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A Walk in the Woods in June
Posted on July 14, 2017 by steveschafer
With June comes summer, and the forest pretty much goes on cruise control. Everything that was happening keeps happening, and not much new happens.
American basswood (Tilia americana) is a late bloomer, literally. It blooms in the early part of June:
I had a hard time getting a photo; this is about the best I could get. (The light kept changing, and the breeze kept moving things in and out of the shadows and in and out of focus.) You can see a tongue-like bract above each cluster of flowers. These bracts are much paler than the leaves, so they stand out, even from a distance.
Here's another June-blooming tree, this one with wild-and-crazy flowers:
It's a chestnut, probably a Chinese chestnut (Castanea mollissima). While Chinese chestnuts (imported after the demise of the American chestnut due to chestnut blight) are common near houses, this one is growing in a semi-wild location. It's also possible that it is a hybrid. American chestnuts (C. dentata) do still occur in Ohio, but they only grow for a couple of years before they succumb to the blight. The largest one I've ever seen was about five feet tall.
Here is one of the tree's leaves:
The fact that it is very broad and almost square across at the base is what suggests that it is a Chinese chestnut; the other possibility, Japanese chestnut (C. crenata) is more rounded. American chestnut leaves are paler green, and they taper to a point at both ends.
The other trees are all done flowering, and the ones that haven't already dropped their seeds are busy growing this season's crop. The fruit of the American beech (Fagus grandifolia) is, of course, the beech nut (just like the baby food):
They are supposedly tasty, but I've never managed to find one in that period of a few microseconds between when they turn ripe and when the squirrels take all of them.
The leaves of the American beech are somewhat elm-like (see last month), but are symmetric at the base (despite the fact that this one looks asymmetric, because I couldn't get it to lay flat):
There are many species of hickory, and they are rather confusing. There are two species that I see here in my yard. First up is shagbark hickory (Carya ovata):
Shagbark has five leaflets, and the three distal ones are teardrop-shaped and much larger than the other two. At high magnification, the margins of the leaves have little tufts of hair.
The other one in my yard is mockernut hickory (C. tomentosa), which usually has seven or nine leaflets (occasional leaves will have five or eleven):
Its leaflets are not quite as teardrop-shaped, and the size difference from one end to the other is not as dramatic. The leaf margins have a few hairs, but nothing like shagbark.
Here's an interesting one; I took it from one of my neighbor's trees (don't tell her):
There are five leaflets, tapered and elliptical rather than teardrop-shaped, and there are no hairs on the leaf margins. I'm pretty sure that it's pignut hickory (C. glabra), but it's all but impossible to distinguish from red hickory (C. ovalis), so much so that some authorities think the two should be treated as a single species. According to one source, "It is said that the two cannot be separated 'except with completely mature fruit collected in November.'" Well, this one has quite a few nuts on it, so maybe I'll be able to key it out then (again, if the squirrels don't get them all first).
In the same family as the hickories (and pecan) are the walnuts. Around here, black walnut (Juglans nigra) is common. The trees are easy to spot, with their long, pinnate leaves having between 11 and 23 leaflets, and usually an overall "droopy" appearance to the foliage:
The bark is not quite as "braided" looking as hickory, but more so than ash or tuliptree:
Butternut (J. cinerea) supposedly occurs around here, but I haven't seen it. Butternut is in serious decline due to butternut canker, which is probably why I haven't been able to find any. Its leaves are similar, but generally fuzzier.
There are a couple of lookalike trees (or tall shrubs) to look out for as well. Smooth sumac (Rhus glabra) is a tall, gangly shrub that's most often seen at the very edge of the forest:
It is easily distinguished in spring by its conical clusters of cream-colored flowers, which give way by the end of June to clusters of berries:
The berries start out green, but quickly turn a deep red and persist through the winter. Staghorn sumac (R. typhina) is very similar, but less common. As you might guess, its stems are hairy and not smooth.
The tree that most resembles black walnut is a somewhat invasive alien species, tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima)—most people just call it "ailanthus":
It's less droopy and usually a bit deeper green than black walnut.
Did you notice something not quite right in that last photo? The leaves at the center right are actually those of a black walnut growing next to the ailanthus:
The fruit of the ailanthus is a winged samara; it turns bright orange or red when ripe.
Of course, if you see walnuts, that's kind of a giveaway:
Butternut fruit are more elongated, with smooth rather than pebbly skin covered in fine fuzz.
Incidentally, the name of the walnut genus, Juglans, means "Jupiter's testicles." I trust that I don't need to explain how that name came about.
A close-up view of the leaves is also useful to distinguish these species. Black walnut leaflets have short petioles and finely serrated edges:
Sumac leaflets have no petioles, and somewhat more coarsely-toothed edges (sumac also exudes a very sticky, milky sap when cut):
Ailanthus leaflets have short petioles and just a few blunt teeth near the base:
You can also see on each tooth a gland that looks like a small pimple. From the underside, this is more obvious:
American hornbeam (Carpinus americana) is a tree prized for its hard, dense wood that resists splitting, perfect for tool handles. It is widespread as an understory tree in the forests around here, but for some reason I rarely see any with a trunk more than an inch or so in diameter. Its leaves are small and finely serrated:
Its fruit clusters hang down near the ends of the branches:
The related hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana) also occurs here, but is less common, and I wasn't able to find one with fruit. The leaves are all but identical, but the fruit looks a bit like those of hops (as in beer); hence, the name.
I've always thought that if a committee of circus clowns that tie balloon animals were tasked with designing a leaf, they'd come up with something like sassafras (Sassafras albidum):
Freshly-emerged leaves give off a pleasant, spicy scent when crushed. The wood gives off the same scent when cut, but the odor unfortunately fades pretty quickly. I have a few small pieces that came from a pallet (holding up a shipment of lumber from Horizon Wood Products in Pennsylvania).
Not all of the leaves have three lobes; some only have one side lobe, and others have none:
As was the case last month, wildflowers are few and far between. I found some American bellflower (Campanulastrum americanum):
This is one that I haven't seen before. I'm pretty sure that it's fringed loosestrife (Lysimachia ciliata), but it has some characters that look a bit more like some related species:
It didn't help that I was out photographing these the day after the flowers were battered by very heavy rains.
Unlike the previous two, which like the edge of the woods, the smooth oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides) can be found deep in the forest:
–Steve Schafer
10 thoughts on "A Walk in the Woods in June"
guadfly says:
As a soil scientist and a plant nerd, these are some of my favorite posts on this blog. Thank you for the great info!
adumbiam says:
Incredible post! Thanks for taking the time!!!
Grouse Mt. Farm says:
I've really been enjoying the Walk in the Woods posts. I live in the inter-mountain west wilds, which has many wonderful plants, but to read of the crazy diversity you write of is a plesure. Thank you.
Lost Art Press says:
Thanks so much for these posts. The information has made my walks through the woods here much more enjoyable.
boatright54 says:
Thoroughly enjoyable post. From a boyhood in rural Wisconsin, many of these trees are familiar – not all of them – but we see very few of them in western Washington state!
Nautilus says:
Juglans means "Jupiter's acorn" 🙂
myeagermind says:
Reblogged this on Lenora's Culture Center and Foray into History.
Joan E Wilder says:
Great work – very informative and interesting- thank you Steve!
fachento says:
Steve – thoroughly enjoyed this — will definitely come back to use this as a reference.
Some fun 'trivia on the 'Tree of Heaven' (Ailanthus altissima) — beekeepers, especially those in the honey business, have… 'Unkind' feelings for this tree. If it's pollen or nectar is anywhere within range of a hive, it's pollen and nectar will mix in with the honey, and give it an unpleasant, leather-y taste.
The Alianthus is an intrepid survivor, though — they will find a way to grow just about anywhere (this species was the titular subject of the book "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn") — like on the tops (or window openings) of abandoned buildings — and they are *prolific* seed producers — … by the hundreds of thousands for mature trees. Much to the disappointment of many a beekeeper… it looks like they'll be around for a while.
jennie alexander says:
Wood is Wonderful. Trees are magnificent!


David Rothlein, Joseph DeGutis, Michael Esterman; Reward induces the communication of task-specific visual information between the default mode and dorsal attention networks. Journal of Vision 2018;18(10):1250. doi: 10.1167/18.10.1250.
When sustaining attention to a task, performance fluctuates between stable/accurate and variable/error-prone periods. Such fluctuations are, in part, modulated by motivation as reward has been shown to both boost performance and alter neural responses in brain regions critical to sustaining attention. The link between these neural changes and enhanced performance, however, is poorly understood. Thus, the present research uses fMRI and Representational Similarity Analyses to measure the influence of reward on the flow of task-relevant visual information, specifically examining the fidelity and connectivity of stimulus representations within and across brain regions critical to sustaining attention. Participants (N=16) performed the gradual onset Continuous Performance Task during an fMRI scan. This entailed viewing a series of city or mountain scenes, responding to cities (90% of trials) and withholding responses to mountains (10%). Task runs were separated into unrewarded and rewarded blocks. Representational similarity matrices (RSMs), reflecting the similarity structure of the set of city exemplars (n=10), were computed for each participant within parahippocampal place area (PPA), dorsal attention network (DAN), and default mode network (DMN) ROIs. Representational fidelity (RF) and representational connectivity (RC) were quantified as the inter-participant reliability across the RSMs from given ROI (RF) and across a pair of ROIs (RC) and were computed separately for rewarded and unrewarded blocks. We found that reward was characterized by increased RF within the DMN (p ~ 0.05) and increased RC between the DAN and DMN (p < 0.01). In striking contrast, traditional functional connectivity (time series correlations) between the DAN and DMN decreased during rewarded blocks (p < 0.01) suggesting that reward inhibited overall DAN-DMN communication despite facilitating the communication of task-relevant information. These results further our understanding of how motivation boosts performance during sustained attention and implicate the DMN as having an active role in the processing task-relevant visual information.


Engineering Momentum is published by the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Unless otherwise noted, articles may be reprinted without permission with appropriate credit to the publication, School and University.
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Kindai is served Thursdays and Fridays, 8 p.m. until 2 a.m.
Whatever Seminole Casino General Manager Steve Bonner does, it is with style and panache. �Our business is not only the Casino, but it is to give people what they can�t get anywhere else,� said Mr. Bonner who is know for the prizes he lavishes on the Casino�s clients, like an oil-well, a space trip or a million dollars. A few months ago, he hired Dinner in the Sky, literally a high-flying act with dinner to launch the new Chef�s Table at the Casino�s Fresh Harvest Restaurant.
To outdo himself, Bonner agreed to let French-born Executive Chef Fran�ois Ternes - who honed�his skills at the Royal Monceau, Fouquet and Chez Maxim's in Paris, before working at Ciro's in New York�and Disney World in Orlando � serve Kindai Tuna, the most expensive tuna in the world, sashimi and sushi style, at The Seminole Casino Coconut Creek s Fresh Harvest Sushi Bar in the Nectar lounge. �We�re the first to serve it in Florida,� proudly claims Chef Ternes.
Kindai bluefin tuna is the first tuna ever raised in captivity, from the egg, in a Japanese university fisheries� laboratory. Supplies are so scarce that there�s only one weekly air shipment of Kindai tuna, about three 130- to 200-pound fish, which makes it to the United States. �As soon as it lands on the West Coast we have our allotted portion immediately flown to Miami; we butcher it; cut it in small slabs and fast freeze it at -85F in a special freezer we purchased for that purpose,� says chef Ternes. . �We can only offer it on Fresh Harvest Sushi Bar menu at The Nectar Lounge on Thursdays and Fridays, from 8 p.m. until 2 a.m., while supplies last,� he explains.
Less than ten restaurants in the US get to serve Kindai, which is to fish what KoBe is to beef. �Until now, you had to go to California to The French Laundry in Yountville or to the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco to taste the silky, rich taste of Kindai,� says Chef Ternes as he and chefs Jarrod Campbell and the Singaporan Michael Quek busily prepare the precious raw fish he will serve with another first in Florida, Green River Sake, a delicate beverage akin to white wine, described as a kind of "Junmai Ginjo" with 12.5 % alcohol made from Koide rice in Niigata, Japan, by the Midorikawa Sake Co. Chefs Ternes and Quek have it poured into wooden drinking vessels and advise you to drink it through a smoked salt rock from Wales to enhance the flavor.
In the midst of the surrounding din and light of the gambling hall, the Fresh Harvest Sushi Bar is an oasis of calm separated from the bleeping slot machines and occasional shouts of victory of winners by a sushi bar and the Zen-like precision of chef Michael Quek.
Once seated at one of the tall stools, the Kindai experience begins; the silky, rich fish is very much like foie gras in texture and quite filling, in spite of the small quantities served. Imagine all the Omega-3 oils you will consume!
We started with a rich-tasting umami-seasoned Kindai with delicious gel-like hoisin nitro noodles, scallions & sesame seeds ($48).
Umami, a basic taste sensed by specialized receptor cells on the human tongue, was first identified as a separate taste in 1908 by Dr. Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University while researching the strong flavor in seaweed broth. One its main components, natural Glutamate, is naturally contained in Asian foods such as soy sauce and fish sauce, and in Italian food in parmesan cheese and anchovies.
Next came a tuna sashimi trio of Kindai tuna with ginger and chives; Ohtoro � tuna belly - with passion fruit and wasabi and the white tuna Escolar topped with aged black garlic � a deeply rich tasting fermented garlic which was new to me - and fish eggs ($55). Three different tastes and textures with a rainbow range of tastes and textures enhanced by the accompanying sauces and ingredients.
A more modern take on Kindai is the tartare of Kindai, a tower of fresh fish with avocado and shiitake mushrooms over a citric nage of yuzu soy emulsion, sprinkled with halen mon sea salt and topped with micro wasabi greens and a fried quail egg. ($42) It is the quintessential tuna tartare after which all other will pale for ever.
In case you�re still hungry, which I seriously doubt since Kindai is as filling as foie gras, or in case your budget hasn�t allowed a taste of �the most expensive tuna in the world,� there�s sushi and sashimi, freshly made with the best ingredients, from 8-pieces California rolls ($4.75) and tempura rolls ($8.50) to spicy tuna, sashimi sampler and shrimp, crab and lobster samplers ($7.50 - $17.50).
And then the music started with a live band and a Tina Turner-alike singer covering the busy slot machines and the excitement of the casino which I had forgotten in the rapture of Kindai.
The only place in Florida, and on most of the East Coast expect for a couple of restaurants in New York City, where Kindai is served is at the Fresh Harvest Sushi Bar at The Nectar Lounge on Thursdays and Fridays, from 8 p.m. until 2 a.m. while supplies last.
Seminole Casino Coconut Creek is located at 5550 NW 40th Street, in Coconut Creek, Florida, just east of State Road 7 (U.S. 441) and north of Sample Road on 40th Street.� For more information call 954-977-6700; fax 954-970-7721 or visit www.seminolecoconutcreekcasino.com.


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Conte wants to reunite with Pelle at Inter
Date:29th December 2020 at 7:11pm
Written by: Vito Doria
Graziano Pelle could be returning to Italy in January and Inter are reportedly interested in bringing him home from China.
The 35-year-old has been playing for Chinese club Shandong Luneng since 2016, and he scored in the team's 2-0 victory in the Chinese FA Cup against Jiangsu Suning, who have the same owners as the Nerazzurri.
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Pelle has been earning €15 million a season since he arrived at the Taishan Dui, but he would accept a significantly lower wage at Inter.
Biscione tactician Antonio Conte worked with the striker when he was in charge of the Italian national team and he was impressed with the former Feyenoord and Southampton forward's performances during his tenure as coach.
Although he has not been playing in one of the world's more illustrious leagues, Pelle has still been playing competitive football and he is already familiar with Conte's methods so those things could work in his favour.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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/ total percentage of production of concrete in jordan
total percentage of production of concrete in jordan
Global Cement Top 100 Report 2017 - 2018
04-12-2017· 4. UltraTech Cement. With a total capacity of 91.4Mt/yr, UltraTech Cement is the largest Indian producer on the list. It has grown significantly since our previous Top 100 Report due to the acquisition of Jaiprakash Associates' 21.1Mt/yr cement capacity in July 2017.
Jordanian cement focus
17-11-2011· Jordan's first cement company was Jordan Cement Factories, which was founded in Amman in 1951. 14 It commissioned plants in Fuhais and Rashadiya and soon set up a terminal at the Red Sea port of Aqaba. The recent history of the cement industry in Jordan starts in 1998, with the sale of 33% of the shares of Jordan Cement Factories (JCF) to Lafarge.
Local Aggregate in Production of Concrete Mix in Jordan
According to Shaker et al. in [ 3] typically local coarse aggregate and fine sand of natural resources in Egypt were used in studying properties of concrete incorporating locally produced Portland limestone cement. The coarse aggregate has 20 mm maximum size, specific gravity and …
What are the 5 Stages of Cement Hydration Process - Civil Rack
15-11-2020· At this stage, the production of CSH also has a significant effect on the strength of concrete. In the application of large-volume concrete, it is very important to monitor the changes in internal temperature, because the temperature of the concrete will rise rapidly at this stage, reaching the internal temperature, such as 70-80°C (in some cases even higher).
Lafarge Concrete in Jordan | الموقع الرئيسي: لافارچ
1,8 millions m³ is the annual production capacity of our 8 plants & 10 production lines in Jordan. Over 50% of the Ready Mix Concrete (RMX) trucks are less than 3 years old. The operated pumps are from 36m to 52m and include high-rise stationary pump and placing boom. We consistently deliver safety, quality and innovative products to our customers.
Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth | Cities ...
25-02-2019· Taking in all stages of production, concrete is said to be responsible for 4-8% of the world's CO2. Among materials, only coal, oil and gas are a greater source of greenhouse gases.
Concrete Production - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
Concrete production is a highly intensive energy-consuming process and presently facing a number of challenges in reducing the carbon footprint and making it more economic. Sustainable technologies in maintaining concrete structures are proving to be a great challenge. Microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) has developed as a novel and sustainable technique in improving the ...
Jordan GDP | 1965-2020 Data | 2021-2023 Forecast ...
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Jordan was worth 43.70 billion US dollars in 2020, according to official data from the World Bank. The GDP value of Jordan represents 0.04 percent of the world economy. GDP in Jordan averaged 12.14 USD Billion from 1965 until 2020, reaching an all time high of 43.74 USD Billion in 2019 and a record low of 0.56 USD Billion in 1968.
ESTIMATING LABOR UNIT DATA FOR CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION
these six production elements as follow s : 1. Ge n e r al Ec o n o m y 7 5 % 2. Project Su p e r vision 7 0 % 3. Labor Re l a t i o n s 6 5 % 4. Job Conditions 6 0 % 5. Equipment 7 0 % 6. We a t h e r 5 0 % Total 3 9 0 % Since there are six elements invo l v ed, we must now di-vide the total percentage by the number of elements to
Global 2 emissions from cement production
global cement production in 1969 was the same as that re-ported by the USGS (USGS, DS140, etc.), their estimate of emissions from cement production in 1969 would have been 256MtCO2. In a landmark paper of 1973, Charles Keeling presented a systematic analysis of emissions from fossil fuel com-bustion for 1860–1969 and cement production for 1949–
Jordan Industrial Production | 1995-2021 Data | 2022-2023 ...
Industrial Production in Jordan increased 9.70 percent in May of 2021 over the same month in the previous year. Industrial Production in Jordan averaged 3.98 percent from 1995 until 2021, reaching an all time high of 706 percent in April of 2021 and a record low of -87.34 percent in April of 2020. This page provides the latest reported value for - Jordan Industrial Production - plus previous ...
Statistics | EcoSmart Concrete
concrete use: twice as much concrete is used in construction around the world than the total of all other building materials, including wood, steel, plastic and aluminum. Cement. Global production of cement in 2000 was 1.56 billion tones. One third of this was produced in China alone. (Source: USGS Minerals Information. Cement Statistics 2000).
SULFUR CONCRETE-A NEW CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL
Total $14.20 $10.35 It is useful to compare a new material such as sulfur concrete with a tradition-al construction material such as port-land cement concrete. Sulfur may be combined with fine and coarse aggre-gates to produce a concrete with a strength of 6000 to 7000 psi. Fig. 5 compares the mix proportions for a cubic yard of sulfur concrete ...
Global Warming Has Concrete Problem When It Comes to CO2 ...
04-10-2019· Concrete currently accounts for about 8 percent of the carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere, dwarfing the aviation industry's contribution of 2.5 percent. Concrete's contribution of CO2 is comparable to the entire agriculture industry, which is responsible for 9 percent …
Emissions from the Cement Industry
09-05-2012· Concrete is used globally to build buildings, bridges, roads, runways, sidewalks, and dams. Cement is indispensable for construction activity, so it is tightly linked to the global economy. Its production is growing by 2.5 percent annually, and is expected to rise from 2.55 billion tons in 2006 to 3.7-4.4 billion tons by 2050. Manufacture of Cement
Ready-mix concrete - Wikipedia
Ready-mix concrete ( RMC) is concrete that is manufactured in a batch plant, according to a set engineered mix design. Ready-mix concrete is normally delivered in two ways. First is the barrel truck or in–transit mixers. This type of truck delivers concrete in a plastic state to the site. Second is the volumetric concrete mixer.
Jordan Cement Factories: Mining & Extraction | Jordan 2012 ...
In addition, JCF produces cement in two factories and also sells ready-mix concrete through a subsidiary. In 1998 the Lafarge Group of France bought a 33% stake in the company, a share which was subsequently raised to 50.2%, giving Lafarge Group control over JCF.
Jordan Energy Situation - energypedia.info
The use in Jordan of renewable energy sources has until now been marginal, accounting for a share of less than 1% of electricity generation. In 2012, of the 16.5 MW generated by renewable energy resources, 60.4% were hydropower, 21.1% biomass, 9.7% PV and 8.8% wind.
Study of the Causes and Magnitude of Wastage of Materials ...
29-10-2014· The research aims to study the causes and magnitude of wastage of construction materials on construction projects sites in Jordan. To achieve the research aim, the researcher had prepared a questionnaire form included questions about the causes of wastage and the estimated percentages of wastage of ten most popular kinds of materials used on construction sites in Jordan.
Concrete production produces eight percent of the world's ...
02-01-2019· Concrete production produces eight percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions By Jonathan Hilburg • January 2, 2019 • Architecture, International, News, Sustainability
Cement – Analysis - IEA
Production reached a high of 4.2 Gt in 2014 and has since remained at around 4.1 Gt. China is the largest cement producer, accounting for about 55% of global production, followed by India at 8%. Without efforts to reduce demand, annual cement production is expected to grow moderately to 2030.
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In modern industrial society, the concrete is expansively used with more than 10 billion tons produced every year. Around 55 Billion tons of aggregate is consumed by the world. Consumption of ...
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16-12-2020· CO2 emissions increased to 9.95 GtCO2 in 2019. The sector accounts for 38% of all energy-related CO2 emissions when adding building construction industry emissions Direct building CO2 emissions need to halve by 2030 to get on track for net zero carbon building stock by 2050 Governments must prioritize low-carbon buildings in pandemic stimulus packages and updated climate pledges
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UTSA makes campus renovations
Photo by Lindsey Thomas
Heather Montoya
UTSA Facilities made renovations to the Main and Downtown campuses during the summer to enhance student success, cultivate the environment and support the growing student population. UTSA's Strategic Plan, a 10-year vision to make UTSA a model for student success and research, guided these renovations set to continue throughout 2019.
"The renovations at UTSA [are] centered around efforts that support student success," Paul Goodman, interim associate vice president for facilities, said. "They included spaces for student services, collaboration and group study, and improving and expanding restrooms, classrooms and administrative support spaces."
Renovations made on the Main Campus include: a collaboration and study area in the Flawn Building, a study lounge in the Business Building, improved wheelchair-accessibility in a lecture hall in the McKinney Humanities Building, restroom renovations and additions on the fourth floor of the John Peace Library and office renovations for the provost and vice president of business affairs.
Some of the renovations involving safety, sustainability and maintenance were also made over the summer. New parking spots were made available to students, pedestrian and bicycle pathways were added, 5,000 fluorescent light bulbs were replaced with LED lights in the Flawn Building and a chiller providing air conditioning at the Downtown Campus are a few of the changes made.
"Studies show that students are more likely to be productive and successful in comfortable classroom and learning environments," Goodman said. "Our focus is to make sure we are giving students the tools and resources they need to succeed."
UTSA's Office of Facilities have either directly performed the renovations or managed design firms and contractors that completed them. The funds for the renovations come from various sources and the renovations themselves are part of a $6 million investment UTSA makes annually to maintain and improve the campuses.
"Funds come from a variety of sources including institutional reserves designated for renovations and deferred maintenance, departmental funds and auxiliary funds," Goodman said. "UTSA also receives Permanent University Funds of about $2 million per year in the form of library, equipment, repair and rehabilitation funds."
The Student Success Center, costing $7.33 million, is funded separately through the UT System Revenue Financing System and is expected to be completed by Spring 2020. The center is expected to provide various services to UTSA students.
"The Student Success Center will house all of UTSA's Academic Advising, Academic Success Coaching, Graduation Help Desk, LEAD/SOAR Student Success Programs and Transfer & Transition Student Success Services," Goodman said.
Projects currently underway or in the planning process include the Downtown Recreation Center; the Science and Engineering Building on the Main Campus; the Guadalupe Hall, a living and learning community; and the National Security Collaboration Center and the School for Data Sciences at the Downtown Campus.
Students, faculty or staff interested in recommending a renovation can give their suggestions to the Student Government Association (SGA). The Office of Facilities meets with SGA throughout the year to discuss current and potential projects. SGA holds their general assembly meetings every Thursday at 5:30 p.m. in the Student Union's Denman Ballroom. Anyone is able to make propositions during their open forum.
campus renovations
Heather Montoya,


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Yemen's media blackout
The shameful lack of coverage given to US-UK backed atrocities in Yemen is but one aspect of western media's blackout of the truth about the conflict.
One of the survivors of the US-UK supported bombing of a school bus in Yemen, which killed over 40 children, mostly under 10
Even by the depraved standards of the US-UK-Saudi-UAE aggression against Yemen, yesterday's bombing of a school bus was a new low. The bus had stopped at a market whilst taking the children back to school from a picnic when it was targeted, according to Save the Children. Health officials have informed the world that the strike killed 47 people with 77 more injured, but that that number was likely to rise. Most of those victims, tweeted the Red Cross, were less than ten years old. Following the attack, Frank McManus, Yemen country director for the International Red Cross, whose workers are treated the wounded, pleaded that: "Today should be the day the world wakes up to the atrocities going on in Yemen … a bus full of school children cannot be viewed as mere collateral damage. Even wars have rules, but rules without consequences mean nothing."
It is hard to see how the world will wake up, however, when western media remains so committed to its refusal to give anything like adequate coverage to the ongoing aggression. You might have thought that the targeted bombing of a bus full of children parked in a market far from any military activity, by forces enjoying full military, diplomatic and strategic support from the UK, would make headlines. Yet this is not the case. Take the Guardian, for example, supposedly a bastion of liberal values and humanitarian concern. Their report on the incident went online shortly before 7pm last night. Yet this morning, it does not feature amongst their 13 headline stories, which include such gripping items as "the chips are down in Belgium at heatwave hits supply of fries". Click on the 'world news' section, and Yemen is not even amongst the 11 headlines there, bumped by earth-shattering stories such as "New Zealand – Jacinda Ardern says country will ban plastic bags". Only if you specifically click on the Middle East section would you find the story – fourth of that section's six headlines, just behind "Mauritian presidential hopeful arrested" and "Looted Iraqi antiquities return home".
The Independent, now online only and perhaps, you might have thought, less subject to the pressure from advertisers that drives some of the self-censorship of its loss-leading print-edition cousins, is little different. Yemen was among neither its eight 'top stories' this morning, which included headlines such as "British campers flee as flash floods batter France", nor the eight pieces in its 'more stories' section, which included items titled "summer not over yet, despite thunderstorms and heavy rain" and "Pochettino blames Brexit for Spurs' failure to sign any new players"
Of course, in a sense, these outlets are entirely correct not to consider the story as news – for there is nothing really new about yesterday's atrocity. Indeed, only last week, an airstrike on a market and hospital killed at least 60 people; such slaughter has become routine. Even the killing of children is standard practice: in fact, the 29 children killed in the bus bombing yesterday are but a fraction of the 130 children killed in Yemen every day by the famine and disease which the aggression has brought to the country.
Indeed, alongside the straightforward lack of coverage, the downplaying of the level of killing in Yemen constitutes a second, more subtle, form of media blackout. Somewhere along the line, someone decided that 10,000 was the death toll to be forever associated with the Yemen war, and this number has appeared in virtually every article on the subject for years. In truth, this figure is a massive underestimate, given that at least150,000 are believed to have died from starvation and preventable diseases last year alone, a direct consequence of the aggression on Yemen, the blockade of its ports, and the targeting of its civilian and agricultural infrastructure. Thus the 'death toll' endlessly repeated in the media – and shamefully, this often includes alternative media – is in truth but a tiny fraction of the true level of suffering being rained down on that country by the west and its proxies.
Another form of blackout is the presentation of the conflict as a civil war. There was a civil war in Yemen, the endgame of which was reached when the Ansar Allah movement captured the capital city and President Hadi fled the country. Since then, beginning in March 2015, what has been occurring is a foreign aggression against the country. In the words of Professor Isa Blumi, what is "Strategically left out of the discussion" here "are those outside facilitators of empire whose war has created new opportunities to plunder Yemen's resources. Rather than seeing the heavy hand of empire, the outsider is expected to believe the media and think tank experts that it is Yemenis' own pathologies, their social and economic backwardness, that leave them susceptible to violence and thus 'civil war'. The 'they are at war with themselves' trope continuously repeated in various media and academic circles ultimately obfuscates who are guilty, laying blame on eighty percent of a country's population currently being starved to death".
Even when foreign aggression is admitted, however, the agency for this is often misrepresented. Thus a fourth form of blackout consists of presenting the war as somehow an independent initiative of the Saudis, which the west are, at best, merely 'backing' or 'going along with' for the sake of arms sales or oil supplies. This is truly putting the cart before the horse. The truth is thatthis is a US-UK war, planned in the corridors of Whitehall and Washington, but executed by their faithful Gulf proxies. We know now, from emails leaked by Wikileakslast year, that even Crown Prince Salman himself wants out of the war. But he knows that his family's grip on power is utterly dependent on western support. And the price of that support is that their foreign policy is not their own. The deal, stretching back to the days of the British empire, is that the west provide security to the al-Saud family – but in return, the al-Sauds relinquish their foreign policy to the west. And right now, the west's order of the day is to destroy Yemen.
Make no mistake, the war on Yemen is a UK-US war, and to present it as anything else is a dangerous misrepresentation of reality which attempts to lay the blame solely at the door of their oriental fall guys. Of course, it plays very well in countries like Britain, still drenched in its colonial and orientalist mentality, to shift the blame for Yemen's genocide onto crooked and mischievous Arabs. Groups like Stop the War, I am sorry to say, tend to play into this narrative, portraying the recent visit to Britain by Crown Prince Bin Salman, for example, in terms of an otherwise pristine Britain sullying itself by association with a bloody Arab 'despot'. This is a complete inversion of reality; the truth, of course, is that the Saudis' greatest crime is their collaboration with the genocidal ruling class in Britain and the USA.
But there is also another form of media blackout on Yemen, one which even the alternative media (and here I would have to include some of my own past writings on the conflict) often succumbs to. This is the presentation of Yemenis as simply passive victims, lacking all agency, the hapless recipients of bombing raids and starvation policies. In fact, Yemen's struggle is not essentially a story of victimhood, but of resistance. When we lament three years of Yemen's bombardment, we should not forget that we are also celebrating three years of truly extraordinary and heroic resistance. To have survived these punishing raids for this long should demonstrate beyond all doubt that the Ansar Allah movement, against whom this devastating war is being waged, is a genuinely popular and representative movement – for if it were not, it would have collapsed years ago. The constant media refrain of Houthis being merely Iranian proxies fighting the 'legitimate government' turns reality square on its head. Legitimacy does not come from being ordained by the priesthood of global capital, as Hadi was, but from the kind of popular support that alone allows a movement to face down a ten-country coalition supported by the most powerful militaries in the world.
And where does the Ansar Allah movement's popularity come from? It comes from putting itself at the forefront of resistance to the western project of selling off Yemen, opening up Yemen's resources to looting by western financial corporations, and turning over Yemen's political system to Saudi stooges. Indeed, in so doing, Ansar Allah are merely the latest incarnation of a spirit of Yemeni resistance to western capitalism going back over 100 years. It is this spirit which the current bombardment is trying – in an act of the most brutal futility – to crush. It is this spirit that the media desperately want to black out. And it is this spirit that will ultimately see empire, and all its stooges and apologists, crumble into dust.
A version of this article originally appeared on Middle East Eye
Standard | Posted in Articles, Yemen	| 2 Comments
Trump's delusional Iran oil gambit is decades too late
Trump is using everything he's got to wage economic war on Iran. His problem is that 'everything he's got' is not nearly enough, as the virtual monopoly power once wielded by the US has long since evaporated.
Last week, a senior State Department official announced the US' intention to cut Iranian oil exports "to zero" by November 4th this year, by threatening to impose sanctions on any company still trading beyond that date. Brian Hook, director of policy planning at the State Department, told reporters on July 2nd that "Our goal is to increase pressure on the Iranian regime by reducing to zero its revenue on crude oil sales".
Hitherto, experts had predicted US sanctions would see a reduction of around 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) by the end of the year – barely one fifth of the country's current export of 2.4 million bpd. Even the sanctions that preceded the 2015 nuclear deal – which, unlike today's unilateral effort, were supported by a broad alliance of world powers, including Russia and China – only succeeded in removing half Iran's oil (1.2m bdp) from the market.
Hook reassured the world that "We are confident there is sufficient global spare oil capacity", claiming Saudi Arabia alone could produce an additional 2 million bpd. Saudi Arabia and Russia have already agreed to increase production by 1 million bpd reversing the production quotas imposed in the wake of the oil price slump in 2016.
This determination to destroy Iran by any means necessary has, of course, been the Trump administration's signature foreign policy since day one, with almost every member of his team harbouring a long-held and well documented vendetta against the Islamic Republic. What is new with Trump, however, is not this determination as such – let's not forget that Iran has been on the official Pentagon hitlist since at least 2001 – as the means used to pursue it. As I argued in 2014, the nuclear deal was not, on the part of the west, a genuine rapprochement so much as a long term programme of western infiltration, based on the 'Libya model', aimed at building a pro-imperialist fifth column within the Iranian state in order to prepare the ground for 'regime change' in the future. The Trump team, of course, has no patience for the long game, and want to simply cut to the chase. The reason for this obsession with destroying Iran – shared by all factions of the western ruling class, despite their differences over means – is obvious: Iran's very existence as an independent state threatens imperial control of the region – which in turns underpins both US military power and the global role of the dollar. And as South-South cooperation continues to develop, this threat grows every day, whilst the means to diminish it are reduced by the same measure.
At the same time, the US military encirclement of China – begun in earnest as Obama's 'pivot to Asia', but, like so much else, undergoing major escalation under Trump – is intimately linked to a policy of cutting off China from its suppliers. In this sense, a policy of 'isolating' of Iran is aimed at isolating China also, as China is the largest market for Iranian crude.
Trump's policy, however, is likely to get few buyers. Pepe Escobar has explained the likely response to Trump's plans from each of Iran's top customers: "India will buy Iranian oil with rupees. China also will be totally impervious to the Trump administration's command. Sinopec, for instance, badly needs Iranian oil for new refineries in assorted Chinese provinces, and won't stop buying. Turkey's Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci has been blunt: "The decisions taken by the United States on this issue are not binding for us." He added that: "We recognize no other [country's] interests other than our own." Iran is Turkey's number-one oil supplier, accounting for almost 50% of total imports. Russia won't back down from its intention to invest $50 billion in Iran's energy infrastructure.. And Iraq won't abandon strategic energy cooperation with Iran. Supply chains rule; Baghdad sends oil from Kirkuk to a refinery in Kermanshah in Iran, and gets refined Iranian oil for southern Iraq."
With European companies likely to be more nervous about insubordination to US diktat, this merely leaves more tantalising investments open to Russian and Chinese companies. As Philip K. Verleger noted, "It's a huge opportunity for China and Russia to cement relationships with Iran".
At the same time, all this activity and uncertainty is bound to push oil prices higher, meaning that any reductions in export quantities may well be compensated by increased revenues.
Trump's attempts to persuade the rest of the world to cut off its nose to spite its face, then, are likely to all on deaf ears. It is in this light that Trump's igniting of a global trade war must be seen.
At midnight on July 5th, US tariffs on $34billion worth of Chinese imports went into effect, at a rate of 25%. Trump told reporters that tariffs on a further $16 billion worth were likely to follow in two weeks, fulfilling a pledge made in April to slap tariffs on 1300 products totalling $50 billion annually. These tariffs were designed to target the Chinese aerospace, tech and machinery industries, as well as medical equipment, medicine and educational material. The final total, however, he added, could eventually reach $550 billion – "a figure", noted Industry Week, "that exceeds all of U.S. goods imports from China in 2017". These China-specific tariffs follow tariffs on steel (25%) and aluminium (10%) imports imposed on the EU, Mexico and Canada four days earlier.
According to Fox Business, Canada stands to lose around $2billion per year as a result of these tariffs, with Brazil, Russia, China and South Korea each set to lose at least $500 million annually.
But this may be precisely the point: not only to 'bring jobs back to the US', but also to create new forms of leverage to be used against rivals and allies (and is there really a distinction between the two anyway these days?) alike. So far, of course, Trump has famously refused to offer waivers to his allies. But with Trump, nothing is forever – everything is leverage, to be played and bartered as seen fit. Could it be, then, that waivers may yet be offered to countries who manage to wean themselves off Iranian oil by the November deadline? And even if not, the very willingness to use trade as a weapon so openly and brazenly is a reminder that there may be further punishments on the way for those who do not toe the line on the strangulation of Iran. After all, as Louis Kuijs, chief economist at Oxford Economics, has pointed out, this 'new era' has only just begun: "Clearly the first salvos have been exchanged," he said, "and in that sense, the trade war has started. There is no obvious end to this".
Nevertheless, Trump's bark may yet be well worse than his bite. For on thing, the counter-measures employed by the Chinese – a reciprocal 25% tariff on $50billion of US goods – will hit the US hard. One product subject to the new tariff, for example, is soybeans. China is the market for 25% of all soybeans grown in the US. Grant Kimberley, a soybean farmer with the Iowa Soybean Association, estimates that this tariff alone could lead to a 70% drop in exports.
But even, even apart from the Chinese counter-measures, the US-imposed tariffs themselves are likely to hurt the US as much as China. A report on NPR suggests that "for now, the blows are threatening to land hardest on non-Chinese companies like New Jersey-based Snow Joe/Sun Joe", which – like so many other US companies, relies on Chinese imports for crucial parts of its supply chain. And in the end, of course, all of these increased costs will be passed on to the US consumer, directly depressing their real wages.
For China, however, the impact is likely to be – in the words of Ethan Harris, head of economic research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch – "quite small". Industry Week noted that whilst "In the past, the U.S. used its economic clout to win trade skirmishes with developing countries… China, whose economy has grown tenfold since it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, poses a much more formidable adversary." James Boughton, a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ontario, told the site that "The dynamic is different from anything we've seen. China has an ability to ride out this kind of pressure, to weather the storm, that a lot of countries didn't have in the past."
Indeed, Trump has already been forced into retreat in some areas, given the likely repercussions. Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group consultancy, told CBS that "Trump backed off a couple weeks ago on implementing what would have been significant measures against them. You're familiar with the Chinese telecom firm ZTE. They were going to be made bankrupt by White House regulations what were being put in place. Trump himself intervened with a tweet saying, we don't want to lose all of those Chinese jobs… [Trump] knows that China can hit back really hard and they can hit back in a targeted way against red states, against American farmers. So I would be very surprised if we saw significant escalation as opposed to significant rhetoric before elections in the U.S. in November, which is what we're really talking about here." Other possible Chinese retaliatory measures include limits on exports of rare-earth metals, essential for technologies such as smartphones, and of course the zero-option of dumping its holdings of US treasuries (although this would not be without serious pain to itself of course).
So the idea that trade war will somehow pressure China (and others) to dump Iran seems ultimately fanciful. The process of 'delinking' has already gone too far. China is already Iran's biggest trading partner, and – with Chinese tariffs on US oil looming – is more likely to increase Iranian imports to replace that no longer coming from the US rather than vice versa. Iran already sells its oil to China in yuan, rather than US dollars, meaning that the entire US-controlled financial system is completely circumvented for the countries' bilateral trade, and therefore outside the control of US-imposed financial sanctions. Looking forward, Iran is set to play a crucial role in the development of China's mega Belt and Road Initiative, with a high speed railway planned to provide sea access to landlocked central Asia. And with French oil giant Total's planned investment in the massive South Pars oil field in jeopardy, the contract is likely to now go to a Chinese company.
Economics professor Danny Quah noted back in 2009 that the dependence of China on US markets tended to be greatly overestimated in the west. By 2006, only 20% of Chinese exports were to the USA, with a far higher proportion going elsewhere in East Asia. In 2013, the US was not even the largest single customer for Chinese goods (it came second to Hong Kong). By 2o15, only 18% of Chinese exports were to the US; with almost half (48.5%) going elsewhere in Asia, 19.9% to Europe, 4.2% to Latin America, and 4.1% to Africa. In other words, the global South accounted for more Chinese exports than US and Europe combined. And, as is becoming clearer by the day, US and Europe are not combined.
According to the CIA's world factbook, Chinese exports in total represent just under 20% of GDP. If we do the maths, then – 20% of 20% – it turns out that just 4% of Chinese GDP comes from exports to the US. Significant, but hardly the economic gun to the head that Trump seems to believe.
The days when loss of market access to the US meant oblivion for countries like China are long gone. The future now lies in South-South cooperation precisely along the lines of the multibillion Belt and Road Initiative. The US government understand that, and their attempts to simultaneously sabotage both China and Iran are last-ditch attempts to prevent the inevitable – further delinking, and a global economy in which the US is becoming increasingly peripheral. But the truth is, this effort is already too late.
This article originally appeared on RT.com
Standard | Posted in Articles, China, Economy, Iran, Trump	| 0 comments
Trump's attack on the lira – a new financial war on the Global South
Trump's attack on the Turkish lira, combined with recent Federal Reserve moves to choke off dollar supply, are pushing the world towards a rerun of the 1997 currency crisis. This may well be the whole point.
Last Friday, Donald Trump announced new sanctions on Turkey – comprising a doubling of the steel and aluminium tariffs he had introduced earlier this year. Turkey's currency was already struggling, but these new sanctions "are the straw that broke the camel's back", commented Edward Park of the UK investment management firm Brooks Macdonald. The same day, the Turkish lira fell to more than 6 to the dollar, the first time it had ever done so, hitting a low point of 7.21 to the dollar on Sunday. Following Turkish caps on currency swaps, it slightly regained some of its lost value, and was trading at 6.12 by Wednesday, still way below the 4.75 to the dollar it was worth last week. Whilst the Turkish move has had some effect, this should not be overstated: simply banning the trading of lira above certain limits, which is effectively what Turkey has done, is hardly a sustainable means of revalorising the currency; andaccording to the FT, investors "are still ratcheting up bets against Turkey in other ways, such as through credit default swaps that pay out in the case of a debt default". Turkish bank shares now stand at their lowest level since 2003.
Underlying the currency's vulnerability are the country's massive dollar debts. Turkish companies now owe almost $300 billion in foreign-denominated debt, a figure which stands at over half its GDP. The question is – how did this happen, and why has it suddenlynow become a problem?
During the era of Quantitative Easing, the US Federal Reserve flooded US financial institutions with $3.5trillion in new dollars, much of which poured into so-called 'emerging markets' such as Turkey. So long as the music kept playing, this was fine – near-zero interest rates, combined with a weak dollar, made these debts affordable. But since the Federal Reserve ended its programme of QE last year – and then started to reverse it, selling off the financial assets it had purchased (and thus effectively taking dollars out of the financial system) – the dollar's value has started to rise again, making debt repayments less affordable. This appreciation of the dollar has been compounded by two successive interest rate rises by the Reserve; but it has also been compounded by Trump's actions. Paradoxically, Trump's trade wars have led to a further rise in the dollar, as investors have viewed it as a 'safe haven' compared to other currencies deemed less able to withstand the unpredictable turbulence he has unleashed. Even the yen and the Swiss franc, traditionally viewed as 'good as gold' have weakened against the dollar – as, indeed, has gold itself. As Aly-Khan Satchu, financial analyst at Rich Management, has put it the "US dollar has been weaponised – either deliberately or by design" (is there a difference?), adding that the "dollar is basically knee-capping countries", warning that other countries will face the same treatment "if they continue to pursue the policies that Erdogan is seeking to pursue".
Thus Turkey has been hit by a quadruple whammy by the US – interest rate hikes and the choking off of dollars from the Fed; tariffs and sanctions from Trump. The result is a loss in the lira's value of almost 40% since the start of the year.
And the effects are already being felt far beyond Turkey's borders; the South African rand fell to a two-year low on Monday, and the Indian rupee, Mexican peso and Indonesian rupiah have all been hard hit. This is unsurprising, as the ballooning of dollar-denominated debts – from $2trillion 15 years ago to $9trillion today, largely in the global South – combined with the reversal of QE was a crisis waiting to happen. All the conditions which prefigured the 1997 East Asian currency crisis are now effectively in place. All that's needed is a push – which is exactly what Trump has just given.
This is textbook stuff – or should be, if economics textbooks bore any relation to reality (which they don't). The last ten years are virtually an exact replay of the decade or so running up to the 1997 crisis. Whilst the 1985 'Plaza Accord' dollar devaluation was not exactly Quantitative Easing, it had the same intent and results – a flood of cheap money and dollar debt, and therefore growing global dependence on the dollar and vulnerability to US monetary and economic policy. This vulnerability was then effectively 'cashed in' with the 'reverse Plaza accord' ten years later, which, as with the current reversal of QE, choked off credit and ramped up interest rates, making markets more jumpy and bankruptcies more likely. In the end, the trigger was the collapse of the baht – the currency of a country (Thailand) with a GDP half that of Turkey – which spiralled into a crisis that ultimately spread across all of Asia, sabotaging the continent's development and allowing US corporations to buy up some of the most advanced industrial plant in the world for a fraction of its value.
It is not hard, then, to see why Trump and the Fed might well wish to trigger such a crisis today. The more the currencies of dollar-indebted countries slide, the more real goods and services they have to pay in tribute to the US to service the same paper-dollar debts – whilst those who cannot keep up will be gobbled up for pennies on the dollar. Yet beyond these purely economic gains lies also the geopolitical imperative – to maintain and extend US domination by scuppering its rivals. Trump is, after all, about nothing if not the conversion of all possible means of power into leverage to obliterate his opponents. Forcing one country after another to the brink of bankruptcy – and therefore to the IMF for a bailout – is a means of cashing in the dollar-dependency built up over the past decade into raw power. One can easily imagine the demands the US might make in return for its support in securing an IMF bailout – end oil imports from Iran, discontinue involvement with China's Belt and Road Initiative… the potential is vast. Already direct threats are being made against Turkey about 'what it needs to do' to 'reassure the markets' – the Times on Tuesday, for example, demanding that "Erdogan should end his spat with the West if he wants to avert a deeper crisis…his course of action should be clear: he should raise interest rates [that is, promise a bigger cut of the Turkish economy to international currency speculators], heed competent economists, explicitly guarantee the independence of the central bank [that is, remove it from democratic oversight], and make up with President Trump" – as, after all, "US support will be needed if the IMF of World Bank is to step in". Indeed, the targeting of Turkey may well be a response to Erdogan's insubordination in relation to Iran: noted Robert Fisk this week, "Erdogan is helping Iran to dodge US sanctions which were imposed after Trump flagrantly tore up the 2015 nuclear agreement, and – in a decision demonstrating the cowardly response of the EU's own oil conglomerates to Trump's insanity – has announced that he will continue to import Iranian oil. Thus will Washington's further threat of increased oil sanctions against Iran be blunted." Trump may well hope – as I argued recently – that tariffs can serve as a weapon to bring recalcitrant states back in line with his Iran policy.
Indeed, it is here that the false dichotomy between the 'globalists' and the 'economic nationalists' in the Trump White House – and the country at large – is, once again, exposed. When it comes to pushing the global South into bankruptcy, their interests are perfectly aligned. However much Goldman Sachs' press releases may cry wolf about Trump's tariffs, the reality is that the trade war is the icing on the cake of the Fed's own policy of squeezing the 'emerging markets'. Indeed, Wall st depends on precisely the kind of financial instability which Trump's trade wars have triggered. As Peter Gowan has noted, "the US economy depends…upon constantly reproduced international monetary and financial turbulence" – while Wall St in particular "depends upon chaotic instabilities in 'emerging market' financial systems." But by draping these actions in the flag, and parading them alongside a chorus of pseudo-shock from the 'globalists', their true nature is obscured. The global South now stands on the precipice – with 'establishment liberals' and 'nationalist insurgents' alike lining up to give them a shove.
An earlier version of this article originally appeared on RT.com
Standard | Posted in Articles, Economy, Iran, Trump, Turkey	| 0 comments


You made a post to link to another one of your posts? Without even waiting for a response from the other post?
Have you tried asking the SME of 13Fishing?
some look at that forum and not this one, and vise versa. i was hoping to get a 2cool reel expert to chime in.
FWIW, they gave the bushing different names on the TXZ.
If they used the original TX design and swapped the bushings it should be a more solid reel than the Z. Are they actually different frames or just hte same frame with different paint? Really don't know. I do know that the TX I own does feel slightly different than the Zs I own. Both are good reels but, IMO, the TXZ should still fall into a $250-$300 price point.
If I were you I would got to my local fishing shop and put hands on both of them. Anglers Anonymous in Katy has both of them in store right now.
wanting to know the internals. if the bushings are the same the z will work. if the txz has upgraded changed bushings i'd like to know.
Then either you didn't actually talk or ask the guys working there about those reels or you went to a big box store where they don't know jack about anything.
But from my conversation over a month ago with Steve at Anglers Anonymous, yes the internals in the TXZ are upgrades from the Z. The guys at AA can tell you exactly the differences and whatnot. I heard them all a month ago and don't remember exactly except that they are supposed to be better.
The part numbers on 13 website don't match up for further verification.
Spoke to my guy at 13Fishing. He said the TXZ uses CZB Comp bearings and not the CZB found in the Z reel. Larger handle, deep spool and a few more internals more designed for salt.


Does my Mad Catz Tournament Edition Arcade Stick for PS3 works on PC / PS4 / Street Fighter 5?
Your Mad Catz Tournament Edition Arcade Stick for PS3 will work as a DirectInput device on your PC.
DirectInput was the standard for PC controllers before XInput made available for both the Xbox 360 and Windows XP with Service Pack 1 (SP1) and later, and Windows Vista. XInput is the new API where your controller is recognized as a Xbox 360 controller.
Most new games will expect a Xbox 360 controller. You can use "Xbox 360 Controller Emulator" that will allow your controller (gamepad, joystick, wheel, etc.) to function as an Xbox 360 controller.
Your Mad Catz Tournament Edition Arcade Stick for PS3 will be recognized as a PS3 controller on the PS4, so it won't work. PS3 sticks by default are not compatible with PS4. The game developers need to enable it.
LabZero developed a custom driver that allowed any stick that reads as a generic USB gamepad or joystick would work with the PS4 version of its fighting game Skullgirls Encore. Capcom used that driver to make PS3 arcade sticks compatible with Ultra Street Fighter IV.


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Home » Navigation » PBA » Spare Shots » With two events to go, EJ Tackett holds on to slim XF Storm Cup points lead
With two events to go, EJ Tackett holds on to slim XF Storm Cup points lead
Spare Shots
Despite his 10th place finish in the PBA Xtra Frame Chesapeake Open Sunday, which earned him 11 points in the Xtra Frame Storm Cup points race, EJ Tackett of Huntington, Ind., held on to a slim two-point lead in the 2017 points race over Marshall Kent of Yakima, Wash., heading into the final two events in the series.
Tackett (above), who finished second in the Xtra Frame Tour points race in 2016 to Tommy Jones Simpsonville, S.C., has yet to win an Xtra Frame Tour event this year, but three top-five finishes in the last four events while Kent (right) has closed the gap with a win in the Lubbock Sports Open in June (worth 25 Storm Cup series points) and a fifth-place finish in Chesapeake (worth 16 points).
Right behind the two leaders are England's Dom Barrett (left) with 60 points and Chesapeake Open winner Dick Allen of Columbia, S.C., with 59. Holding down fifth place on the points list is Josh Blanchard of Gilbert, Ariz., with 47.
In the Xtra Frame Storm Cup series, 25 points are awarded to each tournament winner, 19 to second place, 18 to third, etc. through 20th place. Even one point is valuable because there is significant bonus prize money at stake.
At the end of the season, the points champion will earn a $20,000 bonus while other top-five finishers will earn $10,000 for second place, $8,000 for third, $7,000 for fourth and $5,000 for fifth place.
The top 25 in points heading into this weekend's PBA Xtra Frame Gene Carter's Pro Shop Classic from Mid-County Bowling and Entertainment in Middletown, Del., are as follows (the series concludes with the Xtra Frame Kenn-Feld Group Classic from Pla-Mor Lanes in Coldwater, Ohio, Aug. 26-27).
For a complete Storm Cup points list, click here.
PBA Xtra Frame Storm Cup points leaders after five of seven events are:
1, EJ Tackett, Huntington, Ind., 64
2, Marshall Kent, Yakima, Wash., 62
3, Dom Barrett, England, 60
4, Dick Allen, Columbia, S.C., 59
5, Josh Blanchard, Gilbert, Ariz., 47
6, Ryan Ciminelli, Cheektowaga, N.Y., 45
7, Anthony Simonsen, Austin, Texas, 39
8 (tie), AJ Johnson, Oswego, Ill., and Tom Daugherty, Tampa, Fla., 37
10, Shota Kawazoe, Japan, 35
11, Kyle Troup, Taylorsville, N.C., 32
12, Sean Rash, Montgomery, Ill., 29
13 (tie), Rhino Page, Orlando, FL, and Francois Lavoie, Quebec City, Quebec, 27
15 (tie), Cristian Azcona, Puerto Rico, and Tommy Jones, Simpsonville, S.C., 26
17, Ildemaro Ruiz, Venezuela, 25
18, Chris Barnes, Double Oak, Texas, 24
19 (tie), Jakob Butturff, Chandler, Ariz.; Jason Sterner, Cocoa Beach, Fla.; Stuart Williams, England, and Anthony Caso, Spring Hill, Fla., 18
23 (tie), Wes Malott, Pflugerville, Texas, and Shawn Maldonado, Houston, Texas, 17
25 (tie), Craig Nidiffer, Trenton, Mich., and Steven Arehart, Chesapeake, Va., 15.
PBA fans also are reminded that for a limited time, Xtra Frame is available for a special $2.99 three-day subscription rate, a $1 savings over its normal rate. The special offer, good now through August 27, makes it possible to watch each of the remaining PBA Xtra Frame Storm Cup Series tournaments at the special rate.
In addition, fans can follow real-time results for PBA50, PBA Xtra Frame Tour and all PBA Regional events by downloading the new PBA app on Apple devices or by visiting the "live scoring" feature on pba.com.
Faulkner provides insight into world championship win on xtra frame
Gary Faulkner Jr. (left) of Memphis, Tenn., provides insights into his 2015 Rolltech PBA World Championship victory over EJ Tackett in the newest PBA Player Perspective that debuts on Xtra Frame on Wednesday.
Faulkner defeated Tackett, 216-178, to win his first PBA Tour title at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, Nevada.
PBA Player Perspective is an ongoing series of special interviews with PBA Tour players which will debut every other week on Xtra Frame.
PBA Regional Update: Graham Fach wins fourth regional title in Indiana
Graham Fach (left) of Guelph, Ontario, defeated C.J. Kirchner of Herrin, Ill., 176-147, to win the PBA Greater Richmond Central Open at Richmond 40 Bowl Sunday.
Fach, who earned his fourth regional title and $1,600 for the one-day, reduced entry fee event, downed Craig Nidiffer of Trenton, Mich., 2-0, while Kirchner eliminated Aaron Lorincz of Center Line, Mich., 2-0, in the best-of-three-game semifinal round to set up the championship match.
The Aug. 18-20 PBA Regional calendar includes the Emerald Bowl Houston Southwest Challenge for non-title winners plus the PBA-PWBA Emerald Bowl Southwest Open in Houston, Texas, for women, and the Dave Husted Northwest Open presented by 900 Global at Husted's Milwaukie Bowl in Milwaukie, Ore.
Closing out the August schedule will be the PBA60 Wilson & Sons Super Senior Open presented by the Mooresville Convention and Visitors Bureau Aug. 31-Sept. 2 at George Pappas' Victory Lanes in Mooresville, N.C., followed immediately by the PBA50 Samuel Adams South Open presented by the Mooresville Convention and Visitors Bureau at George Pappas' Victory Lanes in Mooresville, N.C.
The Labor Day weekend calendar of PBA Regional action includes the PBA50 Strike Zone Open presented by Track in Pottsville, Pa.; the Tony Reyes Memorial Member/Non-Member Doubles at Fourth Street Bowl in San Jose, Calif.; the Illinois Valley Midwest Open at IV Super Bowl in Peru, Ill., and the DHC Japan PBA Doubles Open, Japan Cheetah Masters and Japan Cheetah Queens at Nagoya Grand Bowl in Nagoya, Japan.
For complete PBA Regional schedules, rules and entry information, click here to find the event(s) in your area.
2017 PBA Spare Shots #30 – August 12, 2017
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2017 PBA Spare Shots #15 – April 29, 2017
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2016 PBA Spare Shots
Herbert Bickel
Dick Allen
Dom Barrett
EJ Tackett
Gary Faulkner
Graham Fach
Josh Blanchard
Marshall Kent
PBA Regional Update
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A jogger runs at an average speed of 5.9 mi/h. If she starts a run at 11:15 am, what time is it after she covers 4.75 x 104ft?
asked by q
I would convert 5.9 miles/hour to feet/hour (there are 5,280 feet in a mile) , then use
distance = rate x time
solve for time in hours and add to 11:15 A. M.
posted by DrBob222
posted by tiffany
IP A jogger runs with a speed of 3.10{\rm m/s} in a direction 25.0{^\circ} above the x axis. Find the x and y components of the jogger's velocity.
asked by Riley on September 11, 2012
A jogger runs eastward in a straight line with an average speed of 2.25 m/s for 4.98 min and then continues with an average speed of 1.58 m/s for 2.18 min. (Hint: time is in minutes and velocity is in meters/second) (a) What is
asked by arcos15 on September 13, 2012
A person is to run a circular track with a radius of 93 meters. The person starts at a certain spot and runs 3 and 1/2 times around the track in a time of 227 seconds. Find the magnitude of average velocity for this trip (|vav|)
asked by Marc on September 3, 2011
asked by Jeff on September 1, 2011
a cyclist and jogger are 20 miles apart. the cyclist rides at 17 mph and the jogger runs at 7 mph. they move towards each other. a fly starts on the nose of the cyclist and flies at 20 mph from the cyclist to the runner and back.
asked by Sara on June 9, 2012
A jogger jogs around a circular track with a diameter of 325 m in 10. minutes. What was the jogger's average speed in m/s?
asked by kim on September 18, 2014
A jogger runs a distance of six miles at an average speed of four miles an hour, how many minutes did this take him?
asked by Kalia on October 14, 2017
Two joggers are running around an oval track in opposite directions. One jogger runs around the track in 56 seconds. They meet every 24 seconds. How many seconds does it take the second jogger to run around the track?
physics.
A jogger runs 59 m due west, then changes direction and runs 83 m due north. What is the distance the jogger travels?
asked by Haley on October 24, 2010


Learning to build state machines with the Pegboard 4 by 4.
To set the scene: it is fall of 2015 and I have decided to "throw my hat over the wall" – commit to demonstrating the AndOrBit device ion a few months even though it does not yet exist.
The commitment is to teach three workshops as part of the one-day annual "Expanding Your Horizons" event for girls of grade 6 – 12 on March 12, 2016. This, I thought, would force me to get through the process of making a first production run of my long-awaited "AndOrBit" digital logic training device.
Of course, this strategy is also a good way to lose one's hat, or to force one to make drastic changes in plans so as to meet the commitment.
The outcome of this decision was that six devices were built consisting of drastically scaled-back versions of the original device concept. They were larger on the outside (24 inches square) and smaller on the inside (4 bits of latch with 4 logic terms per bit as versus 8 bits with 8 terms per).
It wouldn't perform many of the functions planned for the larger device (no external connections, for example) and the matrix interconnections were made with the bare hands manipulating pairs of miniature "grabber clips"connected by an axial-lead diode.
But they did work well enough to allow students to create a 4-bit binary counter, and I began to learn how to teach using them. As of this writing I've brought them to about six "Hack the Future" one-day events for students aged 10 – 18 and tried both group courses and more chaotic individual instruction.
I call them "Pegboard 4 by 4" units as opposed to the intended "8 by 8" units. They take a lot of time to build, with a grid of 16 bare wires hand-strung in the vertical and horizontal directions (like a tennis racket) between 64 solder lugs bolted to the 2-foot-square pieces of pegboard. While there is a small (3 by 6 inch) circuit board that could be machine-assembled, the interconnections are made with two multi-wire "ribbon cables" that make 32 and 16 soldered connections each.
It is therefore well suited for assembly by the purchaser, as a kit, and the age range of the target market would start at the point where the student was willing to do several hours worth of hard, exacting work over several days and learn to use a soldering iron while retaining interest in the project.
The advantage of this approach was cost reduction – I was able to purchase the parts for a run of 10 (4 are as yet unbuilt) with about $2300 raised by a one-time crowd-funding effort. That, plus several days' labor by Elaine Sweeney and more by myself, managed to produce two working units by the morning of the event (I "went on" with 30 minutes of sleep in the previous 24 hours and lasted the whole day, fueled by adrenaline – the video showing me in the classroom was taken that day).
I have not done a cost analysis of the units in reasonable quantity (100) lots, but it should be able to come in at less than $100 each for the parts.
I am reluctant to consider making any more of the existing design because it needs some improvement. The matrix connectors consisting of two miniature "gripper clips", each of which must be handled with two fingers and a thumb are not only difficult to attach (requiring practice) but result in a connection that appears in two places at once – what is needed is a single element that contains the connection and rests exactly at the intersection of the intended wires – this would faithfully replicate the connection diagrams I've made. This could be realized with a specially-molded plastic cap which would make a fractional-turn lock over the wire intersection and contain the diode component inside.
I have a conceptual sketch of this part but there remains mechanical engineering to be done by someone with experience in these kind of contact materials. The jumpers must work not only the first time but after thousands of removals and replacements – mechanical connections are the most unreliable type of element in electronics.
The electronics will require a review and possible redesign – at present it uses a lot of components to perform a logic function which could be simplified by using logic ICs assuming the economics work out. A redesign of the ribbon cables will be necessary to reduce their cost and there will be some better labelling.
The Pegboard 4 by 4 was a temporary solution to a temporary problem but it has become the version that currently exists and which can fill a niche in the ecology we have to build. It's an introductory device sized closer to the size of a user's hands that is simple, relatively easy to use, has no options and can be resold once the user moves beyond it. I should have planned for it in advance.
give learners the ability to conceptualize and build functioning state machines.
I have built a few rough prototypes and use them at student hackathons to experience how students learn. The original design was more dense than those prototypes and will have important features that I can only describe in the absence of the ability to show.
My goal is to raise enough interest among potential users to crowd-fund the initial production run of devices, as well as to start others working on designing the remote mentoring capability that will be able to function through the product.
My model is the development of the personal computer – a development in which I was heavily involved. Perhaps it is because of that personal involvement that I find that I had, until recently, missed a very important aspect – the marketing element, which I define as "selling of the idea".
In the case of personal computers this started ten years before the first "Altair" personal computer kit was introduced to the market in 1975. Kemeny and Kurtz introduced the Interpretive BASIC language enabling people to program computers in real time in the most nearly conversational language available. When it ported to early timesharing computers and made available on line it offered the experience of direct hands-on, interactive use of a computer without intermediation.
Timesharing provided the body of experience upon which rested the popular understanding of personal computing. This was proven when the general response to the introduction of Altair BASIC as an extra-cost after-market item was to copy the software and to pass it around.
This was denounced as an act of piracy at the time but when one looks at it from the users' perspective one can see that their understanding of a personal computer was that it included a language like BASIC. Interestingly, the resulting proliferation of free Microsoft BASIC, while it killed its retail market, foreclosed any competitor's chances in the software market, retail or wholesale, and assured its dominance.
When I contemplate applying the analogy of personal computer development I see that the "marketing handle" for my device does not yet exist. Looking at the earliest users of those time-shared "personal computers" we can see that much of what they did was to play games – a natural human tendency. Books were written of computer games written in BASIC and sold well among the users of that generation of computers.
What is missing for AndOrBit is an equivalent opportunity for people to play with this new device and systems that can be built with it. The device provides a way to design hardware state machines, which are the smallest, simplest computers imaginable. How can we offer the opportunity for learners to play puzzles and games with this hardware?
I am therefore appealing to those people who have the capability to design puzzles and games for this state machine platform to do so. Specifications and physical description follow below.
The AndOrBit learning device is a re-engineering of the first generation of "programmable logic devices (PLDs)" that appeared on the market in 1978. Users implement Boolean logic equations using tweezers to insert small electronic components – diodes – into holes in a matrix. These equations produce one bit of output – true or false – from a combination of eight inputs and eight output bits, and each equation controls the state of one of the output bits. Inputs come from eight switches on the board and the outputs are displayed as eight LED lights. The transition from each state to the next is controlled by a pushbutton switch, as is a global reset function.
Each output is controlled by its own matrix according to the equation defined by diodes placed into matrix holes. Each equation can have up to eight "terms" made up of any combination of inputs and outputs – the elements of each term are defined by the selected signals connected by the "and" operator. This means that all of the selected inputs or outputs must be "true" for the term to be true. All eight inputs and outputs are available to the matrix along with their inverse values (the "not" operator), so the term can be determined by as few as one of 65,536 possibilities.
Each matrix has eight terms which may be combined using the "or" operator, as determined by diodes placed by the user into a special column of holes in the matrix. The resulting "and-or tree" is a general form of Boolean logic to which a large variety of logic relations can be reduced. It is not universal – that would require an infinite number of terms – but it permits the implementation of a very large number of possible logic combinations.
A switch selects each output to be implemented either as a latch – triggered by a common "clock" signal or pushbutton – or as a buffer – a direct output of the state of the matrix, which is not timed by the clock signal and changes as soon as the matrix inputs change. By "borrowing" one output we can double the number of terms for selected output.
AndOrBit has a 48-pin data connector which allows external electronic devices to be connected. Sensors as simple as a switch can be connected as inputs and LEDs can be connected as outputs. There are catalogs of simple robotic devices that can be connected through a CMOS or TTL connection.
Just like its precursor chips, AndOrBit units can be connected to each other through this connector to create larger functional elements – up to and including a full minicomputer (a memory board would be needed and operation would be closer to the minicomputers of the 1960's in that case).
The clock signal can be generated by pushbutton, from an external source (through the connector) and from an oscillator controlled by a slide potentiometer on the board (allowing slow increase of clock frequency to observe fine-grained events merge into larger events as the frequency is varied.
Finally, there is a "mentoring port" as part of the connector that allows a specially-programmed external device to examine the behavior of each matrix and to set the register to a desired value. This allows for Web-based mentoring through an externally connected computer.
For a two-player game we can have two sets of up to four input switches, one for each player. Each set of switches can have up to four LEDs displaying the state of the other player's switches, if desired.
Each player can also have one or more of the output LEDs at their location. One suggestion would be to have one LED for each player as a dedicated indicator of "Yes/No". There may have to be one additional output LED dedicated to "game over".
A pushbutton that would activate the "Clock" signal can be made available to both players.
OK, the patent is filed, IndieGoGo is a "go", and I've got the press release out to what I can determine are the STEM-focused media.
The strategy for the fundraising is to offer the first run of ten systems as prizes – but after they get used a bit for their primary purpose. How long that "bit" takes depends upon how many orders we get for systems.
The units are kits, having the surface mount components pre-installed on the circuit boards, but with the remaining "through-hole" components to be installed (screwed in or soldered) by the user. I have estimated the cost of that labor for the first run and it is included in the price.
Assembly will not be a one-day, slap-together proposition. There are 16 connectors on the main circuit board, each with 36 contacts that must be hand-soldered. The next largest number of solder joints is the 48-pin data connector.
Then there are the daughter boards – 8 of them per unit. Each is comprised of four printed circuit boards – one of which has surface-mount components on it. This board requires physical braces that are snapped out of another piece of circuit board material, pressed into holes in the board and carefully soldered. If these pieces get out of alignment when they're soldered it will be very difficult to remove and re-solder them, so we'll show a procedure that will have to be followed.
There are braces on both sides of that board, and then there are 4 twist-lock mechanical fasteners to be installed. We'll show the process on the DVD, but it will take some effort and may seem frustrating. It will have to be done 32 times. Assembly will clearly be a process where middle-schoolers will require assistance.
As order volumes increase there will clearly be demand for pre-assembled units, and in order to develop the price quote we will have to let the assembler experiment with one or two units. This first, get-off-the-ground crowdfunding phase will have to be done with kit units, although we could put out an intentionally high price quote for small-lot assembly and be safe.
This was the process in the first year of the personal computer industry – everything was a kit and the user had to have a certain level of commitment. Fortunately, we're aiming at early adopters as the market for this phase – the people who will work on developing their versions of the courseware and peripheral hardware. Anyone who expects an out-of-the-box, plug-and-play user experience will be disappointed.
Of course, we should not discount the aspect of collecting – buyers who just want to have one of the first made (we'll number them sequentially). I'm not going to count on this market, but we know it will be there.
Author lena@numbershuffler.comPosted on January 31, 2016 January 31, 2016 2 Comments on Get set, Go!


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Home » Forums » Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) » Announcements & Updates
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[FONT=Verdana]The Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA), the nonprofit membership organization which represents the interests of the 50 million people who purchase and play computer and video games in the U.S. and Canada, applauds the public disclosure of the April 21, 2010 draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).
[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Since 2007, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Switzerland, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and other countries have engaged in negotiations under ACTA, designed to reform and standardize a wide range of international intellectual property enforcement issues among signatory nations.
[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Proponents of ACTA, including New Zealand's Ministry of Economic Development, describe the reforms as a response[COLOR=#333333] "[/COLOR][/FONT][FONT=Verdana][URL=http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/ContentTopicSummary____34357.aspx]to the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works[/URL]." [/FONT][FONT=Verdana]Over the past few years, anecdotes have been circulated in the media that ACTA is being designed to address anti-counterfeiting legislation, patent, copyright and trademark rights, as well as enforcement protocols ranging from hard goods intellectual property enforcement to Internet piracy. However, no formal commentary confirming or denying such broad changes has been made by any of the participating nations, until today.
[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]While we are excited for the proliferation of digitally-distributed products and services and appreciate that industries and governments are concerned with the protection of intellectual property, we remain concerned about the rights of consumers being diminished or marginalized in the process. That so little insight of the public, or of stakeholder groups with consumer's interests, and with the overt and direct involvement of trade associations and corporate interests to-date, the natural balance that can and should exist was needlessly askew. Any decisions made by signatory nations[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] must not only be made with the input from the public, but also carefully balance the interests of intellectual property content owners with the rights and interests of consumers.
[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]The ECA expresses specific concern over a number of provisions in today's draft ACTA, including but not limited to:
[*][FONT=Verdana]Deeming it illegal to bypass Digital Rights Management (DRM) locks.[/FONT]
[*][FONT=Verdana]Allowing rights holders to obtain injunctions by merely showing that infringement is "imminent," even if any crimes have not yet occurred.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]· [/FONT][FONT=Verdana]Implying, without clarification, criminal penalties against "willful copyright infringement," as well as infringements, "that have no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain."
[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]The fundamental principles that benefit a strong and productive consumer and content creator relationship should be defined as follows:
[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]• [/FONT][FONT=Verdana]Copyright laws should seek to protect consumers and the public interest, as well as content creators — not just the technology limiting access to content, which shifts the law in favor of the content creator. These laws should encourage a better understanding of intellectual property through educational efforts for the general public. Before making any decisions, signatory nations should undertake an unbiased review of new technologies for the purposes of understanding their functions and how they might benefit or harm consumers – not just how they may benefit industries and related interests. Such new technology may include new forms of data distribution, such as peer-to-peer networks, digital content creation, as well as devices that may potentially circumvent the copyright protection features of current technology.
[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]• [/FONT][FONT=Verdana]Modifying copyright laws to modern technologies should not undermine consumer rights or constrain common consumer practices that have been enshrined in signatory nations for many years. Selecting narrow, specific provisions that define a particular type of copyright or trademark infringement is one particular method that will defend and laud not only content owners' rights, but also protect consumers from egregious blanket policies.
[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]• [/FONT][FONT=Verdana]While signatory nations should be encouraged to further define penalties for copyright and trademark violations so that the courts will have a common, shared threshold of consequences for violations, the public must have a say in how such laws are formed so that common standards for intellectual property enforcement are adhered to.
[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Consumers shall not accept a series of laws that place the rights and interests of big business ahead of those of individuals, especially new legislation that would harm our established civil liberties and privacy rights.
[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]- Jennifer Mercurio, ECA Vice President and General Counsel
[U]Media contact[/U][/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]: Jason Andersen
[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Director of Public Relations
[/FONT] [URL=http://www.theeca.com/feed_back][FONT=Verdana]jason@theeca.com[/FONT][/URL]