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If you need some ideas for your dining room, you are in a good place! We will try to help you to specify your needs and transform them into specific requirements. Read our article about contemporary dining room chairs and use these suggestions in your house!
Classic Dining Room Chair
This enchanting HomePop Classics Parsons Chair adds elegance and style to any home. The parson's chair can be placed in any space such as the kitchen, dining room or family room. The frame and legs are made of solid wood, which provides durability and style. The fabric is an autumn leave print that just needs to be spot cleaned as needed. The HomePop Classic Parsons Chair is perfect for any contemporary space, but will match any style and décor in any home. You should order two or more of the parson's chairs because they are so beautiful and versatile.
Traditional Wood Frame Dining Chair
Our fabulous Steve Silver Furniture Matinee Side Chair is elegance at its finest. The side chair features a tufted microfiber fabric, which is easy to clean with a soft, dry cloth. Plus the tufting makes it ultra-comfortable. The legs on the chair comes in a dark wood, which makes the fabric stand out. The Steve Silver Matinee Side Chair collection is the perfect addition to any contemporary or modern kitchen, dining room, and an excellent addition to any sitting room. The chairs are comfortable to sit on with the soft microfiber material. Order your Steve Silver Furniture Matinee Side Chair today and your space will be envied by friends and family.
Contemporary Dark Red Dining Chair
The gorgeous and comfortable Monsoon Pacific Aprilia Parsons Chair will compliment and accent any formal dining table. Elegance and sophistication can be seen in the parson's chair. The rich color along with the dark wood legs makes this prize durable, comfortable and will last your family for many years to come. The Monsoon Pacific Aprilia Parsons Chair will bring life to any dull dining room or kitchen. Order your very own parsons chair today and add style to your space. These can be used in a contemporary, transitional or traditional décor. They fit in perfectly. Order two or more today!
Green Dining Room Chairs
For a designer's delight choose our Standard Furniture La Jolla Parsons Chair. The back and seat of the chair comfortable due to the added upholstery. The sleek lines and curvature that the La Jolla chairs provide elegance that is perfect for any formal dining room, and looks great in a professional office or sitting area. The legs come in dark, walnut finish that accents the color of fabric on the chair. The Standard Furniture La Jolla Parsons Chair comes in a set of two, and is covered with a one year warranty. These are such a great value you should order for so you always have enough seating.
Contemporary Faux Leather Dining Chair
The contemporary Monsoon Pacific Milan Parsons Chairs comes in a beautiful black faux leather that matches any décor perfectly. The chair legs come with an amazing dark, walnut finish that matches the black leather wonderfully. The parson's chairs would look great in any modern dining room or kitchen, and would accent any office or living area. They would also add seating for a smaller home office. These are sturdy and comfortable chairs that will look wonderful with any design space. Order your Monsoon Pacific Milan Parsons Chairs today to update any dull, boring space. Each order comes with two chairs.
High Back Dining Chair
Our sophisticated Monsoon Pacific Villa Parsons Chair comes in a stunning brown faux leather. The chair provides comfort and support with the high back. The frame is made of pine wood, then stained in a mahogany finish. The Monsoon parson's chairs is perfect for any dining room, kitchen or family room. It adds style, grace and sophistication while matching any décor. The Monsoon Pacific Villa Parsons Chair comes in a set of two, so make sure you get enough sets to go around your dining room or kitchen table. Add a set for your sitting room because they are so comfortable and stunning, which makes the perfect seating.


text: The present book is a festschrift in honor of Luigia Carlucci Aiello. The 18 articles included are written by former students, friends, and international colleagues, who have cooperated with Luigia Carlucci Aiello, scientifically or in AI boards or committees. The contributions by reputed researchers span a wide range of AI topics and reflect the breadth and depth of Aiello's own work

subset: commoncrawl


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I don't think I'm unusual, as an American, in my knee-jerk reaction to graffiti. It has inspired caution and even fear in me. However, I've come to understand that random graffiti in Mexico doesn't mean the same thing it does in the US. After speaking to others here in Guadalajara, including a native-born young man, I understand that, as he pointed out, it's mostly art or boredom – not gang tagging.
It is easy to see, here in Guadalajara and Oaxaca so far, that the presence of graffiti is not ominous. It is pretty much everywhere, however less prominent in the heart of the historical areas. Anyway, here are few examples – most I've shot, but two of the art examples were provided by one of hostel mates. Enjoy.


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Technology Singularity
Technology Singularity
In machine learning, we provide data to with features and labels to the algorithms. For example, a bunch of data about individuals containing features such as age, gender, marital status, height, weight, nationality mapped alongside a label of income. An algorithm loops through the data and learns the combinations of factors that influences a person's income. The machine is capable of factoring numerous features and processing data at massive scales. The objective here being that the model can predict incomes of people based on a set of features.
This underlying principle of features, labels applies to all supervised machine learning algorithms. This enables us to build systems such as autonomous cars, medical diagnosis, facial recognition, chat bots etc., Because these systems are built on data that we already have, the machines essentially are mimicking human behaviour to begin with.
As a result, the existing systems are very efficient at doing a narrow task well. Machine can beat the world's top chess player, same goes with the Go game. A machine can detect faces in a crowd in an instant. The machine can answer a specific query satisfactorily.
The rate at which progress is being made, its a matter of time wherein the machines are going to surpass their ability in terms of narrow tasks. True AI is when the machines can start doing broader tasks through decision making. For example, a camera detects a face and then checks against a data base for criminal records, and then sends a message to the nearest police etc., The possibilities for what the machine can do becomes impossible to predict. This is the stage of Technology Singularity, a term used to describe the point wherein AI becomes smarter than human intelligence.
If machines get smarter than humans, a lot of our world


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Abigail Healy asks the industry for their favourite travel experiences and top tips on selling to the LGBT community.
When it comes to holiday hotspots that welcome LGBT travellers with open arms, Emerald Waterways' head of marketing and global brand curator UK David Winterton sings the praises of European destinations, including Budapest, Limassol and Berlin.
He says: "I am lucky to visit Budapest frequently, as it is the starting point of several of our river cruises. Each time I go back, I see the LGBT community growing. Highlights include a half-day LGBT history tour and walking along the Danube.
"For a short weekend away, nothing beats a quick hop over to LGBT playground Berlin. My highlights are Zsa Zsa Burger restaurant in the heart of the gay district and Mauerpark Sunday flea market."
Carrier's managing director Mark Duguid is a fan of Greece. He says: "We choose different islands each year. My favourites are in the Cyclades and include last year's choice of Sifnos and Serifos. These quiet islands are generally quite conservative, but in recent years we have found more visibility of gay locals and have never had any issues.
"Mykonos is a special place and where our love of Greece originates. There is nowhere better for gay guys to enjoy a hassle-free beach break where they can be themselves." And Travel Designers' Nick Harding-McKay points out that the UK shouldn't be overlooked, either.
"Romantic or party weekends to Manchester, London or Edinburgh are amazing and a hot-tub break with Hoseasons can be so much fun."
Duguid likes visiting Asia when he's looking to travel further afield.
"In winter, my old repping home of Thailand is a firm favourite. We prefer the quieter islands like Koh Yao Noi or Koh Phangan and normally twin with a week in Bangkok." Liz Cairns, head of partnerships at Flight Centre, agrees.
"Thailand really resonates with my wife, Holly, and I because we feel so at ease as soon as we arrive. I feel comfortable being tactile in public here and, perhaps most importantly, we've never encountered issues on check-in with regards to reconfirming that we definitely want a double bed."
Harding-McKay's top destination is Key West, Florida, which he describes as "gay heaven", closely followed by Sydney and Montreal.
"These destinations just love LGBT travellers and go out of the way to make you feel welcome. Montreal has a compact Gay Village and a lively club scene."
While some destinations actively market themselves as "open" or welcoming to LGBT travellers, there are plenty of places where it's not so clear-cut, yet agents would be wise not to make assumptions.
Lindsay Garvey-Jones, national retail manager at Holiday Extras, says she particularly enjoyed visiting Kerala in India – a country where homosexuality had been illegal for many years, but the law was revoked on September 6, 2018.
"We travelled as a family group of eight and found the staff at our hotel, Xandari Pearl, to be accepting of our relationship, even going out of their way to celebrate our anniversary," she explains.
"That being said, discretion is understandably necessary in parts of the state when you're out of the hotel complex. Many locals still fear coming out."
Duguid also points out the Maldives may appear at first glance to be a challenging destination due to its legal position, but in reality the resort islands are welcoming.
He adds: "In my experience, when travelling to less accepting destinations, international hotel chains ensure your stay, in the hotel at least, will be trouble-free.
"I also find luxury brands, like Six Senses, will always provide a genuinely warm welcome and have a very diverse customer base."
As well as high-end hotels, some cruise lines also go above and beyond for LGBT clients, as Cairns highlights.
"My favourite line is Celebrity Cruises. The staff are really welcoming and there is a good mix of other LGBT guests so we didn't feel like we stood out as an LGBT couple."
Yet people may have different requirements when it comes to whether or not their sexuality has a bearing on where they travel. Melissa Tilling, managing director at Funway Holidays, says: "My experience of reconciling my life with my gender, in my travels, has never been an issue.
"In the past year, I've added some new favourites – Arizona for the awe-inspiring scenery and scale, standing on Forrest Gump Point in Monument Valley and hanging horizontally off the red rocks of Sedona.
"However, I suspect my experience isn't always the same across the transgender spectrum. Whether a transgender person 'passes' as the gender they identify with is hugely subjective, but significant when considering travel destinations. The consideration then is how openminded the destination might be.
"I always considered big, busy cities with a multi-cultural mix safest. The first place I chose to venture out dressed as a woman, as I was growing in confidence to transition, was Hong Kong."
Duguid says: "My advice is not to shy away from the issue. Misselling a destination could cause upset or worse, so you need to understand whether the customer is comfortable exercising some discretion, or whether they are looking for somewhere they can be open and relaxed. If you are unsure whether a customer is gay, simply ask, 'Are you travelling as a couple or friends?'."
Garvey-Jones asserts that it shouldn't fall on the LGBT person in a business to fulfil the needs of LGBT customers.
"Do your research, come along to LGBT events to upskill and educate selling teams, brush up on product knowledge, use LGBT travel websites to support knowledge on behaviour, culture and helpful advice on destinations. This will work wonders with your LGBT customers and they are more likely to recommend you to their friends and family, so it could be beneficial."
Duguid advises: "Always confirm bedding arrangements in advance with suppliers and hotels, as this is a common cause of frustration. For exceptional service, go one step further and ensure the robes and slippers aren't for a mixed-sex couple. Consider whether two gay men on honeymoon will really appreciate flower petals on the bed or would another gesture be more appropriate? Don't be afraid to work with the suppliers on the small details to ensure a seamless stay."
Harding-McKay highlights that there may be some issues customers are unaware of.
"There are certain points you have to put across in a subtle but non-judgemental way," he says. "For example, some countries do not allow the importation of HIV medication." He advises checking out the 'Travelling with HIV' section of the Terrence Higgins Trust website.
Tilling says a key challenge around transgender people for travel agents is that they may have no idea whether their customer is transgender or not.
"Embracing the difference in others, whatever that may be, listening carefully and responding thoughtfully is the way forward."
She adds: "Over the phone, the situation is even more challenging. My goal with my voice was not to be called 'Sir' on the phone.
"Being gender neutral until you know the customer's name is a simple way of avoiding labelling anyone without accidentally causing offence."
Finally, holidaying as an LGBT traveller doesn't necessarily mean you want a cliched LGBT experience, says Cairns.
Garvey-Jones adds: "Research says that many LGBT people just want to holiday mainstream and not to be segregated, so don't always recommend or offer LGBT holidays, because for some of us, it's the last thing we'd enjoy."


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Tandridge Youth Football League Message: Issued by the Football Association Thursday 26th March 2020. Conclusion of 19/20 season The FA has decided that all grassroots football is concluded for the 2019/20 season. We would ask that leagues consider expunging results in line with the National League System and womens pyramid to support consistency across the game. There should be greater flexibility around cup competitions Accordingly, the TYL Management Committee are now actively considering the options for our cup competitions and will communicate further as soon as possible.
Sunday 18th November 2018
Tecnica Football Academy Athletico vs AFC Shortlands FC
Match Details
Tecnica Football Academy Athletico vs AFC Shortlands FC
© Copyright and database rights Our Kids Sports Ltd 2007 - 2020


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246 Upper Thomson Road
Singapore 574370
07:00am - 02:00am
Spending the deepavali holiday aptly at The Roti Prata House. Seems like this place has quite a significant split reviews. Personally, on a return visit, it still failed to impress me.
For the standard of a crispy prata, I don't think it's sufficiently crispy. Instead, it's rather doughy and oily, and I am certain that you can get better crispy pratas elsewhere. As for the egg prata, it got a little too soggy with the fried egg within. The dhal curry tasted a lil too sweet, that made an odd pairing.
The murtabak comes in S or L sizes, significantly filled with shredded chicken and onion slices.
Luck is on our side trying to get the seat on Saturday night. Got served quite quick this time with large size murtabak. If you are hungry, this size is the way to go (they have S,M,L for $6,$8,$12). This L size is twice bigger than M size!! Some small crispy burnt bits that we take out but we are pretty happy to devour the whole!! 🤤 p.s. comes with 2 curry plates for dipping. 👌
One of my favourite pratas! The plain prata has a crispy exterior with a fluffy interior, and the egg prata is really fluffy on the inside as well.
The curry could be improved on, but the prata is worth making a trip down for :)
Ordered this on Sunday dinner which is not a recommended time to visit this place! 🙀
We waited for 45 mins in total for this dish. They do not only mix up our order (we ordered chicken but got mutton instead). We suspect they also not work properly on order as we saw some groups arriving later than us but already got served. 😫
By the time this coin prata Set arrive, we were hungry & angry. However, the mutton dipping sauce is so good (not watery & got tasty mutton cubes) that those feeling dissipated quickly. Their coin prata set is worth ordering! 😋


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December Newsletter
Santa paws is coming to town! Drop by Westwood on December 13th between 1pm and 3pm to have your pets photo taken with Santa. With $5 donation towards Hands Helping Paws you one photo of your pet with Santa.
The holidays are fun, even for pets, but the season brings added danger for animal companions. Learn to recognize and manage holiday hazards to keep your pet safe during the festivities.
Tinsel is attractive, especially to cats. Tinsel is not toxic but consuming tinsel can cause serious harm to your pet's digestive system. The long, tough strands can actually cut through the intestine and cause stool to back up throughout the intestines.
Pets love to play with bright, colorful ornaments, but may end up breaking or even chewing and swallowing these fragile decorations. Sharp, broken pieces can lacerate the animal's mouth, throat, and digestive tract. Larger pieces can cause an obstruction and emergency surgery may be needed.
Christmas Trees
Cats love to climb trees, especially when the tree is indoors and loaded with ornaments and other decorations that look a lot like cat toys. A climbing cat can pull a fully decorated Christmas tree crashing to the ground, potentially injuring the animal. Putting contact paper beneath the tree can help detour a cat from playing in the tree.
Mistletoe and Holly
Consuming holly may cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Eating mistletoe can result in stomach upset and even heart problems. A cat may suffer kidney failure after ingesting some types of lilies.
A dog or cat that eats chocolate may experience vomiting and diarrhea, panting, hyperactivity, abnormal heart rhythm, seizures and, in severe cases, even death. The darker the chocolate, the more toxic compounds it contains. If your pet consumes chocolate, call us immediately because this is an emergency.
Turkey Meat and Bones
Dogs and cats love turkey but this holiday fare may be dangerous to their health. The immediate pet hazard associated with turkey are the tiny bones that, if swallowed, may cause painful constipation or even splinter to perforate the stomach; both conditions require immediate veterinary attention. Feeding rich and fatty food like that served at holiday parties can cause vomiting, diarrhea, and even inflammation of the pancreas.
Each year Westwood teams up with a local school to provide Christmas gifts for under privileged children. You can help by stopping by and picking a tag off of our Angel tree, getting the gift on the tag, and returning it to Westwood, unwrapped, by December 13th. Help us make a child's Christmas as special as possible.
Bill's News:
This year I am asking for very few things. I'm thinking a new cat tree (one that is at least 8ft tall), two chicken biscuits from Chick-fil-A, 20 bottle caps, and 3 packages of greenies. If you look at Santa's list I am sure it will show I have been decent. I may have had my moments over the year but I feel I am worthy of such good gifts.
On another note I should let you know that I received an ulcer on my eye and have been forced to have medications over the past week or so. I don't remember if I ran into something or if I just scratched around my eye and accidently scratched my eye as well. I will be okay. No need to worry about me. I have now learned to be more careful. Although the eye drops are no fun, the treats that go along with them are amazing. Well I guess I will talk to you next year! Have a great Christmas!
Over and Meow-out!
November Newsletter
Dr. Biles recently received a letter from Oklahoma's State Veterinarian, Dr. Rod Hall, regarding Ebola in dogs. Dr. Hall stated, a dog can contract Ebola, however, they do not exhibit symptoms, therefore, a dog can not transfer the disease to a human. The United States Department of Agriculture and the American Board of Veterinary Medicine do, however, recommend a quarantine of 21 days for animals exposed to the virus. Dr. Hall does not suspect the virus will become prevalent in Oklahoma. if you have any questions please don't hesitate to call.
During the month of November Westwood will be collecting donations for our food and supply drive benefiting local rescue organizations. We will accept dog and cat food, as well as items such as beds, toys, leashes, collars and cat litter. Please drop off your donation today and help us save a life in our community.
Bills News:
I view the last two months of the year as a time to give thanks. I am thankful for the many treats I can con my people into. I am thankful for the many followers I have acquired. I am thankful for cat litter that does not stick to my feet. Most of all, I am thankful to Chick-Fil-A for the wonderful chicken biscuits that magically end up in my mouth. Thank you for always reading my rants, hopes, and raves throughout the year. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, filled with lots of delicious food, of course.
Over and meow-out!
October Newsletter
Did you know, when we check your pet's bloodwork we are checking a variety of systems within your pet's body? We not only check white and red blood cell counts. We also look at vital organ function, such as the kidneys, liver, and even digestive health. With bloodwork we can find early signs of infection, disease and organ failure. By detecting problems early, we can begin early treatment to help lengthen your pet's life. This month we are offering $5 off a Wellness Blood Profile to promote healthy pets. Be sure to call and schedule your pet's appointment today.
Westwood Veterinary Hospital is now offering client services online . These services include on-line appointment scheduling and confirmation, follow-up e-mails to check on the progress of your pet's health, and practice satisfaction surveys. All of these service are accessible through our website at www.westwoodvet.com. On-line services allow you to choose the most convenient time for you and your pet to be seen by our staff and allow us to more communicate with you without interrupting play times and cuddle sessions.
Bills News:
So, this year for Halloween, I have decided I want to be a Mob Boss. I mean, I walk around Westwood like I own the place already, so, why not dress like it for a day. I deserve to be treated like a boss for at least a day, although every day would be nice. I'm thinking a tie, hat, and a cane. Maybe I'll even win best dressed for the day. Who knows? Anyways, don't forget that chocolate is bad for your pets so no trick-or-treat goodies! If you are looking for a healthy alternative give 4-legged Trick-or–Treaters some Greenies (my favorite!), DentaStix, or Milkbones.
That's all for now. Over and Meow-out!
May Update
This month, Westwood Veterinary Hospital is offering a free pedicure to anyone who purchases a microchip. Even if your pet loses their tags the microchip will always be with them. It is a small device that is placed under the skin, between the shoulder blades. Over time, it can migrate, but will always remain in the body. Anyone with a scanner can scan the dog or cat and a number will pop up that can link your pet back to you. Microchips are a way of saving lives and last a lifetime, with a one time fee that pays for itself if your beloved pet were to get lost. It takes less than five minutes to place and registration is done right here, at Westwood. Call today to schedule your appointment with a Technician.
Important Westwood Update
Effective January 1st, 2014 Central Oklahoma Veterinary Emergency will be closed permanently due to the lack of need in the community. Dr. Biles prides himself in being a great doctor for the pets in your family. He appreciates the fact that you have trusted him and the staff at Central Oklahoma Veterinary Hospital with your pet's care. This decision has not come lightly. We do not want your pet to go without veterinary care, therefore, we are referring all emergencies outside of regular business hours to Animal Emergency Center off of Highway 9 and 24th St SW. Westwood Veterinary Hospital will open on Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 7:30-6 and on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:30-9. On Saturdays we will be open from 8:30-4. Dr. Biles would like to thank you for your continuing support for him, as well as the entire Westwood Veterinary Hospital family.
Santa Paws
On December 14th bring your pet in from 1:00pm-3:00pm to have their photo taken with Santa Paws. Photos are a $5 donation that will go to one of our charities that we support (Second Chance, Hands Helping Paws, The Bella Foundation, and The Welcoming Project). These photos could be used as a great addition to your holiday cards.
Laser Therapy
Laser therapy is a inovative way at helping heal wounds faster, promote blood flow to an area, and reduce pain. We currently do this to all of our surgery patients and offer treatment to patients with arthritis, wounds, and many more. Ask a staff member if laser therapy is right for you pet.
The Welcoming Project Pet Halloween Costume Contest
We will be participating again this year in the halloween costume contest to benefit the Welcoming Project. It is on Saturday, November 2nd at St. Stephen's United Methodist Church in Norman. We look forward to seeing all the unique costumes.
Cash Discount
Westwood is now offering a 2% discount for customers who pay by cash or check.
Tuesday & Thursday Late Appointments
Starting in April Dr. Biles will be seeing appointments from 6pm to 9pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Westwood T-shirts
We are selling Westwood Veterinary T-shirts. We have three different colors: blue, grey, and pink. They are $15 dollars each and sizes S-XL. Come by and ask the receptionist for your size. We love to see our clients in Westwood t-shirts outside the hospital.
Second Chance Adoption Appreciation
Pets adopted from Second Chance will receive their first Wellness examination for FREE. Bring your pet's adoption papers from Second Chance and mention this ad to receive the discount. This examination is valued at $36 and is only for well pets.
New Programs
Check out our two new programs, Life Care and Senior Care. These programs are designed to offer your pet affordable routine care. Visit our Programs page or contact us to see if your pet qualifies for these money saving wellness plans.
VetSource Home Delivery
Westwood now offers Home Delivery for your pets medications. Order online or in our hospital to have your pets medication shipped directly to your home. Prices are comparable to other online pharmacies and most items ship for free. Eliminate your worries by knowing that our products are guaranteed by and come directly from the manufacturer. Visit our VetSource website or contact us for more information.
Client Referral Discount
Westwood clients that refer friends or family to our practice will receive a $5.00 off coupon for their pet's next visit.


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Okay, this is finally starting to really piss me off.
For the benefit of morons, here is a complete list of every situation in which calling a 16-year-old girl a "stupid bitch", "not human", "garbage", and a "fucking worthless cunt", and praying for her to be punched in the face, curb stomped, raped, and burn in Hell, is acceptable:
End of list.
Talking to anyone like that is a clear indicator that you're either pointlessly obnoxious or have no control over your temper, and that you don't have anything to say which deserves to be listened to. But this is a sixteen-year-old girl these people have never met.
Specifically, this is Jessica Ahlquist, a high school student in Rhode Island. She took objection to a banner with a prayer on it that hung in her school, and she responded by filing a lawsuit to have it taken down as a violation of the principle of separation of Church and State.
Some people have, in turn, taken objection to her actions, and they responded by threatening her with death, rape, and torture.
Seriously. She's a young girl who tried to get her school to stop doing something illegal. Counter-arguments would be one thing, but people have gone insane over this. She was recently described as an "evil little thing" by an elected state representative. What the hell is wrong with you people?
I just want to point out two things about the wording of the banner itself. First, the text is clearly identified as a "prayer", which opens with "Our heavenly father" and closes with "Amen". This isn't just overtly religious, it's specifically Christian. If you're okay with this hanging in a public school, but would complain if they changed the wording to "O Great and Glorious Allah", then don't pretend you're not trying to impose a theocracy on the rest of us.
Secondly, if you pay any attention to the words in the prayer, you'll notice it talks about moral values like compassion and generosity. It emphasises being "kind and helpful" as a worthy aspiration. It encourages us to "smile when we lose as well as when we win". It says very little about violent abuse of teenagers in revenge for a petty infringement on your privileges.
This is what lends an almost darkly comic air to the whole business. The banner was praying for things we can pretty much all get behind. Atheists don't generally have a problem with the values it describes. The God part isn't something that state-funded establishments should be promoting, but that can seem like a minor worry. The effort to have it taken down wouldn't have necessarily seemed like a fight especially worth pursuing, in the grand scheme of things.
And then the hundreds of religious maniacs came out of the woodwork, and the spitting hatred that lurks just beneath the surface was brought to the boil, and suddenly it seems vitally important that people keep fighting this kind of bullshit whenever they can and Jessica Ahlquist looks like a fucking hero.
Not enough people have been on her side with this. For what it's worth, I'm joining the crowd.
(Addendum: Something else I support are the protests against SOPA/PIPA. I'm not holding a blackout myself, because nobody gives a shit what I do, but it's an important cause. If you want to know some more about it, Wikipedia's explanation for their own black-out is a pretty good place to start.


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By John Ostapkovich
TRENTON, N.J. (CBS) — The New Jersey Supreme Court today heard arguments on whether the Christie administration can reorganize an independent agency into being less independent.
The dispute involves the Council on Affordable Housing, created to comply with the Federal Fair Housing Act as being "in but not of" the Department of Community Affairs.
Arguing for the administration was assistant attorney general Robert Lougy.
"The plain language of the Reorganization Act, and its broad grant of authority to the governor to reorganize his branch of government, has for 40 years been understood and been implemented consistent with the governor's authority to reorganize an in-but-not-of agency," Lougy told the court.
Countering was Adam Gordon for the Fair Share Housing Center, who says the administration is overreaching.
"This wasn't rearranging — this was rewriting legislation. This was rewriting core parts of the Fair Housing Act," he said.
The court will rule later.


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Quick and easy falafel mix from Hale & Hearty. You just add water to the mix, allow to stand and then lightly fry until golden brown. I found these falafels really good, the flavour is pleasant and not too spicy. They came out nice and crispy. I had mine with some wholemeal pitta breads toasted with some home made humous and salad leaves. There was enough to serve 4 people. I like that they are organic and gluten/wheat free.
Each 200gram pack is suitable for vegans and vegetarians. Soya, wheat and gluten free. Per 100grams is 323kcal. I bought mine in the free from section at the Cooperative supermarket, but I have seen it for sale in health food shops too.


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From May 13th to 24th will be staged within the Giardini delle Serre of Villa Reale Monza the "Festival degli Orti". The fourth edition celebrates, in the year of Expo, the theme of food.
A format of events will explore in an innovative and curious way the theme of food from the land to the vegetable garden, agriculture and rural urban.
Some Wow pouf were chosen for the installation Un'Oasi Urbana by architect. Sarah Zezza, finalist of the competition "l'Orto in tavola", in collaboration with the Association of Architects PPC Monza e Brianza, Lombardy Regional Council of the Order of Architects, the National Council of Architects and the College of Architects Engineers Monza.
Festival degli Orti
Giardini delle Serre, Villa Reale di Monza – 13/24 maggio
Free admission, from 10 to 21


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Andrew Dasburg
Andrew Dasburg has been called "the greatest draughtsman of landscape since Van Gogh,"(Alfred Frankenstein, San Francisco Sunday Examiner/Chronicle, April 17, 1966). Born in Paris in 1887, the artist and his widowed mother immigrated to America in 1892, where Dasburg spent his childhood in the New York City known as Hell's Kitchen. In 1902 one of his teachers, recognizing his gift for drawing, brought him to the nearby Art Students League and persuaded the school to accept him as a scholarship student. Of his instructors, Robert Henri was most inspirational to the young art student. Henri's philosophy was to battle against tradition, and to consider every direction in art and life that led to truth. He also emphasized the importance of well-defined substructure. Henri encouraged him to pay particular attention to establishing a clear sense of weight and mass for the forms in his pictures. Like Einstein, whom he greatly admired, Dasburg felt that God created structures in nature in simple, rather than complex formulas, and these views shaped much of his art.
In 1918, Dasburg was summoned to New Mexico by his good friend Mabel Dodge. The new environment he found stimulated his immensely. Under the influence of the southwestern landscape his pictorial language ripened. The elemental majesty and power of nature became the primary focus of his artistic expression. Pure form and color were subordinated to the task of measuring the land and people of New Mexico in pictorial terms quite different from, though related to his abstract work.
Download Full Biography


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Updated – This Airmobile flyer was posted here courtesy of Tom Jakeway over six years ago, and no one has come forth with any additional information about it; hopefully this time around someone will know more about it and possibly have a photo of a chassis or car if in fact one was actually built?
The Airmobile used a "frictionless rotary engine fueled by crude oil" to power a "rotary air compressor" located behind it. Air pressure was stored in a pair of tanks and routed through a throttle to an air motor at each wheel. According to Tom Jakeway, no one has uncovered photos or more information about this car other than an advertisement in the program for the Santa Monica Road Races and a few other places, the effort then disappeared into thin air…. By 1915 the Rotary Air Brake Company was promoting an air-steam-gas-water engine that is known to have been produced.
The company's name was changed to the Rotary Products Company and in 1920 they began manufacturing air driven machinery for industry.
Update from Steve Bogdan below.
Update by Steve Bogdan: Combing through the digital newspapers, journals, and histories on the internet has yielded some further information, albeit begrudgingly. However, there are still huge gaps in the record that, hopefully, further research will fill.
The Rotary Air Brake Company reported to have been incorporated in Phoenix, Arizona around the spring of 1911 with a capital of $1,000,000 by A. E. Stevens and H. C. Steele "and others." Head offices were to be in Phoenix. Stevens may or may not have been the A. E. Stevens who patented a rotary air engine in 1906. Or, given the accuracy of name reporting at the time, it very well may have been A. T. Stedman, or A. F. Stedman, or A. T. Steadman – again, depending on which newspaper was reporting. For the record, A. T. Stedman was a former newspaper writer from New York who was reported as being the General Manager of the Rotary Air Brake Company in 1914.
In the fall of 1911 the Rotary Air Brake Company was operating in Los Angeles with attorney and self-taught engineer Ernest Durrell Foster serving as President (and apparently main financier); Charles R. Harris, an inventor with dozens—if not hundreds of patents to his name, serving as Vice President; and H. C. Steele of the Phoenix incorporation serving as Secretary.
The most important player seems to be to have been C. R. Harris, who made a fortune manufacturing suspender clips of his own design. He was the engineering designer of the Temple Auditorium theater in Los Angeles—which opened in 1906 and was the first reinforced concrete building in Los Angeles, the largest in the state, and the largest theater west of Chicago. Harris, together with fellow engineer Rutherford G. Goldman (who as an artillery artificer in the Spanish-American War, earned a medal for heroism), applied for a patent for a rotary fluid-brake on September 28, 1911 (patent application renewed on July 1, 1914, and actual patent—1127237—granted on February 2, 1915). At that time they were demonstrating it at the Anaheim Carnival. The Saturday after the carnival they were exhibiting "The Wonder of the Mechanical Age" at J. R. Dean's sewing machine shop Santa Ana, after having taken out a sizable ad in the local paper. A news blurb on the front page of that same issue noted that "The rotary brake is a distinct advance in its line, and is adaptable to automobiles, trucks, hoists and elevators among other things. Frictionless, automatic and self-acting, with a pressure of 1800 pounds on the two rear wheels, this brake should prove an invaluable item of automotive equipment."
In January of 1912 the company was advertising for sale (for cash only) two fully-loaded chain-drive REOs—one a touring car and one a runabout—that had been used by their sales department. It took them over two months to unload them. In April the Rotary Air Brake was being shown at the Robuck Cyclery, the Indian motorcycle dealer in San Bernardino. By mid-month the company was advertising that their stock offering would soon jump from $1 a share to $2 due to royalty contracts then under negotiation. [So far I have found only one Canadian company to have signed a contract to build under license.] A month later the stock was still selling for $1 a share at one brokerage firm, while a block down Main Street another was offering it for 90 cents. One disgruntled purchaser of 15,000 shares and his wife complained that it had no value and they filed suit in Superior Court in San Jose "demanding the reconvayance of orchard property in this county worth $8000, which they allege they were induced to deed to the company by Inez Stradler, agent for the company, by fraudulent misrepresentation of the value of the stock." [No further information was found.] Throughout the year other private holders were offering anywhere between 100 and 1,500 shares of their stock for sale.
On April 23, 1913 Harris and Goldman applied for a patent on a rotary fluid-clutch—granted on Mar 7, 1916 (1174853). Also in the spring of 1913 some brokerage houses were offering RAB stock at 90 cents while others had orders to buy. In July it was noted that Edward W. Cowles was the Sales Manger, and in Modesto, CA on business for his company. He made a return trip to Modesto in August.
1914 started off with a flourish. The Rotary Air Brake Company had a booth at the January Los Angeles Auto show—the first auto show held in LA in three years. About eleven booths down from the RAB exhibit was the exhibit for the Savage Tire Company, with a display featuring a wigwam made of tires and Indian blankets. Indian blankets lay about filled with crude rubber "as shipped" from the rubber plantations. At the entrance to the wigwam was an Indian sitting stoically—a Savage guarding the Savage tire, as it was related in the press. President Arthur W. Savage himself, along with Vice-President John D. Spreckels (who later took control of the company) manned the booth on occasion, during their two day visit from San Diego. More importantly, race car driver Teddy Tetzlaff was in the booth to tell all about racing on Savage tires.
Tetzlaff must have have been intrigued by the Rotary Air Brake booth, because on January 18 the "Los Angeles Times" announced in their Sunday Auto section that Tetzlaff would be using the RAB friction-less rotary air brake on the Fiat 90 that he would be driving in the Vanderbilt trophy event in Santa Monica in February. The paper noted that:
"Tetzlaff witnessed a demonstration of the brake on a thirty-horse-power car, and was at once convinced that braking on cushions of air, instead of friction, would mean a vast saving on his tires, and everybody admits that this event will depend to a large degree on tires.
"The rotary air brake will not slide or skid a wheel—in other words, it is impossible to lock the wheel with this brake, but the momentum is equalized in much less time than it would be with a friction brake.
"The perfection of the rotary principle by this company has made possible this type of brake, working on atmospheric pressure, requiring no tanks or outside ·apparatus of any kind.
"Many Eastern manufacturers are already interesting themselves in this brake and the principle has been successfully demonstrated as a compressor, clutch, air brake and engine, and the combination of these will be used in building a four-wheel air-drive car, called the Airmobile.
"The company expects to start a factory in the next thirty days in Los Angeles for the building of airmobiles, engines and compressors. Deliveries are promised by June and within the year the company plans to build an immense eastern plant. It is claimed that this principle will revolutionize all forms of manufacturing."
Interestingly, while the drawing and copy about the Airmobile found above is from the 1914 Vanderbilt Cup Race in Santa Monica, Tetzlaff did not enter that event. He did however, race in the 1914 American Grand Prize event (the third race of the 1914 Grand Prix season) held on the same track two days later. After several tire changes he dropped out due to a broken connecting rod guide. There were no reports concerning the existence—let alone performance—of the rotary air brakes.
The day before the LA Times announcement, A. T. Stedman (General Manager) and H. C. Steele (Secretary) were reported in Anaheim, again demonstrating the air-brake. While there, they signed C. L. and J. Leslie Swope as factory reps for Orange County, CA. The Swope brothers (owners of the California Wine Company in Anaheim, a liquor suppler) were trying to induce RAB to build their factory in Anaheim.
On February 1, in an effort to raise capital, the Rotary Air Brake Company announced that they were selling 4,000 shares of common, and 4,000 shares of preferred Southwestern States Lumber Company stock held by RAB because: "We are manufacturers and we wish to turn this stock into cash or factory site. [That stock earned 20 percent in 1912.]
Eight ads down in the same classified ad column, the company announced "The Rotary Air Brake Company hereby serves notice upon the people of Los Angeles and Southern California that it has no more stock for sale. It is now negotiating for a factory site and will immediately erect a factory and start in the manufacture of its standardized engines, compressors, clutches, brakes, motors and airmobiles. Rotary Air Brake Company, 601 Higgins Bldg., Los Angeles, Cal. Main 743"
By mid-June RAB's own stock was being offered by a broker for 60 cents, and by another for 37 1/2 cents per share. By mid-December it was going for 55 cents.
Two significant things occurred for RAB in 1915, the first being the name change from Rotary Air Brake Company to Rotary Products Company. The first notice I've found for this comes from the May 16 classified ad in the LA Times that offered blocks of 5 to 500 shares of Rotary Products at 55 cents a share. This was offered by the company's usual broker, H. N. Willard & Co. on South Spring Street.
This was followed up on May 23 by a news item that appeared in papers throughout the state which read, still using the old name, "Rotary Air Brake Company, Los Angeles, has been granted an amended temporary permit for the sale of 25,000 shares of its capital stock (par value $1) at the price of $2 per share, to net the company not less than 80 per cent of the selling price."
The most noteworthy event however, was the introduction of a non-air, non-rotary item to their product line. Starting with an ad placed on October 24, the Rotary Products Company (now at 1013-1015 South Los Angeles Street) began offering "Divergos" which were aftermarket glare deflectors for headlights [no patent found to date]. Cities and states throughout the country were enacting legislation banning overly bright headlights and the resulting glare—California's own law would go into effect on January 1, 1916. In the era before dimmer switches and dual-filament bulbs, dozens of devices were being rushed to market. The Divergo was designed to be adjustable from the driver's seat, and allow him to control the movable blades to direct the light beam. The blades were tapered so that they would not shut off all light like a window shutter.
The ad noted that Dirvegos could be seen at Hamburger's [a department store] exhibit at the Broadway Automobile and Flower Show. Dirvergos were only sold through dealers, but if you bought a set and brought them to the factory, Rotary Products would install them for you. That offer proved popular enough for the factory to extend the cutoff date. In December a second, non-adjustable version was added, with a set-it-and-forget-it blade angle fixed to throw the light from 25 to 300 feet in the front of the car.
The rotary business wasn't dead however, as two days later the paper, while reporting that the company was doubling their output of Divergos, they had new equipment coming that would "greatly extend their engine and compressor output to meet the growing demand for their products." Another article on November 21 announced that "An engine that is practically frictionless, that runs effectively with compressed air, steam, gas of water pressure, that works equally well as a creator or transmitter of energy and which, on top of everything else, is a first-class air brake, is somewhat of a strain on the imagination, but Los Angeles inventors claim to have perfected just such a mechanism. The article went on to note that several engines had been completed and were being exhibited at the factory. $50,000 worth of special machinery was to be installed within 30 days and production would begin shortly thereafter.
The article also added another name—Graham—to the history of the company when it related "The company was organized four years ago by a number of local engineers, including E. D. Foster, C. R. Harris, O. B. Graham and R. C. Goldman, together with a number of business men. The organizers had no patents to start with, but were determined to study and experiment along the lines of what is known as the "rotary" principle of mechanics until they had evolved something original and worth while. More than a year was spent in this way before patents were applied for. Two more years elapsed before the company was ready to demonstrate its new theories with completed engines."
On December 5, 1915 the LA Times featured Charles R. Harris on the front page of the City Section of the Sunday paper. It profiled him and his latest invention—an electric gun that would send "Powerful electric currents riding the focused aero-waves of the wireless, [that] will repel the fleet invasions and annihilate the armies of the future, making the United States absolutely impregnable." Harris, whom the paper noted was a "consulting engineer of national note and perfector of this and more than 200 other inventions," claimed to have successfully demonstrated the weapon near the city the week before. If mounted on a tower 266 feet high or more, it supposedly would hit a ship rounding Catalina Island 26 miles out at sea. While this has nothing to do with the subject, the rotary products and company were mentioned further down in the article.
In February 1916 the old RAB stock was selling for 30 cents a share, while the new RP stock was being offered at 42 1/2 cents a share. By April the respective shares had fallen to 16 cents each for a block of 250 RAB shares, and 17 1/2 cents for RP.
On May 28 RP placed a rather lengthy classified ad in the Stocks And Bonds section (Part IV, page 10) touting the virtues of purchasing RP stock. Too lengthy to repeat here, but it starts out "You people who have made money in mining stocks had better be putting some of your profits into a permanent stable industry." Nearly all of the top people in RP were themselves heavily involved in mining and owners of mining stock.
Later in the year RP began running a larger ad in the business pages which read "The best investment in the world today is Rotary Products Company stock; investigate. Call at factory, 1015 S. Los Angeles St., or Telephone Main 743, or F1688 for proof.
The closeout for the year comes as a bit of a shock—the December 25, 1916 issue of "The Automobile Journal" published a section titled "Novel Power Plants" (page 21) in which the following appeared on page 26:
"Features of the New Airmobile.
"THE Rotary Products Company, Los Angeles, Cal., has adapted the rotary principle of generating power from gasoline and storing It as compressed air by driving an air compressor, designed on lines similar to the engine, and In turn piping the air to rotary air motors attached to each of the four wheels. This Is probably the most unique Idea In motor car propulsion that has been presented this year.
"Its practicability rested with the perfection of the rotary principle which Involved largely the question of maintaining the necessary pressures In the explosive chambers which heretofore has been impossible because of leakage. The maker of this motor, however, claims that leakage has been negatived and that the engine can be run at low speed and produce high pressures, whereas formerly rotary engines were run at high speed and only produced low pressures.
"A further and Interesting fact about the mechanism Is that It Is applicable not only as a rotary gasoline engine, but as an efficient air compressor, an air motor or can be adapted as a clutch or brake. The rotary engine is used to drive a rotary air compressor, both machines being hung on cross members in the forward part of the chassis. The air Is stored In tanks and piped to the four wheels, which are operated by individual air motors, or as brakes.
"By this method of generating and transmitting the power the maker claims to have obtained not only a frictionless drive, but to have eliminated crank and camshafts, flywheel, clutch, transmission, levers and friction brakes; reduced weight and cost of construction and incidentally have adapted a set of air cushions which supplement the springs and reduce the vibration to a minimum."
On the bottom pf page 23 it even had a drawing of the chassis identical to the drawing that appeared in the 1914 Vanderbilt Race program. Further, the title drawing that leads off the "Novel Power Plants" section, showing various power plants, was taken directly from that same drawing. And finally, in the magazine's alphabetically listed "Cars for 1917 and Addresses of the Makers" section, "AIRMOBILE, Rotary Products Co., Los Angeles, Cal." is the second listing, behind Abbott-Detroit.
As near as I can tell, this was the last hurrah for the Airmobile. And even as this article appeared, Teddy Tetzlaff had long left his Rotary Air Brake equipped Fiat behind, and had spent the summer campaigning a Milac racing car—Milac standing for Made In Los Angeles California. But that's another story for another day.
1917 seemed a quiet year for RP, with very few mentions in the press. The "Automobile Trade Directory" listed Rotary Products as the manufacturer of Divergo, while the "Chilton Automobile Directory" listed the company under "Pumps & Air Compressors, (Garage)" while giving no mention to Divergo.
Personnel mentioned shows that a John McK. Ballou, who had been the Chief Engineer for Rotary Products since 1916, left to take over the same position at California Aviation Company, while well respected Santa Barbara County Horticultural Commissioner C. W. Beers resigned in December to become the "Third Vice-President and Office Manager of the Rotary Products Company of Los Angeles, holding air compressor patents recognized internationally. Great expansion of operations is planned at Los Angeles; also a subsidiary plant at New York City."
They advertised for an expert stenographer and bookkeeper in July. Hours were 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and i paid $15 a week to start, but you had to show up on a Sunday morning for an interview. Stock trading was slacking off, and in the spring it was going for 20 cents a share.
1918 came and went with no found mention of the Airmobile or Divergos that I could find, or any of the air products for that matter. There was a classified ad however, placed in two different sections of the July 28 Sunday LA Times—one in the "Machinery, All Kinds – For Sale, Exchange, Wanted" section, and one in the "Business Announcements – Miscellaneous" section—that read "Work by the hour or by contract. We have a complete machine shop and can take in outside work. Let us build that machine for you or develop your patent, of do your repair work. Best equipped shop in the Southwest for jig and die work. "
The only activity found for 1919 was a court case where someone stole a check intended for H. C. Steele, and used it to by Liberty Bonds form Woollacott & Co.—who somehow knew that the check had not come from Steele. An arrest followed.
In 1920 the only mention that I found was from H. N. Willard & Co., who advertised four times in April that they would buy RP stock.
I thought that I had something from 1921, but I can't find it now. What I also cannot find is anything to support Tom Jakeway's notation that "in 1920 they began manufacturing air driven machinery for industry." Obviously I'm missing something. Tom, could you point me in the right direction?
As an aside, the October 30, 1930 issue of "The Mining Journal" had a feature on Ernest D. Foster that stated—with no substantiation—"He organized and financed the Rotary Products Company, to perfect rotary machinery, and was doing well when the war came on and his special machinery and tools were needed by some firm in the Emergency Ship Division."
I realize that this does not give us any more information about the car, but at least we know a bit more about the company.


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(retro me in the 70's)
Wishing you a beautiful December 25th. Merry Christmas!
Awww! I love seeing that photo of you, Nat! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! Hugs to you! ♥ReplyDelete
I love this sweet picture too! Merry Christmas Natalie :)ReplyDelete
Oh how darling is this?! Love seeing you as a kid, Nat & hope you had a wonderful family Christmas--stay warm!ReplyDelete
Hope you had a wonderful Christmas, Nat! Thanks for sharing this adorable photo!ReplyDelete
What a treasure! So cute!!ReplyDelete


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If more than one person in the business is using the HiveXpress App, can I see their trade and chat history?
You are able to see the order history for all completed trades relating to your business via the Hivefloor.
You can access this via the App or by logging into the Hivefloor (see 'How can I see a record of all my orders and chats?'.
What are the payment terms (i.e. when is payment due?)
Payment is due within 14 days of receipt of goods
How do I receive the invoice?
Once a seller has shipped the product, you will receive an email notification with the attached invoice for the order. The invoice can be downloaded at any time via the Hivefloor. Go to your 'Purchases' page.
Do I have to use BPAY?
BPAY is the preferred method of payment. Other payment options such as direct transfer are available.
How do I label the payment to say which order it is for?
There is no need to do this. The Customer Reference Number you enter when making the payment will give us this information.
When does HiveXchange receive my BPAY payment?
If the payment is made before 6pm on a business day, it will be debited instantly from your account and processed that day. If the payment is made after 6pm, on a weekend or public holiday it will be debited instantly and processed the next business day.
You will receive an email notification from the HiveXchange acknowledging payment has been received.
How much does BPAY cost?
BPAY is free to use for bill payers.


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Report NEP-EFF-2012-05-29This is the archive for NEP-EFF, a report on new working papers in the area of Efficiency & Productivity. Angelo Zago issued this report. It is usually issued weekly.
Subscribe to this report: email, RSS or Twitter.
Other reports in NEP-EFF
The following items were announced in this report:
- Paz, Lourenco, 2012. "Trade liberalization and inter-industry productivity spillovers: an analysis of the 1989-1998 Brazilian trade liberalization episode," MPRA Paper 38859, University Library of Munich, Germany.
- Luis Aguiar & Philippe Gagnepain, 2011. "European Cooperative R&D And Firm Performance," Working Papers hal-00622969, HAL.
- El-hadj Bah & Lei Fang, 2011. "Impact of the business environment on output and productivity in Africa," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2011-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
- WAKASUGI Ryuhei & NATSUHARA Takashi, 2012. "Productivity and FDI of Taiwan Firms: A review from a nonparametric approach," Discussion papers 12033, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
- Xu Tian & Xiaohua Yu, 2012. "The Enigmas of TFP in China: A Meta-Analysis," Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers 113, Courant Research Centre PEG.
- Wiper, Michael Peter & Galán Camacho, Jorge Eduardo & Lopes Moreira Da Veiga, María Helena, 2012. "Bayesian estimation of inefficiency heterogeneity in stochastic frontier models," DES - Working Papers. Statistics and Econometrics. WS ws121007, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Estadística.
- Jesus Felipe & John McCombie, 2012. "Problems with Regional Production Functions and Estimates of Agglomeration Economies: A Caveat Emptor for Regional Scientists," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_725, Levy Economics Institute.
- Nishida, Keigo, 2012. "Agricultural Productivity Differences and Credit Market Imperfections," MPRA Paper 38962, University Library of Munich, Germany.
- Eva Valeri & Amanda Stathopoulos & Edoardo Marcucci, 2012. "Energy Efficiency In The Transport Sector: Policy Evolution In Some European Countries," Working Papers 0312, CREI Università degli Studi Roma Tre, revised 2012.
- Yerushalmi, Erez, 2012. "Measuring the administrative water allocation mechanism and agricultural amenities," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 992, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
- Scherer, Frederic Michael, 2011. "R&D Costs and Productivity in Biopharmaceuticals," Scholarly Articles 5688848, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
- Laurent Gobillon & Carine Milcent, 2011. "Innovative procedures: the key factor for hospital performance," Working Papers halshs-00653441, HAL.


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Carbon taxes and caps may be most effective in economic theory, but smart regulation will produce better climate policy for our political reality.
This article has been translated in French, under the number 149. It is published in collaboration with Policy Options (http://policyoptions.irpp.org) the digital magazine of the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP), Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Wisely, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resisted the temptation at the Paris climate summit in December 2015 to double down on Stephen Harper[1]'s 2030 target for Canadian carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
While future emissions promises are easily made, effective climate policy is devilishly difficult. To have any chance, one needs to stay wise — which starts by avoiding advice from technology and policy advocates who themselves avoid inconvenient evidence from leading climate policy research and real-world experience. What does this evidence tell us?
1. Limits of carbon pricing
For one thing, it's a mistake to expect a big contribution from energy efficiency. For three decades, governments and utilities have made efficiency the focus of their emissions reduction efforts, with negligible results.
Yes, energy efficiency is always improving, and we can slightly accelerate that trend. But humans require energy for basic needs and, more important, we keep inventing frivolous devices that use more. (Need evidence? Stroll through your local big-box store.)
The reality is that significant emissions reductions will happen only if we rapidly switch to zero- and partially-zero-emissions technologies.
Fortunately, these are now commercially available. But they won't be widely adopted unless technologies that burn coal, oil and natural gas are phased out by regulations or made costly to operate by carbon pricing (Read L'insertion des préoccupations environnementales dans les politiques de l'énergie paragraph 3.). The latter can be either a carbon tax, as in British Columbia, or the price of tradable CO2 permits under an emissions cap, as in Quebec.
1.1. A Canada-wide carbon price of 160$ would be necessary
Analysis by my research group finds that in order to achieve the 2030 Harper target, if oil sands are allowed to expand to the limit recently set by the Alberta government, a Canada-wide carbon price starting at $30 in 2017 must jump $10 each year to reach $160 in 2030.
In other words, significantly shifting to cars and trucks that rely on renewable electricity, ethanol and biodiesel would require raising gasoline prices by about 40 cents per litre (on top of other taxes and all production costs), which is the result of having a carbon price of $160.
1.2. The problem of its political acceptability
Most important of all, Prime Minister Trudeau must understand that relying solely on one of these two forms of carbon pricing to achieve even the seemingly modest Harper target may cost him his job. While carbon pricing has become a mantra for economists (Read Energie et climat: la construction des politiques climatiques), environmentalists, academics, celebrities, media pundits and even corporate heads none of these people needs to get reelected. For politicians with survival instincts, it's a different game.
1.3. The timid experiments of carbon-pricing in Canada
Canadian politicians have been contemplating, but then delaying or watering down, carbon pricing since 1989. I know, because in that year, as a newly minted energy economist at Simon Fraser University, I helped with Canada's initial assessment of carbon pricing for Brian Mulroney's government. As soon as we calculated the required increase in the price of gasoline, he balked. And so has every subsequent Canadian politician, with the partial exception of BC Premier Gordon Campbell.
In 2007, Campbell launched a tax of $10 per tonne of CO2, and he legislated $5 annual increases for the next four years, with the tax reaching $30 in 2012. My research group did the analysis for him. Campbell expected to keep increasing the tax after 2012. But he was forced to step down in 2011, and his replacement, Christy Clark, froze the tax. Stuck at $30, it adds 7 cents per litre to the price of gasoline, which is a sixth of the increase likely needed to motivate car and truck purchasers to choose electric or biofuel options.
Today, a decade later, no provincial politician intends to significantly surpass BC's $30 carbon price. Alberta says it will match it in 2018, followed by tiny annual increases (assuming the government survives). Quebec's carbon price is $15 and is not slated to reach $30 for at least a decade. Ontario intends to match Quebec. And in all of these carbon pricing systems, there are partial exemptions for emissions-intensive, export-oriented industries, like the oil sands.
2. The performance of regulations
This is why, if he has survival instincts, Trudeau won't depend solely on carbon pricing. Instead, he will do what serious jurisdictions do: regulate. And this is what we've done in Canada, although many fail to see it.
2.1. The actual and unrecognized efficiency of regulations
When asked which climate policy in Canada reduced the most CO2 emissions over the last decade, many people guess BC's well-publicized carbon tax. They're wrong. It was Ontario's ban on coal-fired power, which reduced annual emissions by 25 megatonnes (MT).
Surely, then, BC's carbon tax must have caused the most reductions in that province. Wrong again. The 2007 "clean electricity" regulation forced BC Hydro to cancel two private coal plants and its own gas plant. This cut BC's projected annual emissions in 2020 by 12 to 18 MT. The carbon tax is slated to reduce 2020 annual emissions by 3 to 5 MT.
It's the same in any jurisdiction that has significantly reduced emissions. Experts show that the carbon pricing policy in California, which Quebec has now joined, will have almost no effect by 2020. Ninety percent of that state's current and projected reductions are attributed to innovative, flexible regulations on electricity, fuels, vehicles, buildings, appliances, equipment and land use.
Even Scandinavian countries, famous for two decades of carbon taxes, mostly used regulations to reduce emissions. For example, the greatest CO2 reductions in Sweden happened when publicly owned district heat providers were forced to switch fuels.
2.2. A better social acceptance despite a higher implicit carbon price.
Economists will point out that regulations may have high "implicit" carbon prices: this is the carbon price that would be required to cause the same amount of emissions reduction.
Indeed, I and other analysts have estimated an implicit carbon price for Ontario's coal phase-out of $100 to $130, for BC's clean electricity regulation of $80 to $120, and for California's vehicle emissions standard of over $100.
But is this high implicit price a bad thing? If it is politically impossible to raise "explicit" carbon prices to $160 to achieve our Paris promise, then at least regulations can get to that price implicitly — today. And Trudeau might get to keep his job.
Many economists – who, I repeat, never face voters – argue that regulations are economically inefficient compared with carbon pricing. This is true, especially if the regulations are poorly designed. Too bad that so few of these economists are willing to apply their intelligence and creativity to the design of relatively efficient regulations that also overcome the huge blockade of political acceptability. Fortunately, some have.
2.3. The convincing exemple of the California's vehicle emlissions standard
The history of California's vehicle emissions standard is illustrative. Since 1990, that state has required vehicle manufacturers and retailers to achieve rising market shares for zero-emissions vehicles (ZEVs) and partial-zero-emissions vehicles (PZEVs).
Thanks to the influence of some creative designers (perhaps renegade economists), that policy does not pick technology winners and losers. For the ZEV category, for example, it is agnostic (when it comes to CO2 emissions) between pure electric, hydrogen fuel cell and pure biofuel. So, as they compete with each other, auto manufacturers have strong incentives to innovate technologies and better understand emerging consumer preferences.
And they quietly cross-subsidize to achieve their sales targets, charging people who buy gas guzzlers a bit more per vehicle in order to reduce the sales price of the higher-cost ZEVs, which they must sell to achieve their market share targets. Conveniently, there is no cost to government. Nor is government blamed for levying a high tax on gas guzzlers.
The California PZEV-ZEV regulation also allows manufacturers to trade among themselves in meeting sales targets, again reducing economic inefficiency.
And the regulation is flexibly applied in response to new information. In the early 2000s, manufacturers convinced regulators to increase the PZEV target in compensation for delaying the ZEV mandate, the reason being that their incredible success with developing hybrid vehicles like the Toyota Prius was achieving the overall emissions objective, and they needed more time to develop consumer-attractive electric and hydrogen options for ZEVs.
Aujourd'hui, les PZEV et les VEZ sont en tête de file, notamment grâce aux voitures électriques et aux hybrides rechargeables, ces dernières étant particulièrement appréciées par les conducteurs qui roulent tout au long de la journée, en ville ou d'une ville à l'autre. En fin de compte, c'est donc le marché, et non les autorités de régulation, qui détermine la contribution relative de chaque catégorie de véhicule à la réduction totale des émissions.
2.4. Benefits of regulations
What makes regulating CO2 emissions so convenient is that a few sectors and energy uses account for most emissions. Regulations on electricity generation, furnaces in buildings, boilers in industry, oil and gas production processes, and transportation propulsion systems, like the PZEV-ZEV program, can address 75 percent of Canada's energy-related CO2 emissions.
A concern about regulations is that the implicit carbon price will differ from one sector of the economy to another, resulting again in economic inefficiency but all real-world carbon pricing schemes conveniently ignore the same inconsistency. Howerver government can adjust the stringency of regulations in different sectors over time in order to align implicit carbon prices.
3. Suggestions for an effective Canadian policy
This brief description does not do justice to the creative potential for implicit carbon pricing that is politically acceptable without a big cost in terms of economic efficiency. But how can this help Trudeau, who seeks to develop a national climate plan with the premiers in March?
3.1. The impossible carbon pricing
As expected, Trudeau didn't manage to convince the provincial premiers at the march 2016 meeting to agree to nationwide, explicit carbon pricing (via tax or cap-and-trade) that comes close to the level needed to achieve Canada's Paris promise – Remember, this is a carbon price that climbs rapidly to $160 by 2030.
He made another suggestion : to encourage the development of explicit provincial carbon pricing. But the message at that meeting was clear: if the Prime Minister wanted to use emissions pricing to meet climate targets, he would pay the political price. The result of the March impasse was typically Canadian: Trudeau and the premiers created study committees.
As a consequence, the prime minister should immediately develop an implicit carbon pricing strategy if he wants to fulfil his commitments.
3.2. Road tansport regulation
An obvious starting point is road transport. He can do this by following in the footsteps of Stephen Harper. Like previous prime ministers, Harper continued the practice of aligning Canada's vehicle regulations with those in the US.
The US vehicle regulations focus on fuel economy and then tack on emissions criteria. Much better would be to take a page from California by implementing emissions-focused regulations that reinforce and accelerate that state's effort to change vehicle propulsion systems away from burning gasoline and diesel — regardless of energy efficiency levels.
This policy can apply to cars and trucks. In the latter case, biodiesel is likely to play a larger role, although electricity and hydrogen cannot be ruled out. Again, we now have the technological options — mostly thanks to California's earlier regulations — so we can let the market decide which of these does best.
My research group has estimated that a balanced and flexible PZEV-ZEV standard in Canada that forced vehicle manufacturers and retailers to hit market share targets of 10 percent of new sales by 2020 and 70 percent of new sales by 2030 would reduce annual emissions from this sector by 40 percent. The implicit carbon price is difficult to estimate, because it depends on the future price of oil. If the oil price stays low, the implicit carbon price of the standard is $150. If the oil price rises to average $60 per barrel over the next 13 years, the implicit carbon price is under $100 : switching away from gasoline-fuelled cars is less costly when their fuel is more expensive.
3.3. Electricity sector regulation
Another obvious sector to target is electricity. Again, Trudeau can turn up the dial on a soft Harper regulation so that, by 2030, all coal power plants must be closed or retrofitted with carbon capture and storage, and natural gas plants would be mostly restricted to backing up intermittent renewables like wind, solar and run-of-river hydro.
Because the impacts of the policy are not equal across the country, Trudeau might have to provide some help to Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, but it should not be much. Already Alberta and Nova Scotia have been working on major transitions away from coal. Trudeau's regulation needs to make sure that the displaced coal is not all replaced with natural gas.
3.4. Other sectoral regulations
Non-auto transport (buses, trucks, trains, ships), industrial boilers, building space and water heating, and oil and gas are other obvious sectors and end uses for which it is possible to implement flexible, relatively efficient regulations.
My research group and I have found that modest carbon pricing by the provinces in concert with a targeted portfolio of such federal regulations, which are carefully monitored to approximately equate their implicit carbon prices, can enable Canada to achieve the Paris target without harming trade-exposed industries.
Although implementation of effective climate policies will never be easy, there are politically palatable options that have a proven track record of achieving reductions in Canada and abroad.
Yes, encourage emissions pricing which corresponds to the theoretical optimum. But heed the evidence on the effective and relatively efficient role that well-crafted regulations can play in driving the major technological and energy transition we so desperately need.
Rather than listen to those who ignore evidence, J.Trudeau should focus on developing creative solutions in a second-best world.


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According to Bloomberg, Twitter is prepping an update to its service that will keep photos and links from counting against the 140-character limit of a post. Currently the URL that points to images and sites takes up some of that available space.
Twitter won't count links, photos in 140-character limit http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/16/report-twitter-won-t-count-links-photos-in-140-character-limit/
Report: Twitter won't count links, photos in 140-character limit
The new feature is expected to launch within two weeks according toBloomberg's anonymous source. Part of the attraction of Twitter's existing setup is that it limits the amount of information shared in each post. An early version of the service relied on SMS so that limiting the characters to 140 was more of a technical issue than anything else.
But, long-time users have asked that links, photos and usernames not count against the character limit. It looks like at least two of those items will no longer suck up valuable tweet real estate.
Twitter has been on a feature-adding spree lately as it tries to attract new users. But it's stopped short of creating a purely algorithmic timeline like what you'll see on Facebook. Instead, it's enhanced DMs and surfaced what it believes are the most important tweets so that they appear at the top of users' feeds.
We've asked Twitter for comment and will update this article if and when we hear back.
Source: http://www.engadget.com
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Here it is! The first blog entry. Let's hope it's the first of many as we showcase the exciting events around the county, our "everyday" unit meeting activities and the adventures of Girlguiding Leicestershire.
It's the beginning of Girlguiding Leicestershire's centenary celebrations. 100 years of fantastic fun for girls of all ages. Maybe you've signed up for a surprise parcel to exchange this month or perhaps you've booked onto the Winter Wonderland with your Rainbows or Stargazing with your Brownies. Some people have begun to collect bras and pants to add to our collection for our chosen charity "Smalls for All". As usual, there's plenty to choose from. The Centenary Challenge will be launched shortly with places to visit around the county and a wide variety of activities.
Just to keep everyone busy, I've decided that I'll challenge you with a County Commissioner's challenge too. How many different ways can we make 100? Make the number 100 using tent pegs or Brownie t-shirts. Take a photo and share it by emailing it to the office on firstname.lastname@example.com, messaging the facebook page "Girlguiding Leicestershire" or instagramming it with the hashtag #girlguidingleicestershire. I made a start with these helium balloons but I'm sure you'll all be far more imaginative. I can't wait to see what you come up with.
Happy 2017. Happy Centenary.
Love Rachelxx


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Adorn your decorative cake with hand crafted fondant icing roses with help from this cake decorating tutorial. To make one of these adorable roses, follow these steps:
1. It's important to have a decent sized work area, so make sure you have enough room, and place powdered sugar all over your work area. This is so the fondant won't get too sticky.
2.Next, get your fondant/gumpaste. Nead the icing so that it isn't hard and is easy to use.
3. Roll out a ball of the icing. Pinch the top so it becomes pointy (more like a nub) on one side. Set your nub to the side for later use.
4. Make another ball of icing. Mold it into a snake by rubbing the icing between your hands.
5. Flatten the 'snake'. Take one side and make it flatter than the other side.
6. Now take your snake, making sure the flatter side is on the top. Take the numb and roll the flattened snake so it is one circle above the nub. Keep spiraling it down the rest of the flower. This is suppose to be your bud.
7. Put that to the side, and make another ball. Flatten out the ball and make it very flat one one side. Wrap it around the bud.
8. Keep doing that (those are your petals). Keep wrapping them around until your satisfied with the look.
9. The left over fondant at the bottom can easily be cut off with a knife, or pinched off.
While you're stuck at home, make the most of your time by learning a new language, skill, or even train for a remote-work job with our new premium online courses.


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