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Guest views: Racist emails reflect poorly on Walker
It seems some of Gov. Scott Walker's former staff members forgot the first rule of email, and it has cast them in a bad light that also has embarrassed Walker. �
The rule: Don't ever send an email to anyone that you wouldn't mind the whole world reading. Once you hit the send button, the shelf life of that communication is out of your hands. �
This lapse of judgment or just plain stupidity has a couple of former Walker aides looking like racist fools. �
The embarrassing correspondence is part of nearly 28,000 pages of records released recently relating to an investigation into Walker aide Kelly Rindfleisch, who served as deputy chief of staff to Walker when he was Milwaukee County executive. Rindfleisch was convicted in 2012 of misconduct in office and sentenced to jail for doing campaign work for Republicans on government time. �
Among the many records released was one in which Rindfleisch received an emailed joke from a friend about someone whose dogs supposedly qualified for welfare because they are "mixed in color, unemployed, lazy, can't speak English and have no frigging clue who their Daddys are."
Rindfleisch wrote back: "That is hilarious. And so true!"
In another email, sent in July 2010, Thomas Nardelli, Walker's chief of staff at Milwaukee County, forwarded Rindfleisch and others a joke about someone who has what he calls a "nightmare" about turning into a black, Jewish, disabled gay man who is unemployed. �
"Oh God, please don't tell me I'm a Democrat," the email concludes. �
Rindfleisch's lawyer argues that many of the emails released were personal and should not have been made public. That's an argument for open records experts to decide, but they were released, and there's no taking them back. �
The greater concern is that someone openly expressing such views is in public service to begin with. None of us can control the content of emails sent to us, but we have total control over what we do with them. And by responding to the "joke" from a friend the way she did provides shocking insight into Rindfleisch's shallow views toward minorities. �
Walker needs to be more careful who he surrounds himself with. First his staff patches him through to a fake "Koch brother," and now revelations that some of his inner circle are racists are laid bare. �
If Walker truly has presidential aspirations, he'll have to run a much tighter ship and be far more careful about who he lets on board.
—Eau Claire Leader-Telegram
Last updated: 1:07 pm Friday, February 28, 2014


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From person to person
The changed state of the jobs market has also had consequences for the Kunsthaus Personnel Office. Just recently we advertised an interesting position relating to the organization of exhibitions. Of course we were expecting plenty of applications, but not the 600 we received. Sorting through 600 applications, selecting a number of suitable candidates, conducting interviews and then sending out 599 rejections, pushed us to the limits of our capacity and beyond. Luckily, staff turnover at the Kunsthaus Zurich is low, so that it isn't often that we have to deal with such a flood of paperwork. Nonetheless, we still don't have the time to reply to the, on average, 20 speculative applications we receive each week, as there are seldom vacancies. Current vacant positions can be found on our websitehttp://www.kunsthaus.ch. For some time now we have also been offering those participating in projects for the unemployed the chance to take a look behind the scenes for a certain period and an opportunity to use or enhance their specialist knowledge.
All of the 170 staff currently employed are given an informative introduction to each new exhibition by the curators. Once every two years we also organize a day trip for staff – a visit to a museum in another Swiss city, or a well-known destination such as the Rigi – and information events (e.g. about the renovation work) or parties, as a way of saying thank you to those who work here. Given the inexorable rise of an e-mail culture, "face to face" dialogue is becoming ever more important. However, the Kunsthaus is a "lean" organization with many staff fulfilling more than one function.

subset: commoncrawl


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Visiting An Apiary: Beekeeping in Boston
Some weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend an introductory beekeeping class led by local beekeeper, Jean-Claude Bourrut. After a quick hop, skip and a jump (i.e. a T journey, a bus ride and a short walk), I found my way to his hives which are nestled between the Boston Nature Center and the Clark Cooper Community Gardens in Mattapan.
For two days prior to the class, I was forbidden to eat bananas. Why? An interesting bit of trivia: apparently, ripe bananas contain the same chemical or pheromone that bees give off when they are sending out a high level danger alert. If you ever want to anger a hive – throw a ripe banana peel in front of it.
Jean-Claude has been working with bees for about twenty years. His interests originally lay in organic farming and on one farm where he worked, he was asked to manage several bee hives. He did not have any prior experience but threw himself into the project and got hooked. While he has read a great deal on the subject he has learned his most important lessons through trial and error – be it what kind of plants he puts in his smoker or his preferred variety of bees (he is partial to sumac in his smoker, topped off with grass for longevity of burn and he likes Russian bees).
I asked Jean-Claude about his honey production and he indicated that for the past two years, he has really only had enough honey to give to friends and family – none to sell – because conditions have not been good. At the shop (availability depending) we carry several local honeys: Carlisle Honey (Carlisle, MA) and Black Pond Apiaries honey (Harvard, MA). We also have a few domestic honeys from a little farther afield: Tupelo honey from Smiley Apiaries (Wewahitchka, Florida), Ames Farm honey from Minnesota, Golden Angels honey from Virginia, Branches honey from Napa Valley, organic honey from Hawaii and honeycomb from Aquidneck Honey in Rhode Island. Julia, our domestic honey buyer tells me that, like Jean-Claude, these producers have also experienced challenging harvests in the past few years.
However, as challenging as it has been for the beekeepers we buy from, other beekeepers affected by Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) have been hit even harder. CCD was first reported in October of 2006 when some beekeepers began noticing reductions in their hives ranging from 30-90%. The USDA provides us with an overview of the situation. The specific causes of CCD remain unknown – general consensus seems to be, however, that a variety of factors are involved.
Jean-Claude mentioned a few potential factors in the course of my visit to the hives – things that were new to me but which seemed to make a lot of sense as things that would negatively impact bee colonies. One of the most interesting things I learned was that humans have artificially increased the size of the cells in beehives. One of the hot topics in beekeeping today is the optimal cell sizes for a hive and whether or not cell size has had a hand in CCD. From what it sounded like to me (albeit still very much a lay person in these matters!), there is a fair case to say that cell size could be a contributing factor.
Natural cell size varies around the globe – African bees, for example, tend to produce smaller cells than their European counterparts. Acknowledging that there is geographic variation, I was given a width of about 4.6mm as a natural size for a worker cell. In a lot of artificial comb – plastic cells created for the bees so they don't have to build their own – cells can be up to 5.6mm in width, almost 25% larger. An amateur beekeeper in my class told me that this practice was originally introduced in order to amp up honey production. This sounded logical and, after doing a bit of research online, it looks as though she was correct. Comb experimentation began in the 1800s and, no bones about it, it was done to increase honey yields.
Cell size has become a hot issue because it seems as though there have been unanticipated side effects. For one thing, the bees born into these cells take longer to mature as they grow to fill the space they are given. Simultaneously, this seems to allow for another birth cycle of the mites that have a parasitic relationship with bees. The jury is still out on the level of impact – studies done to date have yielded varying results – but it would not surprise me if a meaningful correlation between cell size and mite population was established.
Determining if cell size impacts mite production is important because the more mites in a hive, the greater likelihood of disease and the weaker the hive is. In addition to possibly encouraging mite reproduction, larger cell sizes have also brought into question the resulting size of the bees. Growing to maturity in larger cells, are the proportions of honeybee physiognomy out of whack? Do larger bodies mean larger wings and, if not, does that mean the bees have to work harder to go about their business? If so, the theory postulates, this could also be weakening the bees, making them more susceptible to illness.
Jean-Claude is actually in the process of trying to scale his bees back down to a smaller comb size. However, you cannot immediately go from 5.6mm to 4.6mm. Right now, he has some 4.9mm comb in order to slowly implement the regression. It is an ongoing process.
Another thing I was interested to learn about bees is that stress is a factor for them as much as it is for humans. When stressed, as with our own species, bees are generally more susceptible to illness or fatigue. Many hives in the US are toted from farm to farm and state to state in order to pollinate crops. This kind of travel is very stressful to the bees and, according to Jean-Claude, these traveling bees often arrive at their destinations half dead. Needless to say, this makes them weaker and more likely to get sick (particularly if there is a larger than normal mite population!).
Bee hives were never designed for traveling. In order to reproduce and to combat crowding in the hive, a portion of a bee colony will leave, choose a new queen and establish a new hive elsewhere. When they do this, they swarm. A swarm looks very menacing but, I was interested to learn, bees in this state are actually fairly calm – possibly as calm as they'll ever be – because they do not have a hive to defend. In nature, the bees occasionally move, their hives do not. Given this, it makes sense to me that it would be prudent to encourage the establishment of more stationary hives, rather than depending on migrant hives to pollinate the crops in this country.
Interestingly, it seems that city dwellers are beginning to play a key role in adding to the number of stationary hives. In New York City, for example, beekeeping was legalized in March of last year. Previously, fines ranging from $200 to $2,000 were levied by the health department for illegal beekeeping. Now, folks can e-mail the New York City Beekeepers Association if they have a garden, balcony, or rooftop available to host a hive. Maybe Boston's apartment buildings will be next?


text:
Silicon photonics ushers in 100G networks
2 comments
The recent article titled, Silicon Photonics is Hot authored by Rick Merritt and based on an interview with Andy Bechtolsheim, spurred me to take a deeper look at the technology challenges were facing with silicon photonics as we scale switching networks from 10G to 100G and eventually one terabits. Its a brave new world when we eliminate the tried and true hand assembly of hundreds of optical piece parts and move to silicon photonics. Some optical functions are easy to implement in silicon, while others are more difficult. We cannot, and should not, mix some of the old parts with a silicon chip to create a partial silicon photonics solution. Rather, we need the whole Optical Engine to be integrated onto the silicon platform.
The Optical Engine takes multiple high-speed electrical channels, converts them to optical, combines the channels to send them via a single optical fiber to any distance from as close as the next rack to as far as across the entire data center. At the receive end, the Optical Engine separates the light stream into separate channels and converts them back to electrical channels. In data centers, Optical Engines are emerging as the lowest power, smallest technology choice in pluggable transceivers for connecting cluster switches and routers and are used in Active Optical Cables to connect server blades and switches. In addition, Optical Engines will soon be embedded mid-board to reduce the power and increase the density in board-to-board applications.
However, there are many challenges in integrating optical functions on a CMOS platform designed primarily for electrical functions. Lets have a look at each of the key opto-electrical functions and the challenges of full integration in a CMOS platform:
Lasers: Lasers provide the source of light for the Optical Engine, but some data center lasers are expensive. Kotura has developed on-chip functions that use the light from low-cost, low-speed lasers. The laser is the one optical component that is not monolithically integrated, but recent developments in flip-chip bonding of lasers and arrays make this a high-volume, low-cost process. On chip features eliminate the need for any lenses, isolators and beam collimators traditionally used in laser subassembly. Koturas laser design eliminates the need for expensive hermetic packaging. It just takes a few seconds on an automated station to align and bond a laser array to the silicon photonics chip. Finally, one of the toughest problems, getting a low-cost light source into the chip, has been solved.
The real value in optical networking is the ability to combine multiple wavelengths of light into the same physical pipe. For 100G interconnect, we use this dimension of parallelism, called Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM), to put four wavelengths of light onto a single fiber. Of course, four parallel fibers would also work, but that increases the cost of the network and wastes the bandwidth of the fiber. WDM allows us to scale, using the same data center fabric, to many more channels in the future.
WDM can be tough to do in silicon photonics, as both wavelength specific lasers and multiplexers are needed. However, we do not want to use expensive, wavelength specific lasers that are used in telecom networks. A better solution is to use generic lasers and convert them to wavelength specific ones by integrating a grating mirror on the silicon chip. By varying the location of this mirror, Kotura transforms each gain chip into a unique wavelength specific laser.


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Armour Square Park
3309 S. Shields Ave. Chicago, Illinois 60616
(312) 747-6012
Fee: $5
Age Range: All
Come join the Valentine's Day fun at Armour Square Park. Family Hearts and Crafts event. February 14, 2013 from 6:00-7:00p.m. All ages welcome. Fee is $5. Armour Square Park phone number is 312.747.6012 for further information.


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XmlPlus xsd2cpp is a tool that compiles an XML schema into C++ data bindings. When invoked on an input XSD file, it generates the C++ sources (implementation/headers) for the supplied XML schema, a main.cpp template to demonstrate how generated sources can be consumed, and the automake/autoconf files for building the generated source.
CS::SkipList Library is a C++ template library of containers based on skip lists. These containers work like sets and maps, but can also be accessed via numerical index. This collection has vector-like containers where all operations work in logarithmic time. It also has a composite container where you can order the same elements in many different ways at the same time.
Elemental is a C++ framework for distributed-memory dense linear algebra that strives to be fast, portable, and programmable. It can be thought of as a generalization of PLAPACK to element-by-element distributions that also makes use of recent algorithmic advances from the FLAME project. Elemental usually outperforms both PLAPACK and ScaLAPACK, however, it heavily relies on MPI collectives so a good MPI implementation is crucial. Both pure MPI and hybrid OpenMP-MPI configurations are supported.
SupplyChain is a C++ library that simulates a supply chain. It takes full advantage of concurrent programming and multi-core CPUs without the programmer having to know anything about it. A supply chain consists of two mandatory components: initial producers and final consumers. Apart from these components, a supply chain can include any number of manufacturer nodes. Each node can contain any number of elements of its own type. These elements allow very powerful supply chains to be modeled and constructed.
The Hummus PDF Writer library allows you to generate PDF files. It was developed with a principal "one-off" method of generating PDF files. Adhering to this idea, it is both fast and retains a low memory signature regardless of how large the file grows. The library has a set of high level features for adding content to a PDF, including creation of pages; drawing primitives and any of the simple PDF operators for drawing content; embedding of PDF, JPEG, and TIFF images; Unicode text support with Type1, TrueType, and OpenType fonts; and defining reusable objects using XObject Forms. You can also use the library as a PDF parser. The library is very extensible. It is easy to implement more PDF features by using the lower level set of methods, which provide access to the PDF building blocks themselves. Adding a feature requires you to be familiar with the PDF formatting of that feature, but will not require you to write the basic PDF building blocks, as the library handles this.


text:
From monday to friday: 9h00 - 18h00 (non-stop)
Saturday: 9h00 - 16h00 (non-stop)
Work incognito with custom-fit HP Privacy Filters Designed by 3M, which help prevent the visual hacking of corporate and personal data on your HP Business Notebook and maintain all of your touch interactivity.
Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of all information contained herein. e-nitiative shall not be liable for any changes resulting in wrong product description, tax code and/or price. The shown information (specifications, prices, taxes) should be considered as an indication and can be changed at any moment and without any prior notice.
From monday to friday: 9h00 - 18h00 (non-stop)
Saturday: 9h00 - 16h00 (non-stop)
Open on ALL working days,
Open on days between holidays and weekend.
Closed only on Sundays and holidays.
Tel. 02/5122332
Fax. 02/5139668
Design and development by :


text:
AirFest grounded for 2014 and likely beyond
JANESVILLE—Southern Wisconsin AirFest will not return this summer, and an event organizer said Tuesday it's unlikely the show will ever return to Rock County.
"You can never say never, but I'd say it's not likely," said Tom Morgan, the executive director of the event that started in 2002.
Organizers put the annual air show on hiatus last year because it didn't have a major performer or significant corporate sponsor to boost what had become a worsening bottom line.
At the time, they said the decision was based on a lack of corporate support for the event and no commitments from either the Air Force Thunderbirds or the Navy Blue Angels.
Both of those teams performed at previous shows that did well financially.
Organizers said last year they would work toward the possibility of a 2014 show with better corporate support and a commitment from one of the two teams.
For years, the Beloit-based ABC Supply Co. has been the event's major sponsor.
The 2014 schedules for both military jet teams are set, and Janesville is on neither. The Thunderbirds will fly at the Rockford AirFest in June, two weekends after the traditional Janesville show on Memorial Day weekend.
"If we could get a U.S. jet team, ABC Supply said it would happily be back as a sponsor," said Morgan, who has directed the show for several years without being paid.
"Without a U.S. jet team, it just doesn't make financial sense."
The show was an annual fundraiser to support the Wisconsin Aviation Academy, a nonprofit organization founded in 2001 to help at-risk students improve their educational skills and achievement through aviation-based activities.
In years when the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels performed, the show was able to make significant contributions to the academy that Morgan founded. In down years, there were no contributions, he said.
He said the academy will likely close.
Through the years, AirFest was able to donate more than $400,000 to the academy.
Still, AirFest experienced a bumpy financial ride.
Since 2004, the show's revenues exceeded expenses in five out of nine years, according to tax records filed with the Internal Revenue Service.
In an interview last year, Morgan and other organizers laid out the necessities for the show's return: a commitment from a major U.S. jet team, a different weekend date and considerably more community support to help pay for an annual event that had established a recent pattern of losing money.
Organizers said at the time that they remained committed to an air show that benefits the aviation academy, entertains attendees and contributes to the economic well being of Rock County.
Morgan said Tuesday the show still has its paperwork filed with the Pentagon, which schedules both the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels.
"If they ever decide they want to come back to Janesville, we could take a look at it, but unless Scott Walker and Paul Ryan are the president and vice president or there's a four-start general from Janesville at the Pentagon, I'm not sure that's going to happen," he said.
"We ran a great event for several years, but with the things the way they are, it just doesn't make financial sense."


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By Jon Richman, Head of Trade and Financial Supply Chain Americas, Global Transaction Banking, Deutsche Bank, and Joao Luiz A. Galvao, Head of Financial Supply Chain Americas, Global Transaction Banking, Deutsche Bank
Distributor finance, also known as channel finance, is built on the concept of a large corporate supporting an established network of key, geographically-strategic distributors to reach and expand their operations and sales into new markets. It is a revolving line of credit often available for a short-term basis and with the specific purpose to finance inventory purchases from the anchor supplier.
Origins of Distributor Finance
While distributor finance programs are relatively new for emerging markets, some large corporates have long been sponsoring these types of programs to support their distributors. For example, the automotive industry has continued to use distributor finance programs for dealer floor plan financing, allowing dealers to borrow against retail inventory. The dealer then repays that debt as they sell their inventory and borrow against the line of credit to add new inventory.
Addressing Today's Requirements
Large multinational corporates (MNCs) are more dependent on emerging markets for growth and are making greater use of distributor finance programs to gain momentum in these markets. Distributor finance is often a preferable alternative to direct investments, particularly because of the limited impact on the balance sheet of MNCs. While strategically some MNCs may decide to build their own distribution channel, the business protocol is now such that MNCs should focus on their area of core competence. Nowadays, we rarely see a major corporate opting to invest in vertical access to the retail market end users or to establish subsidiaries with the purpose of carrying local inventory to diverse geographic locations. In addition, the treasury professionals of those MNCs are under increasing pressure to manage working capital more efficiently. Often these new distributors are thinly capitalized so their open account credit limits are quickly reached and not sufficient enough to support the distributor.
The distributor finance programs offered by a bank with the support of the MNC provide some tangible opportunities:
- The MNC benefits by boosting its revenues and limiting the impact on its balance sheet, as the bank will finance and take the credit risk of the distributor.
- The distributor benefits as it will gain access to a revolving line of credit to finance inventory often under better conditions than it can obtain from its local banks. Also, this financing can be supplementary to existing relationship banking arrangements.
Further benefit to the MNC will depend on the individual corporate. The bank needs to deepen its discussion with each corporate on the structuring of their distributor finance programs and how they differentiate from other finance alternatives such as accounts receivable purchase and straight working capital management solutions. Distributor finance can be structured with minimal involvement of the anchor supplier, or with a higher degree of support. A minimal intervention could be a simple acknowledgement by the MNC to the bank extending a specific line for its distributor. A minimal intervention from the MNC could also reflect in greater need for due diligence in terms of the bank's analyses of the distributor.
On the other hand, a higher degree of support would involve some risk sharing, some subsidy on the interest rate charged on the finance to the distributor and therefore, a more comprehensive approach by the bank. This structuring flexibility allows the distributor finance programs to be a better solution and in some cases is the only solution. For example, the distributor finance program does not have the limitations of a securitization program which has strong restrictions in concentrations and often excludes foreign risk – similar to a simple receivables finance program which would require the MNC to extend payment terms to the distributor and would necessitate a greater degree of involvement and change in internal billing procedures.
The benefits for the distributor, which ultimately also benefits the MNC supplier, are more evident. By sponsoring these programs the MNC increases the purchase power of its distributor and the distributor can support a more prompt delivery of its products. It is proven that a customer is more likely to purchase a product that it has immediate access to than to buy a product which it will have to wait for a few weeks or even months. As mentioned, there is also a very tangible financial benefit as the distributor finance programs are usually much cheaper than local working capital bank finance. If the anchor supplier is willing to subsidize the financing the benefits are even more significant.
The bank you choose to partner with for distributor finance should have a team of product experts trained to structure these highly customized cross-border multi-currency finance deals. An experienced structuring team will look for distributors that have a vested interest in succeeding in selling the products it purchases from the MNC.
Usually the distributor will purchase a sizable portion of its products from its anchor MNC supplier. It will also have a few years of commercial relationship with the MNC and a good repayment history. The line of credit will be sized and monitored accordingly and other credit review criteria will apply such as financial statements review, access of management, etc. In the end, the combination of a satisfactory structuring, commercial history, business dependency and some minimum creditworthiness makes the default rating arising from these adequately-sized, short-term revolving facilities very low. Therefore, this type of financing can provide more flexibility on better terms than straight working capital.
The Right Partner Bank
For a distributor seeking a distributor finance line or for a large corporate looking to establish a sponsored program to its distributors, choosing the right bank partner is fundamental. The right bank will have a global presence and the ability to support multiple countries and markets.
Deutsche Bank has the global reach and the depth of expertise to assist its clients with their expanding distributor finance needs. Distributor finance is a fast-growing product for Deutsche Bank as there is increasing interest in this type of financing from MNCs as they enter new markets.


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YAWIK offers a Web based solution for managing job applications. Jobs ads can be entered or pushed to the system. The sytem assigns application forms to job ads. Applicants and Recruiters can connect to YAWIK using social networks. Currently it is possible to integrate YAWIK into a corporate Web site by extending it with a module. It is intended to become a distributed system for connecting recruiters and applicants.
eLabFTW is an electronic laboratory notebook system. Once installed on a server, every member of a lab can write up their experiments, upload files, manage a database of products (antibodies, chemicals, siRNA, papers, or whatever you want). It was created with usability and security in mind, is very easy to use, and has a long list of features specific to research life.
side-menu-generator-and-handler is a set of PHP classes that generate hierarchical menus defined in XML files. They read given XML configuration file with a definition of a hierarchy of menus. The classes generate nested HTML lists and JavaScript code to present the defined menus in a Web page. The texts used in the menus can be read from a database using a separate localization class. The JS object can manage hierarchical menus of HTML content sections. It can register event handlers to listen to clicks on menu entry icons that make sub-menus expand or collapse. The object can also make content be loaded when menu entries are clicked.
pdf_gantt is a TCPDF wrapper class for rendering Gantt charts as a part of a created PDF document. It has features for adjusting the printing area, font colors for different text blocks, background and referencing arrows colors, and other parameters. It will automatically adjust start dates for dependant tasks to start right after "parent" tasks. List of people responsible for each task can be printed. The class can be used standalone or as a PrintFormPDF plugin.
printformPdf is a wrapper for the TCPDF class that allows you to documents from a PDF template by populating it with user data. It has features for printing "data grids" and repeating data on the page (which is useful for business cards, for example) and drawing bar codes, QR codes, polygons, and images from source picture files etc. Data priniting parameters (position, font name/size, color, rotation) can be saved in an XML configuration file.
svg-math-graphics is a class that can render a math formula as a SVG vectorial chart. It takes a string with a math formula and creates a chart on which it draws a set of lines between consecutive points for the axes. The class returns the chart data in SVG format. The size of the chart and the size of the steps between each point in the chart are configurable parameters. You can draw functions in Cartesian or polar coordinates.
PIMF (Php Is My Framework) is a micro framework for PHP that emphasises minimalism and simplicity. It is based on proven design patterns and a fast object relational mapping mechanism, and is designed to be easily updated without having to rewrite your projects. It includes mechanisms for easily coupling controllers to ExtJs and Dojo.


text: There are many different types of buses in any given city. Because of that, it is important to know what kind of bus you need to be taking and which one specifically to take otherwise you'll get lost. These are some basic terms that will help you get an understanding of how buses work.


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Prior to enrolling in a class, a new or current school bus driver should be hired by an Oklahoma school. Normally, the employing district's transportation director or superintendent will make arrangements for their school bus drivers to enroll in the appropriate certification class. The State Department of Public Safety requires school bus drivers to have a commercial driver license (CDL) with a passenger endorsement. Some of the classes will also be able to assist to in obtaining a CDL. If you need additional school bus driver qualification information, or how to contact a state certified instructor for school bus driver classes, you may call the Student Transportation Section of the State Department of Education at (405) 521-3472.
Part 1 of the course is Saturday, Sept 22 8:00 to 5:00.
Part 2 of the course is Monday, Sept 24 - Thursday, Sept 27 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm.
Part 3 of the course is Saturday, Sept 29 8:00 to 5:00.


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Crews responding to fire at Sprecher's Restaurant in Lake Geneva
Staff | September 26, 2013
LAKE GENEVA -- Firefighters are on the scene at the Cove restaurant� in Lake Geneva for a kitchen fire in Sprecher's Restaurant.
"There's an active fire in the kitchen at Sprecher's," said a spokeswoman in the Lake Geneva Police Department.
Extra crews from neighboring departments were called in about 8:30 a.m. to assist.
Sprecher's Restaurant, 111 Center St., is in the same building as The Cove of Lake Geneva hotel.
Fire departments from Lake Geneva, Williams, Bay, Elkhorn, Delavan, Lyons, Sharon, Burlington and Bloomfield were responding to the scene, according to scanner traffic.


text: Page Not FoundWe're sorry. It appears that the page or resource that you are looking for either no longer exists or has been moved to a different location. Please reference the links below for assistance in finding the web page that you are looking for.If you need assistance in this matter, please visit our contact page. Alternatively you can use the search box located on the right side of the page to locate the article you are looking for.


text:
ProcessMaker is workflow and business process management software that allows small to medium-sized organizations to automate document intensive, approval-based processes across various systems including finance, HR, and operations. An entirely Web-based, AJAX-enabled application built on the popular open source WAMP/LAMP stacks, it includes tools to design forms, create documents, assign roles and users, create routing rules, and send alerts. A full service-orientated architecture (SOA) and Web Services interface allows the software to directly connect with popular business intelligence, content management, and enterprise resource planning systems.
Tine 2.0 is a Web-based groupware solution that focuses on usability and correctness. To achieve these goals, the project uses usability experts and covers most of the code by unit tests. It contains support for contacts, tasks, calendar, email, CRM, VoIP integration, a time tracker, ActiveSync, and a flexible rights management system.
CMSimple is a simple content management system for simple maintainance of small commercial or private sites. It has a simple installation, is easy to modify, and offers an unique combination of features. It uses an HTML-file for storing the entire site, which can be edited in your favorite editor. It has a dynamic TOC and document locator, a WYSIWYG editor (no plugin--functions in IE and Mozilla), a search function, link validation, image handling, and automatic backup. It is easy to set up your own layout; just edit the template and stylesheet.
StatusNet is a microblogging platform. A StatusNet site is a lightweight social network that helps a community, company, or group to exchange short messages, files, and data over the Web. Users can choose which people to "follow" and receive only their friends' or colleagues' status messages. It provides a service that is similar to Twitter, Yammer, SocialCast, or Salesforce.com Chatter.
RapidMiner (formerly YALE) is a flexible Java environment for knowledge discovery in databases, machine learning, and data mining. Many nestable learning and preprocessing operators (including Weka) are provided. It features an XML-based graphical user interface, a plugin mechanism, and high-dimensional plotting, and provides an easy-to-use extension mechanism that makes it possible to integrate new operators and adapt the system to your personal requirements. A command line version is also included.
CiviCRM is relationship management software for the nonprofit and nongovernmental sectors. CiviCRM stores information on the universe of people associated with a nonprofit organization and on their interactions (such as emails, donations, petitions, and events). The technology is designed to be lightweight, extensible, core functionality that can both stand-alone as a simple contact management application and be easily integrated with a broad variety of technologies and applications (such as donation processing, fundraising, advocacy/GOTV, or event management).


text:
Sound Off for Sunday, May 11, 2014
On Janesville School District: I've never observed a district that pulls so many educators so often for so many meetings or other reasons. The Journey to Excellence needs teachers left to teach their students. Ask your children how many subs they have. I hope the board asks questions.
-- Proficiency in math and reading among U.S. students is terrible, yet rather than dealing with our children, Superintendent Schulte sees fit to go over to another country, where those students are already way ahead of us and bring them over here. I don't think those students want to go backward. She needs to get more involved with the students who are already here.
-- The Marshall School drop-off is so hectic in the morning. I'm tired of people pulling up to the crosswalk because they don't want to get in line like everybody else and let their kids off at the crosswalk. It's about time the principal or assistant principal gets out there every day.
On roundabouts: Sound Off on May 4 about the Highway 14 plans talks about them putting in more roundabouts. If anybody would like to improve Highway 11, forget all the roundabouts, just bypass Brodhead. That is totally ridiculous to have that town command a major state road going right through it.
-- I couldn't agree more with the May 7 Sound Off. That roundabout on Racine Street is really dangerous. I wish they would stop this whole thing about roundabouts; they're just not worth it. I don't think it's right to put a curve in a road. It doesn't makes sense at all.
On vaccinations: Michael Gerson's column (Page 4A, Tuesday) states that choosing not to be vaccinated could endanger your neighbors. If vaccinations work so well, how would you be endangering your neighbors if you weren't vaccinated?
On Senate race: It's great to see Mike Sheridan run for the 15th Senate seat. He's a great progressive leader, and his experience working in bipartisanship will move the state forward without compromising progressive values.
-- Tim Cullen must be losing it to back a 24-year-old with no real experience except for working for Cullen. Cullen should stay out of the 15th District race and let the people decide who they think will work hard and represent them the best.
-- Wise up, Austin Scieszinski. You're being used by Cullen to spoil the Senate race. Your lack of experience doesn't impress many voters.
On Benghazi: The panel needs to know why Hillary Clinton stood over the four dead American heroes' coffins and told their parents they were murdered because of a video when she knew that was a horrible lie.
On Bill Watson: If he is the "yes" man for General Motors, why not call that company and get some of that free gravel he incorrectly commented it was giving away?
-- Is this the best Watson can do (Page 3A, Wednesday), dangling a carrot of automaker jobs in order to throw out local zoning?
On Gazette subscriptions: Why are certain subscribers charged for online all-access? To be fair, this charge should be listed on the bill as an option. If you want to pay for all-access, send in the extra fee with your payment.
On heroin plague: If they want the epidemic to go down, put the drinking age back to 18 and let these young adults have a drink and socialize with their buddies. People would have something else to do other than heroin. You can serve your country, own a house and do just about anything else at 18.
On new firehouse: Our church group is wondering why the city doesn't use the old ball field just west of Mount Zion. No houses to destroy.
On court ruling: Thursday's front-page story, "Ruling delays Walker's big win," leaves out the most important details. Go online and read Judge Randa's 26-page ruling. It's a scathing assault on the prosecutors, threatening to hold them in contempt, saying what they did violated the constitutional rights of the governor.
On city spending: I am in my 80s and about to lose my house because of property taxes. The money they're spending on the bus depot turns my stomach. They're going to spend more on a new fire station and tearing down the ramp on the river. Where is this money coming from? Roads in this town are in terrible shape, and the bridge downtown is terrible.
On Nigerian girls: It's enough to turn your stomach to watch leftists display outrage. They've been making excuses for Islamic terrorism for 10 years. Hillary Clinton refused to put this group on a terror watch list despite continuous urging from many quarters. Maybe if she had done something when she had the power to do it, this group would have been depleted.


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Teardown: Inside the Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone
40 comments
The story of Samsung in the smartphone landscape is an intriguing one. No more than three years ago, Samsung was considered a minor player in the handset industry, lagging in sales and stature behind companies such as Nokia, Motorola and Research in Motion. When Apple entered the fray with the introduction of the iPhone, eventually taking over as the leader in smartphone sales, many industry insiders felt that Samsung would never be able to make up the ground to be considered influential to the market.
Samsung itself understood the uphill climb that it was facing. Instead of waving the white flag and exiting the market, Samsung chose to jettison its approach to design and immediately ceased being complacent with its R&D model. Samsung re-invested heavily into creating a new line of handsets that were not only aesthetically-pleasing, but would feature higher-end technology and features not found in their competition.
The result of this new approach yielded the Galaxy line of handsets. These Android-based smartphones resonated with consumers, especially the first flagship handset, the Samsung Galaxy S, which was released in 2010. With sales approaching 24 million units, it was the beginning of Samsung 's dominance of the smartphone market. By the end of 2011, according to Gartner Inc., Samsung was now the undisputed global leader in handset unit sales, representing 40 percent of all Android smartphone sales alone.
According to Information Week, a UBM partner, unit sales of just the Galaxy line of smartphones by Samsung have totaled close to 60 million units, the bulk of which is the Samsung Galaxy S (24 million), the Galaxy S2 (28 million), and the recently released smartphone/tablet hybrid, the Galaxy Note (7 million).
It should come as no surprise then that Samsung 's latest high-end Galaxy phone, the Galaxy S3, has drawn the interest of consumers, designers, engineers and market analysts. What would Samsung have up its sleeve for its newest smartphone?
UBM TechInsights purchased the first set of Samsung Galaxy S3 handsets from Europe. This is important as we were to later find out that the North American versions of the S3 would not feature a quad-core processor but a dual-core processor instead. At this time, the explanation given by Samsung is that this decision "optimizes" the Galaxy S3 for peak performance on America 's 4G and LTE networks.
Package photo of the Exynos Quad. The device features four ARM A9 cores as well as four Mali 400 GPU cores.


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Evansville police host drop-off day for unwanted medication
EVANSVILLE—In an effort to keep prescription drugs from falling into the wrong hands, Evansville police are giving residents with extra medications a chance to drop them off with local authorities.
Letting unwanted prescription drugs sit around a person's home makes it more likely they will be misused or abused, a police news release said.
From 8 to 11 a.m. Saturday, police will collect and properly dispose of unwanted medication, including prescription pills and liquids, at the Evansville Police Station, 10 W. Church St.
The event is part of National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, according to the release.
Those who can't attend Saturday's event can dispose of old medication in the secure prescription drug drop-off box that is available 24 hours a day at the police department.
Last updated: 7:36 pm Wednesday, October 23, 2013


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Custom-made bicycle of special needs girl stolen
JANESVILLE—Amanda Swangstu and John Krueger are asking the public for help to find their special needs daughter's custom-built tricycle.
The three-wheeler, built by Brian Reece of Bike Elves in Beloit, was stolen sometime before 11 p.m. Friday from the family's front porch in the 600 block of Cherry Street.
It is blue with white tires and has a white banana seat decorated with pink flowers. It was built with parts from several bicycles and took six weeks to make. Their daughter only had the bike for a month.
The girl is autistic, suffers from low muscle tone and is heartbroken her bike is missing, her mother said in a message sent to The Gazette's Facebook account.
If you see or find this bike, call 608-757-2244.
Last updated: 7:02 pm Saturday, May 24, 2014


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Grandmother arrested in methadone death of 1-year-old granddaughter
JANESVILLE—The grandmother of the 1-year-old who died from an apparent methadone overdose Dec. 26 now faces the same charge as the child's mother.
Tina M. Strommen, 51, of 1729 Sumac Court, Beloit, was arrested Monday at the Janesville Police Department.
Tina Strommen gave methadone pills to her daughter Tallie J. Strommen, police believe.
Tallie, 23, later gave a portion of a methadone pill to her daughter, K'Myah, while staying with an acquaintance in Janesville, according to a criminal complaint.
Wisconsin law allows for anyone involved in the distribution of a drug that causes a death to be charged with the same crime, said Janesville police Detective Erik Goth, who is investigating the case.
Both women face charges of first-degree reckless homicide.
Tina Strommen had a prescription for the drug, Goth said.
Tallie Strommen, of 722 Central Ave., Beloit, has told police she had obtained three 10-milligram tablets Dec. 25, took 2 1/2 of them and later bit off a piece of the remaining tablet and gave it to her 1-year-old daughter before bedtime.
K'Myah was found lifeless the next morning and was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Toxicology tests completed Feb. 4 showed K'Myah had a "high level of methadone" in her body, according to the criminal complaint.
The death is Janesville's only homicide in 2013.
Tallie had told Goth she had used methadone regularly for pain, stemming from injuries sustained at childbirth, but it wasn't known whether Tina had supplied Tallie with methadone other than on Dec. 25, Goth said.
Tina Strommen was released with a March court date, Goth said.
The decision not to jail her was made in consultation with the district attorney. Goth said the decision was based on the belief that Strommen is not a flight risk and not a threat to the public.
Tallie Strommen remains at the Rock County Jail on a $20,000 cash bond.
Last updated: 11:30 am Wednesday, February 26, 2014


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Halloween checks of local sex offenders resulted in arrests in Walworth County but not in Janesville.
The Janesville police and the Walworth County Sheriff's Office conducted Halloween operations, Walworth County for the fifth straight year.
Walworth County deputies, along with local police officers and state probation and parole agents, conducted checks Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 26 and 27, and on Thursday, Oct. 31. They went to the homes of 134 known registered sex offenders who are on active supervision through the state Department of Corrections.
Three men were found to be in violation of supervision rules and were taken to the Walworth County Jail on probation/parole holds.
Two other Walworth men had outstanding warrants that required temporary confinement, a news release states.
Assisting in the Walworth County sweeps were police from the Whitewater, Elkhorn and Sharon departments.
Janesville police and state probation and parole agents checked 43 supervised sex offenders in Janesville during the trick-or-treat hours Thursday. All were in compliance with their rules.


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Rock County OKs benefits for same-sex couples
JANESVILLE—Rock County employees in same-sex domestic partnerships can now share� benefits such as health insurance with their significant others.
On Thursday, the Rock County Board voted 20-7 in favor of a resolution allowing the policy change. Two supervisors were absent.
The vote came after more than 90 minutes of comments from citizens and discussion among board members. More than 50 people were in attendance at the beginning of the meeting, and that number swelled as the night went on.
During the citizen comment period, two people spoke against the resolution; six registered in favor of the resolution and about a dozen people spoke in favor of it.
Rock County Chief Deputy Barbara Tillman, Beloit City Council vice-president Mark Spreitzer and Janesville City Council member Sam Liebert were among the people speaking in favor of the resolution.
Liebert presented the board with a petition of 150 signatures in favor of the resolution.
Two people spoke against the resolution, including Gary Utterberg of Janesville.
"If you pass this, there's a lot of taxpayers that will say, 'What's going on here?'" Utterberg said.
Utterberg said that he thought that the vote "wasn't about insurance, but about acceptance," and he asked supervisors to turn it down.
Perhaps one of the significant factors in the "yes" vote was the work of Mary Kay Vukovich, a 13-year county employee who now works at Rock County Jail.
In the past few weeks, Vukovich who has a registered domestic partner, called all the supervisors and talked to as many of them as she could.
At the meeting, she thanked supervisors for their time and told them she was proud to work for the county.
"In voting 'yes' tonight, you say to me, as a county employee, that my family is equal," Vukovich said. "You tell my five children that family is equal. You tell my eight grandchildren my family is equal."
Supervisor Brent Fox, who voted against the resolution when it was before the finance committee, said that Vukovich changed his mind.
"My vote on the finance committee was a pretty easy decision for me to make," Fox said.
His own sexual preference and his upbringing factored into that vote. He said that homosexuality "didn't sit well with me."
"Then I talked with Officer Vukovich," Fox said. "Then I started examining my decision."
After examining it from every side, including the fiscal angle, he decided that he needed to vote yes.
Supervisor Rick Richard said that when he was considering any vote, he always reminded himself "that the primary role of government is to protect the rights of individuals."
His 'yes' vote, then, was extending equal rights to all county employees.
Supervisor Louis Peer, who voted against the resolution, said he thought the issue should go to referendum for the voters to decide.
"Traditional family values seem to be changing, and that's the problem we're having tonight," Peer said.
He said the "silent majority" of people would stay home, and not speak out on an issue like this one.
The cities of Beloit, Evansville, Edgerton, Milton, Janesville, Madison; the school district of Janesville and Blackhawk Tech and Dane County already offer benefits to same-sex couples in registered domestic partnerships.


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Should airlines allow cellphone use during flights?
Most Americans who fly oppose a proposal to lift the ban on cellphone use during airline flights, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.
Still, the Federal Communications Commission officially starts the debate today (Thursday). It is holding the first of several meetings to review its 22-year-old ban, The Associated Press reports. Tom Wheeler, new FCC chairman, has called the current rules "outdated and restrictive," even though he previously has stated his preference is for no such phone calls. Seems like he's talking out of both sides of his mouth.
Supposedly, technology has advanced to the point where in-flight calls won't overload cell towers on the ground. So, says Wheeler, there's no reason the government should prohibit in-flight calls. This FCC proposal comes weeks after the Federal Aviation Administration lifted its ban on using personal electronic devices such as iPads and Kindles below 10,000 feet because they don't interfere with cockpit instruments.
The new poll released Wednesday says 48 percent of Americans oppose allowing cellphone use for voice calls while flying. Only 19 percent support it. Thirty percent are neutral.
Delta Air Lines is the only airline to state it won't allow voice calls even if the government gives the green light. Delta says years of customer feedback shows "the overwhelming sentiment" is to keep the ban. American Airlines, United Airlines and JetBlue Airways plan to study the issue and listen to feedback from passengers and crew.
Not surprisingly, the nation's largest flight attendant union opposes a change out of fears that cellphone use could lead to fights between passengers.
I don't know about you, but I would dread a flight where anyone and everyone might be yakking incessantly on cellphones. I remember sitting in a crowded passenger area in an airport after one flight delay and listening to a young woman sitting next to me. She was yammering on her cellphone to some friend or relative, chronicling her day of missed flights and flight delays—some misfortune of her own making. I can only imagine similar calls while someone sitting next to me is trying to speak loudly over the roar of the plane engine and I try to get a little shuteye.
Count me among the majority: Do not allow cellphone calls on flights. I would pay more money to fly Delta or any other airline that bans such calls.
Greg Peck can be reached at (608) 755-8278 or email@example.com. Or follow him on Twitter or Facebook.
Greg Peck can be reached at (608) 755-8278 or firstname.lastname@example.com. Or follow him on Twitter or Facebook.


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Janesville-to-China trips raise questions
JANESVILLE—The principals of Craig and Parker high schools will be in China for a week in October, and that has a school board member asking questions.
Kevin Murray said he is asking on behalf of people who want to understand the administration's China initiative and how it is carrying out those plans.
"It makes us adversaries because we don't know," Murray said.
"I don't know where we're going. I don't know where we've been, and the people I represent don't know, either," Murray said.
Superintendent Karen Schulte has been to China four times since last November, and several other school officials have traveled there as well. Murray and others have asked for an accounting, and the administration has said it will deliver a report next month, Murray said.
Murray said he feels he is in the dark about what's been happening. He learned only recently that when school board member Kristen Hesselbacher traveled to China with Schulte, Hesselbacher paid her own way.
Schulte hopes to arrange for students from China and other countries to pay tuition to attend high school in Janesville. The Chinese are said to be especially interested in using Janesville as a springboard to UW-Rock County and then UW-Madison.
Murray said he needs to know who has traveled to China, who is paying for what, what the potential revenue is, what the curriculum will be and how many staff hours are being spent to develop the program.
Schulte recently sent out an email newsletter that said the principals, Chief Information Officer Bob Smiley, Parker High School computer science teacher Bob Getka and Craig High School academic learning coach Lisa Brovick would travel to China "to develop a pathway from our high schools to UW-Rock and UW-Madison."
Murray said October is an important time in the school year, coming just before state testing.
"We need them here. Why couldn't this have been done in the summer? Why do they have to go at all?" Murray asked.
"I hear a lot of the same questions," board President Greg Ardrey said.
The board doesn't have a roadmap for where Schulte is taking the program, Ardrey said, and the board should keep asking questions, and there should be answers.
"But in doing so there needs to be some latitude for the development" of the program, Ardrey said.
Ardrey said he will go along on an upcoming trip to China, courtesy of the Asia Society, which has been interested in the district since it recognized the quality of the district's Mandarin program in 2011.
Schulte said Principal Shawn Galvin of Lincoln Elementary School and one other person will be on that trip.
Schulte also said a global studies teacher from Craig High will attend a conference in China in March, and arrangements are being made so Getka can teach Advanced Placement computer science to local and Chinese students using video conferencing.
"I apologize if I haven't been clear, but certainly I expect board members to ask me questions," Schulte said.
"My team tries to give you talking points so when you communicate with the community, you'll have the right answers," she added.
Schulte said she is trying to achieve one of the top goals the school board has given her—increase revenue. To do that requires outside-the-box efforts, she said.
"If I am going down a path that is unacceptable to you, then we really need to talk about the goals you set for me," she added.
As for the principals' trip, that's one of many that staff members take throughout the school year to conferences and the like, she said.
"I believe our high school principals can fulfill this mission, do the things they need to do, and our high schools will be well covered," Schulte said.
Murray was not satisfied.
"The more time I see administrators away from what we hire and pay them to do, the more I'm inclined to say we have too many administrators," Murray responded.
Board member Cathy Myers defended the process, saying "global literacy" and language studies will improve overall student achievement.


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😭------------------------------------------------- - I'm lucky enough to live by the beach on the central Oregon Coast. I love to take pictures and always have my camera in my pocket, just in case. I'm totally impressed by all the awesome pictures posted here and it's fun with all the comments and rating. The feedback on my photos are also very much appreciated.-Kristina
MirroredView II
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Portland, OR (Current Weather Conditions)
Caption: View over Willamette river and the Marquam bridge, I -5 thru Portland, from Pill Hill on a cloudy day
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Finalized in mid-December, the Volcker Rule prohibits banks from engaging in speculative securities trading, also called proprietary trading. Banks must demonstrate that every derivatives trade they make is designed to hedge a specific risk—except for trades made on behalf of clients. The banks' CEOs must attest to their compliance with the rule.
The purpose is to improve financial market stability, but the Volcker Rule may have a big impact on corporate treasurers who use derivatives to hedge interest rate, foreign exchange, and other financial risks.
Treasury & Risk discussed the effects of the Volcker Rule on both banks and banking customers with Bjorn Pettersen, a managing director at Accenture Finance and Risk Services and a former derivatives trader.
T&R: How does the final version of the Volcker Rule compare with previous iterations?
Bjorn Pettersen: I didn't see anything there that was a huge surprise. Banks have seen the writing on the wall around the Volcker Rule, and a lot of the heavy lifting has already been done. Most banks have exited their proprietary trading desks, the area of the business that was purely doing proprietary trading. But they still have elements of proprietary trading in their market-making businesses. The question of what's a hedge versus what might be proprietary from a trading perspective is not always black and white.
T&R: What's an example of a transaction that might fall into the gray area?
BP: Look at step-up callable transactions. This market tends to be fairly one-sided, so in many cases, the banks end up buying the American-style option. Then they have to define and find the other side of that transaction. It's difficult, and they might use a European-style option to hedge an American-style option. Naturally, there might be a mismatch between the risk and payoff on those two transactions. There might not necessarily be any way to perfectly hedge the transactions. Over time banks can build up pretty significant exposures like that. Is this a proprietary position or just a hedge? That's one example, and there are hundreds more, especially as you get into the more sophisticated derivatives.
T&R: Moving forward, what impact will the Volcker Rule have on banks?
BP: The Volcker Rule will require banks to make changes in three key areas. First, the credit and rates businesses are going to get hit hard, so banks may need to restructure those businesses. They've been evaluating 'How do we set this up so we can be profitable? How can we earn a return that is higher than the cost of keeping these lines of business going?' They've done gap assessments, and they may have plans in place around the law, but they haven't necessarily done the restructuring of their businesses. Some are taking a wait-and-see approach in terms of how it's going to be implemented, but they've at least figured out what strategic options they have around some of their businesses.
Still, demonstrating that they're complying is going to take a while. They need to make changes to the business model, they need to train the front-office staff, they need to make changes to the compensation schedule because no compensation can be tied to anything that might look like proprietary trading. Then, to track and report on compliance, banks are going to have to make some technology changes; this is the second key area I see. They're going to have to collect new types of data. They may be able to leverage compliance technology they've already invested in, particularly trade surveillance systems. But their front-office systems will need to change so that traders have less ambiguity around whether a particular trade is a proprietary trade or a hedge, and those systems still need to be created. This is something that's been talked about for a long time, but it hasn't been implemented.
The last major impact of the Volcker Rule for banks is around governance. Given some of the requirements and some of the sign-offs that need to be made, there are definitely going to be changes in the banks' governance structure. I wouldn't be surprised if we started to see Chief Volcker Officers being established inside some of these organizations.
T&R: Are these changes going to raise prices for corporate users of derivatives?
BP: Well, this is speculation because the rule was just finalized a couple weeks ago, but somebody is going to have to pay for the cost of all this. The banks might have to tack it on to the end user market, so corporate treasurers might have to pay more for their derivatives transactions. It's possible they will see it in terms of widening bid-offer spreads—but there are no guarantees about what's going to happen.
T&R: Are banks also likely to reduce the types of derivatives they offer on a bilateral basis?
BP: When you run a trading desk, you typically run a book of transactions. You don't hedge transaction after transaction; you look at the whole portfolio of all the transactions that you have, and you make matches. Because of the Volcker Rule, banks may stop offering transactions where they aren't able to offset all the risk.
They need to figure out how they can make their derivatives business profitable, and they need to look at how derivatives fit within their larger relationship with a corporation. As a result of this analysis, I'd expect some banks to reduce the derivatives they offer. If I were a bank, I would want to steer clients who are looking for structured transactions toward exchange-traded products rather than bilateral products. Bilateral arrangements tend to be more expensive from a capital and a management perspective. The more banks can tie their derivatives business into exchange-traded products, the more attractive it will be.
T&R: Has the shift toward exchange-traded products already started?
BP: Yes, I think the banks have looked at their books and tried to figure out how to push more business into exchange-traded transactions. I'm sure many corporate treasurers have already been involved in those types of discussions.
When the banks do something like a regulated interest rate swap, it has a certain economic profile around it. If a bank can't make the business profitable, considering the capital constraints around both the market and counterparty credit risk, the natural thing to do is to look into putting the product on an exchange. In the past, bank trading desks that sold interest rate swaps came up with different types of arrangements. One person might have paid a fixed rate, the other paid a floating rate, and there were specific ranges of dates. Typically, the bank would do the transaction itself if it would be profitable. But today the amount of capital the bank has to allocate to it might be more than in the past, so the bank might be looking at alternative ways to conduct a lot of these transactions. If they were on an exchange, they would require initial margin, performance margin, which is a reflection of the counterparty credit risk and the market risk exposure of the transaction. But this might be less expensive for them from a risk-versus-return perspective.
Think about a forward rate agreement in futures contracts. I can create a forward rate agreement that will go over exactly the same dates as the futures contract, or I can go to the exchange and buy and sell the futures contracts there. Even though the transactions would be essentially the same, the risk exposures would be different. With a forward rate agreement, you're taking a market risk, of course, but you're also taking counterparty credit risk. On the exchange, you pay the initial margin and the performance margin, and those cover all that risk. Exchanges aren't risk-free, but the risks are reduced.
T&R: Does this mean that companies are going to have fewer options in terms of derivatives that are available for hedging specific financial risks?
BP: I do expect to see a narrowing of the types of products that banks are offering to clients, which means corporations might not necessarily have the same kind of liquidity they had before. I'm guessing there will be fewer players and fewer products and less appetite for larger transactions.
If you're running the treasury function for a large corporation, you probably want more flexibility in your derivatives options, not less flexibility, but it's going to come at a price. The future of the market will depend in part on how much companies are willing to pay for that flexibility. Of course, if the need is still there for a lot of these types of structures and the banks can't offer them given the constraints they have, that opens up the possibility that other players will come into the marketplace and fill some of those roles. There are a lot of different firms that could do this, possibly including hedge funds or private equity firms.
T&R: Do you think companies will begin to have more options in terms of exchange-traded products, so that they will be able to find more precise hedges on the exchanges to offset their particular risks?
BP: That's definitely a possibility. I would expect the exchanges are looking into what other kinds of products they can create. It all depends on whether they can create enough liquidity and enough instruments to create a strong trading market around it. In the past, there might have been more reluctance on the part of the banks to give up business to the exchanges, whereas now there might be more interest in having the exchanges take a larger role, and the banks might actually just begin trading on the exchanges. They have an incentive to do that.
T&R: It seems there's some uncertainty over how the Volcker Rule will be implemented and enforced. Do you have any insights into how regulators will move forward?
BP: One way to look at this is to consider the mandate of each agency. They all see the same thing from a little bit different perspective. The FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation] is there to protect the deposit holder. The Federal Reserve is there to protect the financial systems. The SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] is there to protect the investor. They're all going to look at the Volcker Rule from a different angle. But I think it's too early to say exactly how it's going to be implemented.
If you compare the Volcker Rule to the Federal Reserve Act or the Glass-Steagall Act, it's very long. The law itself is only 70 pages, but with all the writing around it, it adds up to more than 900 pages. Part of what they tried to do with the Volcker Rule is to be a bit more prescriptive in terms of how it should be used and interpreted, but there are still a lot of gray areas, and I'm sure lawyers are looking at that right now, trying to figure out how to interpret it.
T&R: How concerned should treasurers be about the future of the derivatives markets?
BP: I don't think there's any crisis looming for corporate treasurers. Treasurers may need to become a little more sophisticated in terms of how they use exchange-traded derivatives to create replacements of the transactions they used to be offered by banks. But that requires specialized skills and sophisticated software, pricing, and risk management models. So it's hard to say where this will end up.


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Death notices for Oct. 19, 2013
John L. Carson, 89, Morton, Ill., formerly of Janesville, died Monday at Snyder Village Health Center, Metamora, Ill. Services will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Milton Lawns Memorial Park, Janesville.
Daniel B. Hansen, 56, Edgerton, died Thursday at home. Celebration of life services will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26, at Albrecht Funeral Home & Cremation Services, Edgerton.
Curt Krueger, 42, Janesville, died Friday at home. Arrangements are pending at Schneider Apfel Schneider & Schneider Funeral Home and Crematory, Janesville.
Doris E. "Polly" LaSure, 94, Janesville, died Thursday at Alden Meadow Park Nursing Home, Clinton. Services will be at 11 a.m. Monday at All Faiths Funeral Chapel, Janesville. Visitation will be from 9:30 a.m. until time of services at the funeral chapel. Brian Hansen Funeral Home, Janesville, is assisting the family.
Lillie May Lewis, 89, Janesville, formerly of Edgerton, died Thursday at Rock Haven Nursing Home, Janesville. Services will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Ehlert Funeral Home and Cremation Services, Edgerton. Visitation will be from 9 a.m. until the time of services Tuesday at the funeral home.
Fonda D. Meier, 76, Lake Geneva, died Wednesday at Arbor Village of Lake Geneva. No services are planned. Steinke Funeral Home and Cremation Services, Lake Geneva, is assisting the family.
Gregory M. Tinder, 52, died Monday in Williams Bay. Services will be at 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20, at Calvary Community Church, Williams Bay. Visitation will be from 3 p.m. until the time of services at the church. Toynton Funeral Home, Walworth, is assisting the family.
Pearl Marie Williams, 91, Monroe, died Wednesday at Pleasant View Nursing Home, Monroe. Services will be at 11:30 a.m. Monday at D.L. Newcomer Funeral Home, Brodhead. Visitation will be from 10:30 a.m. until the time of services at the funeral home.


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Microsoft is raising 550 million euros ($719 million) from 20-year notes, according to a person familiar with the transaction. French luxury goods maker LVMH is selling its first euro bonds in two years, while Nestle, the world's biggest food company, is marketing its first securities in the currency since October.
It's the busiest day in six weeks for issuance in Europe, as non-financial companies sell 3.9 billion euros of bonds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The average yield investors demand to hold investment-grade corporate bonds in euros has fallen to a record 1.84 percent, Bank of America Merrill Lynch data show.
"People are desperate for yield and there is not much to find in the government market so they will jump into corporate bonds," said Thomas Kristiansson, head of credit fixed income at SEB AB in Stockholm. "These deals are coming tight."
Microsoft's deal will be priced to yield about 60 basis points more than swaps, according to the person who asked not to be identified because the details are private. Bank of America and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc are the active bookrunners on the deal for the Redmond, Washington-based company, which has $14.3 billion of bonds outstanding, according to Bloomberg data.
LVMH is selling 500 million euros of notes due November 2019 that will be priced to yield 32 basis points more than the mid-swap rate. The Paris-based company last sold euro-denominated bonds in March 2011, Bloomberg data show.
Vevey, Switzerland-based Nestleis raising 500 million euros with bonds maturing May 2020 that will be priced to yield 17 basis points more than mid-swaps. The notes may be rated Aa2 by Moody's Investors Service.
General Electric Co., the largest maker of jet engines, is marketing a two-part deal, selling 750 million euros of floating-rate notes due May 2016 and 1.25 billion euros of fixed notes maturing May 2017, a person with knowledge of that transaction said. The Fairfield, Connecticut-based company's three-year notes will yield 45 basis points more than three-month Euribor and its four-year securities will yield 50 basis points more than swaps.
The cost of insuring against losses on corporate debt rose for the first time in five days. The Markit iTraxx EuropeIndex of credit-default swaps linked to 125 investment grade companies climbed one basis point to 108, after falling to the lowest level in more than a month yesterday.
Medi-Partenaires SAS is marketing a debut bond in the high- yield market. The French private hospital operator is selling 385 million euros of senior secured bonds due 2020 that may be called by the company after three years, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The notes may be rated B3 by Moody's, six steps below investment grade, according to the person who asked not to be identified because they're not authorized to speak about it. The Paris-based company will use the proceeds to refinance a portion of its senior and subordinated shareholder funding and to pursue acquisitions, it said in a statement.
Bloomberg News


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Not even investors fleeing mutual funds that buy junk-rated U.S. corporate loans is enough to keep Cerberus Capital Management LP from tapping the market to finance its $9.2 billion bid for Safeway Inc.
Cerberus will begin raising $6.7 billion in loans today to fund its buyout of the grocer and merge it with Albertsons. Less than a week ago, mutual funds that invest in the debt posted their biggest withdrawals in almost three years, bringing redemptions since mid-April to more than $3 billion.
While small investors flee and U.S. regulators are stepping up pressure on banks to refrain from underwriting deals deemed too risky, those with the most at stake are plowing ahead in a market that has delivered returns of almost 100 percent since the end of 2008.
"We are advising clients that they shouldn't get caught offsides by selling loans," Frank Ossino, a money manager in Hartford, Connecticut, who oversees $3 billion of loans at Newfleet Asset Management LLC, said in a telephone interview. "A strategic allocation within loans is still warranted as the long-term investment thesis hasn't changed."
The outflows have been dwarfed by a surge in new collateralized loan obligations that have helped push prices on the debt to a five-month high. Last week, Leon Black's Apollo Global Management LLC raised $1.5 billion in the biggest CLO this year, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. forecasts a record $100 billion will be raised this year.
The average price of the S&P/LSTA 100 index, which tracks the largest first-lien loans such as those for personal-computer maker Dell Inc. and hotel chain Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., climbed to 98.82 cents on the dollar yesterday, the most since Jan. 24. That's not far from a seven-year high of 98.9 cents reached earlier this year.
In the aftermath of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, loan prices fell as low as 59.2 cents in December 2008, based on the index.
Loan mutual funds and exchange-traded funds expanded about 137 percent since the end of 2011 to $171 billion as retail investors sought to get in on the recovery, according to the Loan Syndications & Trading Association. That's about 25 percent of the buyer base in the market, according to the trade group.
Hedges Sought
More recently, the funds drew investors seeking a hedge from the potential for increasing interest rates, as loans typically have rates that rise and fall with benchmarks. The latest redemptions in retail funds followed a streak of 95 continuous weeks of deposits.
"There was a tremendous consensus around higher interest rates this year," Bill Housey, a money manager at First Trust Advisors LP, which manages $90 billion in assets, said in a telephone interview. "With what's happened with rates, what you've seen is some of the less stable money moving out of the asset class."
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note has dropped about 0.4 percentage point this year to 2.64 percent. At the start of 2014, the median end-of-year yield forecast was 3.44 percent, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Investors began to pull out of loan funds as Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen signaled the central bank, which has held its interest-rate target near zero for more than five years, won't increase borrowing costs for a "considerable time."
Banks and other asset managers buying up portions of CLOs aren't easily dissuaded as the issuance of the funds that repackage loans accelerates.
"Institutions are clearly saying they don't want to be lulled into a false sense of security," Housey said.
More than $46 billion of CLOs have been sold through the first five months of the year in the U.S., according to Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. That compares with $82 billion in all of last year. CLOs pool high-yield corporate loans and slice them into securities of varying risk and return, typically from AAA ratings down to BB.
The growth in the market for speculative-grade corporate loans has spurred warnings from regulators with the Fed and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency asking lenders last year to improve lax underwriting practices. Todd Vermilyea, a Fed official, said May 13 that standards have continued to deteriorate in 2014'' and that "stronger supervisory action" may be needed.
"The comeback in loan prices is driven by the support away from retail," Newfleet's Ossino said. "So much so that we've started to see deals become quickly oversubscribed again, which leads to tighter pricing and an increase in opportunistic transactions."
The loans being raised for Cerberus' purchase of Pleasanton, California-based Safeway include a $4 billion portion coming due in seven years, a $2 billion slice maturing in March 2019 and a $700 million one-year piece, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Peter Duda, a spokesman for Cerberus at Weber Shandwick, didn't immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the financing.
Apollo's $1.5 billion CLO was arranged by JPMorgan, the same lender that increased its 2014 forecast for the funds from as much $70 billion.
"Continued demand from CLO issuance provides support to the broader loan market," David Mazza, head of ETF research at State Street Corp., said in a telephone interview. "As we move toward the end of the year, investors will likely move back into leveraged loan funds as they think about the end of the Fed's tapering."
Bloomberg News


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Pasquini Espresso Machines and Coffee Grinders
Located in the heart of LA, the magic of the Pasquini Espresso Co. continues to be a family owned and managed enterprise. Since 1956, the Pasquini family name has been synonymous with quality espresso machines across America. It's taken us decades of mastering and enhancing our beautiful coffee blends with the use of the finest coffee beans and Italian roasters to give you the best tasting coffee possible. Pasquini has perfected the freshest tasting Italian coffee one could ever experience.


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Silicon Valley Nation: Immigration do-over?
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Old engineering immigrants may be asking themselves, "Would I do it the same way all over again?"
SAN JOSE, Calif.--The U.S. presidential elections were "issues-lite," as many observers like to say, but that doesn't mean the issues aren't going away. Chief among them is immigration, which, for the technology industry, is usually front and center.
Former Intel CEO Craig Barrett famously said all universities should staple a green card form onto their graduate engineering degree diplomas to encourage foreign students to stay and put their education to work here in the U.S. That hasn't happened, and compromise over ways to improve high-skilled immigration is deadlocked at the moment, according to SIA CEO Brian Toohey.
At the same time, other countries aren't waiting for U.S. leaders to fix our problems. They're building better universities and curricula, thank you, in the hopes that they'll be able educate, graduate and retain native students to help grow domestic technology sectors.
So, has the view of U.S. engineering programs at the university levels changed in a generation? I had an opportunity to get one perspective this week when I sat down with Maxim Integrated CEO Tunc Doluca (right), a Turkish native who earned his degrees in the U.S. 30 years ago and went on to build a successful engineering career here.
Would he do it again? Or would he stay at home?
Doluca studied in the U.S. out of necessity. The Turkish "political situation got unstabled," and he decided to move to the U.S., where he got his BSEE at Iowa State University. Afterward, he received his MSEE at U.C. Santa Barbara.
The Turkish college where Doluca started his education was so strong that when he got to the U.S. "for the first six months to a year, I did not have to study that much because I had learned most of that back there."


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Support for Students in the Chipman Middle School Area
Looking for ways to be to get involved? Students at Chipman Middle School in Alameda can make a difference.
Join the Student Council
Joining the student council allows you to become a more active member of your local school community.
Getting involved with the student council or school government allows students to have a say in what activities and events are planned during the school year. Members of the council also help organize student fundraisers and perform community service. Council members are elected yearly by their classmates and become respected leaders in their communities.
Through these activities and more, members of the council gain valuable experience in student government and become more responsible, active members of the school and local community.
Members of the student council are expected to:
- Attend regular council meetings
- Meet with their peers to receive feedback and hear student ideas and concerns
- Volunteer at special events
- Serve as role models to other students
School Newspapers & Yearbooks
The school newspaper
is a great way for students to keep up on recent events, recognize the
accomplishments of their peers, and celebrate school pride. School newspapers can now be published online, allowing
students to build their skills in technology, communication and
Employment assistance
Are you a student looking for a job in the Alameda area? Maybe we can help. Many students hold part time jobs while they attend school, click here to visit our local employment opportunities page to see a list of jobs in your area.


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Fr Girl told me a year ago that most French Girls have brown hair. I was kind of astounded :O
It's a general rule what Fr Girl says goes.
Naturalment, Fr Girl has brown hair.
It turns out
Are you convinced yet, because I am. I used to be cheveux brun and I'm going to be again this weekend vite!
OK she's Welsh + part Greek, but she has BROWN hair and she's gonna B hot, hot, hot soon as her record comes out May 24th.
BON WEEK-END PBers!


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Ready to Deliver Next Day and Saturdays to the UK Mainland
Front Brake Caliper Piston Seals Suzuki GSF650 L0 Naked Non-ABS Bandit 2010
Please note that this caliper piston seal package contains 5 pairs of seals which is enough for 5 pistons You may need more or fewer pairs of seals for your caliper.
There are Japanese ones available Caliper Seals 27mm (Made In Japan)
**All parts and accessories are brand new and include VAT where applicable.
**Most parts are pattern or aftermarket although some will be genuine but are not always stated as being so.
**The use of motorcycle manufacturers' logos and brand names are for reference purposes only. We do not imply that the products we sell are made by or with the permission of the brands listed.


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Introducing Tripp: Cheesemonger, Teacher, Grillmaster and Domestic Cheese Buyer!
Many of you may know Tripp as the jolly presence behind our BBQ grill this past summer. Others may be familiar with his stellar work on the cheese counter and in developing our domestic cheese program.
Tripp grew up in apple country – namely, Harvard, MA. He crossed the country to attend the University of Montana and, returning to New England after college, Tripp's passion for food (particularly cheese) and his curiosity to learn more about food production brought him to Formaggio Kitchen Cambridge.
In the five years he has worked at Formaggio Kitchen, Tripp has worn many hats – representing the store at a local farmers' market in Cambridge and teaching classes, both in-house and at Boston University. When not at work, Tripp frequently spends his free time visiting domestic cheesemakers – sometimes helping to make a few wheels of cheese and always enjoying learning more about the extraordinary artisan cheeses being made in the United States today. On these farm visits (made about every three weeks), Tripp often picks up cheese for the shop – he tells us that this is one of his favorite things about working at Formaggio Kitchen – the relationship the store has with domestic producers.
In addition to his fondness for domestic cheese, Tripp enjoys cooking, eating and pickling things. Although loath to admit it, he is also an amazing athlete – from fishing for salmon and crab in Alaska, to breakneck skiing in Vermont whenever he can find the chance. He ran a total of six marathons this past year (four "practice" marathons and two official ones!) and he is entered in a 50-mile race for 2013. No surprise then that it's hard to keep up with Tripp!
We sat down to chat with Tripp about his holiday food traditions and to pick his brain on the gift front. Here is what he had to say:
Tripp, any particular food traditions at the holidays?
I look forward to my dad's cabbage salad. I never really cook on holidays which I am grateful for because it means I get to eat and drink more while remaining comfortable in my grey L.L. Bean sweat pants and sweat shirt. In my family, I am considered to be more of a prep cook.
Any special non-food traditions?
Christmas music is always blaring throughout the house. And, without fail, my sister makes everyone in the house watch the 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation' while we are eating freshly popped popcorn. I am responsible for the corn and am always instructed to make three batches with just salt and pepper, maybe sneaking a bit of butter on my dad's bowl. That said, if everyone has already had a few cocktails, a side of melted butter might be required for others too…
What cheese do you think you will take home for Christmas?
I will probably bring a Rush Creek Reserve home – it's a cheese that is great for a family gathering. And, Twig Farm Goat Tomme is one cheese that I like to buy as a whole wheel. I have brought this in the past and it looks beautiful on a wooden cheese board. For my family, one wheel can usually last the whole day. Last but not least, I always bring a Camembert-style cheese for my sister and Stilton and some of Julie's Chicken Liver Mousse for my dad.
Anything else that you will be taking home (food-wise) to your family this year?
Pâté Forestier, McClure's spicy pickles and Pio Tosini prosciutto. My dad loves all three. Probably a few bottles of wine picked by Gemma and maybe a few chocolates.
If you could pick only one food item – not a cheese – as a gift for someone, what would it be?
I really like Fieschi's mostardas – especially the Cremona, a spicy mixed fruit condiment. They are unique and have some good heat. I am under strict instruction to bring one of their mostardas to all holidays or family gatherings.
What are you planning to give this year?
Some nice Jean-Marie Cornille olive oil to my girlfriend and some Pio Tosini prosciutto to my sister's in-laws. If you can keep those people happy, everyone is happy. Also, I tell customers all the time to buy Arraya jams with their cheese because I believe that they might be the best we have to offer. For a friend, I might buy some of our hot sauces. We have a pretty good collection going at the store.
This is the second blog post in a four-part series of profiles, featuring long-time Formaggio Kitchen staff members. For part one – an interview with Julia – click here. And, stay tuned for parts three and four!


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Looking for more information on Thompson/Center Arms? We've got you covered! Here at GunBroker.com we like to provide a little background on popular firearms manufacturers, guns, models and accessories. We believe that the more our buyers knows, the happier they will be with their purchase. If you're looking to buy Thompson/Center items, read up on them and then check out our auction pages.
Founded in 1965 in Rochester, New Hampshire, Thompson/Center Arms is the combined brainchild of K.W. Thompson and Warren Center. Searching for a profitable product to manufacture with his tooling company, Thompson found a partner when introduced to Center and his Contender pistol design. The Contender's versatility and durability as a high performance hunting handgun continue today.
In 1970, Thompson/Center revived the black powder industry, modernizing muzzleloading rifles. At that time most existing muzzleloading rifles were antiques and collectibles that owners chose not to fire. The Hawken rifle changed this, providing black powder enthusiasts with a reliable and affordable muzzleloading rifle. Even today Thompson/Center offers a range of single-shot rifles and pistols. While the original Hawken is still available, modernized versions of muzzleloading rifles are available to the hunters interested in single-shot guns that are easier to clean and more accurate.
In addition to muzzleloading pistols and rifles, Thompson/Center also provides the necessary accessories for black powder pistols, including ramrods, powder measures and roundball patches. Also popular are Thompson/Center's interchangeable bolt-action rifles as well as their youth models. Bought by Smith & Wesson Holdings, Co. in 2007, Thompson/Center Arms is also recognized as Smith & Wesson Hunting.
Now that you know more about Thompson/Center Arms' history and popular products you can browse our auctions with more confidence. Head on over to find what you're looking for or to list your own Thompson/Center guns, parts and accessories. Whether you're interested in muzzleloading shooting or in other Thompson/Center hunting handguns and rifles, GunBroker.com has what you're looking for.
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