text:
it's a strange feeling, knowing i'm going home, possibly on an impulsive decision [choosing the day i did]. but such is life, and everything is done for one reason,
or another.
i'm excited. there's a glimpse of forgetting how it feels to be safely tucked up in bed in a house with the people who love me most in this entire universe. but then the memory comes flooding back and nostalgia fills me with anticipation.
and anxiety.
i don't know what will find me there, only time will tell, i guess. all i know is this adventure, this year, feels like a single day. it feels like one long day filled with elements and seasons and emotions and reasons for all the choices i seem to have made so impetuously,
and so perfectly.
i've lost, i've found, i've fallen, i've prevailed. i've felt, so very deeply. i've cried, i've loathed and loved and laughed until i hiccuped. i've seen things that have moved me in a way i never thought those things ever could. i've found people who reminded me of people i already knew. i've found people who have changed my life, or at least changed moments in my life, changed my thinking, changed the way i look at and into myself.
i've found people.
and, so far, that seems to be the most profound realisation of them all.
the impermanence of place. the joy and the sadness in moving, in leaving. the honouring of the journey. all these events are intensified and cemented as purposeful and necessary by the people i've found along the way. the memory of a voice, or a face, or a mannerism that would catch me by surprise. and the ultimate awareness that really, we're all the same. in this big, glorious world, we are one.


text:
The Lingering Furor Over Lacygate Needs To Stop. Now.
Let me state for the record that I speak strictly for myself and only myself here. And let me also profess that I was no place near the conference hall where BusinessWeek's Sarah Lacy and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg sat down to chat. Or converse, or gossip, or shoot the shit or whatever. I was way over here on the East Coast USA. Manning the editor chair whilst fellow Mashable writer and editor Kristen Nicole, community and marketing director Tamar Weinberg, and bossman Pete Cashmore took in the Austin sights.
The catalyst for this post was an extensive comment made by Allen Stern at CenterNetworks. It was— Actually, scratch that. It's more than what Stern said. It's just the whole lot of vehement discourse surrounding "The Interview." I just can't take it anymore. Enough is [bleepin'] enough.
As I said (in so many words) above, the trainwreck-of-a-talk that ensued between Lacy, Zuckerberg, and what quickly enveloped the lot of the SXSW audience, intended to be an unserious gathering of sorts. Nothing intense. Just some good ol' friendly chit and chat. Maybe it was to give the crowd a bit of Zuckerberg-around-the-campfire entertainment. Except without the camp. Or the fire. I don't really know, to be honest. I'm not too sure the organizers of the now-infamous event even knew what the hell they all wanted it to be. Something subdued? Something fly-by-the-pants? Something in between?
Regardless of reasoning, however, it's hard to look back on the goings on with this superterrific thing called hindsight and think the witch hunt was nothing less than thoroughly trivial. Whereas the last week was chock full of oh-no-she-didn't, we've now more or less arrived at the regrettable hangover. That is, regrettable for all parties involved. The ones with the pitchforks and the individual who was voraciously pitchforked.
That's right. This isn't to excuse Ms. Lacy (or is it Mrs?) from her appearance. If it was to be a real interview, it was quite pathetic. If it was to be a casual get-together, well, then shame on Lacy and her employer(s) for presenting her as an authoritative journalist. She should've disabused all observers of any such notion that she would offer anything close to honorable professionalism atop the stage.
But come on, people. Lacy didn't please. So what? Are her critics so enraptured by the evident cracks in her journalistic shell that they feel it imperative to criticize all of the unimportant and unsubstantive minutiae born of her very public spill? Is there nothing more pertinent to discuss than Lacy's errors? I mean, goodness, Sarah may well be getting undeservedly forced into a role for the tech blogosphere the equivalent of a Hollywood celebrity gone terribly awry. Which is frankly an even more shameful turn of events than that which will go down in history as "3/9/08." (I sure as heck hope that's the correct date. Or else this article totally loses its groove right about now. Not that it had much groove to begin with.)
I'm not writing here to give Lacy a good or bad review, or to prop her up or push her down. Instead, I'm only writing to criticize profusely the astonishing degeneration of the technorati space (not to be confused with the brand name, Technorati) to a level that should receive naught but scorn for its debased zealotry.
Whatever happened to class? Whatever happened to integrity, or wanting to at least exemplify the virtue as much as one can? It's one thing for the flame war to ensue in the land of user-generated anonymity, but it's another to see well-regarded bloggers taking to last week's misadventure like wolves to a slaughter. I'm not one to pronounce conservatism. I indeed consider myself a slightly-left-leaning centrist logician. But in this case, I must advise (and I certainly wish I could have done so before the fact) the blogosphere to exercise some restraint.
We should all be shooting for higher standards. Not anything lower. I surely hope the blogosphere has learned something about the detriments and animalistic destructiveness of the ever mysterious thing called mob mentality. Let's hope we don't duplicate this industry-wide blunder in the future. It would be very unfortunate to replay once more.
Shall we move forward?

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Cucumber sandwich
This article needs additional citations for verification. (July 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Cucumber sandwiches and tea
|Place of origin
|United Kingdom
|Main ingredients
|White bread, cucumber, butter
The traditional cucumber sandwich is composed of thin slices of cucumber placed between two thin slices of crustless, lightly buttered bread.
The traditional cucumber sandwich originated in the UK and is made with white bread. Modern variants (largely of US origin) exist, involving cream cheese, chopped dill or spices, brown bread, salmon, and even bread with crusts left intact. One specific US variant includes benedictine, a green soft spread based on cucumbers and cream cheese.
Cucumber sandwiches are most often served for a light snack or at afternoon tea, a formal light meal served at four in the afternoon or early evening before the main supper. In addition, cucumber sandwiches can be served in the tea break at club cricket matches in England.
Cucumber sandwiches are often eaten in the summer months or in warmer climates, such as in parts of India. Because of English influence on Indian culture, cucumber sandwiches are popular during cricket matches and weekend picnics. The Indian variant is flavoured with green chutney and sometimes contains slices of boiled potatoes. Until its merger in 2011, Indian Airlines used to serve cucumber sandwiches as part of its usual vegetarian inflight meal in short-haul domestic flights.
Cultural and historical associations[edit]
Cucumber sandwiches formed an integral part of the stereotypical afternoon tea affair. (By contrast, people of the era's lower working classes were thought to prefer a coarser but more satisfying protein-filled sandwich, in a "meat tea" that might substitute for supper.)
Some writers have attempted to draw out an association between the daintiness of the sandwich and the perceived effeteness of the UK's aristocracy. Cucumber sandwiches are often used as a kind of shorthand in novels and films to identify upper-class people, occasionally in a derogatory manner. In the first act of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), cucumber sandwiches that have expressly been ordered and prepared for Lady Bracknell's expected visit are all voraciously eaten beforehand by her nephew and host, Algernon Moncrieff; consequently he is forced to tell a little lie, with his butler's connivance: namely that "there were no cucumbers in the market this morning... not even for ready money". In addition, the sandwiches were once considered appropriate delicacies to offer to visiting clergy, in times when such visits were still a common feature of English middle class life.
In the James Bond film Moonraker, Hugo Drax asks James Bond, "may I press you to a cucumber sandwich?"[1]
The popularity of the cucumber sandwich reached its upper-class zenith in the Edwardian era, when cheap labour and plentiful coal enabled cucumbers to be produced in hotbeds under glass through most of the year. With the declining popularity of tea as a meal in the United Kingdom, there was a corresponding decline in the popularity of cucumber sandwiches, but they are still frequently served at teas, luncheons, and gatherings. Most English cricket clubs supply malt vinegar and ground pepper to dash inside the sandwich, and this is the simplest form commonly used in England.
Traditional British preparation[edit]
As the thinness of the bread is a point of pride in the kitchen, a dense-textured white Pullman loaf is cut with a wide-bladed knife, which guides the cut; daylight should pass through the resulting fine pores. The peel of the cucumber is either removed or scored lengthwise with a fork before the cucumber is sliced. The slices of bread are carefully buttered all the way to the edges in the thinnest coating, which is only to prevent the bread from becoming damp with cucumber juice, and the slices of cucumber, which have been dashed with salt and lemon juice, are placed in the sandwich just before serving in order to prevent the sandwich from becoming damp enough to moisten the eater's fingers. The crusts of the bread are cut away cleanly, creating tea sandwiches.
See also[edit]
- ^ "Moonraker script". Retrieved 23 May 2017.
Further reading[edit]
- Classical Southern Cooking - Damon Fowler. p. 72. Retrieved 4 July 2013.


text:
Urban Screen
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text:
The second hurricane in a month threatened to wipe out crops across a swath of North and South Carolina still recovering from Hurricane Florence.
Updated with Hurricane Michael making landfall in Florida with 155 mph winds.
As the second hurricane in four weeks headed for the Southeast, Mike Belch was driving a tractor across a North Carolina peanut field, racing to bring in his crop ahead of the rain.
His farm had survived the ravages of the recent Hurricane Florence—which caused at least $1.1 billion in farm losses in North Carolina alone according to state estimates and killed more than 40 people. But now, Hurricane Michael was threatening to dump several inches of crop-wrecking rain across the already soggy region.
"This one is coming exactly at the wrong time," Belch said. "Everybody is in the middle of harvest right now."
The storm exploded from a tropical depression to a major hurricane in two days, fueled by unusually warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, and made landfall near Panama City, Florida, on Wednesday afternoon as an extremely dangerous Category 4 with 155 mile per hour winds. Scientific research has shown that the frequency of the most intense tropical storms is increasing and that global warming caused by the heat-trapping gases humans release from activities like burning fossil fuels can exacerbate extreme weather and contribute to sea level rise that worsens storm surges.
A large swath of the Southeast was in the path of Michael's heavy rain, according to forecasts.
Florida was also facing a storm surge, forecast to be over 9 feet in some areas, that threatened as many as 50,000 coastal properties, according to a Union of Concerned Scientists analysis. The National Weather Service office in Tallahasse called the hurricane was a potentially catastrophic event "not comparable to anything we have seen before."
The Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, National Weather Service office issued what it described as its first tropical storm watch and warning for the northwest part of the state and warned of flash flooding. Georgia, like Florida, was under a state of emergency.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper called it an extremely dangerous storm that he said was likely to be costly—especially for agriculture.
Across large parts of North and South Carolina, the soil was still saturated from Hurricane Florence. A lot of tobacco and cotton farms had been wiped out by Florence, along with millions of chickens and thousands of hogs. Now, peanuts and sweet potatoes are at risk, Cooper said. He also warned of potential flash flooding and urged residents to not let their guard down.
"We don't need any more rain right now," he said.
Warmer Water Fuels Hurricanes
The National Climate Assessment in 2017 found an upward trend in Atlantic hurricane activity since the 1970s. It concluded that the relative contributions of human and natural causes remained uncertain but projected that hurricane-associated storm intensity and rainfall would increase as the climate continues to warm.
That's what scientists have been seeing, said Jill Trepanier, an assistant professor at Louisiana State University who studies extreme weather including hurricanes. She said unusually warm water in the Gulf of Mexico has fueled Michael's intensity.
"Hurricanes essentially get their strength from warm water," Trepanier said. And right now, she said, the Gulf of Mexico is up to 2.5 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year.
Michael's rapid intensification from essentially a thunderstorm to a powerful hurricane in a couple of days "has a lot to do with the heat energy that is out there now," she said.
And like other recent hurricanes—and other kinds of storms—Michael is holding a lot of moisture that threatens to produce very heavy rains.
"When it rains, it rains harder. There is just more water content in the atmosphere," Trepanier said. "All the things we have been saying for the last five to ten years are now starting to showcase themselves on a relatively frequent basis."
A Second Hit to North Carolina's Farmers
Agriculture, an economic powerhouse in North Carolina, was "devastated" by Florence and is now in need of a financial rescue or farmers will face bankruptcy, Cooper said.
North Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture Steve Troxler said in a news conference that the recovery from Florence would take farmers "a very long time." Michael "will add insult to injury."
Belch, president of the North Carolina Peanut Growers Association, said peanut farmers were rushing to get their crops out of the ground and harvested before Michael's rainfall could ruin them. And even more cotton could be lost to wind and rain.
"You have a narrow window," he said.
More Rain at Harvest, More Economic Hardship
South Carolina was worried about the same crops—cotton and peanuts, said Nathan Smith, a Clemson University extension professor in agribusiness. Some cotton is ready for harvest now, and it can't be saved if the cotton gets too damaged by wind and rain.
He said Clemson researchers were still trying to document crop losses from Florence because it's been hard to get to all the farms, with some roads still closed by flooding even as late as last week.
More heavy rain during harvesting right now means more economic hardship, Smith said.
"We've had a rough run for the last three years," with record flooding in October 2015 associated with Hurricane Joaquin that dumped more than 20 inches run some parts of South Carolina, followed by crop damage from Hurricanes Matthew and Irma in 2016, and then Florence this year.
"With low prices, coupled with these events, it's got folks thinking about the future," Smith said, adding that some farmers and agriculture professors are worried how they can stay in business.
With disasters piled onto disasters, he said, "farms are eating up their equity."


text:
14 Things Trump Said On "Fox & Friends" This Morning
"I would give myself an A+."
President Donald Trump called into his favorite TV show, Fox & Friends, to chat this morning. And boy, did he have a lot to say.
1. Trump on the criminal investigation into the business dealings of his personal attorney Michael Cohen: "Let me tell you, Michael is in business, he is really a businessman, a fairly big business as I understand it. I don't know his business but this doesn't have to do with me."
2. Trump on his Veterans Affairs nominee dropping out on Thursday: "They are trying to destroy a man. By the way, I did say welcome to Washington. Welcome to the swamp. Welcome to the world of politics."
3. Trump on Kanye West: "He has good taste. ... I get along with Kanye. I get along with a lot of people, frankly, but Kanye looks and he sees black unemployment at the lowest it's been in the history of our country, okay? ... He sees that stuff and he's smart. And he says, you know what? Trump is doing a much better job than the Democrats did."
4. Trump on Republicans traditionally ignoring black voters: "I think it was just the custom. People don't realize, if you go back to the civil war, it was the Republicans that really did the thing. Lincoln was a Republican. Somehow it changed over the years and I will say, I really believe it's changing back."
5. Trump on Shania Twain: "She made a mistake by sort of saying 'I wish I didn't go public with it,' but we know how she feels. But people have done that, amazed what happens to their business. We have tremendous support. We have tremendous fans. If I ever called for a rally in Washington, DC, we would have millions of people coming into Washington, DC, because they love what's happening."
6. Trump on what he bought his wife Melania for her birthday today: "I'm very busy to be running out looking for presents. I got her a beautiful card and some beautiful flowers."
7. Trump on CIA director Mike Pompeo's meeting with Kim Jong Un: "He wasn't supposed to meet with Kim Jong Un but he did. You know, they arranged actually while he was there to say hello. We have incredible pictures of the two talking and meeting, which I would love to release if we can. I'll do that, actually, that's not a bad idea."
8. Trump on pro-Trump bloggers Diamond and Silk: "Diamond and Silk have become amazing. That started off like somebody was talking about them on the internet, these two women, these two beautiful, wonderful women. And I said, let me check it out. It took me about two seconds to say ... it is incredible."
9. Trump on the investigation into collusion between his campaign and Russia during the election: "There is no collusion with me and the Russians. Nobody has been tougher to Russia than I am. You can ask president Putin about that. There has been nobody."
10. Trump on the US Justice Department: "They have a witch hunt against the president of the United States going on. I have taken the position, and I don't have to take this position and maybe I'll change, that I will not be involved with the Justice Department. I will wait til this is over."
11. Trump on why he didn't win the popular vote: "Everyone goes home and says, 'you know, I really like Donald Trump but I have watched on the news' — and they don't know it is fake, I have taught them it is fake news — 'I watched on the news that he can't win. So let's go to a movie, darling, and we'll come home and watch Donald lose.'"
12. Trump on CNN and other media outlets: "People have to understand how dishonest the news is. ... Look at others, CNN, they will have a council of seven people, of the seven people everyone is against me. I'm saying, where do they even find these people?"
13. Trump on watching TV: "I watched leaking, lying Comey last night and I did, I hated to do it. One of the reasons, people say you are still looking good, Mr. President, how do you do it?"
14. Trump on what grade he'd give himself as president: "Look, I'm fighting a battle against a horrible group of deep-seated people — drain the swamp — that are coming up with all sorts of phony charges against me, and they're not bringing up real charges against the other side. So we have a phony deal going on and it's a cloud over my head. And I've been able to escape that cloud because the message now, everyone knows it's a fix, okay? It's a witch hunt. And they know that. I've been able to message it. I would give myself an A+."
Watch the whole thing here:
Amber Jamieson is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.
Contact Amber Jamieson at email@example.com.
Got a confidential tip? Submit it here.


text:
Flow/Level Info: 878 cfs: rising slowly
The Black is a good river running or park and play class 3-4 river running through downtown Watertown. Watertown is approx. 1 hrs drive south of Kingston. There are several good Park-n-play spots in Watertown, at a range of water levels.
Hole Bros: good at lower/medium levels
Route 3 wave: good at medium levels
Inner City: great at higher (9000+) levels
Flow Information:
Min suggested level: 1000cfs Max suggested level: 6000cfs (Water town to Dexter)
Min suggested level: 2000cfs Max suggested level: 5000cfs (Route 3 Wave)
For full beta, check out the link above.
The Watertown section, and the playspots (Innercity, Hole Bros, Route 3) are paddleable year-round. Below the dam is release-dependant.


text:
PA man gives last words before execution
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A man who confessed to killing five people during a six-month crime spree in southeastern Texas 15 years ago was put to death Wednesday for the fatal shooting of a firefighter.
Elroy Chester, 44, said that he didn't want relatives of his victims to have "hate in your heart for me."
Chester said he confessed to killing firefighter Willie Ryman III because "you should know who killed your loved one."
"Don't hate me. I'm sorry for taking your loved one," Chester said. "Elroy Chester wasn't a bad man, I don't care what anybody says. A lot of people say I didn't commit those murders. I really did it."
Moments later, Chester told the warden to proceed with the execution and began humming what sounded like church hymn. He then took several deep breaths, yawned and began snoring as the lethal drug took effect.
Chester was pronounced dead at 7:04 p.m. CDT, 27 minutes after the lethal drug was administered.
Ryman, a decorated Port Arthur firefighter, was killed in February 1998 when he interrupted Chester as he sexually assaulted Ryman's two teenage nieces during a break-in at their home. Chester, who was on probation at the time, was arrested soon after and subsequently pleaded guilty to killing the 38-year-old firefighter.
"After 15 years, it's a long time coming," Barry Ryman, brother of the slain firefighter, said after watching Chester die. "It's not complete closure. Our brother's still not here. The other victims are not here."
"Justice has been done. It was carried out today," Ryman's sister, Kim Chiasson said. "His reign of terror is over."
DNA evidence tied Chester to the rapes. Ballistics tests matched his gun to the slayings of Ryman and four others. The gun was stolen in one of 25 burglaries in Port Arthur attributed to Chester.
A jury deliberated 12 minutes before deciding Chester should be put to death.
"In my 37 years as a policeman, I've never met a man so evil in my life," said Port Arthur Police Chief Mark Blanton, who was outside the Huntsville prison with several dozen police and firefighters from the city about 75 miles east of Houston.
He said with Chester's death, "I will know he won't be able to prey on anybody ... or take somebody else's life."
Chester also confessed to killing 78-year-old John Henry Sepeda and Etta Mae Stallings, 87, during burglaries. He told police he stalked Cheryl DeLeon, 40, then fatally beat her with his gun as she arrived home from work. And he admitted to shooting his 35-year-old brother-in-law, Albert Bolden Jr., in the head.
"It was just a horrible time in Port Arthur when these murders and attempted murders were going on," McWilliams said.
The execution was carried out after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-ditch appeal from Chester's attorneys that focused on the conduct of a judge on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who ruled earlier in Chester's case.
Judge Edith Jones was in a 2-1 majority two years ago that determined Chester was not mentally impaired and was therefore eligible for execution. Chester's attorneys argued Jones subsequently displayed bias against Chester when she discussed his case during a February lecture on the death penalty at the University of Pennsylvania law school.
Jones' remarks in February were not recorded, but attorneys for Chester obtained affidavits from several people who attended and backed an account from a lawyer who described Jones' "outrage and incredulity" that Chester and others would raise mental impairment claims in their appeals. Attorney Susan Orlansky said the comments "infected" Jones' judgment and called her impartiality into question.
Chester's attorneys requested a reprieve to give new judges on the case time to study it and the allegations against Jones. They did not contest his guilt.
When a new 5th Circuit panel reviewing the arguments Wednesday said it perceived "no injustice, nor any incorrectness," Chester's lawyers took their case to the Supreme Court.
Chester became the seventh convicted killer executed this year in Texas and the 499th since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982 following a nearly two-decade-long hiatus.
A Dallas woman, Kimberly McCarthy, is scheduled June 26 to become the 500th Texas inmate executed in modern times.


text:
Although iPad is the best known tablet in the market at the moment; there are other options equally good and just at a fraction of the price - the new ultra-portable Blackberry Playbook tablet is probably the best choice and considering that it is more portable, cheaper and smaller than the iPad, it is almost certainly more convenient as well. The design of this gadget is beautiful and the small size means that you can take it everywhere with you without having to carry a bag or backpack; however, the biggest advantage in comparison to the iPad is that it supports Adobe Flash – this is probably the biggest customer's complain about iPad. Flash will allow you to watch a greater majority of videos online without problems.
Technical details
- LCD Screen: 7-inch multi-touch.
- Storage: 16GB, 32GB and 64GB.
- Audio: Stereo speakers
- Size: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.4 inches (the iPad is 9.6 x 7.5 x 0.5 inches)
- Weight: 0.9 pounds (the iPad is 1.5 pounds)
Pros of the BlackBerry Playbook
- The Blackberry playbook is well built with a stylish design.
- Price: You can find it on Amazon for as little as $359 instead of $495 for the iPad (16GB)
- It feels great and the light weight design allows you to hold it in one hand.
- High resolution display.
- Connection to your TV possible thanks to the HDMI output feature.
- Full access to the internet (it supports flash, adobe mobile, HTML5) you won't have a problem tying to access any video, game or website.
- Although small and portable, this table has a highly responsive touchscreen and typing is an easy and precise activity.
- The battery is pretty good.
- Remarkable and high fidelity multimedia screen (resolution of 1024x600-pixel).
- Excellent technical support and as you know Blackberry is a reputable and serious brand that will offer outstanding after sales customer service.
Cons of the BlackBerry Playbook
Charging time is slow in comparison to the iPad.
- The iPad has a bigger collection of applications available; although it is planned to increase the apps for the Blackberry in the near future.
- It needs to be connected to the Blackberry phone for mobile network connection; however, the wireless connection might be everything you need.
Where can you buy it?
Amazon.com is probably the best place to buy the blackberry playbook; it offers great specification and advice about this and any other product and the customer review section will offer all information you need to make a final decision – they have been written by other customers who have already bought and tested this tablet for your benefit. At the moment the Blackberry Playbook has a customer approval of 4.1 stars out of 5; the iPad has 3.9 out of 5.
In summary the Blackberry playbook table is one of the best tablets at the moment in comparison to others and the iPad, the cons of this gadget are not something that puts people off, especially if all the pros are taken into account.


text:
TDIC enhances network security with Pulse Secure.
Abu Dhabi's Tourism Development &
Investment Company (TDIC) has deployed security solutions from Pulse Secure to
protect its IT infrastructure and enhance operations.
The Pulse Secure software and appliances have helped TDIC,
the master developer for tourism, projects in Abu Dhabi, to tackle issues of
secure network access, high network demand and compliance with security
TDIC is involved with many collaborative projects, which require
allowing third party contractors to connect to its network and shared
resources. the IT department had previously struggled with ensuring secure
access to both its network and shared resources for TDIC employees and teams
from partner organisations.
"We normally have between 800 to 1000 TDIC staff on our
network but during major projects we may need to provide IT resources and
support for hundreds of additional users such as contractors, architects, project
managers and other individuals from our partner community," explained Muhammad
Asad Khalil, Senior Network and Security Engineer for TDIC.
The reporting capabilities in the new platform also enables
TDIC to meet the regulatory requirements and audits of the National Electronic
Security Authority (NESA), as specified in the UAE Information Assurance
Standards (UAE IAS).
The Pulse Secure 5000 series appliances running Pulse Policy
Secure Network Admission Control (NAC) software have allowed TDIC to develop
processes to ensure each device that connects to its network is vetted to meet
required standards. New staff or partners, and new devices can be onboarded
either automatically, or in just a few minutes with the new solutions.
Abdul Rehman Tariq, MEA Regional Manager for Pulse Secure
said, "The project at TDIC shows how regulatory requirements can be a perfect
catalyst for seizing the initiative with transformative approaches to network
security that can also provide a major boost to productivity and operational efficiency."
[c] 2017 ITP Business Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. ( Syndigate.info ).
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text:
Microsoft looks to recession to boost image
It's now hip to watch what you spend. After all, in a recession it's difficult to spend lavishly if you're not sure your job will still be there for you on Monday.
Microsoft Corp. is pushing the recession-sensitive message in its new ads that started Thursday, highlighting how PCs with the Microsoft Windows system running them are much cheaper than a computer from Apple Inc.
The ads are Microsoft's attempt to reclaim the "I'm a PC" catchphrase from Apple, according to an Associated Press story.
Unwitting people were chosen to the ad firm, posing as a market research firm, to find a computer that matched their criteria and were given budgets from $700 to $2,000. One woman, looking for a 17-inch screen speedy laptop with a comfortable keyboard for less than $1,000 walks out of an Apple store empty-handed after only finding a 13-inch screen in her price range.
"I'm just not cool enough to be a Mac person," she says later.
Microsoft says that no one it filmed chose an Apple, although some fell within their price range.
Coolness is becoming a selling point for computers, with Apple taking hold of that stand and Microsoft going with the message that it's easier on the wallet. With many things in life, buying something cool usually costs more. Microsoft's line is that if PCs are for nerds, then saving money must be for nerds too.


text:
Current Newswire:
LinuxMall.com: Inferno Sparks Open FlameJun 22, 2000, 19:42 (0 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Michelle Head)
[ Thanks to Greta Durr/Linuxmall.com for this link. ]
"Inferno is an operating system (OS) for creating and supporting distributed services. It was originally offered by Lucent Technologies as a commercial product. Inferno has been obtained by Vita Nuova, who will release its source code, architectures, manuals and papers, along with other materials--but only to its yearly subscribers."
"York, England-based Vita Nuova was formed in 1996 by Michael Jeffrey, Charles Forsyth and John Bates as a start-up software company bent on hitching its wagon to the then-emerging Inferno technology from Lucent Bell Labs. Vita Nuova achieved that end through partnerships with Lucent from 1997 through 1999, building a company based on Inferno technical services, according to a company release."
"Inferno is capable as running as a stand-alone OS or running as a user application on a host OS. Inferno provides a portable development environment and utilizes standard protocols for communication between and within Inferno virtual machines."
"Inferno is intended to be used in a variety of network environments, including those supporting telephony, hand-held devices, TV set-top boxes attached to cable or satellite systems, and Internet computers. It is also intended to be used conjunction with traditional computing systems."
Related Stories:


text:
7 Ways Email Marketing Can Bring Success To Your Photography Business
This article is written and provided by Freddie Tubbs. Freddie Tubbs is an email marketing professional at Australian Help. He is writing Academized study
Running a photography business is hard work. On top of being a photographer, you're also a website operator, a manager, an accountant, a customer service advisor, a social media manager and, of course, a marketer.
If you're trying to get your business out there in front of the masses to secure sales, you may have heard of email marketing, but how often do you use it to promote your business and connect with your customers?
Today, we're going to explore seven key ways you can use email marketing to your advantage, helping you to promote your photography business effortlessly.
The first benefit that email marketing provides is the cost of it. Emails costs next-to-nothing to produce, especially if you're writing and creating them yourself and using an email service to manage and send your emails will be a fixed monthly fee. Some services are even free up to 50,000 subscribers!
When you're posting on social media, many platforms have now made it very difficult to get your posts to the masses without paying for it. Of course, this is a budget that you might not have to spend.
However, using email marketing means that you can target and communicate with an audience from all walks of life, meaning you can easily find a diverse range of customers in an instant.
One of the best ways to connect and attract new readers is to run an email newsletter. This way, people have content to read that will get them interested in them giving you your email address which you can then use to promote to them.
Of course, you should never email somebody without their consent but using email marketing does give you control over who gets your emails and who doesn't, far more control than on social media.
For example, asking a client in person for their contact information, rather than giving them a business card to contact you, is a far more effective way to build a relationship with a customer who will generate a sale.
At its core, an email is a direct one-on-one connection to your potential customers. If you're posting on social media, you're communicating to the masses, and it's easy for your followers to dismiss it.
However, an email is a direct message to your reader, meaning you can get personal and talk about subjects that directly relate to your customers. Here are some online tools that can help create these emails;
- Grammarix & Via Writing – An online tool with guides to help you improve your grammar knowledge
- Ukwritings – An online copywriting tool which can create your content for you
- Easy Word Count – A free online tool for tracking the word count of your emails
- Boomessays – As recommended by the HuffPost, this is an email subject line generator for captivating subjects
- Academadvisor & Cite It In – A selection of email formatting tools to ensure your emails look great and work perfectly
- Essay Roo and State of Writing – Online editing and proofreading tools to ensure your emails are the highest quality
When you're on social media, or even on your website, there tends to be a lot going on that can draw your customers attention away from your content, such as instant messages, adverts and other posts.
However, in your emails, it's just your reader and your content which means they'll be paying much more attention to what you have to say. This means you'll need to carefully choose your content to ensure that it's having the maximum effect on your reader, enticing them into what you do and why they should choose you for as their photographer.
Of course, nobody is going to want to continuously read emails from you if all they say is that they should be investing in your services. However, as a photographer, there are many things you can do to make things more exciting.
"You should have a large database of images and videos that you've created over time, so why not share some of your best to make your readers think 'wow!' When it comes to them needing a photographer, you can guess who they are going to choose", – explains John Sproles, an Email Marketing Consultant at Assignment help.
If you have social media pages, a website, an Instagram portfolio, perhaps even a blog, you can use your emails to promote these other channels.
Traditionally, you'll see businesses put links to their pages in the footer of the email, but there's no reason why you can't actively promote your channels in your emails, for example, showing your most popular posts or photos of that week.
As you can see, there are many benefits that email marketing techniques can provide to your photography business. By connecting with your readers in a personal and engaging way, you can be sure to boost the number of bookings you have, naturally increasing your rate of success.


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TCH: Finally. There is an explanation for the distraction of James Franco while hosting this year's Oscar telecast.
It couldn't be that Franco was bored, had nothing of consequence to do and might have been depressed because he knew he wouldn't win an Oscar for 127 Hours.
New clues have emerged. Perhaps the distraction was caused by the looming release of Your Highness. In fact, the texting he got caught doing on camera at the telecast may have been a plea with producers to delay the release for a dialogue and conceptual rework. Once you see Your Highness, my theory will gain credibility.


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Best Beaches In Gran Canaria
Maspalomas is probably one of the best beaches in Gran Canaria. It is a white sand beach and crystal clear waters endless ... with majestic dunes formed by wind.
Maspalomas is divided into three areas, one of which is perfect for families and the other two are perfect for nudism and gays. Not many problems to go from one part of the beach to another.
Category: Beach
Address: San Bartolomé De Tirajana, Canarias 35100
Guarded by the beaches of San Agustin on the east and Maspalomas on the west, Playa del Ingles, nearly 3 miles long, is one of the most famous beach in Europe. Thanks to the mild climate enjoyed by the island, it is widely known throughout the year as one of the liveliest tourist destinations in Spain. The sun and fun come together to leisure and sports activities including jet skiing, sailing, windsurfing, water skiing and more. In short ...Find here everything you want to do!
Category: Beach
Address: San Bartolomé De Tirajana, Canarias 35290
Playa de San Agustin is a peaceful, much more than Playa del Ingles and Maspalomas. Visitors seeking to escape the crowds love this black sand beach, a place where there is much room for solace, let alone to relax. During the weekend will see many more people, as the islanders also take this so nice and quiet area.
The beach has about 670 meters long and a gentle slope and is well protected from currents, creating ideal conditions for snorkeling or scuba diving. It also has excellent seafood restaurants on the avenue, as well as plenty of cafes, bars and shops. The showers are located just off the buses arrive without problem up here and has parking at the entrance.
Category: Beach
Address: Playa de San Agustin
San Bartolomé De Tirajana, Canarias 35100
Amadores beach is located between Puerto Rico and Puerto de Mogan, in the southwest coast of Gran Canaria.
This large bay, sheltered from ocean currents, presumes to be a strip of white sand of 800 meters and crystal clear waters. Quiet and relaxing, is a popular choice for couples seeking a romantic place to spend the day in the sun.
ategory: Beach
Address: Playa de Amadores Mogán, Gran Canaria
The first thing that strikes you about Puerto Mogan is its peace and quiet. In contrast to most places along Gran Canaria's southern shores, this charm-filled resort operates at a delightfully calm pace that'll have you de-stressed in no time. With picture-postcard looks that'll whip your breath away, it's sheltered by dramatic rocky cliffs and fronted by a lovely harbour and marina.
And both its old and new towns have much to offer. Enjoy a potter around the old town's tangled alleyways and whitewashed cottages, which snake their way up steep hillsides. Then descend to the new town, where you'll find the same village atmosphere. With a romantic canal spanned by Italianesque footbridges, it's nicknamed Little Venice and has a maze of bougainvillea-draped streets crying out to be wandered around. Explorations over, Puerto Mogan's palm-fringed harbourfront is ideal for relaxing in the sunshine.
Order some chilled wine and tapas and gaze out over the boat-flecked waters. And while you're here, check out the amiable bars and restaurants to decide on the night's venue for dinner and drinks. Summer evenings here are as laid-back as the days, so don't expect pulsating nightlife. Duly refreshed, saunter along to the yacht-filled marina and then find the hushed Church of St. Andrew to view its ornate carvings and statues.
Or cast your net wider by hiring a jeep and discovering the hidden Gran Canaria of solitary coves, cacti-speared gorges and sparkling white villages perched on cindery rocks. And of course, don't forget Puerto Mogan's beach. A lovely crescent of dark volcanic sand kissed by bright blue seas and hot Canarian sun, it's an absolute treat, whether you're intent on sunbathing, swimming or even a session of sandcastle building.
Category: Beach
Address: Canary Islands


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Don Jazzy Finally Reacts to the Diss Track Vic O Released For Him
Few weeks back, Controversial Nigerian rapper, Vic O, called out Mavin Record Boss, Don Jazzy to feature him in a track, or risk being dissed.
Vic O threatened Don Jazzy, and gave him an ultimatum of 6 days to respond to him, or feature him in a song.. 6 days passed, and the singer, cooked a massive hit diss track for the mavin record boss.
Don Jazzy, of course been silent since the first day Vic O threatened him, but now,he has finally reacted to the diss track;


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In Massachusetts, opioid/heroin addiction is recognized as a disease and a major public-health concern. It caused about 1200 deaths in the state in 2014 and about 1500 deaths and many overdoses in 2015.
The state's governor, agencies, and legislature have rallied to address the problem in many ways. In March, 2016, Gov. Charlie Baker, a leader on this issue, signed a bill that mandates verbal screenings for schoolchildren, funds more hospital beds for those needing treatment, and limits prescribers of opioids. The new measures to address this behavioral-health epidemic should include substantial involvement of clinical social workers.
Baker, formerly the head of a large private healthcare provider, identified doctors' over-prescribing as a big part of the problem. "Prescriber education" is therefore a key to prevention, with physicians limited to prescribing a 7-day supply of opioids in initial treatment of adults and a 7-day supply on most opiate prescriptions for minors.
Last year, the Governor's opioid working group recommended 65 actions for prevention, education, treatment, and recovery. Since then, many new or expanded programs have begun, accompanied by a public-health education campaign on TV and billboards statewide, identifying opioid addiction as a disease that can be successfully treated.
In a recent joint news conference, Baker and Marylou Sudders, Mass. Secretary of Health & Human Services, highlighted upcoming programs. A new electronic data-tracking system will identify high-OD areas to which healthcare assets will be deployed. Starting in October, doctors and dentists must justify the issuing of an opioid prescription. Patients under Medicaid will have their treatment limits doubled to a full 30 days; and in Sept., 2017, students in two grades statewide will be verbally screened for potential drug use.
In addressing the opioid addiction crisis, Governor Baker met with resistance from the Massachusetts Medical Society, whose president, Dr. James Gessner, criticized the proposed limits. "The Governor has taken on the medical community, which is not an easy task", said Victor DiGravio, CEO of the Association for Behavioral Healthcare, a statewide trade group. "But this is a huge problem, and we're still seeing, on the ground, more demand for treatment than we can offer."
After the unanimous passage of the recent law, An Act relative to substance use, treatment, education, and prevention, Gessner changed his tune and commended the efforts of the governor, legislature, and agency heads.
Addiction to pain-killers and heroin is a nationwide problem. As Massachusetts takes leadership in addressing it, we will see how clinical social workers' services can be mobilized to make a difference.


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When you quit a job and your co-workers confront you with a send-off lunch and it is so spectacular that you continue the lunch monthly for a year. As many as twelve people attended, I dinned alone only once. What made it stick was two questions, set in advance of the lunch, that we went around the table taking turns answering. It was so simple, we didn't expect it to be so raw and satisfying. In 30 mins upwards of an hour, we connected more than each of us had in the larger part of a year working in that office neck and neck together. It was remarkable although we never remarked on it, we just kept showing up.
In case you were wondering… I quit because the team needed a chief happiness officer and the director wouldn't allow me to be it there so I had to be it someplace else.


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We are as busy as a bee partnering with HonestBee for food delivery!
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If it still doesn't work, they may have changed the url or your location is too far and not served.
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text: Left of Black host Dr. Mark Anthony Neal sits down with Dr. Bill Banfield to discuss the community of Black composers and today's popular music. Dr. Banfield is a composer, author, recording artist, musical director, and exceptional live performer. He teaches a Berklee College of Music. Dr. Neal teaches Black Popular Culture in the Department of African and African-American Studies at Duke University.


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After much nagging from me, J sends me an email yesterday with this:
Easter is behind us now, and as a wise man once said sometimes you have to put your behind in your past.
Unfortunately, as another wise man once said—a different one, I swear—my fellow Americans, we are some kind of fat. Putting our behinds anywhere is going to be a challenge.
Easter is probably one of the most confused holidays of the year as people who are not religious suddenly feel compelled to take the seats and parking spaces of regular attendees at churches, families come together for a Sunday dinner that is not eclectic so much as confused and kids try once again to pretend for the sake of their parents that they are idiotic enough to believe that somewhere in the world there is a giant rabbit who defecates chocolate eggs.
In the run up to Easter this year, I read a fascinating story from the Associated Press about why Easter has not become as commercialized as Christmas. The major premise being that both Christmas and Easter are religious holidays, but whereas Santa Clause has firmly pushed baby Jesus out of the manger, the Easter Bunny can't seem to move the adult version off the cross.
The author ultimately concluded that Americans must feel a certain reverence and respect for the Easter season, since it is the bulk of foundational Christian theology, that they maybe do not have for Christmas because…well, the article started to fall apart.
As an analysis of the culture wars, I found it interesting. I suppose the next time a Jerry Falwell type gets worked up into a lather over abortion, gay marriage, Hollywood smut or pornography, we can fire back with, "Hey look pal, at least you've been able to keep the Easter Bunny from being culturally relevant, so smoke on your pipe and put that in or whatever."
I actually think the reason the Easter Bunny is not as culturally relevant as Santa Clause is because, if you'll pardon my diversion into crass literality, the Easter Bunny just plain doesn't make any sense.
As a story, Santa Clause holds together nicely. He lives up in the North Pole with a group of elves who make toys for good little girls and boys. Once a year, on Christmas Eve, which is conveniently ALWAYS DECEMBER 24, he loads everything into a sleigh and leaves it under a Christmas tree and children all over America wake up on December 25 to a bunch of cheap plastic crap from China that will be mostly broken or forgotten about by December 26.
Like any mythology, there are holes in the story, but these have been nicely filled in over the years by an increasing body of Santa Clause literature in either books or television specials with stop-motion puppets voiced by Fred Astaire.
The Easter Bunny doesn't have this kind of operation and it shows. Somewhere, someone needs to take the whole concept back to the drawing board and address the following areas of believability.
The Bunny.
Santa Clause is always male, always about six feet tall, always old, always morbidly obese, and always speaks in a tone of voice that suggests he's had a little too much egg nog as he asks you what you want for Christmas. It's comforting that whether you are watching a movie on AMC or in a shopping mall in Ashland, Ohio, Santa Clause will always be a certain way.
No such standards exist for the Easter Bunny.
In real life, bunnies never get too big to hold in your arms if you are into that sort of thing. In some of the movies, they maintain this size, while in other movies the bunny is larger than the children but smaller than the adults or larger than everyone.
Growing up, my mother always taught me that the Easter Bunny was huge and he might break the steps on the front porch on his way up. Given the state of our front porch, I believed her, but in my defense I was five.
In shopping malls and other venues, the bunny is always big but the gender of the rabbit is open to question as I have seen some shopping mall bunnies with curves that suggest they moonlight in that other career opportunity for our fleet footed brethren.
Sometimes bunnies talk and sometimes they don't. This causes a lot of confusion since, unlike Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny does not have a back story or an approved script. What's the Easter Bunny version of "ho ho ho!" It's not there.
Other places go for realism and show kids an actual bunny that they claim is the Easter Bunny, but if I'm a child in America watching this animal with a clear case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, I am likely going to feel cheated.
Easter gifts
At Christmas, it's simple. Gifts are always toys (unless you count Uncle John's box of socks and underwear he sends every year) and they always come wrapped and either under or around the tree.
Easter is confused. Sometimes there is a basket, sometimes there isn't. Some people give candy, some people give toys. And the baskets go…well I guess it depends on your house or apartment.
But if you got your kid as far as believing there was an Easter Bunny in the first place, the gifts are where the whole thing falls apart, because whereas the idea of an old man producing toys in a factory in the North Pole populated by elves that you can't see is somewhat believable, only the most gullible of children are going to believe the connection between bunnies and eggs.
I do not know why we are surprised that kids in America fail at science when we spend the early years of their childhood convincing them that somehow a rabbit produces not only eggs, but chocolate eggs at that.
And yet every spring we fill baskets with chocolate eggs and that god awful green plastic grass that gets caught in the wrappers and in our rugs in such a way that no vacuum cleaner can extract it, and we bemoan the rising levels of obesity and diabetes in this country while scratching our heads as to the cause.
At the end of the day, perhaps that's what will make Easter as culturally relevant as Christmas, because whatever the differences, whatever the faults, whatever the holes in the mythology, the two holidays have a common purpose in filling and expanding our physical presence and make us, in the words of the aforementioned wise man, some kind of fat.
Now who wants pie?


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Unlock iCloud Here
New Server
Problems with your iPhone Account?
I imagine that the problem you have with your icloud account is that of blocking the account, do not worry, there are many people who suffer with this problem, but thank God there is a solution and keep in mind that your cell phone still has a fix, there are several tools or software that allows you to skip icloud blocking those tools I mention them below:
How to know which tool to use?
I tell you that any application either: icloudin, doulci activator, icloud bypass, etc. is highly recommended for unlocking your apple device, all applications are communicated to icloud servers taking advantage of the vulnerability, these are other tools I recommend:
The easiest way to Unblock the iPhone Account
The easiest way to unblock the icloud account is through the tools that are available on the web, there are several alternatives that are very good and recommended, some of the tools are:
Where can I download these tools?
this tool is in our dedicated vps servers which you can download without any restriction, it is completely safe and virus free, you will download to .zip package which contains the manual installation tool and user manual, so that you can perform the process without any mistakes.


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With Ramadan in full swing, Muslims have been taking to Google looking for recipe ideas for their fast-breaking meals, making "Ramadan cuisine" the top rising food-related search term over the past week.
The yearly tradition, which started July 20 and ends August 18, involves fasting from dawn to sunset. Come sundown, friends and families gather together to break the fast with the nightly Iftar meal, which is traditionally preceded by the eating of dates to ease into the feast.
The pre-dawn meal, the Suhur, is often a hearty, rib-sticking breakfast to fuel followers through until the end of day.
The largest, user-generated recipe website Allrecipes.com offers a host of both Suhur and Iftar ideas that range from a simple rice porridge with milk and dates to Turkish-style poached eggs in a paprika butter sauce and garlic-spiked yogurt dip.
For the post-sunset Iftar meal, dates, hard-boiled eggs, milk and sweets are often staples at the nightly buffets.
In Morocco, fasts are typically broken by harira, a lamb, lentil and tomato stew, spiced with cinnamon, ginger, cayenne and turmeric.
Popular gourmet food site Epicurious.com also offers Iftar meal ideas courtesy of cookbook The Arab Table, like a stuffed leg of lamb or fakdeh mehshi khodra that calls for fragrant, pungent ingredients like mint leaves, allspice, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves, garlic, cinnamon and 25 cloves of garlic.
And while traditional Arab cuisine isn't normally sweet on desserts, Ramadan offers a good excuse to bake up a storm, with nightly meals finished off with syrup-soaked, dried fruit pastries and cookies. Epicurious.com offers simple recipes for sticky baklava and qatayef, flat, Middle Eastern style pancakes filled with nuts and cheese.
Rice porridge: allrecipes.com/Recipe/Rice-Pudding-With-Dates/Detail.aspx
Turkish-style poached eggs: allrecipes.com/Recipe/Turkish-Style-Eggs/Detail.aspx
Harira: allrecipes.com/recipe/harira/
Stuffed leg of lamb: www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/holidays/ramadan/meals_bsisu/recipes/food/views/Stuffed-Leg-of-Lamb-Fakdeh-Mehshi-Khodra-233061
Baklava: www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Baklava-109545
Qatayef: www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Qatayef-366170
- Arab cuisine
- Baklava
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1210 Manchester Ave, Middletown, OH 45042
Toll Free: 800-243-0444 Local: 513-424-5756Email Us
- 1210 Manchester Ave, Middletown, OH 45042
Bouquet of Mixed Cut FlowersIntercat-1204
A hand-tied bouquet of seasonal flowers filled with assorted flowers such as lilies, ranunculus and more accented with greenery. (Vase not included).
All items featured on this site represent the types of arrangements we offer and may vary depending upon availability in certain regions. Substitution Policy


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In this episode of #aboutmeLIVE, we sat down with author, social entrepreneur and North Carolina State graduate, Jess Ekstrom.
Jess shares about her college journey, the benefits of being involved on campus, the inspiration behind her company Headbands of Hope, and how to get the job or internship you want by standing out in the crowd.
Don't miss out on the next #aboutmeLIVE! Sign up here.
You can also listen to the audio of the event below or download the MP3 of this episode here.


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Ezra, Mark's long-time assistant and MBU member, took the photos this month because the regular photographer, Steve, was driving back from a week of mountain biking in Utah.
The Basic Skills Clinic is always held the first Saturday of the month at Malibu Creek State Park.
You can see the photos in our November photo gallery.


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Impeccable Swiss Comfort
Pitted against some tough local competitors, including Zurich's prestigious lakeside Hotel Baur au Lac and the neoclassical Eden au Lac, the Dolder Grand Hotel manages to outshine them all – and in fact, for many five-star-hotel connoisseurs, is among the handful of Europe's finest. With spires and turrets in the style of the German Art Nouveau called Jugendstil, the extraordinary building sits in an equally extravagant 125-acre park high above Zurich, reached by funicular.
Its acclaimed restaurant, La Rotonde, faultlessly serves an excellent traditional Mediterranean menu; Sunday lunch buffet is also justifiably renowned.
From the hotel's understatedly elegant guest rooms (many with balconies) to the gorgeous 9-hole golf course, pool (with a wave-making machine), and skating rink, everything at the Dolder shares the same remarkable views of Switzerland's most commercially and financially powerful city. The century-old main wing is the favorite of return guests; don't miss the Gobelin Room, which houses an enormous 18th-century tapestry.
Down below, in town, everyone who is anyone turns up at Kronenhalle at one time or another. Tradition is everything in Zurich, and it reigns supreme at this well-loved classic. Kronenhalle's animated scene is something to behold, and its traditional Swiss and French cooking is very good. But the decor is the highlight.
Every inch of burnished wood paneling is covered by 20th-century paintings and drawings, including originals by Klee, Chagall, Braque, Picasso, Matisse, and Kandinsky. They were collected by longtime owner Hulda Zumsteg, whose portrait still hangs here as well. Since her passing in 1985, her son carries on in the tradition that drew regulars like James Joyce, Richard Strauss, and Thomas Mann. In the likely event that there's no available table when you arrive without reservations, head to the genial adjoining bar, ask for the signature Ladykiller, and take in the scene.
Perhaps a cancellation will provide a table. Even if you order nothing more than the standard sausage and favorite rösti potatoes, it will be delicious, you'll be full (for the next couple of days), and the evening will be consummately Swiss.


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Up to -15°C
down military parka with natural fur trim
Up to -15°C
€ 1,050.00
SETH by MACKAGE is a twill down military parka with a short silhouette and natural fur trim at the hood. Water-repellent and breathable, it features double-entry zippered pockets with leather accents. Storm cuffs, leather drawcords at the waist and hood, and an adjustable storm visor make SETH perfect protection against the chill.
Product Details
- Short military parka silhouette
- Down-filled
- Double-entry zippered pockets with leather trim
- Leather drawcords at waist and hood
- Adjustable storm visor
- Storm cuffs
- RELAXED – Loose fit for on the go comfort.
- Designed to be worn with heavier layers.
- Coat length from shoulder to hem: 32" / 81,3 cm
- Shell (Woven): 70% polyester, 30% nylon. Lining (Woven): 100% nylon. Filling: 90% duck down,10% feathers (Pekin Duck, Anas Domesticus). Asiatic Raccoon Fur (Nyctereutes Procyonoide). Water-resistant & water-repellent.
- Dry clean only.
Free Delivery/Returns. Lifetime Warranty.
Shipping costs are on us (certain exclusions apply)and there is no customs fee/duty. Please try items in the comfort of your own home. For up to 14 days, if you don't like them, or they don't fit, just visit one of our Flagship Stores to return the item or request a return online. Sale and Promotional items purchased online cannot be returned in stores. Final Sale items are not eligible for return, refund or exchange. We offer a Lifetime Warranty against defects in materials and workmanship. It's all part of our commitment to exceptional quality. Lifetime warranty is not applicable on footwear. For customer service please call +1 855-622-5243 Monday-Friday from 9:00AM to 5PM (EST).
Need Help? 1-855-622-5243
Live chat


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How are responses coordinated?
Coordination mechanisms allow humanitarian actors to organise themselves in an attempt to improve humanitarian interventions and reduce duplication of effort. Here we will learn about the different actors in place in emergencies and the approaches used to coordinate humanitarian response.
The humanitarian actors
If a Government requests and/or accepts external assistance, a variety of international humanitarian actors may be asked to support disaster response and disaster response preparedness, including:
- UN agencies, such as OCHA for general coordination, WHO for health, UNICEF for nutrition, water, sanitation, and hygiene and protection of children and adolescents, and UNHCR for refugee populations
- Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for armed conflicts and International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) for natural disasters)
- Regional intergovernmental bodies (e.g. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation, and Pacific Islands Forum)
- National and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) (e.g. Médecins Sans Frontières, International Rescue Committee, Save the Children, Oxfam, Action contre la Faim, and International Medical Corps)
- Assisting Governments, and
- The private sector.
Humanitarian coordination mechanisms
Humanitarian coordination seeks to improve the effectiveness of humanitarian response by ensuring greater predictability, accountability, and partnership.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
OCHA leads the international community's efforts in crisis situations through needs assessments, definition of common priorities and strategies, and monitoring of humanitarian assistance1.
The Cluster Approach
This approach was developed after the 2005 Humanitarian Response Review, commissioned by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) and the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC)2.
Eleven clusters were defined and are coordinated both by UN agencies and NGOs. These eleven clusters are:
- Logistics (WFP)
- Emergency telecommunications (OCHA-Process owner, UNICEF Common Data Services, WFP – Common Security Telecommunications Services)
- Camp coordination and management (UNHCR for conflict-generated IDPs and IOM for natural disaster-generated IDPs)
- Emergency shelter (IFRC)
- Health (WHO)
- Nutrition (UNICEF)
- Water, sanitation, and hygiene (UNICEF)
- Early recovery (UNDP)
- Protection (UNHCR for conflict-generated IDPs, UNHCR, UNICEF, and OHCHR for natural disaster-generated IDPs)
- Education (UNICEF and Save the Children)
- Agriculture (FAO)3
The mission of the Global Health Cluster (GHC), led by WHO, is to build consensus on humanitarian health priorities, related best practices and to strengthen system-wide capacities to ensure an effective and predictable response. It is mandated to build global capacity in humanitarian response in three ways:
- Providing guidance, tools, standards, and policies
- Establishing systems and procedures for rapid deployment of experts and supplies, and
- Building global partnerships to implement and promote this work3.
The cluster should provide a framework for effective partnerships among international and national humanitarian health actors, civil society, and other stakeholders, and ensure that international health responses are appropriately aligned with national structures. At country level during major crises, the humanitarian coordinator designates the Cluster Lead Agency for all key humanitarian response sectors. WHO is the lead agency for the health cluster, which is comprised of partner organisations who are also working in health, including local and international NGOs and civil society organisations. As cluster lead, the WHO provides leadership and works on behalf of the health cluster as a whole. It facilitates cluster activities, such as meetings, and develops a strategic plan, which is used to lead and guide health response.
Additionally, collaboration with other humanitarian clusters, such as education or protection, is key as there are many cross-cutting issues that do not fit clearly within a single cluster group, e.g. protection, disability, or gender issues. Finally, as cluster lead, WHO should also support the national country's health system in order to ensure their responsibilities are being met and that there is consistent leadership. The WHO should also ensure that all partner organisations in the health cluster, have coherent strategies3.
Humanitarian Programme Cycle
The humanitarian programme cycle (HPC) is a coordinated series of actions undertaken to help prepare for, manage, and deliver humanitarian response. It consists of five elements coordinated in a seamless manner, with one step logically building on the previous and leading to the next. Successful implementation of the humanitarian programme cycle is dependent on effective emergency preparedness, effective coordination with national/local authorities and humanitarian actors, and information management4. This approach, agreed by IASC Principals as part of the Transformative Agenda, is based on innovations that have become good practice in the field and aims to achieve the following results 5:
- Stronger emphasis on the needs of affected people
- Improved targeting of the most vulnerable
- Increased funding for humanitarian priorities, and
- Greater accountability of humanitarian actors and donors for collective results5.
Based on the Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO), the country team formulates a response analysis with targets and boundaries, sets strategic objectives, and develops cluster plans aimed at meeting those objectives. These strategic country objectives and cluster plans form the humanitarian response plan (HRP), which is the primary planning tool for the humanitarian coordinator and the humanitarian country team4. The HRP serves a secondary purpose as a fundraising tool, as it can be shared with donors and partners to communicate the strategic priorities of the response. The Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and Country-Based Pooled Funds (CBPF) funding is recorded against these response plans. All funding information is recorded in the Financial Tracking Service (FTS) database, which is managed by OCHA6.
Pooled Humanitarian Financing
Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF)
Established in 2006 by the UN General Assembly, the CERF makes seed funding provided by governments, the private sector, foundations, and individuals available in order to start an action before any international funding mechanism is in place. The CERF was launched in 2006 and represents an important international multilateral funding instrument for UN agencies. This means that funding is provided by a group of countries, or an institution like the UN that represents a group of countries, instead of a single country or government donor. It provides rapid initial funding for life-saving assistance at the onset of humanitarian crises and critical support for poorly funded, essential humanitarian response operations. Each year, the CERF allocates approximately US$400 million7.
Country-Based Pooled Funds
CBPFs operate in 17 countries and since 1995 have been managed by OCHA. The Humanitarian Coordinator can allocate funds directly to UN agencies and the International Organization on Migration (IOM), national and international NGOs and Red Cross/Red Crescent organizations. CBPFs allocate funding based on identified humanitarian needs and priorities at the country level in line with the HPC. Around $500 million were allocated for the year 20158.
We have seen how these various mechanisms and processes can aid in the coordination of humanitarian interventions. We would now like you to reflect on the role of the WHO as lead of the health cluster and imagine that you are on the ground in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. You know that the main health issues facing the population are sanitation-related diseases and trauma, both physical and mental, caused by the typhoon. How would you begin to lead a strategic plan for response?
© London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine


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Prior to being saved I was involved with socialist politics. At the age of 20 I got involved in the Socialist Workers Party, I was a part time student and in the mid 1980's students were very politicised and I had plenty of time to get very involved in the party including having leading roles within the organisation.
Career progression and relationship breakdown put an end to my involvement and then coming to know Christ my whole outlook on political issues had a change of perspective but still with a heart for the poor and in particular those that are not able to speak for themselves.
For a period of time I couldn't see how I could be both a Christian and political at the same time, however the bible is very clear about God's heart for poor and injustice and I believe that God wants us to speak out for what is right
Over the past few years when we are seeing more and more cuts and reduction of living standards for poor people added to the way in which the media has started to attack poor people and how they spend their money, I felt that I wanted to be part of organised opposition and so joined Christians on the left.
I believe that God is calling us, his body, to stand in the gap to serve the poor and to begin to provide services that no longer have funding, and also to be a voice for him in praying for those in authority but also by speaking out about our beliefs and to stand alongside those who are in need.
What makes you think you have been saved? And more critically, given that many of your new found comrades will be Jews, Moslems and Atheists who most certainly do not accept Jesus as their saviour, what do you consider to be the fate of those who are not saved?
@ . . . the bible(sic) is very clear about God's heart for poor and injustice
Deuteronomy[20:16] But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
Well that's pretty clear . . .
@i believe that God wants us to speak out for what is right
. . . and it sounds a lot like genocide to me!


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Many years ago I read a paragraph in Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth that was the single most helpful piece of advice I ever received concerning teaching. Brittain writes that
There is still, I think, not enough recognition by teachers of the fact that the desire to think–which is fundamentally a moral problem–must be awakened before learning can occur. Most people wish above all else to be comfortable, and thought is a pre-eminently uncomfortable process.
The idea of thinking and learning as being intimately connected to the desire to think and learn has driven my pedagogy for a long time, but perhaps even more important in this passage is Brittain's claim that wanting to think and learn is a moral issue. In our contemporary world, learning is often understood in terms of processing information and then applying it, usually with a view to becoming a more and more efficient and productive member of society. But how might the cultivation of thought and learning be transformed if we paid close attention to the moral aspects of these foundational human activities?
Hannah Arendt once said that "every year the world is invaded by millions of tiny barbarians. We call them children." We all know that part of the process of civilizing these little barbarians is equipping them with values and with a moral compass, as well as providing training in how to use these moral tools. If thinking well and being committed to lifetime learning is part of being a moral human being, then muddled and sloppy thinking, as well as the attitude that no further learning is necessary, are moral failings of the same order as lying, cheating, and stealing. We live in a world in which we are in danger of—if we have not already arrived at—cognitive immorality. Not because of the immoral contents of our thoughts, but rather because of our collective unwillingness to commit to the hard work of thinking clearly, work that takes the sort of time and commitment that modern human beings are often loathe to engage with.
I began thinking anew about the moral features of thinking and learning after listening to an interview that Krista Tippett did on her On Being radio program with Maria Popova.
Maria Popova: Cartographer of Meaning in a Digital Age
Popova is a bit of social media phenomenon; she is most notable for Brain Pickings, a popular blog that began as a weekly email to seven of her friends. Now a website, Twitter feed and weekly digest, Brain Pickings covers a wide variety of cultural topics: history, current events, and images and texts from the past. In the introduction to their conversation, Tippett called Popova a "cartographer of meaning in a digital age." Popova observes that
As a culture, we seem somehow bored with thinking. We want to instantly know. We've been infected with this kind of pathological impatience that makes us want to have the knowledge but not do the work of claiming it. The true material of knowledge is meaning. And the meaningful is the opposite of the trivial. And the only thing that we have gleaned by skimming and skipping forward is really trivia. The only way to glean knowledge is contemplation. And the road to that is time. There's nothing else.
I can think of no better contemporary example of this than our current political cycle. The sense I get is not so much that candidates and voters are incapable of thinking. Rather, there appears to be general agreement with Violet, Dowager Countess of Downton Abbey, who once quipped that "All this thinking is overrated." Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders telling us "I will do this" should be enough—why insist on an explanation or account of how this will be done? Most of us remember being told on a middle or high school mathematics exam to "show your work"—no shortcuts allowed, in other words. How then have we come collectively to a place where we cannot be bothered to "show our work" when it comes to some of the most important decisions we will make in the next several years?
During my childhood and adolescent years I was occasionally told, particularly by family members and people who attended our church, that "you think too much." A corollary was often that "things really aren't that complicated." The truth, of course, is that there are very few times in life where more thought is unnecessary, and things really are that complicated. There is a strong tendency in human nature to want things simplified; even more, there is a strong desire to move from premise to conclusion without having to do any of the nasty and time-consuming work in between. Part of moral and cognitive maturity is to move forward with intelligence and conviction through a very complicated and messy world. We would like everything to be reducible to a bumper sticker or sound bite but, as William James reminds us, "Nature is not bound to satisfy our presuppositions. In the great boarding house of nature, the cakes and the butter and the syrup seldom come out so even and leave the plates so clean."
The moral aspects of teaching often begin with resisting the temptation to deliver a product, to give the customer what she wants. Sometimes, Maria Popova suggests, what people want is the last thing they should get.
Giving people what they want isn't nearly as powerful as teaching people what they need. There's always a shortcut available, a way to be a little more ironic, cheaper, more instantly understandable. There's the chance to play into our desire to be entertained and distracted regardless of the cost. Most of all, there's the temptation to encourage people to be selfish, afraid, and angry. Or you can dig in, take your time, and invest in a process that helps people see what they truly need.
I try to focus on the importance of "digging in" every time I'm in the classroom. But observing myself outside of the classroom, I find that I have a lot of work to do. I spend time on Twitter, even though communicating in 120 characters or less is hardly an example of in-depth discourse. I quickly block or unfriend Facebook people who clearly hold political views that are radically different from mine. I bristle when someone challenges me in the "Comments" section of this blog. If I am going to call for moral maturity in thinking and learning, that maturation process begins with me.


text: Show Hide image Culture 14 February 2013 Reviewed: Stephen Poliakoff's Dancing on the Edge All that jazz. . . again. Sign-up Dancing on the Edge BBC 2 I'd love to be able to tell you that the new Stephen Poliakoff series – yes, the BBC has given him a whole series – is set in 21st-century Britain and combines a drum-tight plot with powerfully convincing dialogue. But I'd be lying: Dancing on the Edge (Mondays, 9pm) is set in the 1930s; the plot (we've had 150 minutes so far) is meandering and oblique; and the dialogue is so desperately mannered – think Eighties Tatler meets Google Translate – you find yourself wondering if anyone other than Poliakoff read it before he started shooting. As usual, what he has given us is a collection of dream-like scenes rather than a carefully structured narrative and while these are often beautiful to look at, they also feel rather tired. Poliakoff's obsessions are by now pretty familiar. If he were to write a drama that didn't feature a fantastically rich man who loves to play puppet master and yet whose motives for doing so remain spookily opaque . . . well, I, for one, would faint with excitement. Poliakoff, whose interest in the posh and their houses could give Julian Fellowes a run for his money, has said he got the idea for the series when he was making his 2003 film, The Lost Prince, about Prince John, the youngest son of George V. Somewhere along the way, he discovered that John's brothers George (who was bisexual) and David (later Edward VIII) liked jazz. Dancing on the Edge, then, is about what happens when toffs and black musicians collide. The patronage of the future king (Sam Troughton) is going to do Louis Lester (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his band an awful lot of good in the short run; what HRH likes today, the whole world likes tomorrow. But in the long run? Hmm. Something tells me there is trouble ahead. Clichés abound. In the first episode, shortly before the action snapped back two years, we got a close up of a spinning gramophone record. (And before you say anything, Poliakoff doesn't do irony.) Even cheesier, when Lester auditioned for a singer, we had to watch a series of no-hopers make fools of themselves before – ta-dah! – the last in line, who just happened to be a gorgeous young woman, stood up and knocked everyone dead. But I will say this: the cast is fantastic. Ejiofor looks spiffing in white tie and a cape, and his performance – ropy dialogue allowing – is beautifully understated. I adore Matthew Goode as Stanley the somewhat wide deputy editor of Music Express and author of the comic strip Farquhar and Tonk. Ditto Jacqueline Bisset as the "reclusive" Lady Cremone (a character who seems to be loosely based on Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, the Rothschild who became patron to Thelonious Monk). Lady Cremone, by the way, eats globe artichokes for breakfast – a characteristic bit of Poliakoff whimsy. In this series, there are two rich puppet masters (this is the advantage of having a whole series to himself: our friendly auteur can double the fun) played by Anthony Head and John Goodman. In the first episode, Goodman's character, Masterson, took everyone – toffs, band, journalist – on a picnic in a private train. He wouldn't tell them where they were going or why. More whimsy, I'm afraid. He's violent to women and he likes to have gold on him at all times, in case of financial emergency. Head's character, Donaldson, says preposterous things such as, "I'm a man of leisure who's addicted to the new." We're led to believe he's very well-connected, unseen power networks being another of Poliakoff's favourite tropes. Look, if a drama can't give me plot, then at least I would like it to give me character. Poliakoff, though, creates types rather than characters. That he adores grand, empty rooms only adds to this feeling; his actors rattle around, dried peas in the shoebox of his sets. The result, plucky cast aside, is weirdly enervating, even when the band is belting out a fast number, even when the two princes are quick-stepping wildly across the dance floor. The director has got muted trumpets aplenty. But as for rhythm, he ain't got none at all. Rachel Cooke trained as a reporter on The Sunday Times. She is now a writer at The Observer. In the 2006 British Press Awards, she was named Interviewer of the Year. Subscribe For more great writing from our award-winning journalists subscribe for just £1 per month! This article first appeared in the 11 February 2013 issue of the New Statesman, Assange Alone SUBSCRIBE More


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The journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology (BASP) has taken a resolute and bold step. A recent editorial announces that it has banned the reporting of inferential statistics. F-values, t-values, p-values and the like have all been declared personae non gratae. And so have confidence intervals. Bayes factors are not exactly banned but aren't welcomed with open arms either; they are eyed with suspicion, like a mysterious traveler in a tavern.
There is a vigorous debate in the scientific literature and in the social media about the pros and cons of Null Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST), confidence intervals, and Bayesian statistics (making researchers in some frontier towns quite nervous). The editors at BASP have seen enough of this debate and have decided to do away with inferential statistics altogether. Sure, you're allowed to submit a manuscript that's loaded with p-values and statements about significance or the lack thereof, but they will be rigorously removed, like lice from a schoolchild's head.
The question is whether we can live with what remains. Can we really conduct science without summary statements? Because what does the journal offer in their place? It requires strong descriptive statistics, distributional information, and larger samples. These are all good things but we need to have a way to summarize our results, not just because so we can comprehend and interpret them better ourselves and because we need to communicate them but also because we need to make decisions based on them as researchers, reviewers, editors, and users. Effect sizes are not banned and so will provide summary information that will be used to answer questions like:
--what will the next experiment be?
--do the findings support the hypothesis?
--has or hasn't the finding been replicated?
--can I cite finding X as support for theory Y?*
As to that last question, you can hardly cite a result saying This finding supports or does not support the hypothesis but here are the descriptives. The reader will want more in the way of a statistical argument or an intersubjective criterion to decide one way or the other. I have no idea how researchers, reviewers, and editors are going to cope with the new freedoms (from inferential statistics) and constraints (from not being able to use inferential statistics). But that's actually what I like about the BASP's ban. It gives rise to a very interesting real-world experiment in meta-science.
|Sneaky Bayes
There are a lot of unknowns at this point. Can we really live without inferential statistics? Will Bayes sneak in through the half-open door and occupy the premises? Will no one dare to submit to the journal? Will authors balk at having their manuscripts shorn of inferential statistics? Will the interactions among authors, reviewers, and editors yield novel and promising ways of interpreting and communicating scientific results? Will the editors in a few years be BASPing in the glory of their radical decision? And how will we measure the success of the ban on inferential statistics? The wrong way to go about this would be to see whether the policy will be adopted by other journals or whether or not the impact factor of the journal rises. So how will we determine whether the ban will improve our science?
Questions, questions. But this is why we conduct experiments and this is why BASP's brave decision should be given the benefit of the doubt.
I thank Samantha Bouwmeester and Anita Eerland for feedback on a previous version and Dermot Lynott for the Strider picture.
Note that I'm not saying: "will the paper be accepted?" or "does the researcher deserve tenure?"


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It seems so easy to complain about banks these days. At times I find myself questioning their excessive interest rates and astronomical profit announcements each year; but globally, accessing a formal financial institution is a luxury affordable to very few.
Try to imagine your life without banks. If, like me, you were born in the 80s, you would need to remember back to your pre-Dollarmite days in early primary school when you kept your pocket money in a shoebox hidden beneath your bed, out of harm's way from curious siblings and a hungry labrador named Tumble.
Other than a shoebox, where would we store our savings? Would we be disciplined enough to save if we used an entirely cash-based system? Imagine if you were paid each month in cash, there was no direct debit, credit cards, or internet transfers! And from whom would we access credit in those times of need?
In many of the areas where World Vision works, there is a lack of community access to banks due to geographic remoteness or the high cost and perceived risk of operating a formal institution for the very poor.
Recently I attended the inspirational weekly meeting of a women's savings group taking place in the World Vision Australia-funded Area Development Program (ADP) known as Kalongo in the Nakasongola region of Uganda - a very bumpy four-hour drive out of the capital city of Kampala (especially in a two-wheel drive).
The World Vision Saving Group model focuses on savings as accumulated capital, generated by the group members themselves. It is not credit provided by someone outside the group at an interest rate that usually significantly exceeds the ones we are so quick to complain about here in Australia. Such a group within a community facilitates savings, insurance and credit services, in a small-scale and sustainable way to members who are traditionally outside the reach of formal financial institutions.
This small group of proud and empowered women from the Ugandan village of Kalongo ranged from young mothers in their 20s through to great-grandmothers in their 70s. The Chairwoman told me how they had already saved a total of $500 USD in three months. They couldn't stop smiling as they explained that already their individual savings exceeded anything else they had saved previously and some shared with me their individual visions for how they will invest their savings in their family's future such as children's schooling, improved nutrition and household repairs such as roofing and flooring so their children wouldn't get sick as often.
As part of the model, the group's savings can be lent internally to members with interest to earn additional income. Members can also request an interest free 'welfare loan' if the group collectively agreed the need warrants it. One woman was quick to raise her hand and explained how her children needed school books and she was embarrassed that she couldn't provide them. The group members agreed to provide a welfare loan to this woman – I noticed the flicker of a proud smile for just a second on her face.
Later, other members took out small loans from the kitty at a previously-agreed interest rate for investment purposes to expand their small livelihoods by purchasing additional seed or fertilizer to increase yields.
The process is well-documented, from where each participant sits at each weekly meeting, through to how much interest will be paid on internal loans and the repercussions for not repaying a loan.
For these women, this savings group is so much more than just their community bank – it provides them and their families greater choices in their day to day lives and an opportunity for a brighter future. It was remarkably refreshing for me to hear from the savings group members how thankful and appreciative they were of their 'bank'. It's something I am certainly going to be more mindful of next time I am tempted to bank bash!


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Fredrika features a soft blend of colours, and is a great way to add character and interest to your home. Fredrika is a hand painted reproduction of an artwork originally by Sarah Brooke.
As each painting is entirely painted by hand, some variation may occur and no two paintings will be identical.
Materials used –
Acrylic canvas painting, timber frame


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US says it's OK to legalise ganja but ...
The United States government says Jamaica's attempts to liberalise its marijuana regime are fine as long as the country respects international conventions.
The Jamaican Senate has approved the Dangerous Drugs Amendment Act of 2015 that seeks to decriminalise ganja for medicinal, religious, and private use.
There have been public concerns that such a move could conflict with US and international conventions such as the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotics, which prohibits the production and supply of drugs, including ganja.
However, speaking on Nationwide Radio yesterday morning, public affairs officer at the US Embassy in Jamaica, Joshua Polacheck insisted that his government was not interested in influencing the decision-making process in Jamaica.
He says the US partnership with Jamaican authorities in relation to drug crimes is focused on transnational issues and not on small scale consumption.
The US official says even American states that have liberalised their marijuana laws have done so while still honouring international rules.
Polacheck also disclosed that the US and other international partners were consulted before the legislation came before the Jamaican parliament.
Justice Minister, Senator Mark Golding, who has been leading the legislative changes has repeated that Jamaica remains committed to fighting drug crimes and upholding international conventions outlawing certain drugs.
Under the proposed laws, the possession of up to two ounces of ganja will become a non-arrestable offense.
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