of the Linear-Nonthreshold Dose-Response Model for Ionizing Radiation (2001)", Preface, p. iii; http://www.ncrppublications.org/Reports/136
[18] Arjun Makhijani, Science for Democratic Action, IEER, June 2005, citing "Evaluation of the Linear-Non-threshold Dose-Response Model for Ionizing Radiation," NCRP Report 136, June 4, 2001
[19] US EPA, "Ionizing Radiation Series," No.2, Air & Radiation, 660lJ, EPA 402-F-98-010, May 1998
[20] US EPA, "Radiation: Risks & Realities," Air & Radiation, 6602J, EPA 402-K-92-004, Aug. 1993, p. 3
[21] DOE, "Understanding Radiation," DOE/NE, 0074, p. 8 & 9
[23] Ibid., p. 315, Http://Www.Nap.Edu/Openbook.Php?Record_Id=11340&Page=R1
[24] National Academy of Sciences, "Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR VII Phase 2" (2006), Public Summary, p. 10
[25] Gayle Green, The Woman Who Knew Too Much, (1999), p. 143; Stephanie Cooke, In Mortal Hands (2009), p. 169; Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Madness (1994), p. 39-40; Rosalie Bertell, No Immediate Danger (1985), pp. 45, 62, 172
[26] Greene, The Woman Who Knew Too Much, p. 143; Bertell, No Immediate Danger, p. 51-52
[27] Nature, Nov. 14, 2012: "The Fukushima disaster caused by far the largest discharge of radioactivity into the ocean ever seen," citing research by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Greenpeace, "Lessons from Fukushima," February 2012, p. 15, n.1, Re. French Institut de Radioprotection et du Sureté Nucléaire, Oct. 26, 2011.
[28] AMA, 2013 annual meeting, Resolution 414, regarding "the need to monitor possible contamination of seafood due to the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster of 2011, which may still have an impact upon the US food supply and the health of Americans," p.14
[29] CBS News, May 28, 2012
[30] "Trace Fukushima radiation found in Northwest albacore tuna," Seattle Times, Oct. 27, 2012
[31] Citizens for Health, and Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network, news release, June 27, 2013
[32] http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/12/27/japans-new-limits-for-radiation-in-food-20-times-stricter-than-american-and-eu-standards/
[33] Independent online, Nov. 28, 2013; "World Bank Head: Must Find Climate Change Solution," World Bank News, Nov. 19, 2013
[34] Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, "The Clock Is Ticking," Oct. 21, 2009
[35] Matt Wald, "Ex-Regulator Says Reactors Are Flawed," New York Times, April 8, 2013
[36] "Exelon's 'Nuclear Guy': No New Nukes," Forbes, March 29, 2012
[37] The Local (Germany), June 18, 2012; AP, April 2, 2011
[38] David Biello, "Nuclear reactor approved in US for first time since 1978: But no nuclear renaissance appears to be imminent," Scientific American, Feb. 9, 2012
[39] New York Times, Sept. 18, 2011
[40] Wall Street Journal, Apr. 23, & New York Times, Apr. 22, 2009
[41] Wall Street Journal, Sept. 25, 2010, & London Financial Times, Nov. 18, 2007
[42] "Duke Energy to cancel proposed Levy County nuclear plant," Tampa Bay Times, Aug. 1, 2013,
[43]American Wind Energy Association, 2010 Annual Report
[44] Energy Information Administration, via American Wind Energy Association, <www.awea.org/MediaCenter/pressrelease.aspx?ItemNumber=5748>
[45] Diane Cardwell & Julie Creswell, "Solar Power Craze on Wall St. Propels Start-Up," New York Times, Jan. 4, 2014
[46] SmartPlanet.com, July 7, 2011
[47] Blackburn & Cunningham, "Solar and Nuclear Costs: The Historic Crossover," Duke University, July 2010
[48] Telephone interview, January 7, 2014
[49] Testimony of James Asselstine, Commissioner, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 1986, in The Nuclear Power Deception, Makhijani & Saleska, Apex Press, 1999, p. 6, n. 9


EWEN DOWNIE, M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.A.C.P.
"The secret—which is also the reward—of all learning lies in the passion for the search" (Quiller-Couch).
Mr. President, distinguished guests and Fellows of the College, in thanking you for the invitation to deliver the Lilly Lecture for 1956 I recognize with pleasure the close professional relations which exist between our two countries and the compliment you have paid this day to Australian medicine. I am deeply conscious of my responsibility both to your College and to my colleagues at home.
Published: Ann Intern Med. 1957;46(1):126-137.
Rotavirus Vaccination Does Not Increase Type 1 Diabetes and May Decrease Celiac Disease in Children and Adolescents.
Pediatr Infect Dis J 2019;38(5):539-541.


Microsoft announce the public release of a new developer tool - Source Analysis for C#.
After installation, Source Analysis can be run from within the Visual Studio IDE. You can set this up to be run as a part of your build process as documented here. Since this is plugged in as a MsBuild project you can use it in as a part of Team Foundation Build process as well.


text:
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AFTER a brief hiatus in the Bavarian automaker's line-up, the two-seater roadster is back. The all-new BMW Z4 is meaner, faster, and more agile. From styling to performance, high-tech features and comfort, the spunky little number delivers on all accounts. The new convertible will be available in three variants: the Z4 sDrive20i, Z4 sDrive 30i, and the Z4 M40i.
"The all-new BMW Z4 Roadster is our brand-new addition to BMW's long history of engrossing roadsters," said Hans-Christian Baertels, acting president of BMW Group India. "With dynamic proportions, emotional design and thrilling sportiness, this open-top two-seater takes the classic roadster into the world of tomorrow. When the roof opens, there are no limits to driving pleasure in the all-new BMW Z4 Roadster."
BMW Z4 (soft-top)
BMW Z4 (interior)
BMW Z4 (engine)
The resemblance to the outgoing bimmer is striking. However, the new two-seater also shares many of the familiar design cues seen on the BMW 8-series coupe. The wide stance, slim taillights, and fluid sides perfectly matching a sporty front without looking like it's overdone. The overall proportion of the new Z4 has been altered; it's now longer and taller. Its commanding presence starts from a powerfully sculpted front apron and headlights positioned at the outer edges, ensuring there is no mistaking the car's lineage. The new-look, mesh-design BMW kidney grille sits low and broad, and it features an arresting honeycomb pattern with a three-dimensional structure.
Inside the roadster, the driver-focussed cockpit has advanced features to enhance driving pleasure, courtesy of state-of-the-art equipment in its cabin. These include the start/stop button, the iDrive Controller, the Driving Experience Control switch, the Electric Parking Brake button, the screens and the switch for the electrically-operated soft-top roof (it can be opened or closed in 10 seconds, even while travelling at speeds up to 50 km/h). These are all within easy reach so there's nothing to distract the driver from the enjoyment of the task at hand.
On the road, the low centre of gravity, low weight, a perfect 50:50 weight distribution ratio, a rigid body and chassis structure, and optimised aerodynamic properties deliver remarkable control on both straights and turns. At the top of the line, the new Z4 M40i boasts a 3.0-litre, six-cylinder engine, featuring M Performance TwinPower Turbo technology. Expect sprints from zero to 100 km/h in just 4.5 seconds.
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Mikhail Gomes

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Sharhabil bin Hassneh EcoPark is considered a leading model for preserving ecologically important habitats In Jordan. It offers country living at its best whilst providing ecological benefit back to our land. Since its establishment, wildlife on the park has been flourishing and it has enabled many locals and tourists to enjoy the beauty of nature in the Jordan Valley. It is a hidden paradise waiting to be discovered. The park is a unique concept in Jordan and suitable for different age groups. It is a perfect get away for both families and youth and it offers its services and a wide range of activities at very affordable prices.
At SHE, there are many recreational activities to engage in: picnicking, hiking, bird-watching, photography, meditating in nature, biking and other adventure activities.
SHE also offers structured tours of the park and the nearby communities, as well as workshops to teach about biodiversity, mud building and other EcoPark related skills.
The SHE EcoPark has several types of accommodations for its over night guests.
The SHE EcoPark has several types of accommodations for its overnight guests.
Our park could not exist without the support of many sponsors. Thank you all! Every little bit helps. To make a donation to further our cause, please click the button below; suggested donation amount for individuals is $25, and for larger organizations $250.


text:
Home | Historical Dates | Fictional Dates | Upcoming Events | Privacy Policy
20th of May, 1987
Here are some facts about this particular date:
What Day: The 20th of May, 1987, fell on a Wednesday.
On this exact date: Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) is released.
Decade: 1980s.
32 years, 2 months and 0 days have passed since the 20th of May, 1987.
Week Number: This date occurred during Week 21 of 1987.
Day 140 of 1987.
Leap Year: 1987 was NOT a leap year.
Zodiac Sign (Astrology): Anyone born on this date will have the star sign Taurus.
Zodiac Element: Earth.
Chinese Zodiac Animal: In the Chinese Zodiac, 1987 was the year of the Rabbit (Yin Fire).
Native American Zodiac: The 20th of May, 1987 falls under the Beaver.
Birthstone: Anyone born during the month of May will have the birthstone Emerald.
Age: Anyone born on the 20th of May, 1987, will be 32 years of age.
American Format: 05-20-1987 (the MDY format is also used in Belize).
YMD Format: 1987-05-20. This format is often used by software applications, simply because numbers such as "19870520" are easier to sort.
Unix Timestamp: The Unix Timestamp for this date is 548463600.
Music Singles
Songs that were on top of the music singles charts in the USA and the United Kingdom on the 20th of May, 1987:
United States: With Or Without You - U2
United Kingdom: Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now - Starship
Movie Box Office
What movie was on top of the box office?
The movie "Ishtar" was at the top of the box office on this date.
News Topics, Fads & Culture
Trending news stories and fads that were prevalent throughout this time period. These are news stories and events that would have been in the media on the 20th of May, 1987.
Iran-Iraq War
Between the 22nd of September, 1980, and the 20th of August, 1988, an armed conflict was being fought between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Iraqi Republic.
Late 1980s fashion.
During this period, the mini skirt became extremely popular. Shoulder pads became increasingly smaller. Popular clothing included reversible inside-out coats, bright-colored shoes with thin heels, berets, lacy gloves, rugby sweatshirts, sweater dresses, jumpsuits, capri leggings, bike shorts and skirts worn with leggings. Colors included neon hues, plum, gold, and bright wines.
1987 in music.
Popular music artists in 1987 included The Bangles, Heart, Gregory Abbott, Whitney Houston, Starship, Robbie Nevil, Whitesnake, Bruce Hornsby and the Range, Bob Seger, U2, Los Lobos and Bon Jovi.
The 1987 Eurovision song contest is held in Brussels, Belgium. Ireland win the contest with the song "Hold Me Now" by Johnny Logan.
Weather information for the 20th of May, 1987:
Dublin, Ireland: It was 16.1 degrees Celsius. It was a dry day. It was a sunny day.
New York, USA: Temperature: 59.1 degrees Fahrenheit. 15.06 degrees Celsius. Precipitation: 0cm.
London, England: Temperature: 9.94 degrees Celsius.
US President
Who was the US President on this particular date?
Ronald Reagan was the President of the United States on the 20th of May, 1987.
Conception Dates
Interesting facts about conception dates.
A baby that was born on the 20th of May, 1987 was probably conceived around the 10th of August, 1986. (Rough Estimate).
The due date for a baby that was conceived on the 20th of May, 1987 is the 27th of February, 1988. (Rough Estimate).
Around This Time...
Things that happened during this general period of time...
8th of May, 1987: 8 IRA volunteers and a civilian are killed in an SAS ambush in Loughgall, Northern Ireland.
9th of May, 1987: 183 people are killed when LOT Flight 5055 Tadeusz Kosciuszko crashes in Warsaw, Poland.
3rd of June, 1987: Mob film The Untouchables (1987) is released.
5th of June, 1987: The movie Harry and the Hendersons (1987) is released in cinemas.
10th of June, 1987: Poltergeist III (1988) is released.
12th of June, 1987: The film Predator (1987) is released in movie theaters.
Historical events that have occurred on the 20th of May:
20th of May, 1971: The Chuknagar massacre occurs when the Pakistan Army kills thousands of Bengali Hindus.
20th of May, 2003: The last episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is aired.
20th of May, 2011: Wrestler Randy Savage dies from a heart attack.
20th of May, 2011: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) is released in movie theaters.
20th of May, 1995: The last episode of the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" is aired.
20th of May, 1996: The song "Three Lions" is released as the official anthem of the England football team (for the 1996 European Championships).
TV shows that you might have been watching around this time.
21 Jump Street - TV series starring Johnny Depp.
Married... with Children - Comedy series starring Ed O'Neill as Al Bundy.
Matlock - Legal drama starring Andy Griffith.
ALF - About an alien called ALF.
The Equalizer - About a retired secret agent called Robert McCall.
The Golden Girls - Television series about four mature women who live together in Miami, Florida.
She-Ra: Princess of Power - Animated TV series.
ThunderCats - Animated series based on a group of half-human half-cat aliens.
Charles in Charge - TV show about a 19-year-old student called Charles, who is played by Scott Baio.
Murder, She Wrote - Mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher.
Popular video games that you might have been playing around this time.
Contra - A run and gun action game that was developed by Konami.
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link - Sequel to the original Zelda game.
Celebrities and historical figures that were born on the 20th of May:
20th of May, 1972: Busta Rhymes: Rapper.
20th of May, 1981: Iker Casillas: Spanish soccer player.
20th of May, 1982: Petr Cech: Czech soccer player.
How old was I?
Enter your date of birth below to find out how old you were on the 20th of May, 1987.
1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986
Calculate My Age
Looking for some nostalgia? Here are some Youtube videos relating to the 20th of May, 1987. Please note that videos are automatically selected by Youtube and that results may vary! Click on the "Load Next Video" button to view the next video in the search playlist. In many cases, you'll find episodes of old TV shows, documentaries, music videos and soap dramas.
NB: If a video is blank, click on the button above to view the next one...
Visualize the days that have passed since the 20th of May, 1987. Each day that has passed will be represented as a calendar icon.
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Time Difference & Statistics
Here are some fun statistics about the 20th of May, 1987.
11,747 days have passed since this date.
1,014,940,800 seconds have passed since the 20th of May, 1987.
If you were born on this day, your heart has beated approximately 1,184,097,600 times.
Since the 20th of May, 1987, earth has travelled approximately 523,709,452,800 miles through space.
If you were born on this day, your eyes have blinked approximately 169,156,800 times.
If you were born on this day, you have taken approximately 87,284,909 steps. That's about 38,793 miles!
Since this date, 12,179,290 meteors have entered the earth's atmosphere!
Time for a quick language lesson! The word for "Wednesday" in other languages is:
German: Mittwoch.
French: Mercredi.
Italian: Mercoledi.
Spanish: Miercoles.
Portuguese: Quarta-feira.
What does the 20th of May, 1987 mean to you? Were you born on this date? Did you finish school? A loved one passed away?
Random Dates
A list of random dates that you might be interested in:
20th of October, 2010
15th of January, 1975
12th of September, 2024
10th of November, 2005
21st of May, 1987


This course introduces the topic of sustainability-driven innovation (SDI), comparing and contrasting traditional models of innovation management and economic development paradigms with emerging models and discourse of innovation for sustainable development. It will discuss motivations, mechanisms, and outcomes for SDI in various social, national, and cultural contexts, highlighting the challenges of practical implementation.
-Develop an understanding of how innovation influences sustainable development in various cultural and social contexts.
-Compare and contrast technocentric, ecocentric, and anthropocentric motivations and outcomes of SDI.
-Understand how SDI is executed in various organizational settings.
-Develop a knowledge base of case studies of SDI across sectors.
-Explore the ethical implications of emerging technologies.


text:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using Entities;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using Entities.Views;

namespace DAL.Mapper
{
    public class OrganizationalUnitMapper
    {

        public void Insert(OrganizationalUnitEntity t)
        {
            throw new NotImplementedException();
        }

        public void InsertWithParent(OrganizationalUnitEntity t, int? ParentId)
        {
            SqlConnection conn = null;
            SqlCommand cmd = null;

            try
            {
                conn = DALHelper.CreateSqlDbConnection();
                cmd = new SqlCommand("usp_InsertOrganizationalUnit", conn);
                cmd.CommandType = System.Data.CommandType.StoredProcedure;

                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Title", t.Title);
                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Description", t.Description);
                if (ParentId != null)
                {
                    cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@ParentId", ParentId);
                }
                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@OrganizationalUnitGroupId", t.OrganizationaUnitGroupId);
                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Status", t.Status);

                t.Id = Convert.ToInt32(cmd.ExecuteScalar());
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                throw;
            }
            finally
            {
                conn.Close();
                cmd.Dispose();
                conn.Dispose();
            }
        }

        public void Update(OrganizationalUnitEntity t, int? ParentId)
        {
            SqlConnection conn = null;
            SqlCommand cmd = null;

            try
            {
                conn = DALHelper.CreateSqlDbConnection();
                cmd = new SqlCommand("usp_UpdateOrganizationalUnit", conn);
                cmd.CommandType = System.Data.CommandType.StoredProcedure;

                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Id", t.Id);
                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Title", t.Title);
                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Description", t.Description);
                if (ParentId != null)
                {
                    cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@ParentId", ParentId);
                }
                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@OrganizationalUnitGroupId", t.OrganizationaUnitGroupId);
                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Status", t.Status);

                t.Id = Convert.ToInt32(cmd.ExecuteScalar());
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                throw;
            }
            finally
            {
                conn.Close();
                cmd.Dispose();
                conn.Dispose();
            }
        }

        public void Delete(OrganizationalUnitEntity t)
        {
            SqlConnection conn = null;
            SqlCommand cmd = null;

            try
            {
                conn = DALHelper.CreateSqlDbConnection();
                cmd = new SqlCommand("usp_DeleteOrganizationalUnit", conn);
                cmd.CommandType = System.Data.CommandType.StoredProcedure;

                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Id", t.Id);

                cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                throw;
            }
            finally
            {
                conn.Close();
                cmd.Dispose();
                conn.Dispose();
            }
        }

        public OrganizationalUnitView Get(OrganizationalUnitEntity t)
        {
            SqlConnection conn = null;
            SqlCommand cmd = null;

            try
            {
                conn = DALHelper.CreateSqlDbConnection();
                cmd = new SqlCommand("usp_GetOrganisationalUnitById", conn);
                cmd.CommandType = System.Data.CommandType.StoredProcedure;

                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Id", t.Id);

                SqlDataReader rdr = cmd.ExecuteReader();
                OrganizationalUnitView organisationalUnitView = new OrganizationalUnitView();

                if (rdr.Read())
                {
                    organisationalUnitView.Id = Convert.ToInt32(rdr["Id"]);
                    organisationalUnitView.Title = Convert.ToString(rdr["Title"]);
                    organisationalUnitView.Description = Convert.ToString(rdr["Description"]);
                    organisationalUnitView.OrganizationaUnitGroup = Convert.ToString(rdr["OrganizationaUnitGroup"]);
                    organisationalUnitView.Status = (StatusEnum)Convert.ToInt32(rdr["Status"]);
                }

                return organisationalUnitView;
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                throw;
            }
            finally
            {
                conn.Close();
                cmd.Dispose();
                conn.Dispose();
            }
        }

        public OrganizationalUnitView GetParent(OrganizationalUnitEntity t)
        {
            SqlConnection conn = null;
            SqlCommand cmd = null;

            try
            {
                conn = DALHelper.CreateSqlDbConnection();
                cmd = new SqlCommand("usp_GetOrganisationalUnitParent", conn);
                cmd.CommandType = System.Data.CommandType.StoredProcedure;

                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Id", t.Id);

                SqlDataReader rdr = cmd.ExecuteReader();
                OrganizationalUnitView organisationalUnitView = new OrganizationalUnitView();

                if (rdr.Read())
                {
                    organisationalUnitView.Id = Convert.ToInt32(rdr["Id"]);
                    organisationalUnitView.Title = Convert.ToString(rdr["Title"]);
                    organisationalUnitView.Description = Convert.ToString(rdr["Description"]);
                    organisationalUnitView.OrganizationaUnitGroup = Convert.ToString(rdr["OrganizationaUnitGroup"]);
                    organisationalUnitView.Status = (StatusEnum)Convert.ToInt32(rdr["Status"]);
                }

                return organisationalUnitView;
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                throw;
            }
            finally
            {
                conn.Close();
                cmd.Dispose();
                conn.Dispose();
            }
        }

        public OrganizationalUnitView Get(string name)
        {
            SqlConnection conn = null;
            SqlCommand cmd = null;

            try
            {
                conn = DALHelper.CreateSqlDbConnection();
                cmd = new SqlCommand("usp_GetOrganisationalUnitByName", conn);
                cmd.CommandType = System.Data.CommandType.StoredProcedure;

                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Name", name);

                SqlDataReader rdr = cmd.ExecuteReader();
                OrganizationalUnitView organisationalUnitView = new OrganizationalUnitView();

                if (rdr.Read())
                {
                    organisationalUnitView.Id = Convert.ToInt32(rdr["Id"]);
                    organisationalUnitView.Title = Convert.ToString(rdr["Title"]);
                    organisationalUnitView.Description = Convert.ToString(rdr["Description"]);
                    organisationalUnitView.OrganizationaUnitGroup = Convert.ToString(rdr["OrganizationaUnitGroup"]);
                    organisationalUnitView.Status = (StatusEnum)Convert.ToInt32(rdr["Status"]);
                }

                return organisationalUnitView;
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                throw;
            }
            finally
            {
                conn.Close();
                cmd.Dispose();
                conn.Dispose();
            }
        }

        public List<OrganizationalUnitView> List(string search)
        {
            SqlConnection conn = null;
            SqlCommand cmd = null;

            try
            {
                conn = DALHelper.CreateSqlDbConnection();
                cmd = new SqlCommand("usp_ListOrganisationalUnits", conn);
                cmd.CommandType = System.Data.CommandType.StoredProcedure;

                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Search", search);

                SqlDataReader rdr = cmd.ExecuteReader();
                List<OrganizationalUnitView> list = new List<OrganizationalUnitView>();

                while (rdr.Read())
                {
                    OrganizationalUnitView entity = new OrganizationalUnitView();
                    entity.Id = Convert.ToInt32(rdr["Id"]);
                    entity.Status = (StatusEnum)Convert.ToInt32(rdr["Status"]);
                    entity.Title = Convert.ToString(rdr["Title"]);
                    entity.Description = Convert.ToString(rdr["Description"]);
                    entity.OrganizationaUnitGroup = Convert.ToString(rdr["OrganizationaUnitGroup"]);

                    list.Add(entity);
                }

                return list;
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                throw;
            }
            finally
            {
                conn.Close();
                cmd.Dispose();
                conn.Dispose();
            }
        }

        public List<OrganizationalUnitView> ListByParentId(int ParentId)
        {
            SqlConnection conn = null;
            SqlCommand cmd = null;

            try
            {
                conn = DALHelper.CreateSqlDbConnection();
                cmd = new SqlCommand("usp_ListOrganisationalUnitsByParentId", conn);
                cmd.CommandType = System.Data.CommandType.StoredProcedure;

                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@ParentId", ParentId);

                SqlDataReader rdr = cmd.ExecuteReader();
                List<OrganizationalUnitView> list = new List<OrganizationalUnitView>();

                while (rdr.Read())
                {
                    OrganizationalUnitView entity = new OrganizationalUnitView();
                    entity.Id = Convert.ToInt32(rdr["Id"]);
                    entity.Status = (StatusEnum)Convert.ToInt32(rdr["Status"]);
                    entity.Title = Convert.ToString(rdr["Title"]);
                    entity.Description = Convert.ToString(rdr["Description"]);
                    entity.OrganizationaUnitGroup = Convert.ToString(rdr["OrganizationaUnitGroup"]);

                    list.Add(entity);
                }

                return list;
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                throw;
            }
            finally
            {
                conn.Close();
                cmd.Dispose();
                conn.Dispose();
            }
        }

        public List<OrganizationalUnitView> ListWithAdvancedFilter(string title, int? parentOrgId, int? orgUnitGroup)
        {
            SqlConnection conn = null;
            SqlCommand cmd = null;

            try
            {
                conn = DALHelper.CreateSqlDbConnection();
                cmd = new SqlCommand("usp_ListOrganisationalUnitsWithAdvancedFilter", conn);
                cmd.CommandType = System.Data.CommandType.StoredProcedure;

                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Title", title);
                if (parentOrgId != null)
                {
                    cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@ParentOrganizationUnitId", parentOrgId);
                }
                if (orgUnitGroup != null)
                {
                    cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@OrganizationUnitGroupId", orgUnitGroup);
                }

                SqlDataReader rdr = cmd.ExecuteReader();
                List<OrganizationalUnitView> list = new List<OrganizationalUnitView>();

                while (rdr.Read())
                {
                    OrganizationalUnitView entity = new OrganizationalUnitView();
                    entity.Id = Convert.ToInt32(rdr["Id"]);
                    entity.Description = Convert.ToString(rdr["Description"]);
                    entity.OrganizationaUnitGroup = Convert.ToString(rdr["OrganizationaUnitGroup"]);
                    entity.Status = (StatusEnum)Convert.ToInt32(rdr["Status"]);
                    entity.Title = Convert.ToString(rdr["Title"]);

                    list.Add(entity);
                }

                return list;
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                throw;
            }
            finally
            {
                conn.Close();
                cmd.Dispose();
                conn.Dispose();
            }
        }

    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Queen Elizabeth has amazing turn out as she celebrates 90th birthday at Windsor Castle | HELLO!
hellomagazine.com The Queen was received by thousands of fans on her 90th birthday.
A celebration fit for a queen! Queen Elizabeth was greeted to cheers and applause from her subjects as she exited Windsor Castle on her 90th birthday. Thousands of fans lined the streets of the town to see the royal on her special day and even serenaded the monarch with a rendition of Happy Birthday.
The Coldstream Guards band played the national anthem as Her Majesty exited the Advance gate of Windsor castle in her burgundy Bentley with her husband, Prince Philip, by her side. For her birthday attire, the Queen donned a spring grass green coat paired with a matching hat by Angela Kelly. The 90-year-old exited her vehicle at the King Henry VIII gate, where she briefly spoke to the Mayor of Windsor before her stroll around the town.
Her Majesty was presented with countless bouquets of flowers, while crowds waved their Union Jack flags and continued to sing. She took time to meet her fans who had gathered in honor of her day – including super fan Terry Hutt, who had camped out hoping to catch a glimpse of the monarch.
After her 100 yard walkabout down Castle Hill, Her Majesty officially opened The Queen's Walkway - a 6.3 km walking trail which connects 63 points of significance in the town of Windsor. It was designed by The Outdoor Trust to symbolically recognize the moment that The Queen became Britain's longest reigning monarch after more than 63 years on the throne.
Following the brief presentation, the Queen delighted crowds by getting into an "open state review" open Land Rover for a drive through the streets of Windsor.
More festivities are to come later in the day. This evening Her Majesty will be accompanied by Prince Philip, Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall at a beacon lighting ceremony to celebrate her milestone birthday.
Her Majesty will light the principal beacon, while an additional 1,000 beacons will be lit across the country and worldwide in honor of the Queen's 90th birthday. Members of the Army Cadet Force will even take beacons to the top of the four highest peaks in the United Kingdom – Ben Nevis, Scotland; Mount Snowdon, Wales; Scafell Pike, England, and Slieve Donard, Northern Ireland.


text:
Total War Saga is Creative Assembly's bite-sized take on history
BloodyBattleBrain May 13, 2018, 5:00pm #42
My first Total war was Rome 1, and as much as I enjoyed it, and I most assuredly did, i don't recall the AI being particularly good.
easytarget May 13, 2018, 6:43pm #43
Good is indeed relative. R1 and MTW2 are at a transition point in map design though, they opened it up so you can wander around but had yet to transition to warscape and make it 3D. The result was the same, meandering units incapable of adquately dealing with the human or even each other for that matter.
So the the good I'm referring to strategically was specific to S1 and M1, both of which used a Risk style movement on the campaign map. That's something a lot easier to script to than an open area that as anyone who has played any TW from R1 forward can attest to the AI doesn't handle very well.
KristiGaines August 10, 2019, 1:20am #44
pcgamer
Total War Saga is heading to Troy, according to a trademark application
Don't trust the horse.
easytarget August 10, 2019, 1:24am #45
If this is done by the same CA team that did TOB I'll definitely be in wait and see mode.
Glad their 3k team hit out of the park, loving that one.
I think it was the strategy of that game that seemed off. Though I agree.
AntediluvianArk September 18, 2019, 2:32pm #47
Seems like we will get some news about the next Saga game tomorrow.
Bangorang2003 September 18, 2019, 2:58pm #48
too soon for TW3??
i don't really follow the TW games
Andy Kelly 👽 (ultrabrilliant)
This handsome boy is out now. https://t.co/B6xmvNCSYM
6:10 AM - 18 Sep 2019 30 1
Juan_Raigada September 18, 2019, 4:10pm #50
I know this is going to be fantasy Troy, but a full on Bronze Age TW would be amazing.
It's a little strange since I thought the "Saga" spin-off series was going to focus on strict historical settings. Maybe the fantasical elements from Warhammer and the Romance version of Three Kingdoms are just being received better.
I though Saga just meant a more focused, smaller experience.
A Total War Saga: Troy imagines the truth behind the myths, turning wooden...
According to the Iliad, the sacking of Troy only happened after a very specific set of things occurred in the right order. So, I asked Todor Nikolov, lead game designer at Creative Assembly Sofia, would players have to set up the same set of...
total-war-saga-troy1-1212x682.jpg1212×682 129 KB
Visually stunning.
Telefrog September 19, 2019, 2:48pm #54
BloodyBattleBrain September 19, 2019, 5:10pm #55
I played 3 Kingdoms for like 3 hrs…sadface.
Just bouncing off the format quite hard now.
Ok, so it's semi-historical in the same sense 3K was. I'm ok with that.
Also, a TW without cavalry can be interesting. Much more attrition I would imagine.
I didn't quite catch this from the images I posted (though the effect is certainly present in the first one); but the skyboxes sometimes have a unique aesthetic flair inspired roughly by the era.
It might not work for everyone, but I like the contrast between the sky and the more realistic style of the terrain. Seems like this approach is utilized on the Strategic campaign map.
easytarget January 15, 2020, 4:55am #58
I picked up Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia during the steam xmas sale and while I've only gotten a few hours into my first campaign, I must say I'm pleasantly surprised by what I've found so far.
I rather like the art style, find the setting engaging because I love the time period and think it's well suited for TW and very much like the limitations built into recruitment which really make you stop and think about treating your guys like a bunch of easily replaced cannon fodder (because they very much are not given the very slow pace at which they replenish and the restrictions on how fast you can recruit new units).
I'll circle back periodically as the campaign progresses with further observations and based on how it goes might even go so far as an AAR not unlike the one I did for Aggressors: Ancient Rome.
P.S. So does this mean we're going to lump all the Saga CA works into one thread? Seems like rather shoddy treatment don't you think?
Hmm, judging from the lack of response and low activity in this thread apparently the interest in the saga series is low and combining them all in one thread is the right call.
Enidigm January 16, 2020, 4:34am #60
Thrones was ok, but it made two cardinal sins, imo; it was too big and too ahistoric.
Total War games at this point are about a bunch of small factions duking it out until one of them wins. Pretty much, 1-2-3, every game since Shogun 2 follows this formula exactly. Only Atilla managed to come up with a somewhat different setup (at least on the surface).
Thrones though - not only are most of the minor factions historically irrelevant if not actually non-existent - it doesn't play like history. If I want English vs Vikings (and maybe some Celtic nations for good measure), I don't want to start on a giant 300 settlement map with 40-odd randomly named factions and spend my game years duking it out with minor factions that literally never existed. I just want my Heptarchy, and throw in a few Celtic and Viking factions for good measure.
Thrones' map is too big, and too generic, with little interesting geographic dilemmas or geographic narrative going on. Honestly Attila's Age of Charlemagne feels more like I wanted with thrones. If they had been brave enough to make a tighter, smaller scale game, I think it would have been better received. Instead they tried to shoehorn a much smaller theatre into the generic grand strategy shoebox that everything they make fits in, including giant maps, dozens or hundreds of settlements, bragging about how "large" the map is, such that getting across Britain takes like 6 or 10 years of game time or something stupid.
Sure it's a bit streamlined by comparison, but not by a huge amount. It feels rather wide and shallow, when i'dve preferred narrow and deep.
Academy Game's 878 board game, simple and straightforward, feels like a Viking invasion of England. Total War Saga Thrones feels like a reskinned Rome 2 spread out too thin on a giant piece of Britain sized toast. I try to play Thrones every now and again, and almost immediately get bored and wander off to play something else. And it's not that strictly speaking Thrones is bad - if it were the only Total War game I owned, it'd be great. It's that it's just so ordinary compared to most of the Total War games released in recent years, it simply loses on opportunity cost.
Enidigm:
Honestly Attila's Age of Charlemagne feels more like I wanted with thrones
I quite liked AOC as well. But I'm still enjoying TOB despite all the issues you pointed out, and absolutely loved S2/FOTS/ROTS and the more recent 3K.


text:
Derelict spaceship scenario from the 1973
Star Trek the animated series episode ,
"Beyond The Farthest Star"
Alien: Trails of inspirations for the derelict ship
Alien: Space jockeys origins in Swiss Family Robinson
Alien: Echoes of ideas from the stories of Star Trek The Animated Series
a) Beyond the Furthest Star
It also just so happened that Alan Dean Foster who wrote the Alien novelisation , wrote the novelisation for "Beyond The Farthest Star" which would feature in Star Trek Log One published in 1974 and he would also write the novelisation for the movie Dark Star that came out the same year. Also Foster had collaborated with Shusett on turning a couple of Robert Bloch short stories into film material, since Shusett had the rights to them much like the way he had the rights to Dick's "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale".
Perhaps the great Dan O'Bannon had been watching the cartoon series in 1973 on television or checking up on what else Alan Dean Foster had been novelising when he wrote the Dark Star novelisation. The cartoon was scripted by Sam Peebles, he seemed to have been interested in the idea of a spaceship that could be a living creature that's used to going from one planet to another.
The book Star Trek: log one featuring the novelisation of this story had been released in 1974. So a key feature would be the fact that an ancient derelict ship with a strange alien transmission pulling people in, an ancient alien message that needs translating, and a strange isolated planetoid where the evil which invaded the derelict comes from (although in this case appears to be the remnant of a star.) Of course these sorts of tropes pop up in other stories and films elsewhere in other forms, for instance anyone one might easily compare the exploration of the derelict to the 1956 movie Forbidden Planet with the Krell city.
b) Derelict ship orbiting a moon
The series featured Captain Kirk, Scotty, Spock and Bones amongst other familiar cast members in an animated form. This episode was made and featured on TV in 1973. The Starship Enterprise is lured beyond the fringe of the galaxy to Quester M-17, source of mysterious radio emission and they are there for the purpose of star charting.
However they are caught in the gravity of a negative star mass in the form of a moon, but manage to get into orbit. They discover that it is the source of the radio emission and its origin is a vast and very alien derelict spacecraft that's been in orbit for 300 million years
c) Boarding the derelict ship
Boarding the vessel, Spock finds that it's hexagonal shape of its windows suggests a similarity to natural insect designs of Earth, namely as the honeycombs of bees. The individuals cells are shaped like it. Scotty notes that the metal that the hull is composed from isn't cast or rolled, but is drawn into filaments and spun. Kirk adds that it is as a spider spins its web. Spock notes that it is a stronger and lighter material than anything Earth technology in their era.
d) Message from a long dead space alien
The alien crew left a warning transmission behind that Spock was soon able to get translated using a computer aboard the ship. As it happened, the long gone crew had sabotaged their own ship to stop some other alien life form that had taken over the ship from using it to allow it to get to some populated area. On the large hexagonal screen, an extra-terrestrials face. Perhaps this face inspired the dead extra-terrestrial pilot in Ron Cobb's painting of the alien space pilot
The message would only be heard in the control room.
The message translated into English was "...danger.. the dead star, we are being drawn to it. Rather than carry this malevolent life form to other worlds, we have decided to destroy our own ship. There is no other answer. If you understand this message you are protected in this room only for a moment. This thing is wants."
In Alan Dean Fosters adaption of the script, the words are "Rather than carry this malevolent life form to other worlds, we have decided to destroy our own ship. The thing had been trapped here by the tremendous gravity-well of the dead sun. So it must remain. So, sadly, must we. We had studied the problem quite thoroughly in the time remaining. There is no other solution. The others are dead. Only I am left, to give warning. If you are understanding this message, comprehend that you are protected in this room only for a moment. The Thing... grows ever stronger... it wants..."
Soon this invader takes over the Enterprise who are able to outwit it and leave it behind on moon like remains of the star.
One might want to talk about "Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires" being the source of the idea of a dead giant alien pilot seen in Alien, but although O'Bannon might have appreciated the idea of a giant long dead skeleton and a derelict ship, Perhaps also one might want to think about the film "First Men On The Moon" featuring a city on the moon built by an insect like civilisation that were still very much alive, featuring hexagon shapes. "Beyond The Farthest Star" presented a long dead alien with a message about a battle with an alien creature from a moon and their willingness to sacrifice themselves
See also Alien : Ron Cobb's derelict interior concept with alien pilot skeleton
Source Quote
Alan Dean Foster: What was interesting later, watching the Alien film, I saw the credits with co-creator Ron Shusett's name up there, and he's had great success with movies like Total Recall. We'd both collaborated years earlier at UCLA on a couple Robert Bloch short stories he had the rights to. (www.blastr.com May 29th 2014)
This episode was penned by Samuel A. Peeples, who previously wrote the second Star Trek pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before". He remembered, "[Dorothy Fontana] called and said, 'Gene suggested that since you had done the pilot for the original Star Trek, maybe you'd like to do the pilot for the animated Star Trek.' And that's what I did [....] As far as the inspiration for the story, I don't have the vaguest idea. It seems to me that I was trying to say that it would be interesting if there was a space ship which was actually a living creature. It's alive, but it is used to going from one planet to another." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, pp. 98-99) (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Beyond_the_Farthest_Star_%28episode%29)
(see: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Farthest_Star_%28episode%29)
(watch it at: http://www.zideo.nl/playzideo/6c4953576e56673d)
wmmvrrvrrmm 27 May 2016 at 03:15
This article was originally published on Sunday 22nd February 2015


text:
NFL betting: Carson Wentz in COVID protocols, causing big line move
Philip Rivers
Pete Truszkowski
28 December 2021, 2:22 pm ·3-min read
COVID has already had an impact on the NFL this season. Over 100 players were added to the COVID-list on Monday after 96 players tested positive. We've seen the Cleveland Browns, Washington Football Team and New Orleans Saints lose pivotal games with their third string quarterbacks after COVID knocked their top two options out of the lineup. Week 17 looks like it will be more of the same.
Carson Wentz tests positive
Indianapolis Colts' quarterback Carson Wentz is the latest NFL star to test positive for COVID-19. Wentz, who is unvaccinated, will miss at least the Colts' Week 17 game against the Las Vegas Raiders.
With a 9-6 record, the Colts were sitting pretty in terms of clinching a berth in the playoffs. Finishing the season with a home game against the Raiders and then a contest with Jacksonville seemed likely to get the Colts to 11 wins. Now, the situation is murky.
Carson Wentz has tested positive for COVID-19. (Joshua Bessex/Getty Images)
With Wentz out, Sam Ehlinger is next in line to start for Indianapolis. The former Texas Longhorns star is in his rookie season. In college, he was known as a punishing running quarterback who could make plays with his arm. It'll be interesting to see how his playing style translates to the NFL.
Starting Ehlinger in a big game seems like a risky proposition. We saw what Ian Book looked like in a similar situation. Reportedly, the Colts are being proactive and have discussed the idea of giving Philip Rivers a call.
Colts need to call Philip Rivers. Have heard it's being discussed.
— Zak Keefer (@zkeefer) December 28, 2021
Rivers started for the Colts last season before retiring in the off-season. Rivers led the team to the playoffs and his departure sparked the Colts to trade for Wentz in the first place.
On the flip side, this is a big development for the playoff prospects of the Las Vegas Raiders. The Raiders sit on the playoff bubble with an 8-7 record. They've played Nick Mullens and Drew Lock in the past two weeks and now look like they'll likely get to feast on another replacement.
Line movement has been massive
After opening as a 7-point favorite, early week action was favoring the Colts. They were up to a 7.5-point favorite at home over the Raiders prior to the news breaking about Wentz.
Now, with Wentz out, the Colts are just a 1.5-point favorite over the Raiders. The total has also dropped from 45.5 points to its current number of 40.5 points.
It's worth noting that in addition to Wentz, the Colts might be without all five starters on their offensive line. They survived missing four of their offensive linemen against the Cardinals in Week 16, but another week of replacement players and missing your starting quarterback might be too much to overcome.
This has been a bit of an outbreak for the Colts over the past few days, so there's always the possibility of more players testing positive in the coming days. On behalf of fantasy football owners preparing for their championship matchup, I suggest the Colts put Jonathan Taylor in a massive bubble for the next few days.
Sun Bowl saved: Central Michigan to face Washington State after losing Arizona Bowl opponent
NFL Power Rankings: Cowboys are very good, but let's calm down a little bit
Yahoo Sports·14-min read
Mikaela Shiffrin latest skier to test positive for COVID-19, will miss races as Olympics near
Washington DB Trent McDuffie declares for 2022 NFL draft
COVID Vaccination Among Young Children Stalls in the United States
NBC News reports pediatricians in the United States are alarmed at the slow pace in which young children are receiving a coronavirus vaccine. As the Omicron variant spreads like wildfire, the country has hit new highs of COVID-related pediatric hospitalizations.
Muriel McKay case: Daughter of murdered woman searches for answers on farm where she believes her mother was buried
A woman searching for the body of her murdered mother has lain flowers at the farm where she believes she is buried.
British girl, 5, dies in horror ski slope accident in French Alps
A 5-year-old British girl has been killed in a tragic accident on a ski slope in the French Alps. Last night a 40-year-old local man was in police custody and an investigation was opened for manslaughter. The horrific accident happened yesterday morning at around 11am in the ski resort of Flaine, in the Haute-Savoie region of the French Alps, 50 miles from the Swiss city of Geneva.
Texas hostage taker had criminal and mental health history in UK
Texas hostage taker had criminal and mental health history in UK. Malik Faisal Akram from Blackburn was killed by police after taking four hostages in a synagogue
Ukraine says has 'evidence' Russia behind cyberattack
Ukraine said Sunday it had evidence that Russia was behind a massive cyberattack that knocked out key government websites this past week, as Microsoft warned the hack could be far worse than first thought.
Watch this incredibly cute hamster enjoying TV dinner!
Did you know that a hamster's diet consists of dried food, nuts, seeds, vegetables and berries? But hamsters are what is called omnivores which means they like to eat meat as well as vegetables. This adorable little hamster named Big Mama Patty shows how much she loves eating food and watching TV during dinner time. Bascially...like all of us.
AFP UK
Djokovic deported from Australia after losing court battle
Exclusive AFP images show Novak Djokovic walking through Melbourne Airport as he is deported from Australia after a failed last-gasp bid to avoid deportation, ending a sensational legal battle over his coronavirus vaccination status and dashing his dream of a record 21st Grand Slam.
No 10 parties understandable but not excusable, says Sir Tony Blair
The former prime minister refused to be drawn on whether Boris Johnson should quit following the partygate allegations.
Country diary: Thanks to the brutal wind, we find a marvel of mountain engineering
Newlands Valley, Lake District: The Goldscope mine dates back to Elizabethan times, but still has the capacity to astound
Football: Equatorial Guinea end Algeria's 35-game unbeaten streak
Manchester City winger Riyad Mahrez must lift struggling Algeria to victory over bogey team Ivory Coast this week or the Africa Cup of Nations holders will make a sensational exit after the first round. Algeria are bottom of Group E and in deep trouble after a stunning 1-0 matchday 2 loss on Sunday to Equatorial Guinea, a nation 85 places lower in the world rankings. Ivory Coast have met Algeria eight times in the flagship African championship from 1968 and won three, drew three and lost two.Ins
Government accused of attacking BBC to distract from 'partygate' ahead of expected licence fee freeze
The government has been accused of attacking the BBC to distract from the "partygate" scandal ahead of an expected licence fee freeze announcement.
UK records 70,924 new Covid cases and 88 deaths
Figures for Scotland are delayed and have not been included in Sunday's total
A distress signal has been detected in an isolated, low-lying group of islands in the Tonga after an undersea volcano erupted near the South Pacific island on Sunday.


Personal income, interest rates and the price of gas all influence auto sales, but a country's gross domestic product alone is an excellent indicator of new sales, says a researcher at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.
In a new study of 48 countries, UMTRI research professor Michael Sivak found that GDP accounted for nearly 90 percent of the variance in vehicle sales from 2005 to 2011.
"This relationship held both for the seven years combined and for each individual year during these seven years—a period that included both general economic prosperity and economic downturn," he said.
Sivak found that average vehicle sales per GDP value for the 48 countries across the time period turned out to be 1,869 vehicles per $1 billion in year 2000 dollars. This figure peaked at 2,375 vehicles in 2007 and 2008, and bottomed out at 1,317 vehicles in 2009—in the midst of the recent economic downturn.
The countries examined were Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela.


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text:
Why That Book Title Caught Your Eye
Cover DesignEditing/Copyediting/ProofreadingMarketing PlansPublicity: GeneralTitles
PUBLISHED JULY/AUGUST 2019
by Peter Bowerman, Professional Copywriter, Well-Fed Self Publishing —
Peter Bowerman
The perfect nonfiction book title needs a promise.
You discover a nonfiction book-in a newspaper book review, while poking around at B&N, or on Amazon. The title instantly grabs you. Obviously, it calls to some need/desire/hope you have, and it's enough to have you digging for more details.
What is it about that kind of book title that makes it so effective? And how can you apply that knowledge to your nonfiction book?
Let's consider a few blockbusters from way back:
The One-Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard, Ph.D.
Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
What do they all have in common? They're promises. They wisely talk about something their target buyer wants and will get from reading it. Take The One-Minute Manager:
OK, no one really thinks you can be an amazing manager in one minute, but the title implies some one-minute aspect of effective management, and that was an intriguing enough proposition to enough people to make it a bestseller.
Do you think the same book titled The Effective Manager would have been nearly as successful?
How about Chicken Soup for the Soul? Talk about evocative. This culturally, etched-in-concrete meme for "feel-better comfort" leaves little doubt as to the promised benefit of reading the book. And its 250 niche versions and worldwide sales of over 500 million only underscores its massive appeal.
Same with The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Anyone committed to excelling in business, love, or life in general would want to know-need to know-what those seven Holy-Grail-like habits are, right? Ergo, it's a heck of a promise. And the specificity makes it extra-compelling. Take out "7," and it just doesn't pop.
In many respects, a title is similar to a product tagline. Consider these iconic slogans:
GE.® We bring good things to life.®
Delta. ® We're ready when you are.®
Avis.® We try harder.®
Burger King.® Have it your way.®
Virginia is for lovers. ®
Miller High Life.® The Champagne of Beers.®
Notice what they all have in common? Again, promises. They tell you what you can count on.
Years ago, I was noodling over titles for my first book. It was a detailed "how-to" guide to starting a "commercial" writing practice-writing for businesses, where the income potential was far greater than typical "freelance writing."
I kept the "promise" thing front and center in my thinking. The result? The Well-Fed Writer.
In drawing a pointed contrast to the clichéd "starving writer," I was clearly signaling to a prospective buyer that we were talking about a far more profitable writing avenue.
I then used the subtitle to reinforce, clarify, and elaborate on the promise of the title: Financial Self-Sufficiency as a Commercial Freelancer in Six Months or Less. It was an additional promise in its own right.
(Note: A good rule of thumb on titles versus subtitles: If your title sounds more explanatory than catchy-and is more than four to five words, max-it'd probably be better as a subtitle.)
In classic sales/marketing parlance, it's the features-benefits equation. And promises are synonymous with benefits (i.e., what's important to the reader). As opposed to features, which is all about the book (or product/service/company) itself.
A (really boring) features-oriented title for my book might have been, "Building Your Freelance Career." It defines what the book is about but doesn't convey to readers what's in it for them or why they should bother picking it up.
But not all nonfiction books need a "promise-style" title to be effective. Straight intrigue can work as well, provided the subtitle then does the heavy (explanatory) lifting. Consider Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Outliers. The mysterious title's single word is an interesting one, one that could mean many different things, but which one?
In this case, it's the subhead that provides a bit more explanation, while only adding to the intrigue: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. For fans of psychology/self-help books, I'd wager that title would have them digging a bit deeper.
Then there's a recent best-seller: Side Hustle: From Idea to Income in 27 Days by Chris Guillebeau. While the title is somewhat features-oriented (telling what it's about), it's also a benefit: The ears of those readers who've been considering a part-time side business are definitely going to perk up. And the subtitle? BIG benefit. The promise from reading it is clear.
Some years back, an elementary school art teacher hired me for general consult on her unfolding self-publishing journey. She'd created a wonderful "idea book" for young people to spur their unique creative expression through a host of fun, unusual artistic techniques, complete with necessary supply lists and how-to details.
Early on, she'd named this seven-year labor of love: The Color Book: A Book of Ideas to Inspire Young Artists.
Her rationale: Choice of color is fundamental to a child's artistic development (and the book was so colorful). I questioned the main title, observing that, while her title made sense to her, given her thinking on the subject, it wouldn't be self-evident to a buyer.
Just as importantly, that working title was confusing; it could mean a lot of things-color swatches, history of color, etc. Most importantly, it didn't explain what the book was about and what readers would get from reading it (i.e., the benefit).
I suggested something I thought did far more justice to the book's promise: Art Sparks! A Creative Adventure to Inspire Young Artists.
Again, a promise. She quickly came to love it, realizing it truly captured her heartfelt mission for the book.
I love this recent one: Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle, Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling by Michael Port.
Any questions about the promise there? Sure, the subtitle is mighty long, but it's downright jam-packed with words and phrases-and promises!-that'll speak to any small business owner trying to get some traction.
So, the next time a book calls to you-or doesn't-you'll have a better sense of what they did right (or wrong). And if you're writing your own nonfiction book, maybe these ideas will help you craft a title that sings.
Peter Bowerman is a professional copywriter, self-publishing coach, and the self-published author of the multiple-award-winning Well-Fed Writer and Well-Fed Self-Publisher titles (100,000+ copies in print, and a full-time living for more than a decade; wellfedsp.com). As the Title Tailor, he's been crafting eyeball-grabbing titles and compelling cover copy for authors since 2002.
A perfect book title needs a perfect book cover. Learn more about why publishers and designers are ditching stock images for Text Only Book Covers.


Specialist Art and Cultural History publishers Brill/Rodopi have just published a major new collection of essays, Art and Science in Word and Image Exploration and Discovery (Leiden and Boston: Brill/Rodopi, January 2019). Based on the 2014 International Association of Word and Image Studies Triennial Conference hosted by the School of Humanities in Dundee, the collection is edited by Keith Williams and Chris Murray, in collaboration with Sophie Aymes (University of Bourgogne, France) and Jan Baetens (University of Leuven, Belgium). It is volume 9 in Rodopi/Brill's long running and prestigious Word and Image Interactions series.


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These action games are crammed with excitement and thrills.
In a super world, we'd like twin-channel reminiscence to better push AMD's built-in Vega portraits.


text:
Cris puts another cross in the Mercedes-Benz Econic box
Raising safety standards: Cris Calina with his latest Hanson-liveried Mercedes-Benz Econic
Hanson contractor Cris Services Group has underscored its commitments to safety and compliance by adding a sixth low-entry Mercedes-Benz Econic mixer truck to its fast-growing fleet.
Like its predecessors, all bar one of which entered service within the last 12 months, the new 8x4/4 chassis was supplied by Dealer Sparshatt Truck & Van, and wears the colours of the operator's leading customer, Hanson UK.
Former driver Cris Calina founded his business with a single truck in 2002. A Gold standard FORS (Fleet Operator Recognition Scheme) member, Cris Services Group now runs a fleet of 35 eight-wheeled mixers, which also includes five muscular Mercedes-Benz Arocs.
The company works from a main base in Purfleet, Essex. Its trucks transport wet concrete throughout the south-east, but predominantly within the area bounded by the M25. While most are under contract to Hanson, nine vehicles – including one of the Arocs – are available for rental by other customers.
All are fitted with 8m3 Schwing Stetter drums – Cris Services also operates its own workshop business, CS Commercial Repairs, which is an authorised service agent for the German manufacturer of concrete mixers and transport systems.
Rather than maintaining his Mercedes-Benz trucks in-house, however, Mr Calina prefers to take out Complete Service Contracts and entrust his Econic and Arocs mixers to the expert aftersales team at the £2-million dealership in Dartford which Sparshatt Truck & Van opened last summer.
Greater Safety is one of the three pillars of Mercedes-Benz Trucks' all-embracing RoadEfficiency strategy. The Econic is equipped as standard with Active Brake Assist 4 emergency braking technology, which incorporates a pedestrian-recognition capability, and has been awarded a five-star Direct Vision rating by Transport for London.
The truck's deep, panoramic windscreen and full-height, glazed folding side door, afford unrivalled visibility. This, allied to a seating position which is much lower than that of a conventional construction vehicle, allows drivers to make direct eye contact with cyclists and pedestrians at junctions or in traffic queues.
Safety-focused Hanson UK, which is part of the Heidelberg Cement Group, runs a substantial fleet of Econics, and encourages its franchisees – particularly those operating in urban areas – to do likewise. Like other approved suppliers throughout Britain, Cris Services benefits from the buying power of its high-profile customer. Hanson negotiates centralised framework agreements for chassis provision with Mercedes-Benz, and these translate into the highly competitive purchase prices enjoyed by its franchisees.
Acquired with funding support from Mercedes-Benz Finance, Cris Services' latest, fully air-suspended Econic is now operating alongside four of the others at the Hanson depot in Kings Cross. The remaining example works from another Hanson site at Silvertown, in east London.
Mirroring Cris Services' previous Econics, the new truck is a 3235 L model, and powered by a 7.7-litre six-cylinder engine which produces 260 kW (354 hp). However, while earlier vehicles drive through six-speed Allison automatic gearboxes, the latest employs a 12-speed version of the fuel-efficient Mercedes PowerShift 3 automated manual transmission.
Its ENA configuration – single front steer axle, double-drive bogie and rear-steer axle – gives the truck a surprisingly tight turning circle. The resulting, enhanced manoeuvrability compared to a standard 32-tonne construction eight-wheeler is a major advantage for operation in the capital. As with all new Econics supplied through the manufacturer's UK Dealer network, the vehicle is covered by a three-year/160,000 km warranty.
Cris Calina commented: "Our first Econic has been on the road for a couple of years now and has been very good – we've had no reliability issues with any of our Mercedes-Benz trucks.
"There was a bit of initial resistance to the Econic's low-entry cab from some drivers, but this was quickly overcome. Within a very short time at the wheel they realised how much better the visibility is, and, as a result, how much less stressful the job could be. The Econic is also air-conditioned and flat-floored, which makes it comfortable and very easy to access or exit safely."
He added: "Sparshatt's new facilities in Dartford are very impressive, and the Dealer provides a highly professional service. Our drivers drop off their trucks at the end of the day so they can be inspected and serviced overnight – they go home in a courtesy van then return next morning, by which time their vehicle is ready for work."
www.cris-services.com


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