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Debt Rattle October 14 2018
October 14, 2018 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:14 am Finance Tagged with: Atlantic Council, Brexit, buybacks, censorship, deficit, Draghi, Iceland, looted, Saudi, sea level rise, Trudeau 3 Responses »
René Magritte The song of love 1948
• Companies Buying Their Own Shares Could Fuel The Next Market Rally (CNBC)
• Market Crash? Another 'Red Card' For The Economy (Lacalle)
• 4 Lessons From Iceland On Dealing With A Financial Crisis (WEF)
• 'Crazy' That Current Account Deficits Are 'A Sin:' Singapore Deputy PM (CNBC)
• Draghi to Rome: Don't Expect An ECB Rescue If Budget Talks Fail (CNBC)
• Canada 'Concerned' About Khashoggi But Will Sell Arms To Saudis – Trudeau (RT)
• David Davis Calls For Cabinet Rebellion Over Brexit Plan (BBC)
• Brexit Negotiators Poised To Miss Deal Deadline As UK Hardliners Rebel (ZH)
• Internet Censorship Just Took An Unprecedented Leap Forward (CJ)
• Professor Exposes Rigged Markets One Academic Paper At A Time (ZH)
• Hammer Time (Jim Kunstler)
• Who The Hell Cares What Old People Think About Climate Change? (Ol.)
• What's Another Way to Say 'We're F-cked'? (Goodell)
• 'Not Everything Was Looted': British Museum To Fight Critics (G.)
".. in the last 12 months, the companies in the S&P 500 have purchased $646 billion of their own stock, 29 percent more than the previous 12 months.."
"..at least $350 billion of buybacks that have been planned for the year and are just waiting to be put to work."
With stocks down significantly, corporate buybacks could help stabilize the market. Buybacks have been one of the big stories supporting the market this year. DataTrek estimates that in the last 12 months, the companies in the S&P 500 have purchased $646 billion of their own stock, 29 percent more than the previous 12 months. And there's plenty of "dry powder" left. One firm estimates at least $350 billion of buybacks that have been planned for the year and are just waiting to be put to work. And no, it is not just Apple that is buying its own stock. More than 300 large-cap companies have active buyback programs.
Unfortunately, some traders are resurrecting an old chestnut to help explain the current market weakness. They say we are entering a "blackout" period, when corporations cannot buy their stock because they are about to report quarterly earnings. It's a neat explanation, except there's not a lot to it. "Buybacks do occur during blackout periods," Ben Silverman at InsiderScore told me. "Buyback volume does often decline in the first month of the quarter due to some buyback blackouts," but companies can, and do, continue to buy back stock, he told me. Another trader (who declined to be identified) confirmed Silverman's point. Corporate buybacks decline in the month before earnings, but only marginally. He estimated the decline is 30 percent or less.
"..disproportionate valuations…"
$20 trillion worth of them.
The first thing we must understand is that we are not facing a panic created by a black swan, that is, an unexpected event, but by three factors that few could deny were evident: 1) Excessive valuations after $20 trillion of monetary expansion inflated most financial assets. 2) Bond yields rising as the US 10-year reaches 3.2%. 3) The evidence of the Yuan devaluation, which is on its way to surpass 7 Yuan per US dollar. 4) Global growth estimates trimmed for the sixth time in as many months. Therefore, the US rate hikes – announced repeatedly and incessantly for years – are not the cause, nor the alleged trade war. These are just symptoms, excuses to disguise a much more worrying illness.
What we are experiencing is the evidence of the saturation of excesses built around central banks' loose policies and the famous "bubble of everything". And therein lies the problem. After twenty trillion dollars of reckless monetary expansion, risk assets, from the safest to the most volatile, from the most liquid to the unquoted, have skyrocketed with disproportionate valuations.
The cracks in the building always appear first with currencies. Countries that have become accustomed to the idea that "this time is different" and that debt does not matter, started to multiply their indebtedness in foreign currency. Debt in dollars from emerging countries soared to 41% of their total debt. In the first three months of 2018, global debt rose 11% to a record of 247 trillion dollars (according to the IIF), and that of emerging markets soared by 2.5 trillion to an all-time high of 58.5 trillion. . When the lowest risk bond, the United States 10-year, went to 3.1%, the synchronized growth and complacent veil lifted, and many assets showed how risky they truly are.
Markets woke up to a reality that we had decided to ignore. That rates do rise. And if the safest bond gives a return of 3.2% … Am I willing to buy bonds from much riskier countries with negligible spreads? Add to that "sobriety" effect, another one. The inevitable devaluation of the yuan , which soared to almost 7 against the dollar. Am I willing to buy emerging markets and commodities when China exports its imbalances sending disinflationary pressure to the rest of the world?
Iceland took it serious. No-one else did.
Days after the collapse of 97% of its banking industry, Icelandic authorities designed a comprehensive policy of accountability, based on two overlapping objectives: establishing the truth and punishing those responsible. An independent truth commission was mandated to document the causes of the meltdown, and the newly established Office of the Special Prosecutor was tasked to thoroughly investigate and prosecute those responsible for any crimes committed in the run up to the crisis. Both mechanisms have been remarkably successful.
Published in 2010, the truth commission's 2,200-page report not only documented the manifold failings of the financial system in Iceland but also offered specific recommendations to protect state institutions from a future crisis. The report instantly became a bestseller, with copies sold in supermarkets. It was a popular gift – parents even gave it to their children to help them avoid making the same mistakes. The Office of the Special Prosecutor successfully prosecuted 40 bank executives. This is remarkable, especially given the small population of the island and the comparative experience of other European countries affected by the recession, such as Ireland, Cyprus, or the UK (table below).
Not many people see is that way.
For decades, developing countries have relied on outside investments to boost their growth despite trade imbalances. But running a current account deficit has come to be regarded as "a sin," according to Singapore's deputy prime minister. Such a development is just "crazy," Tharman Shanmugaratnam told CNBC on Friday during the annual meeting of the Institute of International Finance on the Indonesian island of Bali. Shanmugaratnam was referring to the widely held outlook that nations should seek to avoid current account deficits — which indicate they're operating on borrowed means because the value of incoming goods, services and investments exceeds the amount leaving the country.
"How did the Singapores and Koreas of the world grow?" he said. "We grew by running current account deficits at an early stage of development so we could invest ahead for growth while our savings were being built up." Singapore was able to rely on financing through foreign direct investments and long-term investors during its early years of growth, as the international financial system at that time had capital flowing to developing economies, Shanmugaratnam said. "Today, it's a sin to run a current account deficit and that's crazy," said the minister, who is also the chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the country's central bank and financial regulator. "I mean, it's bad in economics, it's bad in policy sense, and the whole world is going to suffer."
But Draghi's still an Italian.
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi is sending a warning to Rome ahead of its formal budget submission: Don't expect the ECB to save the day. In a Saturday press conference at the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bali, Indonesia, Draghi said he was confident that a budget agreement would be reached and urged all parties to "calm down with the tone." He also voiced relief that there has not been evidence of a wider spillover effect in European bond markets, even as Italian yields hit multi-year highs. "Everything that happened today is local to Italy."
When asked whether an eventual realization of contagion or a further rise in Italian yields would force the ECB to scrap tightening plans by year end, Draghi told CNBC: "I don't want to speculate on this. I just don't want to conceive such a hypothesis. I'm confident that the authorities — and by the way all parties, not only Italy — all parties will in the end find a compromise solution, an agreement." He went on to suggest that the situation had been "dramatized," and that was "not the first time there are deviations from established rules in Europe." But investors are worried that the Italian government may seize on that precedent and take a gamble that running foul of EU budget rules won't incur serious penalties, and that, if things do turn worse for Italian financial markets, they"ll be able to lean on the ECB for support. Draghi, for his part, told CNBC that would not be a possibility.
"..Saudi Arabia expelled the Canadian envoy. It then froze trade talks, cut academic ties, and suspended flights to Canada."
But arms sales trump everything.
Ottawa will keep its $15bn arms deal with Riyadh despite concerns over Saudi involvement in the disappearance of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the diplomatic row over human rights, Prime Minister Trudeau said. "We respected that contract," Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on Friday, adding that his cabinet has put forward measures to make the arms sales more transparent. "We are making sure Canadians' expectations and laws are always being followed," he said. The contract was signed in 2014 by the previous conservative government, and has since been upheld by Trudeau. The specifics of the sales were originally not disclosed by the parties.
According to documents obtained by CBC News last month, a Canadian company is to ship 742 LAV-6 light armored vehicles to Riyadh. The same outlet revealed in March that hundreds of the LAV-6s will be outfitted as "heavy assault" and "anti-tank" types. [..] Human rights campaigners and journalists have criticized Canada's approach to Saudi Arabia as inconsistent. They point out that the government doesn't mince words when attacking the kingdom's human rights record, but at the same time never waivers in its willingness to ship military hardware to Riyadh. Media reports have also strongly suggested that the Saudis might be using Canadian-made LAVs against civilians in Yemen.
[..] Canada stuck to the arms deal even after becoming embroiled in a diplomatic spat with Riyadh in August. Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland called on the kingdom to release two high-profile dissidents. In response, Saudi Arabia expelled the Canadian envoy. It then froze trade talks, cut academic ties, and suspended flights to Canada.
She won't have a cabinet left soon.
Cabinet ministers should "exert their collective authority" and rebel against Theresa May's proposed Brexit deal, ex-Brexit Secretary David Davis has said. The PM has suggested a temporary customs arrangement for the whole UK to remain in the customs union while the Irish border issue is resolved. Brexiteers suspect this could turn into a permanent situation, restricting the freedom to strike trade deals. Writing in the Sunday Times, Mr Davis said the plan was unacceptable. "This is one of the most fundamental decisions that government has taken in modern times," he added.
The issue of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic Ireland is one of the last remaining obstacles to achieving a divorce deal with Brussels, with wrangling continuing over the nature of a "backstop" to keep the frontier open if a wider UK-EU trade arrangement cannot resolve it. The EU's version, which would see just Northern Ireland remain aligned with Brussels' rules, has been called unacceptable by Mrs May and the DUP. Mr Davis said the government's negotiating strategy had "fundamental flaws", arising from the "unwise decision in December to accept the EU's language on dealing with the Northern Ireland border".
On Saturday evening, German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung reported a deal had already been reached between Mrs May and the EU, and would be announced on Monday. But a No 10 source told the BBC the report was "100%, categorically untrue" and negotiations were ongoing. The paper said it had seen a leaked memo from EU negotiators to EU ambassadors stating: "Deal made."
Too many people want too many too different things.
[..] early Sunday in London, the Brexiteer hardliners published an open letter signed by 63 Conservative MPs, including David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the chairman of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic backbenchers and former Brexit minister Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister. At the same time, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, a pro-leave MP, published an editorial in the Sunday Telegraph demanding that any possibility that the UK could remain in a "temporary customs arrangement" after the Brexit transition period ends in December 2020 be stricken from the final agreement – because leaving open the possibility would be tantamount to ignoring the political will of the 17.4 million Britons who voted for Brexit.
Meanwhile, Davis demanded in an editorial in the Sunday Times that Cabinet ministers should "exert their collective authority" and rebel against Theresa May's proposed Brexit deal. All of this is happening amid even more conflicting reports, citing sources from the EU and sources from No. 10 Downing Street, affirming and denying that a deal had been reached. Underscoring the hostility to a deal, the leader of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party said Sunday that she would prefer a "no deal" Brexit to a "backstop" transition agreement that would require any borders between Northern Ireland and the UK, arguing that this would amount to the "annexation" of Northern Ireland by the EU, per CNBC.
The Atlantic Council got going. Social media have become too big a threat to the narrative.
While most indie media was focused on debating the way people talk about Kanye West and the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an unprecedented escalation in internet censorship took place which threatens everything we all care about. It received frighteningly little attention. After a massive purge of hundreds of politically oriented pages and personal accounts for "inauthentic behavior", Facebook rightly received a fair amount of criticism for the nebulous and hotly disputed basis for that action. What received relatively little attention was the far more ominous step which was taken next: within hours of being purged from Facebook, multiple anti-establishment alternative media sites had their accounts completely removed from Twitter as well.
As of this writing I am aware of three large alternative media outlets which were expelled from both platforms at almost the same time: Anti-Media, the Free Thought Project, and Police the Police, all of whom had millions of followers on Facebook. Both the Editor-in-Chief of Anti-Media and its Chief Creative Officer were also banned by Twitter, and are being kept from having any new accounts on that site as well.
"I unfortunately always felt the day would come when alternative media would be scrubbed from major social media sites," Anti-Media's Chief Creative Officer S.M. Gibson said in a statement to me. "Because of that I prepared by having backup accounts years ago. The fact that those accounts, as well as 3 accounts from individuals associated with Anti-Media were banned without warning and without any reason offered by either platform makes me believe this purge was certainly orchestrated by someone. Who that is I have no idea, but this attack on information was much more concise and methodical in silencing truth than most realize or is being reported."
Interesting man.
Finance professor John Griffin, along with his doctoral student companion, Amin Shams, were the two academics that drew market-moving conclusions about bitcoin last year, while the digital currency was trading around $20,000. After sifting through 2 terabytes of trading data, they alleged that bitcoin was being manipulated by someone using the cryptocurrency Tether to purchase it. Tether remains a relatively little-known crypto, which is pegged to one US dollar. Part of its appeal is that it can "stand in" for dollars when necessary, according to Bloomberg. Griffin and Shams authored a paper in June, with the results of their findings ultimately catalyzing many digital assets to move lower, despite the fact that the CEO of Tether publicly denied that its currency was used to prop up bitcoin.
Griffin works at the University of Texas at Austin, and has become quite an unpopular figure on Wall Street for similar work he has done in the past on ratings companies, the VIX and investment banks. In most of his findings, he claims that these well-known financial instruments and players are, in one way or another, rigged. And the professor seems to enjoy exposing precisely that: rigged, manipulated markets and shady players. "I not only want to understand the world, but make it better," he told Bloomberg. Griffin's work has become popular reading within the DOJ and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, according to Bloomberg.
These regulators – many of them low on resources, time and staff – welcome any additional help they can get (the SEC's budget has forced it into a hiring freeze and the CFTC budget was cut by Congress in March of this year). John Reed Stark, a former attorney in the SEC's enforcement division, stated: "It's incredibly helpful to have an expert of Griffin's caliber."
"..the threat to order might be so great that an unprecedented "emergency" has to be declared, with soldiers in the streets of Washington.."
If I were President, I'd declare Oct 12 Greater Fool Day. (Nobody likes Christopher Columbus anymore, that genocidal monster of dead white male privilege.) The futures are zooming as I write, a last roundup for suckers at the OD corral, begging the question: who will show up on Monday. Nobody, I predict. And then what? The great false front of the financial markets resumes falling over into the November election. The rubble from all that buries whatever is left of the automobile business and the housing market. The smoldering aftermath will be described as the start of a long-overdue recession — but it will actually be something a lot worse, with no end in sight.
The Democratic Party might not be nimble enough to capitalize on the sudden disappearance of capital. Their only hope to date has been to capture the vote of every female in America, to otherwise augment their constituency of inflamed and aggrieved victims of unsubstantiated injustices. It's been fun playing those cards, and the Party might not even know how to play a different game at this point. Democratic politicians may also be among the one-percenters who watch their net worth go up in a vapor in a market collapse, leaving them too numb to act. The last time something like this happened, in the fall of 2008, candidate Barack Obama barely knew what to say about the fall of Lehman Brothers and the ensuing cascade of misery — though unbeknownst to the voters, he was already a hostage of Wall Street.
Complicating matters this time will be the chaos unleashed in politics and governing when the long-running "Russia collusion" melodrama boomerangs into a raft of indictments against the cast of characters in the Intel Community and Department of Justice AND the Democratic National Committee, and perhaps even including the Party's last standard bearer, HRC, for ginning up the Russia Collusion matter in the first place as an exercise in sedition. The wheels of the law turn slowly, but they'll turn even while financial markets tumble. And the threat to order might be so great that an unprecedented "emergency" has to be declared, with soldiers in the streets of Washington, as was sadly the case in 1861, the first time the country turned itself upside down.
Good angle.
The loudest and most powerful voices when it comes to the future of the planet — the ones with their hands on the levers of power — have a strong tactical advantage: they will be dead before the shit really hits the fan. This fact curiously goes unspoken, for the most part. Popular arguments tend to be framed around a rosy vision preserving the planet for future generations, which gives our boomer aristocracy the most effective cover story imaginable. They don't need to care about that, as nice as it sounds. Why would they? It's all completely hypothetical to them. You may as well be talking about climate patterns in Narnia. Make no mistake: older generations living in the developed world are part of history's most under-appreciated death cult.
This isn't abstract psychoanalysis. There is a brutal calculus going on in the minds of everyone from your skeptic uncle to the bankrollers of squillion dollar think tanks whenever they think or talk about climate change. They know that they will never have to really answer for their opinions on this matter, because they'll be six feet under (and loving it!) when the world's arable land is rendered infertile and its coastal cities flooded by rising oceans. In some dark and venal corner of their minds, they're thinking about that fact all the damn time. Despite the frightening predictions of the new IPCC report, they've still got plenty of wiggle room to keep denying until they're dead – which will be sooner rather than later. With any luck they'll even avoid being held accountable in any concrete way, which for the conservative commentariat is an even worse fate than the Mad Max hellworld towards which we are hurtling.
One scary dude.
[..] a scientist named Richard Alley in a Skype discussion with students at Bard College, as well as with Eban Goodstein, director of the Graduate Programs in Sustainability at Bard. It would be just another nerdy Skype chat except Alley is talking frankly about something that few scientists have the courage to say in public: As bad as you think climate change might be in the coming decades, reality could be far worse. Within the lifetime of the students he's talking with, Alley says, there's some risk — small but not as small as you might hope — that the seas could rise as much as 15-to-20 feet.
[..] Richard Alley is not a fringe character in the world of climate change. In fact, he is widely viewed as one of the greatest climate scientists of our time. If there is anyone who understands the full complexity of the risks we face from climate change, it's Alley. And far from being alarmist, Alley is known for his careful, rigorous science. He has spent most of his adult life deconstructing past Earth climates from the information in ice cores and rocks and ocean sediments. And what he has learned about the past, he has used to better understand the future. For a scientist of Alley's stature to say that he can't rule out 15 or 20 feet of sea-level rise in the coming decades is mind-blowing.
And it is one of the clearest statements I've ever heard of just how much trouble we are in on our rapidly warming planet (and I've heard a lot — I wrote a book about sea-level rise). To judge how radical this is, compare Alley's numbers to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was released on Monday. That report basically argued that if we don't get to zero carbon emissions by 2050, we have very little chance of avoiding 1.5 Celsius of warming, the threshold that would allow us to maintain a stable climate. The report projected that with 2 Celsius of warming, which is the target of the Paris Climate Agreement, the range of sea level rise we might see by the end of the century is between about one and three feet.
Sure. But start giving back what was. Problem is, so much of it WAS looted that the museum would become a pretty empty place.
The British Museum is launching an initiative intended to counter the perception that its collections derive only from looted treasures. The monthly Collected Histories talks, which begin on Friday, will provide information on how certain artefacts entered the collection, with the museum saying it will offer a more nuanced take on these stories than is available elsewhere. The museum has long faced criticism for displaying – and refusing to return – looted treasures, including the Parthenon Marbles, Rosetta Stone, and the Gweagal shield.
Earlier this year, the art historian Alice Procter's Uncomfortable Art Tours around London institutions, including the British Museum, made headlines for their attempts to expose the role of colonialism, with those on the tour given "Display It Like You Stole It" badges. Dr Sushma Jansari, the curator of the Asian ethnographic and South Asia collections at the British Museum, said she had devised Collected Histories in response to Procter's tours. "There are a lot of partial histories and they tend to focus on the colonial aspect of the collecting so you have a bunch of people who tend to be quite angry and upset," she said. "We're trying to reset the balance a little bit. A lot of our collections are not from a colonial context; not everything here was acquired by Europeans by looting."
August 30, 2018 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:14 am Finance Tagged with: Atlantic Council, Barnier, Brexit, CNN, Cohen, collusion, expats, IMF, Korea, peso, rupee, Russiagate, Trump, whistleblower 3 Responses »
Henri Matisse Trivaux pond 1916-17
• Trump Says 'No Reason' For Military Exercises With South Korea (CNBC)
• NATO Think Tank Continues Pre-Election Interference (RPI)
• Whistleblower Exposes Key Player in FBI Russia Probe: "It Was A Set-Up" (SC)
• CNN Lies About Cohen Story, Refuses to Comment (Greenwald)
• The Media's Chronic Misreporting on the Trump/Russia Story (Greenwald)
• Russian Oligarch, DOJ And A Clear Case Of Collusion (ZH)
• India's Rupee Falls To An All-Time Low (CNBC)
• Trade War Won't Cause 'Major' Hit To China's Economy – Morgan Stanley (CNBC)
• Argentina Asks IMF For Early Release Of Standby Funds (R.)
• Pound Sterling Rallies As Raab And Barnier Turn Optimistic On Brexit (Ind.)
• EU's Barnier Says Must Prepare For A 'No-Deal' Brexit (R.)
• Car Manufacturing In Britain Fell By 11% In July (G.)
• 1000s Of British Expats Living In Spain Return To UK As Brexit Nears (Exp.)
"Trump's announcement came a day after Secretary of Defense James Mattis said that there were no plans to cancel future exercises with South Korea."
President Donald Trump on Wednesday indicated that the U.S. will not participate in joint military exercises with South Korea, citing his "warm" relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, even as U.S. efforts to denuclearize the reclusive dictatorship have stalled. "There is no reason at this time to be spending large amounts of money on joint U.S.-South Korea war games," Trump said in a string of tweets Wednesday. Trump's announcement came a day after Secretary of Defense James Mattis said that there were no plans to cancel future exercises with South Korea.
"As you know, we took this step to suspend several of the larger exercises as a good-faith measure coming out of the Singapore summit," Mattis said Tuesday at the Pentagon. It was his first press briefing in five months, a timeline that has included President Donald Trump's high-profile meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin. "We have no plans at this time to suspend any more exercises. We will work very closely, as I said, with the secretary of State and what he needs done," he added, noting that forces on the Korean Peninsula have continued with small-scale training exercises.
On the Atlantic Council's board: Henry Kissinger, Michael Hayden and Michael Chertoff. These are the people 'advising' Facebook on content.
On August 24 what is in effect the social media warfare division of the Atlantic Council published an article accusing the Russian television and print news outlet RT of running a one-sided attack against the Democratic Party and several leaders thereof ahead of this November's politically pivotal Senate and House of Representatives elections. (Thirty-five Senate seats and all 435 House seats are being contested.) The Atlantic Council, until recently kept comparatively in the shadows for obvious reasons, is a think tank that has more than any other organization effected the transition of the NATO from a seeming Cold War relic with the break-up of the Warsaw Pact and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 to the world's only and history's first international military network with 70 members and partners on six continents currently.
All thirteen new full member states are in Eastern and Central Europe; four of them border Russia. Three months ago it began collaborating with Facebook to police and censor that and (presumably) soon after other social media companies which in recent decades have become the major sources of information and communication for the seven billion citizens of the planet. No modest undertaking. This is by way of follow up to a Directive on Social Media issued four years ago by NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), the bloc's military command in Europe (which also oversees activities in Israel and until the activation of U.S. Africa Command ten years ago almost all of Africa).
Excellent from Sara Carter. I took these snippets to make the point that both Flynn and Papadopoulos feel threatened by Mueller, and can't afford to defend themselves. That's how Mueller gets guilty pleas.
Halper was not only spying on Page for the FBI in 2016, but he had also made contact in September 2016 with another Trump campaign volunteer, George Papadopoulos. He invited Papadopoulos to London that September, luring him with a $3,000 paycheck to work on a research paper under contract. By this time the young Trump campaign volunteer had already been in contact London-based professor, Josef Mifsud, who had basically informed him that the Russians had damaging material about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Misfud's role has also come into question by Congress. Eventually, Papadopoulos was swept into Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation and pled guilty to one count of lying to the FBI.
His wife, Simona Papadopoulos, who's been a vocal advocate for her husband, told SaraACarter.com that essentially he was forced to plead guilty because of threats from Mueller's team and lack of financial resources. After testifying behind closed doors last month to the House Intelligence Committee, Simona told this outlet that she testified to Congress "as far as George is concerned, he met with individuals following the same pattern of behavior….and all of a sudden (Halper) was asking if he was doing anything with Russians…. This is the case with Halper, who is now proven to be a spy, possibly with (Australian Ambassador) Alexander Downer" who her husband met with in London.
[..] Flynn's career with Trump ended as quickly as it came. He was forced to resign as Trump's National Security Advisor 27 days after taking the job. The highly classified conversation between Flynn and former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak was leaked to the Washington Post in January 2017 and he was later questioned by the FBI on that conversation. According to former FBI Director James Comey, the agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe he was lying, but in the end, Flynn pled guilty to one count of lying to Special Counsel Robert Mueller. He had already spent more than $1 million in lawyers fees and sold his home to help with the debt. According to sources, Flynn's family was being threatened by the Mueller team.
The sordid tale of Lanny Davis continues.
CNN's blockbuster July 26 story – that Michael Cohen intended to tell Special Counsel Robert Mueller that he was present when Donald Trump was told in advance about his son's Trump Tower meeting with various Russians – includes a key statement about its sourcing that credible reporting now suggests was designed to have misled its audience. Yet CNN simply refuses to address the serious ethical and journalistic questions raised about its conduct. The substance of the CNN story itself regarding Cohen – which made headline news all over all the world and which CNN hyped as a "bombshell" – has now been retracted by other news outlets that originally purported to "confirm" CNN's story.
That's because the anonymous source for this confirmation, Cohen lawyer Lanny Davis, now admits that, in essence, his "confirmation" was false. As a result, both the Washington Post and the NY Post outed Davis as their anonymous source and then effectively retracted their stories "confirming" parts of CNN's report. CNN, however, has retracted nothing. All inquiries to the network are directed to a corporate spokesperson, who simply says: "We stand by our story, and are confident in our reporting of it." A newsletter sent Sunday night from CNN's two media reporters, Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy, contained the same corporate language, but addressed none of the questions raised about CNN's report.
It's certainly possible that CNN had other sources for this story besides Davis, who now repudiates it. It's hard to see how CNN's story could be true given that Davis, Cohen's own lawyer, explicitly says that Cohen has no information that Trump had prior knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting, that Cohen cannot and will not tell Mueller that this happened, and that Davis' prior claims about Cohen's knowledge and intentions are false. Axios reported that Cohen testified under oath to Congress that he has no knowledge that Trump had prior knowledge of the meeting and repeated this to leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee again after CNN's report. Davis now says Cohen – rather than intending to tell Mueller he has such information – stands by his long-time claim that he has none.
From the same Glenn Greenwald article. False claims galore.
The other self-serving tactic media outlets use in situations like this is to claim that their errors are just good faith and rare mistakes, and that those who report on their mistakes are exaggerating their significance. This claim was also prominently featured in the New Yorker's critique of my work, and is reflexively applied to anyone who has critiqued the dominant media narrative on this story. This tactic is also itself highly deceitful. The reality is that from the start of the Trump/Russia story, the U.S. media has repeatedly and frequently – not rarely and periodically – gotten major stories completely wrong, always in the same direction: exaggerating the threat posed by Russia to the U.S., and concocting evidence of Trump/Russia collusion even when such evidence did not exist.
Last December, I reported on what I call (and still believe) was the U.S. media's "most humiliating debacle in ages": a blatantly false and equally hyped CNN story claiming that an unknown person had emailed Donald Trump Jr. access to the WikiLeaks email archive before it was published: a story that MSNBC's Ken Dilanian purported to "confirm." That story – predictably and by design – generated huge headlines around the world, and was given breathless coverage on cable news given its obvious significance. In fact, the email in question was sent after WikiLeaks had published that archive to the entire world, rendering the magic-bullet email utterly worthless, not a massive scoop proving collusion.
Swamp.
Steele and twice-demoted DOJ official Bruce Ohr communicated extensively about the Russian Oligarch as recently as February 2016, which included efforts to obtain a Visa for Deripaska to attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting int he US. Deripaska is now banned from the United States as one of several Russians sanctioned in April in response to alleged 2016 election meddling. Ohr, meanwhile, was demoted twice after the DOJ's Inspector General discovered that he lied about his involvement with opposition research firm Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson – who employed Steele. Ohr's CIA-linked wife, Nellie, was also employed by Fusion as part of the firm's anti-Trump efforts, and had ongoing communications with the ex-UK spy, Christopher Steele as well. What's more, Ohr met with Deripaska according to Solomon.
"By 2015, Steele's work had left him friendly with one of Deripaska's lawyers, according to my sources. And when Ohr, then the associate deputy attorney general and a longtime acquaintance of Steele, sought help getting to meet Deripaska, Steele obliged. Deripaska, who frequently has appeared alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin at high-profile meetings, never really dealt with Steele, but he followed his lawyer's recommendations and met with Ohr, my sources say. -The Hill The September 2015 meeting between Ohr, Deripaska and several FBI agents in New York sought the Russian billionaire's assistance regarding organized crime investigations. That meeting was facilitated by Steele.
To recap: Bruce Ohr = the #4 official at the DOJ, met with a billionaire friend of Vladimir Putin, in a sit-down arranged by Christopher Steele. Steele and the DOJ, meanwhile, were accusing Donald Trump of collusion with Putin – while the Obama administration used Steele's dodgy dossier to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Talk about actual collusion!
India's still largely inward looking, but still, what is imported -oil!-gets much more expensive.
The Indian rupee fell to a record low on Thursday morning, following a declining trend all year — which economists attributed to rising oil prices, broader emerging market concerns, and strong month-end dollar demand. It slid to 70.8100 against the dollar, after a previous new low just a day before at 70.475. That marked a 10.97 percent decline since the start of the year. "Weakening has accompanied rising investment concerns about emerging markets more broadly, as well as a widening current account deficit, itself largely the result of higher oil prices," said a Deutsche Bank Wealth Management report on Thursday.
More expensive oil leads to a higher import bill for India, a net importer of oil. Higher oil prices also lead to a widening current account deficit — a measure of the flow of goods, services and investments in and out of the country. Oil prices have been up more than 7 percent since mid-August, DBS Economist Radhika Rao explained in a note following the previous record low on Wednesday. Along with that, end-month dollar demand has also added to the pace of currency sell-off, she said. "Markets get a sense that the authorities are tolerant of a weaker rupee, with little by way of jawboning or verbal intervention," Rao added.
I think Beijing is more nervous than this lets on.
The Chinese government will continue implementing measures in order to cushion its economy from the impact of the ongoing trade spat with the U.S., a leading China economist said Wednesday. "We are not expecting any major growth correction because we think the potential impact from trade tariffs will be partially cushioned by the policy easing measures taken by the policy makers," Robin Xing, chief China economist at Morgan Stanley, told CNBC at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in Beijing. Just last week, the U.S. and China slapped tariffs on $16 billion worth of goods on each other. Both countries also imposed tit-for-tat levies on $34 billion worth of each other's imports in July.
Market watchers are now keeping their eyes on a fresh round of U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods expected later this year. If the U.S. imposes those additional tariffs, the impact could be "amplified" by how connected supply chains in East Asia are to China, Xing said. In fact, the trade war's disruption to supply chains could cut 0.7 percentage points from China's growth, he said. That will spur Beijing to take up more meaningful easing measures such as tax cuts and boosts to credit and liquidity in China's financial system.
Sure, just sell all your assets.
Argentina is asking the IMF for early release of funds from the country's $50 billion standby financing deal, President Mauricio Macri said in a televised address on Wednesday, a move aimed at calming turbulent markets. The country's currency has weakened 40.79 percent in 2018. Investors are concerned that with high inflation, a weak economy and fallout from a global selloff in emerging markets, Argentina may have problems meeting its dollar debt obligation in 2019. "We have agreed with the IMF to advance all the necessary funds to guarantee compliance with the financial program next year," Macri said. "This decision aims to eliminate any uncertainty." The Argentine peso dropped to trade more than 6 percent lower against the dollar on the news.
Michel Barnier, said the bloc is "prepared to offer a partnership with Britain such as has never been with any other third country.."
The pound has rallied against the dollar and the euro following bullish Brexit comments from both UK and EU officials. Sterling rose more than 1 per cent against the greenback to hit $1.3006, and was up 0.99 per cent against the euro to €1.1118. Brexit secretary Dominic Raab told the Lords EU committee on Wednesday that he was "confident a deal is within our sights". He said: "We're bringing ambition, pragmatism, energy and if, and I expect it will be, and if it is matched, we get a deal." He said the 17 October deadline for a deal could be pushed back, but added: "I think it is important as we enter the final phase of the negotiations in the lead up to the October council – and the possibility that it may creep beyond that – we want to see some renewed energy.
"We're bringing the ambition and the substance of our white paper on the future relationship and also I think some pragmatism to try and go the extra mile to get the deal that I think is in both sides interests. We need that to be matched obviously, it's a negotiation." Meanwhile the EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said the bloc is "prepared to offer a partnership with Britain such as has never been with any other third country". "That kind of bullishness has been in short supply of late – if it has ever been there at all – and had a hugely rejuvenating effect on the pound," said Connor Campbell, financial analyst at Spreadex.
But wait! Keep 'em guessing!
The European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said on Thursday the bloc must prepare for a no-deal Brexit, even if its goal was an orderly exit. The EU needed to be well prepared for everything, Barnier said, telling German broadcaster Deutschlandfunk: "That includes the no-deal scenario." He said the issue of the Irish border with Northern Ireland was "the most sensitive point" of the negotiations. Of a solution to the issue, he added: "I think that is possible."
The industry wants to both cry for help AND look strong.
The number of cars built in UK factories slumped by 11% last month compared with a year ago. Just over 121,000 cars left production lines, with a fall of 35% in models built for the UK, according to the latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). Car production for export in July fell by 4.2%. Despite the reduction, the sector remains on track to meet 2018 expectations, said the SMMT. Just under 955,500 cars were built in the first seven months of the year, down by 16% for the UK market and 1.2% for export. This marks an improvement on June, when production for the UK plunged 47%, although there was a 6% rise in cars made for export.
Model changes, operational adjustments and preparations for new emissions standards affected output last month, said the SMMT. Its chief executive, Mike Hawes, said: "While the industry is undoubtedly feeling the effects of recent uncertainty in the domestic market, drawing long-term conclusions from monthly snapshots requires a health warning. "The bigger picture is complex and month by month fluctuations are inevitable as manufacturers manage product cycles, operational changes and the delicate balance of supply and demand from market to market. "To ensure future growth, we need political and economic clarity at home, and the continuation of beneficial trading arrangements with the EU and other key markets."
Those were the days.
Figures show the number of Brits living in Bendorm has fallen from around 5,000 before the 2007 financial crash to 2,825 last year. Almost 5,000 waved adios to Ibiza, Majorca and Menorca over the same period of time and by 2017, 14,981 expats remained on the Balearic islands. Spanish newspaper El Pais reported the total number of British residents in Spain had dropped from 397,892 to 240,785 – a fall of 157,107. It said data from Spain's National Statistics Institute showed the number of residents from 15 EU-countries in Spain had fallen by a quarter but the number of British expats had fallen 40 percent. Between 2012 and 2017, the number of Britons leaving Spain outnumbered those who arrived. In the previous four years, 40,454 more Britons arrived in Spain than left.
The drop in expats was put down partly to a shake up in municipal enrolment regulations in Spain but many returnees fear Brexit will have a negative impact on their lives abroad while others say life on the continent has become too expensive with the devaluation of the pound. Michelle Ball, who has a shop in La Xara, Alicante having arriving in Valencia as a 14-year-old, said: "Many are returning because life has become incredibly expensive. "My mother has lost €160 a month in her pension since the Brexit referendum because of the devaluation of the pound. "Now her pension is €690. And since the Spanish government made changes a few years back she also has to pay a portion for her medicines. It's not a lot but it doesn't help either."Sterling fell to its lowest against the euro in nearly a year yesterday after Theresa May played down the consequences of a no-deal Brexit.


text:
package blended.streams.dispatcher.internal.builder

import akka.NotUsed
import akka.actor.ActorSystem
import akka.stream.scaladsl.{Flow, GraphDSL, RunnableGraph, Source}
import akka.stream.{ActorMaterializer, Graph, Materializer, SinkShape}
import blended.jms.bridge.BridgeProviderConfig
import blended.jms.utils.{JmsDestination, JmsQueue}
import blended.streams.dispatcher.internal.builder.DispatcherOutbound.DispatcherTarget
import blended.streams.jms.JmsFlowSupport
import blended.streams.message.{FlowEnvelope, FlowMessage}
import blended.streams.processor.Collector
import blended.streams.worklist.WorklistState.WorklistState
import blended.streams.worklist.{WorklistEvent, WorklistState}
import org.scalatest.Matchers

import scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext

class DispatcherOutboundSpec extends DispatcherSpecSupport
  with Matchers {

  override def loggerName: String = classOf[DispatcherOutboundSpec].getName()

  private def runnableOutbound(
    ctxt : DispatcherExecContext,
    testMsg : FlowEnvelope,
    send : Flow[FlowEnvelope, FlowEnvelope, NotUsed]
  ) : (Collector[WorklistEvent], Collector[FlowEnvelope], RunnableGraph[NotUsed]) = {

    implicit val system : ActorSystem = ctxt.system

    val outColl = Collector[WorklistEvent]("out")(_ => {})
    val errColl = Collector[FlowEnvelope]("err")(_.acknowledge())

    val source = Source.single[FlowEnvelope](testMsg)

    val sinkGraph : Graph[SinkShape[FlowEnvelope], NotUsed] = {
      GraphDSL.create() { implicit b =>
        import GraphDSL.Implicits._

        val outStep = b.add(DispatcherBuilder(ctxt.idSvc, ctxt.cfg, send)(ctxt.bs).outbound())
        val out = b.add(outColl.sink)
        val err = b.add(errColl.sink)

        outStep.out0 ~> out
        outStep.out1 ~> err

        SinkShape(outStep.in)
      }
    }

    (outColl, errColl,  source.to(sinkGraph))
  }

  def testOutbound(expectedState: WorklistState, send: Flow[FlowEnvelope, FlowEnvelope, NotUsed]) : Unit = {
    withDispatcherConfig { ctxt =>

      implicit val system : ActorSystem = ctxt.system
      implicit val eCtxt : ExecutionContext = system.dispatcher
      implicit val materializer : Materializer = ActorMaterializer()

      val envelope = FlowEnvelope().withHeader(ctxt.bs.headerConfig.headerBranch, "outbound").get

      val (outColl, errColl, out) = runnableOutbound(ctxt, envelope, send)

      try {
        out.run()

        val result = for {
          err <- errColl.result
          evt <- outColl.result
        } yield (err, evt)

        result.map { case (error, events) =>
          error should be (empty)
          events should have size 1

          val event = events.head
          event.worklist.items should have size 1
          event.worklist.id should be (envelope.id)
          event.state should be (expectedState)
        }
      } finally {
        system.stop(outColl.actor)
        system.stop(errColl.actor)
      }
    }
  }

  "The outbound flow of the dispatcher should" - {

    "produce a worklist completed event for successfull completions of the outbound flow" in {
      val good = Flow.fromFunction[FlowEnvelope, FlowEnvelope]{ env => env}
      testOutbound(WorklistState.Completed, good)
    }

    "produce a worklist failed event after unsuccessfull completions of the outbound flow" in {
      val bad = Flow.fromFunction[FlowEnvelope, FlowEnvelope]{ env => env.withException(new Exception("Boom !")) }
      testOutbound(WorklistState.Failed, bad)
    }
  }

  "The outbound routing decider should" - {

    val provider = BridgeProviderConfig(
      vendor = "sonic75",
      provider = "central",
      internal = false,
      inbound = JmsDestination.create("in").get,
      outbound = JmsDestination.create("out").get,
      errors = JmsDestination.create("error").get,
      transactions = JmsDestination.create("trans").get,
      cbes = JmsDestination.create("cbes").get
    )

    val prefix : DispatcherExecContext => String = ctxt => ctxt.bs.headerConfig.prefix
    val srcVendorHeader : DispatcherExecContext => String = ctxt => JmsFlowSupport.srcVendorHeader(prefix(ctxt))
    val srcProviderHeader : DispatcherExecContext => String = ctxt => JmsFlowSupport.srcProviderHeader(prefix(ctxt))
    val replyToHeader : DispatcherExecContext => String = ctxt => JmsFlowSupport.replyToHeader(prefix(ctxt))
    val srcDestHeader : DispatcherExecContext => String = ctxt => JmsFlowSupport.srcDestHeader(prefix(ctxt))

    "resolve a replyTo destination if no outbound destination is set in resource type router" in {

      withDispatcherConfig { ctxt =>

        val env : FlowEnvelope = FlowEnvelope(
          FlowMessage(FlowMessage.noProps)
        )
          .withHeader(srcVendorHeader(ctxt), "activemq").get
          .withHeader(srcProviderHeader(ctxt), "activemq").get
          .withHeader(replyToHeader(ctxt), "response").get
          .withHeader(srcDestHeader(ctxt), JmsDestination.create("Dummy").get.asString).get
          .withContextObject(ctxt.bs.bridgeProviderKey, provider)
          // This will trigger the replyto routing
          .withContextObject(ctxt.bs.bridgeDestinationKey, None)

        val routing : DispatcherTarget = DispatcherOutbound.outboundRouting(
          dispatcherCfg = ctxt.cfg,
          idSvc = ctxt.idSvc,
          bs = ctxt.bs
        )(env).get

        routing should be (DispatcherTarget("activemq", "activemq", JmsDestination.create("response").get))
      }
    }

    "resolve a replyTo destination if the outbound destination is set to 'replyTo' in the config" in {

      withDispatcherConfig { ctxt =>

        val env : FlowEnvelope = FlowEnvelope(
          FlowMessage(FlowMessage.noProps)
        )
          .withHeader(srcVendorHeader(ctxt), "activemq").get
          .withHeader(srcProviderHeader(ctxt), "activemq").get
          .withHeader(replyToHeader(ctxt), "response").get
          .withHeader(srcDestHeader(ctxt), JmsDestination.create("Dummy").get.asString).get
          .withContextObject(ctxt.bs.bridgeProviderKey, provider)
          // This will trigger the replyto routing
          .withContextObject(ctxt.bs.bridgeDestinationKey, Some(JmsFlowSupport.replyToQueueName))

        val routing : DispatcherTarget = DispatcherOutbound.outboundRouting(
          dispatcherCfg = ctxt.cfg,
          idSvc = ctxt.idSvc,
          bs = ctxt.bs
        )(env).get

        routing should be (DispatcherTarget("activemq", "activemq", JmsDestination.create("response").get))
      }
    }

    "resolve to the configured target destination" in {
      withDispatcherConfig { ctxt =>

        val env : FlowEnvelope = FlowEnvelope(
          FlowMessage(FlowMessage.noProps)
        )
          .withHeader(srcVendorHeader(ctxt), "activemq").get
          .withHeader(srcProviderHeader(ctxt), "activemq").get
          .withHeader(replyToHeader(ctxt), "response").get
          .withHeader(srcDestHeader(ctxt), JmsDestination.create("Dummy").get.asString).get
          .withContextObject(ctxt.bs.bridgeProviderKey, provider)
          .withContextObject(ctxt.bs.bridgeDestinationKey, Some("centralDest"))

        val routing : DispatcherTarget = DispatcherOutbound.outboundRouting(
          dispatcherCfg = ctxt.cfg,
          idSvc = ctxt.idSvc,
          bs = ctxt.bs
        )(env).get

        routing should be (DispatcherTarget(provider.vendor, provider.provider, JmsDestination.create("centralDest").get))
      }
    }
  }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Picture agate displays natural inclusions that formed within the stone in such a way as to create well-defined images. These images have a natural, life-like, picturesque appearance and make picture agate a treasured stone among gemstone lapidaries.
The picture agate inclusions form a pattern that give the appearance of a landscape or picture.


text:
Marijuana from the Minds of the Youth
Marijuana is beginning to change the way adolescents view the substance in America, making it the number one most commonly used illicit drug.
The use of marijuana is most common and widespread among adolescents and young adults. The effects of smoking affect every user differently whether it is used short-term or long-term.
"I feel like people [teens] are more entitled to smoke in order to fit in, " senior Ethan Childress said. Aware of the issue of teens who smoke, he feels if students at his school were to undergo mandatory drug test that, "half the people wouldn't even show up."
According to the Monitoring the Future Survey, an annual survey of drug use and attitudes among the nation's middle and high school measures of marijuana use by eighth, tenth, and twelfth graders peaked in the mid-to-late 1990's and has slowed since.
Ethan said, "They're [teens] not getting the grades and passing."
People under the influence experience a euphoria and sense of relaxation. Other effects, which may vary dramatically among different people, include heightened sensory perception, laughter, altered perception of time, and increased appetite.
For some, it is easy to identify someone under the influence. As for sophomore Samuel Kilcrease. He witnesses many of his fellow classmates under the influence while at school. He does not believe marijuana is something he would want to take part in but he does believe, "there are benefits for other people." Sam believes that marijuana is a gateway drug for teens. "Once you start one thing, you're probably gonna do other things down the road," Sam said If marijuana was legal in the entire U.S. he still would not consider smoking.
Potential medicinal properties of marijuana and its components have been the subject of research and heated debate for decades.
Ethan said, "I feel like medical marijuana should be legal because it's for medical reasons, and I've read about how beneficial it can be." Sam feels that only medical marijuana should be legal in the US because, "[recreational] marijuana is bad for your health."
An additional concern with "medical marijuana" is that little is known about the long-term impact of its use by people with health complications.
Journalism 1, Jalen Robinson

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Published on July 22, 2018. Small Circular Sectional Sofa. Round sofas sectionals semi circular sofas sectionals, semi circle sectional sofa semi circular sofa couch small. Semi circle sofa canada wwwenergywardennet. Vega CX.


text:
Q: Specify Virtual Size using DRM with Frambuffer Emulation I am attempting make use of double buffering on an AM335x processor. We have an example running on a demo image that was not created by us. I am working on putting together our own image using mainline sources.
This system is using the tilcdc driver. We are using the fbdev emulation provided by that driver. As we are setting up the parameters, this call errors out:
unsigned int Yold = variable_info.yres_virtual;
variable_info.yres_virtual = variable_info.yres * 2;

if (ioctl(fdfb, FBIOPUT_VSCREENINFO, &variable_info))

We echoed 0xf into /sys/module/drm/parameters/debug to turn on the elevated debugging printouts for the drm driver. We were able to see the following error message:
fb userspace requested width/height/bpp is greater than current 1024x768-32 (virtual 1024x1536) > 1024x768-32
I have seen references indicating that drm defaults to only allocating enough memory for the attached resolution. I am struggling to find out where that is occurring and how I might increase the amount of memory allocated.
As for the sample image, this was provided to us for testing purposes. We have found that the reason the application works on this image is that the memory being allocated by default is the right size for doing triple buffering at a y height of 768.
Thank you for your help.
*edit additions
I have been looking at the source for the driver and have yet to conclude can be done to change the buffer size upon driver load. I would like to avoid hard coding the value at all costs.
I know that underneath the framebuffer emulation provided directly by the tilcdc there are are calls to create a contiguous memory allocation using the information for the crtcs, but it appears to only be using something called fb->height and width.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Academic tour in Armenian Universities and Academic institutions for Indian students, researchers and professors.
To foster academic, educational and cultural relations between Armenia and India ARMACAD invites students, researchers and professors from India to apply for the participation in the first enforcement program of Academic relations between Armenia and India.
The program aims at introducing the present state of Armenian higher education system to Indian colleagues through a guided tour in Armenian Universities, Academic institutions, Ministries, museums and other places of interest based on specific academic interests of the participants.
During the program Indian participants will also meet selected participants from Armenia, thus this program will not only become a necessary tool to understand the Armenian academic system, but also will become a life changing and memorable event to have more friends and colleagues in Armenia.
Armenia and India have developed ties in different spheres, among those energy, business, security, etc. Unfortunately education and particularly relations in higher education is not among the sectors so far enforced and developed. The aim of the program is to first of all to empower relations between individuals in India and Armenia engaged in academic activities, second to popularise the Armenian higher education opportunities among students and researchers in India and become a fertile ground for future collaborations and co-operations, and third, through this guided and academically oriented tour to present Indian colleagues the possibilities and opportunities available in Armenia for international students and researchers.
Selected participants from different universities and academic institutions in India will be invited to Yerevan to participate in 5 days program to visit universities and academic centers in Yerevan. The selected participants will take part in meetings, lectures and discussions with higher education officials to receive better insights about Armenian higher education system and realities.
The deadline to apply to this program is December 21, 2018.


When it comes to paying publishers for live video content, Facebook gaveth, but Facebook reportedly taketh away.
Kurt Wagner of Recode reported that several publishers told him the social network is no longer emphasizing Facebook Live video during negotiations, and they do not expect livestreaming deals they inked with Facebook last year to be renewed.
According to Wagner, the publishers said Facebook is now pushing longer-form premium video content as part of a larger initiative led by Ricky Van Veen, who joined the company in June after serving as College Humor's co-founder.
Part of the reason for the strategy shift is that the publishers found that the compensation they were receiving from Facebook did not cover the time and resources they were investing in creating the live video content, Wagner reported.
Readers: Do you think longer-form, premium video content can succeed on Facebook?


When you own a business, the health of your employees should be a priority. Indoor pollutants are a major cause of sickness in the business world. A lot of these pollutants can be reduced or eliminated by having the carpets and upholstery regularly cleaned.
As a commercial carpet cleaning company in Mobile, AL we help the businesses in our local area improve their air quality from the standpoint of carpet cleaning. Carpets are wonderful for use in a business setting. They help to give your office a professional appearance, make standing and walking more comfortable, and dampen sound. They also have a few downsides as well.
Carpet can hold on to microscopic bugs, moisture, dust, and dirt. These items are then circulated through the building by way of the heating and cooling system.
The impurities in the air that originated in the carpet can compromise the health and productivity of the employees, causing them to miss work and eroding the business profitability. Several illnesses are directly related to the air quality, such as sinus infections, colds, the flu, and asthma.
There are many benefits to having your business carpets commercially cleaned regularly. When you have professional carpet cleaning done by a certified company like us at Carpet Cleaning Nurse's Touch, with services that include regular spill touch-ups and vacuuming, you provide short and long-term health benefits to yourself and your employees. The short-term benefits include removing debris from the carpeting, thus minimizing the chances for it to circulate through the ventilation system. Regular cleaning, in the long-term, helps to keep your fibers of carpet from breaking down prematurely. When the carpet fibers are broken down, they tend to attract dirt and other particles even more.
Another way to improve the quality of your indoor air is to purchase carpeting that emits lower levels of gas. There are also adhesives that emit less. Purchasing these options are environmentally sound.
Of course, the other, more noticeable benefit of having your carpets professionally cleaned is their appearance. Your office will look more clean and inviting and, more importantly, improve the health of the people in that space daily.
There are ways to help reduce the wear and tear on your commercial carpets. You can use protective floor mats in areas with high traffic or where there is food preparation or eating, such as in break rooms. This will help you go a little longer without having to call your professional carpet cleaners.


An electric car crashed into a security guard at the gate of a residential community as the driver mistook the accelerator for the brake.
The CCTV video, filmed in Chengdu City in southern China's Sichuan Province on January 11, shows a car slowly moving to the front of a gate suddenly speeding up to knock down a security guard standing at the corner.
Nearby residents called for police and an ambulance, and the security guard was sent to hospital.
Fortunately, he only suffered minor scratches to his face and legs.
According to reports, neither the vehicle nor the driver have licences.
Three kind-hearted passersby rescued a driver after the car fell into a river in southwestern China. The video, filmed in Zunyi City in Guizhou Province on March 23, shows a car suddenly speeding..
A security guard's quick reaction saved him from being crushed by an SUV after a driver mistook the accelerator for the brake in southern China.


text:
Audiobook Review | Ghosts of Tomorrow – Michael R. Fletcher
The Brain Trade: Grown in crèches and programmed with a tribal warrior code, the minds of children are harvested by the black market. Sold to the highest bidder, they're installed in deadly combat machines and assassin chassis.
Griffin, a junior Investigations agent for the North American Trade Union, is put on the case: Find and close the illegal crèches. Installed in a combat chassis, Abdul, a depressed 17-year-old killed during the Secession Wars in Old Montreal, is assigned as Griffin's Heavy Weapons support. Nadia, a state-sanctioned investigative reporter working the stolen children story, pushes Griffin ever deeper into the nightmare of the brain trade.
In the La Carpio slums of Costa Rica, the scanned mind of an autistic girl named only 88 runs the South American Mafia's business interests. But 88 wants more. She wants freedom. And she has come to see humanity as a threat. She has an answer: Archaeidae. He died when he was eight. At 14, a six-gun slinging, katana-wielding machine of death, he is the deadliest assassin alive.
Two children against the world. The world is going to need some help.
394 pages (paperback)
Author's webpage
Check it out on Audible
This audiobook was given to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.
A while ago, one Michael R. Fletcher put it about online that he was getting his book Ghosts of Tomorrow turned into an audiobook, but he never listened to audiobooks so he wanted help with the narrator auditions. I, of course, raised my hand and said, "ME! ME! ME!" Anyway, long story short, I heard three (I think) narrators, and one of them was this English woman. He didn't tell me who anyone was, so I just knew it was some English woman. I listened to her audition, and wrote Fletcher something like, "Dude, I could listen to her read a phone book."
It turned out, pretty much everyone felt that way, and I'm assuming that that, along with the fact that Fletcher liked her audition (which is the most important part) helped land her the role of narrator. And, long story short, we've got R.B. Watkinson's first voice acting foray with Ghosts of Tomorrow, and she did really, really well. Now, my only complaint regarding her narration was some of the accents were a little… odd. Like the Texas drawl didn't pan out, but she's English and I'm pretty sure that if I tried to do a passable English accent, the entire country would probably throw beer in my face and/or laugh me off the island, so I can't hold it against her.
Anyway, narrator wise, despite some accent issues, Watkinson is super easy to listen to and has a very smooth voice and easy flow. She does a pretty damn good job at reading a book that is this intense and violent and does it in a way that makes it easy to absorb. So, bravo on that front.
Now, onto the book itself.
By this point in my evolution as a speculative fiction reader, I understand that Fletcher does not write books that should be read if you're faint of heart. He is brutal, and graphic, and oh so dark. He doesn't hold anything back. Oddly enough, I have never really felt like he's glorified the violence in the books he writes. It always feels very natural. Yes, it's dark, and yes, it's brutal, but it belongs in his books and his worlds.
Anyway, Ghosts of Tomorrow takes place in the near future. Most countries have dissolved and instead turned into trade unions, akin to huge corporations so they can easily compete on the global marketplace. There are a few references of hotter temperatures, wars that had been fought, and various other details that give readers a sense of how things became the way they were, and just how things are now.
Mixed into this are a huge underground crime culture and a virtual reality. Both of these things overlay the whole book. Now, the organized crime is pretty self-explanatory. However, the virtual reality is really where things get interesting, as this book is really told on two fronts, one being in reality, the other being in a virtual sphere. The virtual reality was really the part of the book that ended up interesting me more than I thought it would.
But in order to explain why, perhaps you should understand how this virtual reality mostly works, and how it ties into the crime culture. Also, this is where you'll get your first sniff as to the why and how of the dark details of this book.
You see, if a person is damaged somehow, but their head can be preserved, their consciousness is kind of downloaded onto these computers, so they lose their body, but become essentially machines controlled by the consciousness that was downloaded. This gives some opportunities, for example, there's a soldier who dies, but his head is salvaged and he's essentially given "eternal life" as a machine fighting for the North American Trade Union's military.
On the other hand, there are illegal creches, where children are either illegally bred, or stolen. Their bodies are disposed of, and they are downloaded onto these computers to live forever in these virtual worlds. It's, quite honestly, horrifying.
Usually, the most horrific characters in books are ones who are slightly mature – maybe not adults, but almost never young kids. They might have the wrong ideas about things, but they have these ideas through life experience and observation. These kids in Ghosts of Tomorrow were never given that chance to grow up, so they were basically given 'eternal life' as computers, or machines, and sent into the world without any of the life experience, or morality that someone even a little older would have. This unmooring gives the whole conflict an incredibly difficult light. First, a lot of these kids are just terrifying, but how do you really deal with a child who honestly probably doesn't know better, or doesn't really understand real from pretend? Or which actions are part of some elaborate game, and which are real?
And then there is the issue of that marine I mentioned above, who spends the book giving readers a rather intimate look into the personal conflict of becoming a machine. Most of his narrative is really, genuinely captivating because he's grappling with what it means to be a human. Does one have to have a beating heart to be human? Or does humanity transcend that? Can he be human if he is essentially a machine?
Then there is the investigator and the journalist, whose jobs are to investigate these illegal crèches and destroy them. Their own moral dilemmas, how do you deal with kids who have done horrible things, but are still just kids – are thrown into the mix. It's fascinating.
My favorite character ended up being 88, an autistic girl who was sucked into this whole situation via a mafia in Central America. She figures out how to sever her chains with her masters, and sort of spends the book making this virtual empire. While she's busy dominating this sphere, her core truth is that she just wants to find her mom. The juxtaposition of her character is, quite frankly, incredibly sobering, and its own unique kind of horrifying.
So, we've got all these situations, set in a near future world. There's lots of explosions and bullets flying, plenty of swearing, lots of dismembered heads, and piles of dead bodies, some of them are sold off for fertilizer. Folks, it's all here.
But what really got me about this entire book, under all this interesting stuff, is the very interesting, very smart way that Fletcher took these complex moral questions and threw them at readers in such a way that it is impossible not to think of them, to ponder their implications, to wonder where you, dear reader, would sit in a world like that one.
Fletcher is a dark author, but he's also a very smart one, and his books are impossible to put down.
Ghosts of tomorrow honestly blew me away. I wasn't sure what I expected going into it, but it was so intense and was working on so many layers, that when I finished it I had to sit back and catch my breath.
I'm not sure why Fletcher isn't a better-known name in the genre. It seems like a travesty that a book this good can be written, and it isn't a main topic of conversation yet.
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Rosa Watkinson
Thank you for taking the time to listen to and review this. I'm very chuffed indeed you liked it so much.
C.T Phipps
GHOSTS OF TOMORROW is a terrifying, hilarious, and awesome action-packed book in equal measure. The trade in human consciousness is absolutely evil and the fact it's done with children makes it all the more horrible. The characters really jump off the page and I loved the ending too. It's an amazing piece of grimdark scifi, which is an underdeveloped genre.


text:
Deferrisoma is a genus of bacteria from the phylum Thermodesulfobacteriota.

See also
 List of bacterial orders
 List of bacteria genera

References

Thermodesulfobacteriota
Bacteria genera

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
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namespace Rector\Renaming\Collector;

use Rector\Renaming\Contract\MethodCallRenameInterface;
final class MethodCallRenameCollector
{
    /**
     * @var MethodCallRenameInterface[]
     */
    private $methodCallRenames = [];
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     * @param MethodCallRenameInterface[] $methodCallRenames
     */
    public function addMethodCallRenames(array $methodCallRenames) : void
    {
        $this->methodCallRenames = \array_merge($this->methodCallRenames, $methodCallRenames);
    }
    /**
     * @return MethodCallRenameInterface[]
     */
    public function getMethodCallRenames() : array
    {
        return $this->methodCallRenames;
    }
}


What's up basketball fans! I am here again @dwin0603 to give you another exciting basketball discussion for another episode of NBA Talk, and today we will talk about a possibility of Nikola Vucevic going to the Dallas Mavericks next season! Let's start!
The Dallas Mavericks started their rebuild by drafting the European sensation Luka Doncic and recently acquiring New York's franchise player Kristaps Porzingis. Those moves by the Mavericks gave them big hope to be a contender again now that the Dirk Nowitzki era is coming to an end. So far this season, Luka Doncic showed that he is really something else and the hype is becoming so real as he led the Dallas Mavericks to a respectable record. He took the league by storm and already showed that he will become one of the best players in the league for years to come. Doncic I believe is locked to win the Rookie of the Year Award.
Kristaps Porzingis is a superstar already if he did not get seriously injured. He already proven to the league that he can be ball against the best bigs in the world with his unique skill sets. He's one of those modern day bigs that can dominate inside and outside the painted area with an outside shooting consistency.
Now, if you think the Mavericks are done, you're wrong because they have bigger plans in their bags. According to the news, the Dallas Mavericks are interested in acquiring the all-star big man Nikola Vucevic. Vucevic recently becomes an all-star and in my opinion, Vucevic is a very underrated player for so long in his career. Now that he is on his prime and the Magic is in a fine position in the Eastern Conference, people already noticed the 28 year old center. He is only 28 years old and it will be a nice fit putting him beside Doncic and Porzingis. They will build a pretty nice European Big Three that can put up many wins for Dallas. Vucevic is in the final year of his 4-year deal with the Magic and with lot of failures with the organization, I'm sure Vucevic will try to find something new and something that can make him feel wins. When he became an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season, Dallas will have their chance and I think they will go all in for him.
This is a New Era for the Dallas Mavericks and their fans should rejoice now and get ready for a ton of wins next season if they completed their European Big Three. It will be an interesting trio and Luka will be their main man for sure. Let's see if Dallas can pull this up.


text:
Johannes Nucius SOCist, eigentlich Johannes Nüßler, (* 1556 in Görlitz; † 25. März 1620 in Himmelwitz) war ein deutscher Zisterzienser und Abt des Klosters Himmelwitz, außerdem Komponist und Musiktheoretiker.

Leben und Wirken
Das Geburtsjahr 1556 von Johannes Nucius gilt nicht als absolut gesichert. Alle wichtigen Daten zu seiner Person stammen aus den jeweiligen Vorworten zu seinen gedruckten Werken, wobei sein Geburtsort Görlitz von ihm selbst in der Ausgabe seiner Motetten (1591) angegeben wurde. Das Vorwort zu seiner Schrift Musices poeticae vom Dezember 1612 enthält die Angabe, er habe sich seit 42 Jahren mit Musik beschäftigt, woraus sich aber kein sicheres Geburtsjahr ergibt. Das in der allgemeinen Literatur immer wieder genannte Jahr 1556 ist, streng genommen, eine Vermutung. Nach eigener Aussage war er am Görlitzer Gymnasium Augustum ein Schüler von Johann Winckler aus Mittweida, der in Görlitz von 1573 bis 1582 wirkte. Noch 40 Jahre später lobte der Komponist Wincklers Unterricht, der ihm, wie er im Vorwort ausführte, die Grundlagen zu seiner Musices poeticae gab. Aus den guten Latein-Kenntnissen ergibt sich auch eine fundierte humanistische Bildung des Komponisten. Um das Jahr 1586 trat Nucius in die Zisterzienserabtei Rauden in Oberschlesien ein, was auf ein späteres Geburtsjahr hindeutet, denn es war für damals eher ungewöhnlich, dass ein Novize erst mit 30 Jahren in ein Kloster eintritt. Wenig später wurde er zum Diakon geweiht.

Schon im Jahr 1591 wurde er zum Abt von Himmelwitz gewählt, eine kleinere Tochtergründung des Klosters Rauden. Im Jahr 1598 delegierte er viele seiner administrativen Aufgaben an eine seiner Prioren, um mehr Zeit für das Komponieren und Schreiben zu gewinnen. In dieser Zeit schrieb er sein zweites Motettenbuch, dem Leubusser Abt Matthäus Rudolph gewidmet, welches zusammen mit der zweiten Auflage seines ersten Motettenbuchs im Jahr 1609 bei Nicolaus Sartorius (1605–1670) in Liegnitz erschien. Die in dieser Zeit ebenfalls entstandenen Messen sind nicht erhalten geblieben, nachdem sie nicht gedruckt wurden. Die für die Kompositionslehre des 17. Jahrhunderts bedeutsame Abhandlung Musices poeticae kam 1613 zur Veröffentlichung. Bei einem Brand des Klosters am 22. Juni 1617 ist neben der Kirche und mehr als der Hälfte der Gebäude auch der gesamte Notenbestand vernichtet worden, darunter ein Teil von Nucius' Werken, auch der zweite Teil des Manuskripts der erwähnten Abhandlung. Eine Folge des Brandes war auch, dass Nucius in seinen beiden letzten Lebensjahren in hohem Maße damit beschäftigt war, den Wiederaufbau von Kirche und Kloster zu leiten.

Johannes Nucius starb schwer krank und erblindet am 25. März 1620 in Himmelwitz und wurde in der von ihm erbauten Abteikirche beigesetzt. In seinem Sterbeort erinnert eine Gedenktafel am ihn.

Bedeutung
Der Hauptteil der überlieferten Kompositionen von Johannes Nucius befindet sich in den beiden gedruckten Ausgaben von 1591 und 1609 mit insgesamt 102 Motetten, davon 97 mit lateinischem Text und fünf mit deutschem. Die Motette und Parodiemesse Cara Theodorum und die Motette Altera dos Thalami haben einen direkten Bezug zu dem Neisser Schulmann Georg Wolff (verstorben 1609). Der Stil der Motetten entspricht noch ganz dem Stil, der in der 2. Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts verbreitet war. Hierbei gibt es, trotz des Abstands von 18 Jahren, kaum Unterschiede im Stil zwischen dem ersten und zweiten Motettenbuch. Das zweite Buch enthält ein Widmungsgedicht, in dem Nucius auf ehrenvolle Weise mit Jacobus Clemens non Papa, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina und Orlando di Lasso verglichen wird. Die meisten Motetten basieren nicht auf einem Cantus firmus, nur im ersten Buch kommt dies gelegentlich vor. Die Motetten basieren hauptsächlich auf liturgischen Texten. Der Komponist wandte hier in allen Varianten und in reicher Fülle die in seiner genannten theoretischen Schrift behandelten musikalischen Figuren an. Nucius lebte in einer Übergangszeit zwischen Renaissance und Barock, wobei im 17. Jahrhundert das dramatische und expressive Potential der Musik im Verhältnis zu den Texten an oberste Stelle tritt, eine Entwicklung, die der Komponist sowohl in seiner Musik als auch in seiner Abhandlung berücksichtigte.

Von herausragender Bedeutung ist Nucius' Musices poeticae für den Rhetorikbezug der musikalischen Figurenlehre. Er war der erste, der die Figuren in figurae principales und figures minus principales einteilte. Diese Klassifizierung wurde später von Joachim Thuringus (17. Jahrhundert), Athanasius Kircher und Thomas Balthasar Janowka (1669–1741) übernommen und war damit maßgebend für die Weiterentwicklung der Figurenlehre. Ähnlich wie Joachim Burmeister betrachtet Nucius die Figuren als Schmuck einer Komposition. Im Anschluss an die genannte Haupteinteilung der Figuren beschreibt Nucius Beispiele für "Reizwörter", die er in drei Kategorien einteilt, und die musikalisch "ausgedrückt" und "nachgemacht" werden sollen (sunt experimenda & pingenda). Nucius ist neben Burmeister einer der Schöpfer der Parallelisierung von rhetorischen Figuren und satztechnischen Sachverhalten, welche unter dem Begriff der musikalischen Figurenlehre wirksam wurde. Thuringus, der bis zu Johann Gottfried Walther eine wichtige Mittlerrolle spielte, verwendet in seinem Opusculum bipartitum (Berlin 1624) sehr weitgehend die Formulierungen von Johannes Nucius, ohne ihn direkt zu nennen.

Werke
 Kompositionen
 Modulationes sacrae, Sammlung fünf- und sechsstimmiger geistlicher lateinischer Gesänge, erschienen bei Nigri (Prag 1591, 2. Auflage Liegnitz 1609)
 Cantionem sacrarum diversarum vocum zu fünf bis acht Stimmen, Sammlung in zwei Büchern, erschienen bei Sartorius (Liegnitz 1609)
 Missa "Cara Theodorum" zu fünf Stimmen
 Missa "Vestiva i colli" zu fünf Stimmen
 Hymnus "Fit porta Christi" zu vier Stimmen (verschollen)
 Schrift
 Musices poeticae, sive de compositione cantus praeceptiones, theoretisches Werk zur musikalischen Figurenlehre, erschienen bei Scharfenberg (Neiße 1613)

Literatur (Auswahl)
 R. Starke: Johannes Nux (Nucius oder Nucis), in: Monatshefte für Musikgeschichte Nr. 36, 1904, Seite 195–209
 Bernhard Widmann: Johann Nucius, Abt von Himmelwitz. Ein Altmeister der klassischen Polyphonie, Bregenz 1921
 F. Feldmann: Musiktheoretiker in eigenen Kompositionen. Untersuchungen am Werk des Tinctoris, Adam von Fulda und Nucius, in: Deutsches Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft Nr. 1, 1956, Seite 39–65
 H. Unverricht: Johannes Nucius, in: Schlesier des 15. bis 20. Jahrhunderts, hrsg. von H. Neubach und L. Petry, Würzburg 1968, Seite 24–28 (= Schlesische Lebensbilder Nr. 5)
 H. Unverricht: Das Motettenwerk des Johannes Nucius, in: Schöpferisches Schlesien, Nürnberg 1970
 D. Bartel: Handbuch der musikalischen Figurenlehre, Laaber 1985
 H. Lauterwasser: Christoph Bernhards Kompositionslehre in der Tradition der deutschen "Musica poetica" und der italienischen Musiktheorie, in: Rezeption Alter Musik, hrsg. von I. Stein, Bad Köstritz 1999, Seite 109 bis 117.

Weblinks

 https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd129080616.html
 http://www.ziesterzienserlexikon.de/wiki/Nucius,_Johann

Quellen

Komponist (Renaissance)
Komponist (Deutschland)
Komponist (Kirchenmusik)
Musiktheoretiker
Deutscher
Abt
Zisterzienser
Geboren 1556
Gestorben 1620
Mann


Arnold Berdon appeared in Honolulu District Court for the first time on Monday since his arrest last week.
His wife, Rachael Ostovich Berdon, sought a temporary restraining order alleging he punched her in the head, face and ribs, fracturing her eye socket early last week after a night out with family.
She says she fell to the ground, gasped for air and escaped through a balcony.
She withdrew from her UFC fight against Paige VanZant scheduled for January because of her injuries.


text:
Euphoria's Maude Apatow to Star in Little Shop of Horrors Off-Broadway
by Caitlin Moynihan • Jan 13, 2023
(Photo: Elias Tahan)
Maude Apatow is set to play Audrey in off-Broadway's Little Shop of Horrors at the Westside Theatre. The breakout Euphoria star will begin performances on February 7, replacing Tony winner Lena Hall, who will take her final bow in the role on February 5.
Apatow is known for playing Lexi Howard in HBO's Euphoria. Her other screen credits include Hollywood, Girls, The King of Staten Island, Assassination Nation and more. This marks her stage debut.
She will star opposite Tony winner Matt Doyle as Seymour. Tony nominee Bryce Pinkham returns as Dr. Orin Scrivello, D.D.S. beginning January 24. D'Kaylah Unique Whitley joins the cast as Ronnette beginning January 20. The cast also features Brad Oscar as Mushnik, Aaron Arnell Harrington as the voice of Audrey II, Tiffany Renee Thompson as Crystal and Khadija Sankoh as Chiffon.
The production, directed by Michael Mayer, is based on the 1960 film by Roger Corman and features a book by Howard Ashman, music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Ashman. Little Shop follows meek plant store attendant Seymour, his co-worker crush Audrey, her sadistic dentist of a boyfriend and the man-eating plant that threatens them and the world as we know it.
Bryce Pinkham


Australian shipyard ASC has completed the keel of the first Arafura-class offshore patrol vessel (OPV), the country's Minister of Defence, Christopher Pyne, announced on 21 March.
The keel, which consists of more than 50 tonnes of steel, was constructed at ASC's Osborne Naval Shipyard. Construction work thus far is on time and on budget, said Pyne, adding that the milestone further demonstrates the Australian defence industry's ability to deliver such projects on schedule.


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Generally, settling an estate necessitates an extensive appraisal report to suggest fair market value for the house to the satisfaction of the parties involved. We empathize that in times like this, acquiring an appraisal report is the furthest thought from your mind. So, it's possible the time an appraisal is ordered will deviate the date of death. Clark Lunde assures that we are comfortable with the procedures and requirements requested by the IRS and CA revenue agencies to provide a retroactive appraisal with an effective date and fair market value estimate matching the exact date of death. The ethical requirements listed within the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) binds our company to confidentiality, providing the highest degree of discretion for you.
The importance of needing an appraisal when cooperating with the IRS to explain income when filing documents is often overlooked by most people.
One of the most essential requirements in a report is an appraiser-supported opinion of value in an exhaustive explanation as to how the appraiser came to his conclusion. A report of this caliber will definitely demonstrate your claim that the numbers provided within the report are well-founded and accurate.
Having a professional appraisal report from Clark Lunde gives the executor undeniable facts and figures to work with in meeting IRS and CA state agency requirements. You need not stress over anything, because Clark Lunde will be there to support our work if they are ever refuted.
One of the most important requirements in an appraisal report is an appraiser-backed opinion of value in an exhaustive explanation as to how the appraiser came to his conclusion.


text:
Greene County jury awards half a million dollar verdict against Frontier Bingo
Posted on April 7, 2022 by greenecodemocratcom
Special to the Democrat by John Zippert, Co-Publisher
Last week, a Greene County jury awarded Tony Samuel of Aliceville, Alabama, half a million dollars, against Frontier Bingo because they refused to pay him the $30,000, he won playing electronic bingo back in 2019.
Samuel was represented by Attorneys Faya Rose Toure a/k/a Rose Sanders and Hank Sanders of the Chestnut, Sanders, Sanders Law Firm in Selma. DREAMS, Inc., a Charity doing business as Frontier Bingo in Knoxville, was represented by Mark Scogin and Victor Hamby of Tuscaloosa. The case was held in the 17th Judicial Circuit presided over by Judge Eddie Hardaway.
Samuel came to the Frontier Bingo Hall on August 1, 2019, with $4400 and was playing 3 or 4 machines for six or seven hours. He pooled his winnings from one machine to the other. He did not win as much as $1000 a single time but he steadily won and loss smaller amounts, ending up with $33,000. He called his girlfriend who urged him to come home with his winnings.
Samuel played awhile longer and lost $3,000 back. He decided to cash out with $30,000 in winnings. He called security to cash out. Security sent Carlos Lewis, the technician at Frontier, to print his winning ticket. Lewis testified at trial that there was no machine malfunction and no jackpot that Samuel was owed the $30,000.
The technician, Carlos Lewis, took Samuel to collect his money. He said the manager said they would pay. He saw them counting out money to pay Samuel. They never told him why they did not pay. The Manager said they would pay him the next day. Samuel asked to take a cell phone photo of his winning ticket but hey would not allow him to photograph his ticket. Samuel refused to leave until he could take a photograph of his winning ticket.
The Frontier management called 911 for the Greene County Sheriff's Department to remove him from the premises. When Greene County Deputy Melvin Smith arrived at Frontier, Samuels said he was not leaving without a photo or copy of his winning ticket. Deputy Melvin Smith had to insist that Frontier allow Samuel to make a copy of the winning ticket. A copy was finally made, and he escorted Tony Samuel out of the Frontier Bingo Hall. Samuel only had $200 of $4400 dollars left in his pocket.
Samuel returned the next day to Frontier to collect his winnings. This time the Frontier management made him wait for some more hours to collect his winnings. They then made him come back a third time and he brought a witness. Frontier never told him why they would not pay him.
Samuel went back a third time to Frontier Bingo to collect his winnings. This time he was told to call Frontier's Attorney, Flint Liddon of Birmingham. He called Liddon who said that Samuel would have to collect his money from "the maker of the machine, not Frontier Bingo." Samuel testified that Liddon has now lost his license to practice law.
At that point, Tony Samuels consulted Attorney Henry Sanders of Chestnut, Sanders & Sanders, a law firm in Selma. Sanders tried to collect Samuel's winnings without any success. Sanders filed suit on Samuel's behalf, which resulted in last week's trial at the William McKinley Branch Courthouse in Eutaw, Alabama.
The jury returned a verdict in favor of Samuels, with $250,000 in compensatory damages and $250,000 in punitive damages, totaling half a million dollars.
Attorney Hank Sanders said of the significance of this case, "This was a breach of contract case that turned into a fraud case. The bingo operators of Greene County must be fair in their business dealing with customers who come to play at their facilities. The jury awarded Mr. Samuel much more than his $30,000 winning ticket because of the unfair, degrading, and fraudulent way he was treated."
Sanders indicated that he had tried to subpoena Bernie Gomez of Huntsville, Alabama, the reputed "actual owner of Frontier Bingo" to testify at the trial but could not locate him to serve the subpoena. One witness testified that Gomez comes to Frontier Bingo each Monday to collect his share of the winnings in bags of money.
Efforts to contact Frontier Bingo for their comments on the jury verdict and if they plan to appeal, reached an answering machine that said it was full and could not accept additional messages.
This entry was posted in Community, Crime, General News and tagged 17th Judicial Circuit presided over by Judge Eddie Hardaway, a Charity doing business as Frontier Bingo in Knoxville, Alabama, Attorneys Faya Rose Toure a/k/a Rose Sanders and Hank Sanders of the Chestnut, Carlos Lewis, Flint Liddon, Frontier's Attorney, Greene County jury awards half a million dollar verdict against Frontier Bingo, Inc., Sanders, Sanders Law Firm in Selma. DREAMS, Tony Samuel of Aliceville, was represented by Mark Scogin and Victor Hamby of Tuscaloosa.. Bookmark the permalink.
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