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|Oracle® Fusion Middleware Performance and Tuning Guide
11g Release 1 (11.1.1)
Part Number E10108-04
|PDF · Mobi · ePub
This chapter describes tips for tuning Oracle Service Bus performance. It contains the following sections:
Section 21.5, "Design Time Considerations for Proxy Applications"
Within a SOA framework, Oracle Service Bus (OSB) provides connectivity, routing, mediation, management and also some process orchestration capabilities. The design philosophy for OSB is to be a high performance and stateless (non-persistent state) intermediary between two or more applications. However, given the diversity in scale and functionality of SOA implementations, OSB applications are subject to large variety of usage patterns, message sizes and QOS requirements.
In most SOA deployments, OSB is part of a larger system where it plays the role of an intermediary between two or more applications (servers). A typical OSB configuration involves a client invoking an OSB proxy which may make one or more service callouts to intermediate back-end services and then route the request to the destination back end system before routing the response back to the client.
It is necessary, therefore, to understand that OSB is part of a larger system and the objective of tuning is the optimization of the overall system performance. This involves not only tuning OSB as a standalone application, but also using OSB to implement flow-control patterns such as throttling, request-buffering, caching, prioritization and parallelism.
For more information about Oracle Service Bus, see the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide for Oracle Service Bus.
Depending on your OSB usage and performance issues, you may consider tuning the following:
JVM parameters can have an impact on OSB performance. The two primary JVM tuning parameters to consider when optimizing OSB performance are heap size and garbage collection. For more information on tuning the JVM for performance, see Section 2.4, "Tune Java Virtual Machines (JVMs)".
To optimize OSB, consider tuning the following WebLogic Server parameters:
For production environments, create a domain in "Production" mode to maximize performance. The parameter is:
To enable Weblogic server production mode through Weblogic Administration Console, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Understanding Domain Configuration for Oracle WebLogic Server.
For OSB performance testing and production environments, consider using the lowest acceptable logging level, such as "ERROR" or "WARNING" whenever possible. For more information, see Section 2.10, "Set Logging Levels"
To optimize OSB perfomance, consider turning off the HTTP access logging. For more information, see Section 5.3.1, "Access Logging".
Ensure that the right persistence level is set for the Java Message Service (JMS) destinations. Consider the following scenarios:
For non-persistent JMS scenarios:
Explicitly turn off persistence at the JMS server level by un-checking the "Store Enabled" flag from the Advanced section of the General tab for the JMS server on the WebLogic Server console. It is also possible to override the persistence mode at the JMS destination level.
For persistent JMS scenarios:
There are two choices: file store and JDBC store. Typically operations on a File Store perform better than JDBC store. If there are multiple JMS servers involved, create each store on a separate disk to lower I/O contention.
For more information on JMS Server Tunings, see "Tuning WebLogic JMS" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Performance and Tuning for Oracle WebLogic Server.
You can tune the number of connection requests that a WebLogic Server instance will accept before refusing additional requests. The Accept Backlog parameter specifies how many Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connections can be buffered in a wait queue. This fixed-size queue is populated with requests for connections that the TCP stack has received, but the application has not accepted yet. This parameter should be tuned when dealing a large number of concurrent clients. For more information, see "Tuning Connection Backlog Buffering" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Performance and Tuning for Oracle WebLogic Server.
Though the out-of-the-box monitoring subsystem has a very low overhead and scales well to a large number of services as well as to multiple nodes in a cluster, when dealing with thousands of services or a large scale cluster deployment, being selective about enabling monitoring can help reduce network traffic. When a business or proxy service is created, monitoring is disabled by default for that particular service. For more information, see "Configuring Operational Settings for Proxy Services" or "Configuring Operational Settings for Business Services" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide for Oracle Service Bus.
To enable or disable monitoring of all services that have individually been enabled or disabled for monitoring, use the "Enable Monitoring" option on the Operations Global Settings page. For more information, see "Enabling Global Settings" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide for Oracle Service Bus.
Oracle Service Bus has the option to trace messages without having to shutdown the server. This is an extremely useful feature both in a development and production environment for debugging, diagnosing and troubleshooting problems involving message flows in one or more proxy services.
Tracing is disabled by default but can be enabled on a per service basis. When tracing is enabled, the entire message context is also printed including headers and message body. It is important to realize its impact for large message sizes and high throughput scenarios.
For more information, see "How to Enable or Disable Tracing" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide for Oracle Service Bus.
OSB caches proxy service runtime meta-data using a two-level cache with static and dynamic sections. The cache introduces a performance tradeoff between memory consumption and compilation cost. Note that caching proxy services may help throughput but could impact memory usage.
The static section is an upper-bound Least Recently Used (LRU) cache that is never garbage collected. When a proxy service is bumped from the static section, it is demoted to the dynamic section where the cache can be garbage collected when there is memory pressure.
The number of proxy services in the static portion of the cache can be tuned by setting its size using the system property
com.bea.wli.sb.pipeline.RouterRuntimeCache.size. The default value is 100. This can be increased to a desired value provided there is sufficient memory for runtime data processing for large number of proxy services.
This property value can be set in the setDomainEnv.sh file as an extra java argument as follows:
EXTRA_JAVA_PROPERTIES="-Dcom.bea.wli.sb.pipeline.RouterRuntimeCache.size=3000 ${EXTRA_JAVA_PROPERTIES}"
Latency and throughput of poller based transports depends on the frequency with which a source is polled and the number of files and messages read per polling sweep. The following are the main transport configurations to tune:
Consider using a smaller polling interval for high throughput scenarios where the message size is not very large and the CPU is not saturated.
The primary polling interval defaults are listed below with links to additional information:
|Polling Intervals
|Default Interval
|Additional Information
|File Transport
|60 seconds
|"File Transport Configuration Page" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide for Oracle Service Bus
|FTP Transports
|60 seconds
|" FTP Transport Configuration Page" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide for Oracle Service Bus
|MQ Transport
|1000 milliseconds
|"MQ Transport Configuration Page" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide for Oracle Service Bus
|SFTP Transport
|60 seconds
|"SFTP Transport Configuration Page" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide for Oracle Service Bus
|JCA Transport
|60 seconds
|"JCA Transport Configuration Page" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide for Oracle Service Bus
The read limit determines the number of files or messages that are read per polling sweep. This defaults to 10 for the File and FTP transports. It can be set to 0 to specify no limit. Set this value to the desired concurrency. For more information, see " File Transport Configuration Page" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide for Oracle Service Bus.
Note:Setting the Read Limit to a high value and the Polling Interval to a small value may result in a large number of messages being simultaneously read into memory. This can lead to an OOM (out-of-memory error) if the message size is large.
Consider the following design configurations for proxy applications based on your OSB usage and use case scenarios:
Avoid creating many OSB context variables that are used just once within another XQuery
Context variables created using an Assign action are converted to XmlBeans and then reverted to the native XQuery format for the next XQuery. Multiple "Assign" actions can be collapsed into a single Assign action using a FLWOR expression. Intermediate values can be created using "let" statements. Avoiding redundant context variable creation eliminates overheads associated with internal data format conversions. This benefit has to be balanced against visibility of the code and reuse of the variables.
Transforming contents of a context variable such as
Use a Replace action to complete the transformation in a single step. If the entire content of $body is to be replaced, leave the XPath field blank and select "Replace node contents". This is faster than pointing to the child node of $body (e.g. $body/Order) and selecting "Replace entire node". Leaving the XPath field blank eliminates an extra XQuery evaluation.
$body/*[1] to represent the contents of
$body as an input to a Transformation (XQuery / XSLT) resource.
OSB treats "
$body/*[1]" as a special XPath that can be evaluated without invoking the XQuery engine. This is faster than specifying an absolute path pointing to the child of
$body. A general XPath like "
$body/Order" must be evaluated by the XQuery engine before the primary transformation resource is executed.
Enable Streaming for pure Content-Based Routing scenarios.
Read-only scenarios such as Content-Based Routing can derive better performance from enabling streaming. OSB leverages the partial parsing capabilities of the XQuery engine when streaming is used in conjunction with indexed XPaths. Thus, the payload is parsed and processed only to the field referred to in the XPath. Other than partial parsing, an additional benefit for read-only scenarios is that streaming eliminates the overhead associated with parsing and serialization of XmlBeans.
The gains from streaming can be negated if the payload is accessed a large number of times for reading multiple fields. If all fields read are located in a single subsection of the XML document, a hybrid approach provides the best performance. See Section 21.6, "Design Considerations for XQuery Tuning" for additional details.
The output of a transformation is stored in a compressed buffer format either in memory or on disk. Therefore, streaming should be avoided when running out of memory is not a concern.
Set the appropriate QOS level and transaction settings.
Do not set XA or Exactly-Once unless the reliability level required is once and only once and its possible to use the setting (it is not possible if the client is a HTTP client). If OSB initiates a transaction, it is possible to replace XA with LLR to achieve the same level of reliability.
OSB can invoke a back end HTTP service asynchronously if the QOS is "Best- Effort". Asynchronous invocation allows OSB to scale better with long running back-end services. It also allows Publish over HTTP to be truly fire-and-forget.
Disable or delete all log actions.
Log actions add an I/O overhead. Logging also involves an XQuery evaluation which can be expensive. Writing to a single device (resource or directory) can also result in lock contentions.
OSB uses XQuery and XPath extensively for various actions like Assign, Replace, and Routing Table. The following XML structure ($body) is used to explain XQuery and XPath tuning concepts:
<soap-env:Body> <Order> <CtrlArea> <CustName>Mary</CustName> </CtrlArea> <ItemList> <Item name="ACE_Car" >20000 </Item> <Item name=" Ext_Warranty" >1500</Item> …. a large number of items </ItemList> <Summary> <Total>70000</Total> <Status>Shipped</Status> <Shipping>My Shipping Firm </Shipping> </Summary> </Order> </soap-env:Body>
Avoid the use of double front slashes ("//") in XPaths.
$body//CustName while returning the same value as $body/Order/CtrlArea/CustName will perform a lot worse than the latter expression. "//" implies all occurrences of a node irrespective of the location in an XML tree. Thus, the entire depth and breadth of the XML tree has to be searched for the pattern specified after a "//". Use "//" only if the exact location of a node is not known at design time.
Index XPaths where applicable.
An XPath can be indexed by simply adding "[1]" after each node of the path. XQuery is a declarative language and an XPath can return more than one node; it can return an array of nodes.
$body/Order/CtrlArea/CustName implies returning all instances
Order under
$body and all instances of
CtrlArea under
Order. Therefore, the entire document has to be read in order to correctly process the above XPath. If you know that there is a single instance of
Order under
$body and a single instance of
CtrlArea under
Order, we could rewrite the above XPath as
The second XPath implies returning the first instances of the child nodes. Thus, only the top part of the document needs to be processed by the XQuery engine resulting in better performance. Indexing is key to processing only what is needed.
Note:Indexing should not be used when the expected return value is an array of nodes. For example,
$body/Order[1]/ItemList[1]/Item returns all "Item" nodes, but
$body/Order[1]/ItemList[1]/Item[1] only returns the first item node. Another example is an XPath used to split a document in a "for" action.
Extract frequently used parts of a large XML document as intermediate variables within a FLWOR expression
An intermediate variable can be used to store the common context for multiple values. Sample XPaths with common context:
$body/Order[1]/Summary[1]/Total, $body/Order[1]/Summary[1]/Status,$body/Order[1]/Summary[1]/Shipping
The above XPaths can be changed to use an intermediate variable:
let $summary := $body/Order[1]/Summary[1] $summary/Total, $ summary/Status, $summary/Shipping
Using intermediate variables consumes more memory but reduces redundant XPath processing.
Using a Hybrid Approach for read-only scenarios with Streaming
The gains from streaming can be negated if the payload is accessed a large number of times for reading multiple fields. If all fields read are located in a single subsection of the XML document, a hybrid approach provides the best performance. The hybrid approach includes enabling streaming at the proxy level and Assigning the relevant subsection to a context variable, The individual fields can then be accessed from this context variable.
The fields "Total" and "Status" can be retrieved using three
Assign actions:
Assign "$body/Order[1]/Summary[1]" to "foo" Assign "$foo/Total" to "total" Assign "$foo/Status" to "total"


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Here at Floor Coverings International Woodbridge, we provide high quality flooring in hundreds of different styles. Plank hardwood flooring is surging in popularity with Woodbridge, Manassas, Dale City, Lake Ridge homeowners. Plank hardwood flooring refers to any hardwood that comes in a width greater than three inches. Hardwood plank flooring comes in a variety of species, styles, and finishes.
This unique and trendy style of wood flooring first gained popularity in North America with American settlers in the 17th century, who used cut plank flooring from old growth forests. This style has been experiencing a renaissance in recent years. Wider planks, which can be up to 12 inches in width, are becoming increasingly desired in the modern home. There has also been a movement to reclaim planks from old buildings and log cabins and re-purpose them in modern settings.
There are many different options when it comes to plank hardwoods. Some styles are distressed by hand to replicate the reclaimed look and give the plank a vintage feel. We even have wide plank laminate flooring if you're on a budget.
If you would like to explore this look or have questions about how a plank hardwood floor would look in your home, give your local flooring experts at Floor Coverings International Woodbridge a call. We love providing the greater Woodbridge, Manassas, Dale City, Lake Ridge area with expert advice. Find your dream floors today!
Photo © Lyashenko Egor

subset: commoncrawl


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A collection of scholarly works about individual liberty and free markets. A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.
The Writings of James Madison, comprising his Public Papers and his Private Correspondence, including his numerous letters and documents now for the first time printed, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1900). 9 vols. https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1933,
A 9 volume collection edited by Gaillard Hunt in 1900-10.
The text is in the public domain.
This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit.


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These are—according to Fox Business data—the best and worst educated states in the United States of America, ordered by percentage of residents 25 or older with at least a bachelor's degree in 2011. The table also shows how those states voted. Can you see any pattern?
Perhaps there's no correlation. Perhaps it is just a coincidence. Maybe we should ask the next Secretary of Wizardry and Mathemagics, Nate Silver. Whatever the answer is, I just know that I freaking love statistics. [Happy Place via Neil deGrasse Tyson]


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ARLINGTON — Arlington residents are drinking their own water again.
Even if people hadn't noticed it, the city replaced its primary water supply with water from the Snohomish County Public Utility District for more than a month, at a cost that could run into the six figures.
The reason: fear that contamination from the Oso mudslide would leech into the city's well water.
Haller Well, about 60 feet from the Stillaguamish River in Haller Park, supplies about 89 percent of the city's drinking water, according to the city's annual water quality report.
When the slide blocked the North Fork Stillaguamish on March 22 and the river began to back up behind the mudslide debris field, the fear was that a sudden failure of the dam would send a flash flood downstream and damage the well.
"We didn't know what would be coming down that river," Mayor Barbara Tolbert said.
The decision was made to turn off the pumps and draw water from the county.
The city maintains a long-term contract with the Snohomish County Public Utility District to buy up to 1,000 gallons of water per day.
Arlington Public Works director James Kelly said that PUD water normally serves only customers who live outside the area of the well's pressure zone, or is used to handle peak demand on hot summer days.
In this case, PUD water replaced the city's supply entirely and remained that way for more a month because of fear of contamination from slide debris.
While the water in the well is groundwater, the well is close enough to the river that sediment or contaminants in the river can get into the well water, Kelly said.
Testing of the river in the days after the slide showed a high degree of turbidity, or lack of clarity, as well as levels of antimony, arsenic, chromium and lead that were above state and federal limits for drinking water.
That could have contaminated the city's drinking water had the well been active, Kelly said.
"A lot of this we did for the safety of our customers," Kelly said.
It wasn't until April 22, a month after the slide, that the levels of contaminants in the river had dropped to within acceptable ranges and the city began pumping water from the well again.
The well pumping increased gradually and, by May 1, was up to full production.
How much this will cost the city is not known, but Tolbert guessed Arlington could be on the hook for between $100,000 and $200,000 for the PUD's water.
She said the city would work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to see how much can be reimbursed.
Municipalities can be compensated for some emergency expenses under major disaster declarations, said Donald Jacks, assistant external affairs officer for FEMA.
FEMA has closed the three Disaster Recovery Centers in Washington it had operated after the mudslide but is still operating out of the Snohomish County Family Resource Center in Darrington.
The process for a city like Arlington involves working with Snohomish County and the state to identify which expenses FEMA might cover. The process is the same that has been used in other major disasters. The disaster declaration covers impacts to government and tribal agencies as well as individuals, as in the case of Hurricane Katrina and Super Storm Sandy, Jacks said.
Chris Winters: 415-374-4165 or email@example.com.
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What you need to know before you go
Slovenia is one of Central Europe's best-kept secrets, offering some of the most breathtaking mountain vistas in the region. A collection of serene glacial lakes and mountain ski resorts call the country home. Slovenia has several UNESCO World Heritage Sites, which include the Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and a series of ancient caves with magical subterranean river canyons.
Quaint lake towns in Slovenia feature charming landmarks that hark back to medieval times. Old cathedrals and majestic castles dot these towns, complementing the lush countryside. In the capital, Ljubljana, you can enjoy wondrous architectural walks along cobbled streets and across old-fashioned stone bridges, through old towns dotted with striking buildings and landmarks.
Top destinations in SloveniaWhere will you go next?
Ljubljana is the charming capital of Slovenia that offers a small city vibe with a mix of old-world charms and beautiful scenery. A short walk out from medieval cobbled streets leads you to green spaces – Tivoli Park is a fine example. Those looking for art and history may look no further than the old town and the city's great collection of museums.
A pleasant stroll by Ljubljanica River leads you to alfresco cafes where you can sit back with a coffee or a glass of Slovenian wine and admire the view. Among the main draws of Ljubljana are its architectural wonders – you can admire striking structures that make the city so attractive, in both classical and contemporary stylings.Read more


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Fight with the best of the best
Plunge into combat against thousands of other pilots, tank commanders and naval captains in the World War II game with an incredible level of detail. Battles cannot be won by aviation alone - take on special missions for seasoned naval captains and budding tank commanders alike.
Upgrade dozens of weapons and hone your war fighting skills with each mission you complete, unlocking new vehicles along the way. War Thunder is a free-to-play, next generation Massively Multiplayer Online game, dedicated to World War II military aviation, armoured vehicles and naval fleets.
Download the Ground Forces expansion pack at no extra cost from PlayStation Store and enjoy new game modes with armoured vehicles and cross-platform multiplayer with PC owning War Thunder gamers.


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Welcome and hello everyone …
Welcome to another Creative Vision Design Team Themed Blog Hop. The hop today is VERY special because it is the team's final hop. PLUS we have a guest designer on the company blog PLUS Laura Lou Who goes LIVE with THING 1 and Whoville ACTION NEWS! Yes the GRINCH GAME begins TODAY!!
The holiday season is always a time for giving. That's what our family try to do every year. So the blog hop theme is suitably appropriate for us - "GIFTS".
I bake cookies and give candies every year to our friends. But I always try to personalize it even more and dress up my gift by creating something in the craftroom. Here is a gift I will be giving this year:
Love the label and what's in the jar!! yum. (Sorry Laura, I ate the chocolates – yes, all of it – before I could get it out to you – make no sense to send you an empty jar right? )
Here is the order of the blog hop.
Laura Lou Who – Creative Vision Blog – http://www.creativeclearstamps.blogspot.com/ (start here)
Kendra – http://www.luv2scrapnmakecards.blogspot.com/
Stephanie – http://blog.artycarty.com/ (you're here)
Christy- http://www.mycreativejourneys.blogspot.com/
Mary - http://mbryt1.blogspot.com/
Allison - http://www.allisonsstampincreations.blogspot.com/
Lauren - http://lem-photography.blogspot.com/
Chelsea - http://scraptasticvoyage.blogspot.com/
Remember, it's more bless to give than to received – have a great season of giving this year!


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OHCHR in the Russian Federation2011-201620102008-20092006-2007
Recent news
Archived news(over 3 years old)
OHCHR Framework for Cooperation with the Russian Federation for 2007 and beyond
Following the agreement reached between the Government and the High Commissioner a human rights presence has been established within the United Nations Country Team (UNCT) in Moscow. The High Commissioner's two visits to the Russian Federation in 2005 and 2006 provided an opportunity to consolidate and strengthen cooperation with national partners. With the assistance of its National Programme Officer based in the Resident Coordinator's Office in Moscow , the OHCHR has launched its programme in the country. Comprehensive consultations concerning the content and forms of cooperation relevant to human rights have been carried out with governmental, civil society, and international partners with a view to designing the most adequate and sustainable programme. Meanwhile, a Senior Human Rights Adviser a.i. has also been deployed to the UNCT who will be replaced by his permanent successor as of 2007.
The programme aims at providing an added value to the efforts of different stakeholders in the protection of human rights at the national level, in terms of sustainability, effectiveness, and innovative approaches. The main projects carried out in 2006 included:
• Contribution to the fellowship programme for representatives of indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation;
• Contribution, together with UNICEF, to setting a national coordinated approach to the recommendations made by the Committee on the Rights of the Child;
• First phase of the training programme on the rights-based approach to development programming for members of the UNCT in Moscow and in the Northern Caucasus.
Mainstreaming human rights within the UNCT will contribute both to the strengthening of the work of agencies and programmes and to the achievement of the overall human rights goals. The main vehicles for this process will be the progressive adoption of the rights-based approach to development programming and the assistance and advice to the UNCT by the OHCHR presence. The UNCT will be appropriately equipped to incorporate human rights principles, including gender equality, in their economic and social development programmes. 2007 marks the beginning of the full implementation of the OHCHR programme in the Russian Federation . Several projects with long term effects will be launched, in particular in the areas of the rule of law, promotion of tolerance and countering discrimination, and human rights education and information.
• Enhanced sustainability of human rights efforts by relevant stakeholders in the country, including State agencies, civil society organizations, and United Nations agencies and programmes and thus, greater empowerment of rights holders and duty bearers, and effective human rights protection;
• Strengthened capacity of (a) State agencies to benefit from human rights principles, including gender equality, in their economic and social development programmes; and (b) the UNCT to incorporate human rights-based approaches and principles into their development and humanitarian work;
• Effective follow-up to conclusions and recommendations adopted by international human rights mechanisms;
• Effective protection of human rights defenders by relevant national bodies.
Field Operations and Technical Cooperation
Division (FOTCD)
Contact is in Geneva, Switzerland.
Europe and Central Asia Section
Tel. +41 22 928 9294 or +41 22 928 9279
Joint Russia-OHCHR Projects Officers
UN Country Team – Russian FederationAddress: Leontyevsky Per.9125009, Moscow, RussiaTel/Fax: (+7 495) 787 21 03E-mail:
Commissioner on Human Rights in the Russian Federation
Council of Europe:- European Court of Human Rights - Directorate General of Human Rights (DGII) - Commissioner for Human Rights- Russian Federation and the Council of Europe
Geneva Conventions
ILO Conventions
Refugee Conventions


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int ggiCheckMode(ggi_visual_t visual, ggi_mode *tm); int ggiCheckTextMode(ggi_visual_t visual, int cols, int rows, int vcols, int vrows, int fontx, int fonty, ggi_graphtype type, ggi_mode *suggested_mode); int ggiCheckGraphMode(ggi_visual_t visual, int x, int y, int xv, int yv, ggi_graphtype type, ggi_mode *suggested_mode); int ggiCheckSimpleMode(ggi_visual_t visual, int xsize, int ysize, int frames, ggi_graphtype type, ggi_mode *md);
ggiCheckTextMode checks whether the text mode with the given visible and virtual dimensions and the font size is supported.
ggiCheckGraphMode checks whether the graphics mode with the given visible and virtual dimensions and type is supported.
ggiCheckSimpleMode checks whether the graphics mode with the given visible dimensions, type, and number of buffers is supported. This is used in lieu of ggiCheckGraphMode if multiple buffering is desired.
For ggiCheckTextMode, ggiCheckGraphMode and ggiCheckSimpleMode, suggested_mode is either NULL or a pointer to a ggi_mode(3) which will be filled in with the negotiated mode parameters.
If the only modifications made to the structure is replacing GGI_AUTO or GT_AUTO value, the functions return success.
An application that does not care about a specific parameter should always specify GGI_AUTO or GT_AUTO for it.
The resulting mode is guaranteed to be valid; if not, the application can assume that it cannot set any mode on the given visual and give up.
The suggested mode is derived as follows:
Only if the maximum resolution would be exceeded, resolutions are adjusted down to the maximum.
The above applies to visible and virtual size. If there is interference between them, the visible size is satisfied first if possible, then the virtual size.
The adjustment of one value do not normally affect other values. For example, if (visible) 320x100 (virtual 320x200) is requested, the visible size may be adjusted to 320x200, but virtual size will be left alone. Of course, if the virtual size becomes less than visible size, then it will be adjusted as well.
If graphtype is changed, it is adjusted in ascending order if possible: e.g. 1->4->8->15->16->24/32 bit. So you always get a mode which can do more than you requested. Only when no better modes are available, the type is adjusted down.
ggi_mode sug_mode; err = ggiCheckGraphMode(vis, 320, 200, GGI_AUTO, GGI_AUTO, GT_8BIT, &sug_mode); if(err) { /* Check if returned mode is ok... */ } else { ggiSetMode(vis, &sug_mode); }


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- This event has passed.
CHINESE YOGA dao yin
February 26 @ 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm £3.00
DAO YIN often referred to as 'Chinese yoga' is an ancient Chinese practice designed to balance, align and encourage the flow of energy/chi through the meridians.
The class will focus on a series of seated and lying exercises (but may include standing positions) to prepare the mind/body/spirit to sit in tranquility.
In the earlier Wednesday class at YMCA onekx 'Tai Chi/Chi Kung demystified' these dao yin exercises are touched on, this class is an opportunity to explore in greater depth this transformative seated practice.
Please wear clothing that you can comfortably move in.


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India visa for Uruguayan passport holders
Get Visa advice
India online e-visa 🇮🇳
Last updated: October 18, 2020
Uruguay citizens can get e-visa for travelling to India as tourist. COVID travel advice is country is Closed for travel. The stay is usually short with a period of 90 days and visa expires in 365 days. Applicant is not required to be present when applying for visa and a total of 3 documents are required. You can also find useful tips from fellow travellers.
Visa requirements
India Visa requirements for Uruguay
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COVID-19 travel advice
India is Closed for travel. You are required to have mandatory quarantine. Find travel restrictions, quarantine and entry requirements to visit India.
Get visa for India from Uruguay
Despite the Indian e-Visa being a double entry visa, it is important to note the Indian Tourist e-Visa can be used a maximum of two times in a calendar year i.e. between January to December.
Max Stay: 90 days
Visa Expires: 365 days
short Stay
Documents required for India tourist visa : 3
Visa Application Form: Complete application form online for India
Passport Photo: Photo must be no older than 6 months
Passport Copy: A clear scan of the information pages of your signed, machine readable passport. Provide the pages of your current passport showing your photo, personal details and passport issue and expiry dates. Must be valid for six months beyond the expiry date of the visa.
✨ Tips for India tourist visa
e-Visa holders must arrive via 26 designated airports or 3 designated seaports.
An Indian e-Tourist Visa can only be obtained twice in one calendar year.
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You can see the visa details, documents required, official website and other details for India visa but if you still have question which are unanswered then you can discuss with the community
Travel information of India
India is part of Asia with main city at New Delhi. Its Developing country with a population of 1B. The main currency is Indian Rupee. The languages spoken are English and Hindi.
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The Fair House Beach Resort & Hotel is set among tropical gardens and coconut plantations at Chaweng Noi beach. It provides 172 spacious rooms and bungalows in traditional Southern Thai style. All rooms are equiped with air-condition, TV, mini-bar, safe and internet. The facilities of the resort include 2 swimming-pools, car parking, laundry service and motorbike rental. The beach-side restaurant Sea Paint, serving the best of Thai & European food and a special "Seafood Barbeque", allows you to dine on the open-air terrace and the Rim Lay Bar offers your favorite drinks with live music entertainment.
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The Fair House Beach Resort & Hotel.
A good location, basic hotel situated in a quiet area, very beautiful beach and tropical garden.
The rooms are medium in size and in good condition. All rooms are decorated in light colors with teak wood furniture. The bathrooms are in fair condition, all with showers and / or bathtub. Total rooms: 172 rooms (6 categories).
:: Superior Room ::
(Room size 38 m2, excluding balcony) our rooms, fitted comfortably with king size bed and owned private balcony, located on the hillside close to the hill-top pool. The rooms have shower area in bath room.
:: Grand Deluxe Room ::
(Room size 41 m2, excluding balcony). 30 spacious rooms with private balcony open out to a view of lush garden which to enjoy the natural surroundings. Located on middle area; convenience to access the main swimming pool and the beach. The rooms have separated bath area; bathtub or shower room.
:: Premier Room ::
(Room size 40 m2, excluding balcony). Our 42 rooms that is well-decorated in tropical Thai style. The room is fully equipped with modern facilities. The rooms have separated bath area; shower room and bathtub plus modern bath amenities.
:: Superior Bungalow ::
(Room size 36 m2, excluding balcony). 16 comfortable bungalows with beautiful mountain view from private balcony. Bungalows set among lust tropical garden with greenery plants near by the hillside. The rooms have separated bath area; bathtub or shower room.
:: Deluxe Bungalow ::
(Room size 36 m2, excluding balcony) 28 unique bungalows with garden view from private balcony. Bungalows set among tropical garden view. The rooms have separated bath area; bathtub or shower room.
:: Grand Deluxe Bungalow ::
(Room size 40 m2, excluding balcony) Our most spacious 10 bungalows located right on the white sandy beach. The beachfront bungalows are offering a bliss view of the Ocean. The rooms have separated bath area; bathtub and shower room.
:: Family Suite ::
(Room size 40 m2, excluding balcony) Our Thai style family suite are located on the corner of Main building, proximately closed to hill-top pool. Spacious room size is offering a comfortable living space together with bedroom and private balcony. The rooms have separated bath area; bathtub and shower room.
Persons in room: maximum 4 persons in room, Bed Type: 1 Double bed, 2 Single bed.
Room facilities:
All rooms are comprised of; private balcony, a refrigerated mini-bar, satellite TV, in-room safe deposit box, water heater, air conditioner, and hair dryer.
The restaurant open air is on the beach with an adjoining bar, where full buffet breakfast is available. Lunch and dinner a la carte.
Sea Paint Restaurant:
An open-air beachfront restaurant is serving breakfast and is offering a fine gourmet both International and Thai cuisines. For your special events, we can make your night by set up a romantic dinner under the starry night. Restro is opened daily from 6:00 am to 11:00 pm.
The Sea Paint Beach Bar:
The beach bar is located at the beachfront, boasting of the selection of drinks and cocktails. It is the ideal place to ease your thirst while enjoying the sunbath.
Room Service:
Offering food delivery services with a wide selection of food, snacks, and refreshment drinks. Daily service starts from 07:00 am. untill 10:00 pm.
The reception area is light and airy, and has a seating area available.
Our resort set place at Club House, lobby area, service from 07.00 am. until 10.00 pm.
Swimming pool:
Our resort has 2 swimming pools setting in twice differ characteristic, one is beach side pool treatment by fresh water with Jacuzzi and second one is at the top of hill with sea view, rocky and imitative waterfall.
Pool Service:
The Fair House Beach proudly presents 2 pool areas and sundecks for soaking up. One located on ground among tropical garden with easy access to the sea, while another free-from pool located on the hill decorated with tropical forest style. Open daily from 10:00 am. – 07:00 pm.
Pandanus Spa:
The Pandanus Spa offers a wide range of exotic treatments, tailor made / specially made to relief stress and to rejuvenate the mind, body and soul. It also provide a soothing transition between body treatment and massage therapies. Secluded treatment rooms for your privacy with our professional Therapist.
Conference Room:
Variety size of conference rooms are facilitated, rooms can be functions as a class room for 150 persons, Theater for 200 persons, or U-shape for 50 persons.
Others Services:
Laundry & dry cleaning, transfer service, Wi-Fi Internet access, fitness center, baby sittings, car and motorbike rental, parking areas, currency exchange, florist, doctor on call, tour desk, electricity 220 volts 50 hts., major credit cards are accepted, and other guest activities.
Fair House Beach Resort & Hotel is located on Chaweng Noi, this location is deservedly finest and popular with holidaymaker.
The resort features a total of 172 Thai contemporary decorated rooms including bungalows offer range of accommodation's category to satisfy the most particular need at the standard comfort.
Web Sawadee Public Co.Ltd. 888/124 Ploenchit Road, Mahatun Plaza Bldg.Lumpini, Patumwan,Bangkok 10330 Tel: 02-6745555 Fax: 02-6745544
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Five Views of the Microsoft Research Silicon Valley TechFair
Microsoft, with a new CEO and a new corporate structure, is pushing hard to burnish its image as a source of innovation in business and consumer computing. Satya Nadella, Steve Ballmer's replacement (and only the third CEO in the company's 39-year history), continues to talk about Microsoft's future as both a "mobile first" and a "cloud first" company, which means building on the now-completed Nokia acquisition and moving farther beyond its traditional emphasis on desktop operating systems and productivity software.
Meanwhile, Peter Lee, who took over last fall as managing director of Microsoft Research, says Microsoft is now more dependent than ever on new ideas from his 1,100-employee R&D operation. He says MSR must deliver both mission-focused innovations that address immediate business needs, and more disruptive or blue-sky innovations that could redefine Microsoft's product lines years or decades down the road. Tellingly, Lee also thinks MSR researchers should be less secretive about what they're working on—or at least, that's what he told Xconomy CEO and editor-in-chief Bob Buderi in an interview last year.
In that spirit, the company invited a few journalists to MSR's Silicon Valley TechFair at its Mountain View, CA, campus a couple of weeks ago. I was there to check out the 18 projects on offer, which ranged from new types of 3D displays to improved mobile interfaces and data visualization methods.
True to Lee's four-quadrant map for representing computer research at Microsoft, some of the technologies had obvious and immediate uses in products like Office or Windows Phone 8.1 (which came out this month), while others didn't seem relate to Microsoft's existing business areas in any discernible way. Which is fine, in Lee's world, since theoretical or curiosity-driven projects can turn out to have foundational implications.
I was able to spend time investigating five of the projects in particular. Here are few details, in order of most mission-focused to least (in my eyes, anyway).
1. Texting Without Lifting a Finger
Years ago, Seattle startup Swype pioneered the concept of a virtual QWERTY keyboard for touchscreen phones that would let you spell words by sliding your finger from key to key, rather than tapping; its software recognized the resulting squiggles. Nuance bought Swype in 2011 and continues to offer the Swype app for Android phones, but the idea has also been percolating elsewhere in the mobile world. At MSR, a team led by Jason Abacible, Time Paek, Bongshin Lee, and Asela Gunawardana used machine learning to develop an extremely error-tolerant shape writing system called Word Flow.
The researchers say it's all about letting users trace out words using muscle memory, and then applying machine learning to disambiguate the resulting letter groupings. That means the system works even if the user is blindfolded or looking away from the screen. I wasn't blindfolded when I tried Word Flow (which was included as a feature of Windows Phone 8.1), but I was able to write text messages like "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back" with nearly 100 percent accuracy on my first try. In January, a Seattle high school student using Word Flow on a Windows Phone achieved a Guinness World Record for the fastest text message on a touchscreen phone.
1. Making Cortana Smarter
Halo players know Cortana as the holographic AI character who supplies tactical tips to Master Chief. That made her (it?) a good model for the virtual personal assistant baked into Windows Phone 8.1; in this form, Cortana is a Siri-style, Bing-powered interface that lets owners query their phones about things like weather and news reports, flight and traffic information, and reminders and appointments. Microsoft engineers have strived to make Cortana a little more personalized than Siri or Google Now; for example, the system learns over time who's in the user's "inner circle" of friends and should therefore be allowed to interrupt designated "quiet hours" with incoming calls or texts.
But what Cortana knows about the outside world is largely limited to the domains where Bing's search index is strong. If you ask a question like "Are there are any cheap Japanese restaurants open right now within five miles?" it can assemble a pretty accurate list, just based on Web data such as Yelp restaurant listings. If you ask what constellations will be visible from Tasmania tonight, it might have a harder time.
At Tech Fair, I talked about that problem with Larry Heck, a distinguished engineer at MSR and one of the contributors to the Cortana product. He says the number-one job for the Cortana team right now is to gather user data. The more people who use Windows Phone 8.1, the better developers will see which tasks and subjects Cortana users are asking about, and which answers they're clicking on; this clickstream feedback will help Microsoft tune future responses and prioritize which new domains to bring into Cortana's knowledge base.
3. Manipulating Data in 3-D
Last year I wrote about an MSR project called GeoFlow, designed to help Microsoft Excel users generate and explore interactive maps showing complex geospatial and temporal data. The technology was eventually incorporated into Office 365 under the name Power Map, and it's all based on ideas about information display and storytelling that principal researcher Curtis Wong first developed for WorldWide Telescope, Microsoft's virtual planetarium program.
Power Map is great for visualizing on a flat, 2-D display, but often such data would be even easier to explore in 3-D. At Tech Fair, Wong and his colleague Dave Brown, a senior research development engineer at MSR, were showing off a graphics platform code-named Holograph that makes special use of Microsoft's giant Perceptive Pixel or "PPI" displays, touchscreen devices that come in 55-inch and 82-inch sizes. Brown developed virtual dials and buttons that … Next Page »
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One response to "Five Views of the Microsoft Research Silicon Valley TechFair"
Am waiting for more from Cortana


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The new year should be intriguing for gardeners. A lot of the things we�ve taken for granted, such as plants that bloom once a season and die, are on the great compost heap of history. Here�s a look at what to expect:
Hybrid highway
Plant hybridization is on a continuous-bloom fast track. The 2014 hybrids are flower machines blooming non-stop from the beginning to the end of the season.
This differs from the re-blooming hybrids of the past that go through more than one flowering cycle, from blooming to die off to re-blooming in one season. Continuous varieties never stop until killer frost.
These bloomers end the chore of pinching off dead flowers. Older varieties need this to force production of new flowers. Once plants go to seed, they figure their life cycle is finished.
Put these on your list
The best blooming examples are the Knockout rose shrub, Celosia Fresh Look � that stay as bright in the late fall as they were in June � and Petunia Opera Supreme � with the same characteristics. Unlike common petunias, you never pull off the spent blooms. This makes them perfect for hanging baskets. Plant �em and forget �em.
Groundcovers, too
Vinca is a popular ground cover hereabouts, but the flowers are uninspired and short-lived. We plant it primarily for foliage, and it will do the job for decades.
That changes with the new Vinca Pacifica. It offers strikingly beautiful, bi-color flowers that survive the heat and drought. These guys bloom all summer and into mid-fall, converting green ground covers into carpets of constant color.
Perennial fun
No perennial so far blooms from spring to fall, but the long-bloomer trend is happening here too.
Purple coneflower is a drought survivor with an exceptional blooming period. The birds cannot wait for the seeds in fall.
Butterfly bush will create a long-lasting blast of color lasting into fall. The winter will kill them back, but they return reliably, if well mulched.
Perennial hibiscus creates almost unending blooms on six-foot plants. Look for the Disco Belle mini hybrid that produces nine-inch flowers covering plants only three feet tall.
Other candidates
Evolution is the first constant bloomer of salvia. Its lavender flower spikes last from early summer to the hard frost.
Dianthus hereabouts is considered an annual bedding plant. Its flowers are delicate, very susceptible to heat and drought damage. Dianthus Supra Purple stays in continuous bloom all summer no matter what. Don�t pull them after the frost. Mulch with ground leaves and chances are good they will over winter and bloom the following spring.
This is the last Green Space until the planting season begins. May your 2014 gardens be of long-lasting color and your plants green with envy.
Reach Jim at 330-580-8324. On Twitter: @jhillibishREP.
Green Space: 2014 will be a long-lasting, colorful season
The new year should be intriguing for gardeners. A lot of the things we�ve taken for granted, such as plants that bloom once a season and die, are on the great compost heap of history. Here�s a look at what to expect:


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OCEAN CITY — The final Mayor and City Council session of 2009 had a slew of new ordinances that had to be decided upon and as quickly as City Solicitor Guy Ayres could read them into the record, the council voted them through to the second and final reading.
Here's a brief overview:
Budget Amendment OK'd
The council voted unanimously to pass through the first of two annual budget amendments as this was the proverbial result to Ocean City's summer from a fiscal standpoint. Budget Manager Jennie Knapp told council that there were $3.1 million in revenue increases in comparison to her projected numbers despite $700,000 less in property assessments and more than $800,000 trimmed from state funding (highway user and state police aid). All in all, town officials seem pleased with this particular amendment, perhaps giving some concrete numbers to their claims that the town fared extremely well despite the struggling economy.
Also notable in this budget amendment is the fact that $400,000 will be allocated to refund the $500,000 that was taken from the town's retiree health benefits fund. That decision to essentially borrow the money from the retiree fund, played a large role in the town being able to lower the tax rate for the citizens and property owners of Ocean City.
Mechanical Code Change
After Chief Building Official Kevin Brown's presentation to the Mayor and City Council last week, describing a proposed and recommended adoption of new mechanical codes by the town of Ocean City, the council continued to move forward with rules that they admittedly don't understand wholeheartedly, even prompting the always blunt councilman Jim Hall to say, "this ordinance is as clear as mud."
In a nutshell, what the council passed through to second and final reading via a 6-1 vote (Councilman Joe Hall in opposition) was new regulations that would require any single-family home, townhouse, commercial or dwelling unit, that would have to have a certified gas fitter handle the installation and the maintenance of any gas burning devices. Councilman Joe Hall, owner of Hall's Restaurant, said in the past he has had his in-house handyman disconnect and reconnect his restaurant's gas burning equipment for cleaning or other various reasons. He took the code change with umbrage and consequently voted "nay." Brown told The Dispatch last week that although the state had wanted the town of Ocean City to adopt this regulations for some time, this summer's carbon monoxide leaks at two downtown businesses could have been a big reason that the state ramped up its interest in the town's concurrence.
OCPD General Orders
The council unanimously voted through all but one of the proposed changes to the police department's general orders, as police officials seemingly pulled the item concerning and redefining what is allowable under the heading "off duty action" prior to Monday night's ordinance reading. At last week's Police Commission meeting, the slight alterations were described and thoroughly reviewed at that level, before receiving unanimous concurrence at both the commission level and then on Monday at the council level.
Essentially, the new elements of the general orders will explain newly amended ways to deal with interdepartmental matters such as discipline, promotions and officer counseling, while redefining the rules and regulations for general conduct from full-time and seasonal officers and explaining the expected law enforcement ethics standards.
Outdoor Display Rules
With the hope of creating a true level playing field for all merchants on the Boardwalk and the neighboring sidestreets, the council unanimously passed the ordinance that would specifically outline what is allowed to be displayed outside of a store both south of 3rd Street and off the Boardwalk as well. When the town had passed through the new guidelines for outdoor display of merchandise on the Boardwalk last spring, officials created a set of rules and regulations for the Boardwalk shops north of 3rd Street and a set for south of 3rd Street. This ordinance will make all the outdoor display rules essentially the same and will allow merchants to pay on an annual basis for their display permits for a much lesser cost than they've had to shell out in year's past. If this ordinance passes second reading, which all signs point to that being the case, merchants would get an easement on what they have to shell out of pocket.
"Currently it costs about $775 for a three-year approval for outdoor display," said Ocean City Development Corporation Executive Director Glenn Irwin. "This is quite a bit of money for a small business to lay out at one time, especially a new start up business. The revised one-year Boardwalk review now only charges applicants $225 for this activity.
Although the City Council will need to set a new rate for these one-year, off-the-Boardwalk approvals, I would not assume it would be any greater than the Boardwalk annual rate."


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Feds once again Thwart State's Efforts at Flexibility in Recreational Fisheries Management
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Robert Barham issued the following statement today in regard to yesterday's failed motion by the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council's Reef Fish Committee to move forward with regional management of red snapper in Louisiana.
"Yet again, the Gulf Council refuses to work with Louisiana toward a more flexible management of our recreational fishery. In a final effort to save the 2013 red snapper recreational season with compatible regulations, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife of Fisheries offered a common sense approach to the Gulf Council to modify the 2013 season and allow anglers more opportunities to recreationally fish for red snapper. Our attempts at a favorable outcome failed.
"We have said time and again that there is no 'one size fits all' approach that will work for the entire Gulf Coast when it comes to recreational fishing, which is why we proposed state-by-state or regional management.
"The approach of the Gulf Council is outdated and stagnant. Louisiana believes that no one cares more about or can better manage our resources than our department. The unwillingness of the Gulf Council to work with us on these matters has left me, my staff and the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commissioners no choice but to move forward with state regulations that will directly contradict those of our federal counterparts.
"In the next 30 days, my staff will work with the Commissioners to decide on a path forward that best suits Louisiana's recreational sector. We remain open to further discussion with any and all interested parties."
For press inquiries please contact Laura Wooderson at [email protected] or (504) 430-2623.


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Next we were off to the Dog Star. We were looking for Coop and Tam, a couple of guests who have been with us at the Addison for a week but they must have still been at dinner. We arrived mid-band so didn't get to hear any music but ran into a few people we hadn't seen in a while. We checked out the new artwork on the walls and moved on to Indigo Alley where Jenn was playing. Jenn is a local talent with a beautiful voice, much like a younger Janis Joplin. She has recently signed a recording deal and seems to be on the verge of greatness. I just love listening to her sing. Like most people on the island she has more than one job (singer/songwriter, kayak tour guide and surf shop salesperson) and hopefully her passion for singing will carry her forward.
After Indigo Alley it was back to the Addison. Maggie Doone's nose had to be straightened out after it got bent of shape for being left behind.
The rest of the weekend? Saturday will be filled with the "Taste of The Blues" concert down at main beach. There will be a full day of blues, cold beer and hot food. The weather promises to be outstanding with a forecast of 80 degrees and nothing but sunshine. If I get a chance I'll take Maggie Doone down to check out the bands. Photos to follow.
After a full day and a night of bar-hopping it is time for bed. We have be up early to serve a full-house with Peach-Blueberry Tortes and Breakfast Quesadillias. Via con queso!


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Fred Kusch Named Business and Sales Coach of the Year for 2012
The Growth Coach® Recognizes Outstanding Franchise Owner
CIncinnati, Ohio (PRWEB) November 13, 2012 - Fred Kusch, owner of The Growth Coach® franchise in La Crosse, Wisconsin was recently honored as the recipient of the 2012 Coach of the Year Award by The Growth Coach, a system of business and sales coaches in 140 markets throughout North America. Presented at the Growth Coach's annual conference on October 2, 2012 in Indianapolis, Indiana, the Coach of the Year Award was established to honor the franchisee who continually demonstrates leadership and excellence in a variety of ways.
"Fred has made many contributions to our system including his active participation in our training classes, development of accreditation programs, hosting conference calls on best practices, and participating in regional and national conferences," stated Greg Scheingold, president of The Growth Coach. "He has also been instrumental in the development, testing and implementation of new programs and tools for the entire system. In addition to all these activities, he has contributed valuable knowledge mentoring other franchise owners."
As a business and sales coach, Kusch works with entrepreneurs, executives, managers and educators in a wide variety of industries. His experience spans healthcare, human resources, real estate, public utilities, accounting and finance, construction, automotive, and higher education industries in addition to a variety of small service businesses.
"I'm honored to be recognized for contributions that I've made to The Growth Coach," stated Kusch. "It's been a pleasure to be able to use my talents and knowledge in such a rewarding manner. I've been truly fortunate to be in position to help our system grow and succeed. I am passionate about coaching individuals to reach their potential, and that applies not only to our internal associates and franchise owners, but also to my clients. I take great pride in seeing my clients fall in love with their businesses over and over again, using the proven The Growth Coach process."
The Growth Coach defines business coaching as the art and science of guiding small business owners, self-employed professionals and key management employees to reach their objectives and overcome obstacles and limitations that keep them from reaching optimal success in business, and in life. The company utilizes its signature Strategic Mindset® group coaching process, one-to-one coaching, and other related services to help their clients. All services come with a money-back guarantee. The coaching process includes examining the current reality in their business and personal lives, developing a road map to help them achieve their goals and holding them accountable for it.
Kusch's client, John Markus, CEO of Direct Link explained, "The Growth Coach is great! It's like getting new prescription eyeglasses - suddenly everything in your business life and personal life is clear again."
Coach Fred Kusch can be reached at 608.787.5771 or f.kusch@TheGrowth Coach.com
About The Growth Coach®
Founded in 2002, The Growth Coach® is the only pure business coaching franchise system with the single purpose of helping drive success and balance the lives of business owners. Their goal is to help clients gain greater focus so they can work less, earn more and enjoy more fulfilling lives. The Growth Coach® has 140 markets across North America and has expanded into international markets. For more information about franchise availability, visit http://www.TheGrowthCoach.com.
Carol Stefanopoulos
The Growth Coach
513 563 0570 124
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Should be a contender: the 50 big films vying for Oscar's attention
The end of July means the start of the awards season: it's when the two big autumn film festivals – Venice and Toronto – start to announce their programmes, and when we get a first look at those movies that'll be on everyone's radar next spring. Here are our top 50 Oscar tips, ranked in order, from top to bottom. Let us know what you think, and what we've forgotten (we'll deal with documentary and foreign language films separately)


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Cops and robbers MMO APB is world filled with grungy-looking criminals covered with tattoos and riddled with piercings. Now Realtime Worlds is letting fans vote on how they permanently disfigure a real human being with the Human Avatar Project.
The Human Avatar Project is a reality television take on video game marketing. Over the period of three weeks, APB fans will create a human avatar. First they select between one of two "normal" males. Then they'll help decide the subject's haircut, tattoos, piercings, and clothing. Finally, Realtime Worlds artists will highlight the game's character creation system by creating a virtual version of this human avatar, setting him loose in the game.
The whole process is being documented at the Human Avatar Project website, where regular updates will feature video of the victim receiving his haircut, tattoos, and metal-filled holes.
Right now voting is on to pick the "player," and Josh up there is winning hands-down over his competition. I hope he is compensated well for the pain he's about to go through.


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An Authorised Market Institution (AMI) is an exchange or a clearing house in the DIFC that is licensed and regulated by the DFSA.
There are currently two AMI's in the DIFC, namely the NASDAQ Dubai (formerly known as DIFX) and the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME).
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Atmospheric track with a middle eastern feel to it, envisioning a dinner scene set between the sand dunes, complete with coffee, tobacco, dancers and whatnot Perfect for all manner of scenes and to give your video or game that exotic feel!
Available as a full track (length 2:14) as well as two loops – a more quiet one (length 1:00) and a more up-tempo one (length 1:00). You can hear them all in that given order in the preview!


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... is a term that came up on a thread on the Fishing Reports Forum.
It was used in reference to simply identifying by name a 50 mile long river that is well known in Western Montana ( and probably Northern Idaho ) and is featured on a prominent website on angling in Montana - www.bigskyfishing.com.
The few times I have seen the term used, hotspotting has refered to a particular place or stretch of a stream or river - like the second bend below Harry's place or the run just downstream of mile marker 18 or the hole below Big Joe Bend, or something like that. So I was surprised to see it used as described above.
Curious how you use the term and what you mean when you do ??


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Check showtimes to see when Amanpour is on CNN where you are. Or watch online.
By Mick Krever, CNN
On the day that the American president was shot, the Dallas sky started cloudy but soon turned a brilliant blue.
It was a "wonderful November day," recalls Hugh Aynesworth, who was a young reporter at the Dallas Morning News.
Incredibly, Aynesworth was witness to all three major events that frightful November: The president's brutal assassination, the arrest of his killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Oswald's own murder by Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby.
He has written a book about his experience, "November 22, 1963: Witness to History."
Aynesworth hadn't been assigned to cover the trip of President John F. Kennedy – he was on the science and aerospace beat – but he decided to go down to Dealey Plaza just the same.
"You don't see a president that often in your city, and I just wanted to see," he told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday.
The plaza was full of excited onlookers, packed "six, seven, eight deep" with people hoping to catch a glimpse of the charismatic young president in his open-top limousine.
"As they passed by me, I saw Jackie was waving and so pleased," he said. "And a lady behind me said, 'Oh she's wearing my dress' – they had the same color dress on."
"That made her day – momentarily, anyway."
President Kennedy's motorcade had passed Aynesworth when he heard what sounded like a motorcycle backfire.
"A few seconds later – two or three – a shot, and then another shot two or three seconds after that."
It was then that he realized they were rifle shots.
"It caused complete pandemonium almost immediately because nobody knew who was shooting, how many people were shooting, or where they were shooting from."
The crowd's euphoria had been brought ruthlessly back to earth. People started running into each other, Aynesworth said.
"I didn't have a pencil or paper since I didn't have an assignment to be there," he recalled, "so I found a little boy that had a big jumbo pencil, and I sort of took it from him – gave him a couple quarters and moved on."
"And I had two utility bills in my back pocket that I hadn't mailed, so that gave me something to write on, and I started interviewing many, many people around the repository building" from which Oswald took his fateful shots.
The fact that Aynesworth would later be witness at the movie theater where Oswald was arrested – and after that in the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters when Oswald was shot while being led through a crowd of journalists – was "pure, dumb luck," he said.
"There's no kind of quality of journalism here, I just happened to be there," he told Amampour. "A couple of hunches along the way, but really it was just lucky."
The assassination of President Kennedy, more than almost any other historical event save the moon landing, is enveloped by conspiracy theories, and the idea that something just isn't quite right with the story we have been told.
Aynesworth, a first-hand witness, has no tolerance for it.
He'd "love to" break the story of a conspiracy, he said, and keeps an "open mind, but there are no facts."
"I don't care how much you want it, need it, or believe it – at some point you have to be honest and say, 'I don't have it.'"
By this, I mean can formulas be used to create similar questions for students with different numbers? http://www.temaakademi.com.tr
what happened to the video
Funny how we raise those who are known to have ties to crime and make them national hero's. Rise to power with money made illegally and revered. No wonder no one went to jail for the collapse of our economy. Tell me crime does not pay, lol.
The topic of JFK s theses was WHILE EUROPE SLEPT for which purpose he went to london where his father was ambassador for US.is it available anywhere what it deals with.
The three most debated conspiracies, in order of most discussed:
1) JFK assassination
2) World Trade Center attack
3) moon landings
JFK,the speech he made in his life time,after 50 years that he died,the words in those speech,still making air waves all over the world.May his soul rest in perfect peace.God bless America.
What a kind and thoughtful response. Thank you for that It's refreshing to hear someone who understands the impact JFK had on so many. God bless him, and you!


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On the heels of the creation of the new Youth Olympics which will debut in 2010, USA Judo is pleased to announce an improved system of domestic tournaments for athletes ages 19 and under that will ultimately be used as part of the selection system for athletes participating on national teams for events such as the Junior World Championships, Youth Olympics and Pan American Junior Championships.
"Our junior selection system must evolve to continue to improve our performances," said Jim Hrbek (San Antonio, Texas), USA Judo Chairman of Junior Athlete Performance. "We need to look to the future with a progressive mindset and to be prepared to shift to stay on the leading edge in the new and innovative atmosphere that will be part of the Youth Olympic movement."
One of the key components of the system, wherein athletes earn points at major tournaments toward rankings on junior elite national rosters, will be the creation of a new event - the USA Judo Youth and Scholastic National Championships.
This event, which will replace the USA Judo Middle School and High School National Championships, will be held March 29-30 in Chippewa Valley, Wis. Like the USA Judo National Junior Olympic Championships, the Youth and Scholastic Nationals will include age divisions for athletes between 5 and 19-years-old. The Collegiate National Championships also will be held during the same weekend.
Athletes can earn points toward junior elite national rankings in intermediate through IJF-Junior divisions. Although junior athletes competing in the Collegiate Nationals will not be eligible to earn junior points, they will be able to earn points in the IJF-Junior division which will be held on a separate day to encourage participation in both divisions for athletes who are age-eligible.
Medalists at the Youth and Scholastic National Championships will be eligible to earn 10 points for a gold medal, six for a silver medal and four points for a bronze medal finish.
The only other junior tournaments in the United States where athletes will be eligible to receive junior elite points will be the USA Judo National Junior Olympic Championships, Junior U.S. Open and the Ocean State International. The Youth and Scholastic National Championships, Junior Olympics and Junior U.S. Open will have a maximum point value of 10. The Ocean State International has a maximum point value of two. For a complete list of both domestic and international events in which juniors can receive elite points, visit http://www.usjudo.org/juniors_classification.asp.
In order to recognize and honor USA Judo's student athletes, awards will be given to the most outstanding senior high, middle and elementary school athletes. Recipients of the USA Judo Life Membership scholarship who are attending universities during the upcoming year also will be recognized for their scholastic success.
"With the announcement of the Youth Olympics, we now have a responsibility to model the qualifying process for this new and unique opportunity in the same manner as our senior athletes who are contending for the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing and London ," said USA Judo President Dr. Ron Tripp (Norman, Okla.) "The creation of a new major junior tournament will give our young athletes the opportunity to compete at a high level during the spring season."


text: I'm a healthy 40-year old male. Recently, I had my physicial exam, including a CT. CT spotted a 2-cm nodule in my spleen. The physician recommended to follow up in 2 month. I dont want to wait to find out. I read about the needle aspiration of the spleen to determine if it is benign or malignant. However, the risk of this needle aspiration procedure is bleeding. Is there any blood test that screens for tumor markers of the spleen ? What other tests can I do to rule out that the spleen nodule is malignant ? I am anxious to find out. Please let me know if you have any info on spleen nodule. Thank you very much..Reply Follow This Thread Stop Following This Thread Flag this Discussion


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The heroes that expose crimes and corrupt activities even though they will be punished harshly by the government for daring expose their dirty secrets.
Bradley Manning was a Whistleblower who exposed the lies of the military industrial complex and incurred the wrath of the Obama administration. Edward Snowden was a Whistleblower who broke the news that the NSA was recording everything any american did online, on their phones, or within just about any networked electronic communications technology (in violation of the 4th Amendment.)
by CameronFirefly June 10, 2013
The time between Christ's birth and the beginning of the coronavirus.
In late 2016 AD or 3 B.C.V., Donald Trump was elected as the 45th President of the United States of America.
by JDS12 March 27, 2020
A concious, responsible citizen, who reports about the commited crime to the court or procuracy.
Someone, who initiates an investigation, law-enforcement agencies' information provider
Someone, who initiates an investigation, law-enforcement agencies' information provider
Many acts of corruption are discovered thanks to denouncements from whistleblowers. However, frequently whistleblowers suffer retaliations.
by Bellechka October 28, 2004
that hoe is a whistle blower, she told her pimp i would be okay with working the streets.
by Lshizzle November 15, 2007
People were getting by with abusing the system until the whistle blower reported it to authorities.
by Ben Around January 21, 2011
Someone who insists on smoking more out of an empty bowl/piece, thus creating a whistling sound when you try to inhale. For further, see 'Weed Jew'
-"Dawg, do you see a white woman?"
-"No, Jack is just a being a whistle blower."
-"No, Jack is just a being a whistle blower."
by Tony Reyes January 01, 2011
An insider who reveals an act, generally illegal, taking place, which the person committing the act would not wish to be public.
The word comes from the idea that the whistleblower is "blowing a whistle" to stop the illegal action that he/she sees.
The word comes from the idea that the whistleblower is "blowing a whistle" to stop the illegal action that he/she sees.
The CEO was sent to jail after a whistleblower who worked at the company leaked documents to the press proving illegal stock manipulation.
by alexaz March 31, 2006
Oct 27 trending
- 1. Watermelon Sugar
- 2. Ghetto Spread
- 3. Girls who eat carrots
- 4. sorority squat
- 5. Durk
- 6. Momala
- 7. knocking
- 8. Dog shot
- 9. sputnik
- 10. guvy
- 11. knockin'
- 12. nuke the fridge
- 13. obnoxion
- 14. Eee-o eleven
- 15. edward 40 hands
- 16. heels up
- 17. columbus
- 18. ain't got
- 19. UrbDic
- 20. yak shaving
- 21. Rush B Cyka Blyat
- 22. Pimp Nails
- 23. Backpedaling
- 24. Anol
- 25. got that
- 26. by the way
- 27. Wetter than an otter's pocket
- 28. soy face
- 30. georgia rose


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Notes regarding warranty maintenance:
The warranty will only be valid if:
1. The product is registered online within one month from the date of purchase; and
2. Original proof of purchase from a local Olympus Authorized retailer is shown at the point of repair.
Provisions of warranty
1. If this product proves to be defective, although it has ben used properly (in accordance with the written Handling Care and Operating instructions supplied with it), during a period of up to one year from the date of purchase this product will be repaired, or at Olympus's option replaced, free of charge. To claim under warranty the customer must take the product and the original proof of purchase before the end of the one year warranty period to our Olympus authorized service station in Singapore and request the necessary repairs.
2. The customer shall transport the product to the dealer or Olympus authorized service station at his own risk and shall be responsible for any costs incurred in transporting the product.
3. This warranty does not cover the following and the customer will be required to pay repair charge, even for defects occurring within the one year period referred to above.
(a) Any defect that occurs due to mishandling (such as an operation performed that is not mentioned in the Handling Care or other sections of the instructions, etc.)
(b) Any defect that occurs due to repair, modification, cleaning, etc. performed by anyone other than Olympus or an Olympus authorized service station.
(c) Any defect or damage that occurs due to transport, a fall, shock, etc. after purchase of the product.
(d) Any defect or damage that occurs due to fire, earthquake, flood damage, thunderbolt, other natural disasters, environmental pollution and irregular voltage sources.
(e) Any defect that occurs due to careless or improper storage (such as keeping the product under conditions of high temperature and humidity, near insect repellents such as naphthalene or harmful drugs, etc.), improper maintenance, etc.
(f) Any defect that occurs due to exhausted batteries, etc.
(g) Any defect that occurs due to sand, mud, etc. entering the inside of the product casing.
(h) When original proof of purchase is not presented at the point of repair.
4. The Warranty applies to the product only; the Warranty does not apply to any other accessory equipment, such as the case, strap, lens cap, batteries and battery chargers.
5. Olympus' sole liability under this warranty shall be limited to repairing or replacing the product and any liability for indirect or consequential loss or damage of any kind incurred or suffered by the customer due to a defect in the product, and in particular any loss or damage caused to any film or lenses or other equipment or accessories used with the product or for any loss resulting from delay in repair, is excluded.
1. The Warranty is in addition to and does not affect the customer's statutory right.
2. If you have any queries regarding this Warranty, please call our Olympus authorized service station in Singapore.
Disclaimer of Warranty
Olympus makes no representations or warranties, either expressed or implied, by or concerning any content if these written materials or software, and in no event shall be liable for any implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose or for any consequential, incidental or indirect damages (including but not limited to damages for loss of business profits, business interruption and loss of business information) arising from the use of inability to use these written materials or software. Some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages, so the above limitations may not apply to you.
Register your Olympus product for local warranty registration or join our Club Olympus!


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AROUND 2,000 jobs at camera chain Jessops are under threat after the group collapsed into administration today.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has been appointed to the group, which is Britain's only specialist nationwide camera retailer, with nearly 200 stores including one on Queen Street in Huddersfield.
It marks the first high-profile retail collapse of 2013 and comes soon after consumer electricals chain Comet hit the wall, sparking more than 6,000 job losses.
Jessops, which has its headquarters in Leicester, has suffered in recent years from online competition and the boom in camera phones, which has hit demand for digital cameras.


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To enter to win Justin Berg glass wine stopper, either:
1. Subscribe.
2. If you are already a subscriber, send us a comment. We love to hear your thoughts and ideas.
3. Follow us on Twitter or tweet about this post to your followers
Contest Ends September 5th, 2010 12:01 a.m. PST.
Beautiful, artistic, unique, extraordinary… Justin Berg glass creations are one-of-a-kind spectacular! Justin Berg became inspired to create glass art during a visit to Venice, Italy and pursued his passion studying and training in New York and San Francisco. I discovered his work in the museum store in New York and became a big fan. The magnificent colors and patterns are all nature inspired and each piece is handmade from the age old method of lampworking, blowing at temperatures over 3000 degrees Fahrenheit, and forming into the incredible pieces of art you see in stores.
Just for GKC and perfect for Rosh Hashanah is a beautiful bee on a hive, wine stopper. Somehow he has created from glass a hive that has so much color and dimension that you can almost feel the honey dripping from it. A bee crowns the top just perfectly.
See all his work at http://justinbergglass.com/home.html
Vases, goblets, wall art, sculptures, and much more
Wine stoppers $80


text:
You're trying to get to a webpage that doesn't exist on our site
We've changed our website domain to tax.ny.gov.
Please update any bookmarks that you previously saved. If you got to this page from a PDF document, we are still in the process of updating link references within our PDF documents. You'll be redirected to your page in 15 seconds.


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This thorough portrait of Jerusalem contains a brief history of the city, a historical timeline, maps of the various periods, and a modern look at this enigmatic holy place. Published in April 1996, this map accompanied "Jerusalem: The Old City" map and the article "The Three Faces of Jerusalem."
Coverage Area: Jerusalem


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By Jordyn Dahl Herald staff writer
Forty years ago, the Navajo Nation and Southern Ute tribes languished side by side, mired in high unemployment and poverty.
Today, worth billions, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe is one of the richest in the United States, while the Navajo still suffer as one of the most impoverished communities in the country.
The difference? Energy.
While the Southern Utes have natural gas, the Navajo Nation has coal, which has for decades been extracted to feed various large-scale power plants, including in the Four Corners. But that revenue has come under threat by tightening air-quality regulations. At the same time, natural gas, a cleaner fuel source for generating electricity, has grown cheaper and more abundant because of hydraulic fracturing.
The shift has left Navajo leaders in a quandary: either continue investing in coal in the hopes it will remain a significant fuel source, or cut their losses and choose another investment.
The tribe is staking its future on coal.
The Navajo Nation is in negotiations to buy the Navajo Mine from BHP Billiton in 2016 when BHP's lease expires.
Opponents say all the deal will do is saddle the tribe with a huge environmental cleanup. Tribal leaders say coal is a viable fuel source, and buying the Navajo Mine will save jobs and provide a foundation for the tribe to build a formidable energy portfolio similar to the Southern Utes.
Tribal leaders' plans will have far-reaching effects, not only for members – some of whom still live without electricity or plumbing – but also for residents throughout the region, who have seen haze cloud their views and threaten their health.
"We see how Southern Ute is using natural resources to advantage the tribe. We think they're doing well as far as adapting with the times," said Navajo member Dailan Long, whose family lives near the Navajo Mine that is close to Fruitland on Navajo land.
"I definitely see a much older mind-set managing our economy, which has gotten us to the point where we are now. I think they (the Navajo leaders) could take a much more rational and logical approach to energy alternatives," said Long, who formerly worked for Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, a Navajo environmental-activist organization.
The fossil fuel of the future
Dust billows at the Navajo Mine as a dragline excavator scoops dirt into its bucket and transfers it into a pile nearby, exposing coal for a bulldozer to grab.
Workers pour an ammonium-nitrate fuel-oil mixture into holes dug into the side of the mine to later blow up sections to reveal more coal in its depths.
The coal mine accounted for $53.6 million in direct revenue in 2012, about $110 million when taking into account lease and royalty revenue.
The 33,000-acre surface mine supplies the Four Corners Power Plant, about nine miles north, with about 8 million tons of coal a year.
BHP and Arizona Public Service approached Navajo Nation this summer about buying the Navajo Mine after the two entities failed to reach an agreement over coal prices, said Erny Zah, spokesman for the Navajo Nation president.
Under the preliminary negotiations, the tribe would give any federal and state tax revenue to BHP until 2016, when BHP's lease ends to pay for the mine, Zah said.
It's unclear who would take on the legal liabilities associated with eventual mandatory cleanup of the mine. The Navajo Nation emphatically says the tribe will not be responsible, and BHP says the issue is still part of the negotiations.
Going against the national energy tide
While global demand for coal remains high, coal production in the United States dropped about 7 percent in 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Coal still provided 42 percent of the nation's electricity in 2011, but just four years ago, it was providing nearly half.
"If we're talking about coal development and revenue as a major source of funding for the tribe, why didn't they negotiate this (sale) decades ago?" Long said.
He believes BHP wants to walk away from the cleanup responsibilities and leave the tribe with the bill.
"I think that it's definitely an exit strategy on behalf of BHP," he said.
In contrast, the Southern Utes have focused on energy sources that will likely grow.
In 2008, the Southern Utes formed a separate company to manage its new-energy investments that include wind farms and biofuel projects.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects coal power to decline to 35 percent of total American electricity generation by 2040. Natural gas is expected to generate 30 percent of the nation's electricity within three decades.
Navajo Nation tribal officials acknowledge the new energy realities and have invested in alternatives, especially natural gas. Oil and gas contributed $48 million in revenue to the tribe in 2012.
The tribe also has invested in an 850-megawatt wind farm.
But coal will nonetheless remain the centerpiece of Navajo Nation's energy portfolio moving forward.
"We want to make sure coal is part of the picture for at least another couple of decades, if not longer," Zah said.
But tightening environmental regulations that shutter coal-fired power plants could further strangle coal production.
Mike Eisenfeld and other environmental activists don't anticipate the Four Corners Power Plant will remain open for more than 10 years, as federal scrutiny of its environmental impact increases.
"I don't think they're sustainable now, and the sooner we figure out a transition plan to wean ourselves from big coal plants the better," said Eisenfeld, New Mexico energy coordinator for the San Juan Citizen's Alliance.
APS is decommissioning its three oldest generating units at the Four Corners Power Plant rather than install new equipment to meet EPA regulations. This will result in a 30 percent reduction in production at Navajo Mine and layoffs at both the mine and power plant.
For a tribe with a roughly 50 percent unemployment rate and more than 50 percent of its members living below the poverty level, the closure will be a painful blow.
"One of the reasons we're exploring the possibility of taking over Navajo Mine is we're looking at saving jobs at the mine and also at the power plant because one cannot exist without the other," Zah said.
If the power plant closes, Navajo Mine may have to shut its doors. This was the fate of the Black Mesa Mine in 2006 after the Mohave Generating Station, near Laughlin, Nev., which it supplied, shut down.
Navajo Nation's other plans to secure a future for its coal haven't been met with much success.
Less-energized alternative
In 2003, The Navajo Nation proposed a new coal-fired power plant called the Desert Rock Energy Project, which would be supplied by an expanded Navajo Mine.
Under the project, international energy developer Sithe Global Power would have built a new 1,500-megawatt power plant on Navajo land about 25 miles outside Farmington. The plant would have been among the largest in the country, and it would have provided electricity for 1.5 million customers.
The tribe heralded the power plant as an economic victory, saying it would provide 400 jobs at the Desert Rock power plant, 200 additional jobs at Navajo Mine and $50 million in annual revenue – almost half of Navajo Nation's current total coal revenue.
The EPA approved Desert Rock in 2008 and touted it as "state-of-the-art," but the agency reconsidered the project's air permit after New Mexico joined environmental groups in appealing the EPA's initial approval. In 2009, the EPA reversed its decision and revoked the air permit.
For the Navajos, losing the project was a crushing blow.
"(Navajo Nation) viewed Desert Rock as a huge economic opportunity," said Tom Shipps, an Indian law lawyer who works for Colorado's Southern Ute tribe. "The technology employed at Desert Rock could have been great improvements. Concerns about the environment drove a lot of the criticism, especially around here."
The project remains in the back of tribal leader's minds, Zah said. One idea is to convert it to a natural-gas plant.
Still, the question of what to do with the Navajo Mine would remain if a new power plant were to run on natural gas.
In the meantime, coal is the focus of the tribe's energy strategy.
BHP gives a qualified endorsement of that strategy.
"Coal will continue to be an important part of meeting the energy needs of the U.S.," Norman Benally, spokesperson for BHP, said. "Granted there are mandates coming from the EPA that are limiting the use of coal and in some areas shutting down power plants that generate electricity. But we believe coal will be part of the energy portfolio, though limited, until such time that renewable energies have or will become viable."
Aspen, Colorado 81611


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Hello Weekend, Hello Spring
We finally don't have a million things going on this weekend and I'm thrilled. We are dog sitting and have some brunch plans, but compared to the last few weekends, it feels like endless free time.
And although that mostly means we'll get a little house cleaning done (yay for spring cleaning!),
I'm really hoping we'll start our little garden – since it stopped snowing here. Finally.
Hope your weekend is just lovely!
Here are some of my recent favorites from around the web:
Panna Cotta is my new favorite dessert and this one looks fantastic.
Funny bit about living alone.
How to dip dye baskets.
The power of a photograph.
Maps for your walls.
The dream scarf.
A guide to champagne cocktails. Yum.
I adore brick walls.
The cutest little wine bottle stoppers.
Quickly pickled veggies.
image via the pursuit aesthetic


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SoftWalk: SoftWalk shoes were introduced in Spring of 2000 as a new alternative for comfort casual footwear. The shoes offer incredible comfort with a wide range of sizes and widths. The line has focused on classic styling for women and generated enthusiastic response and repeat purchases.
SoftWalk shoes were created on the belief that a better footbed makes a better shoe. And what a footbed it is! Expertly designed, anatomically correct, the shoes are built to blend contemporary styling with a unique massaging footbed. The innovative "mogul" construction is orthopedically designed and patterned after mattress technology for maximum comfort. The unique interaction of the design's multi-layers absorbs the stress of standing or walking while offering cushioned support from heel to toe. SoftWalk is committed to developing footwear that provides a custom fit – no matter what size. In fact, it's one of the largest offerings of sizes and widths from any manufacturer in the comfort footwear category. The women's line is offered in five widths (S, N, M, W, WW).
SoftWalk is committed to provide the most comfortable shoe in the sizes and widths that customers need. They continue to enhance the line with the materials, styles and colors that fit customers' lifestyles and needs.


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I can't take the credit for finding the Flight article, it was a guy on another forum where I posted the question.
Good work Rene, what models beat you in the contest?
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