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Archive for February 2012
I've just started reading Martin Amis's latest novel, The Pregnant Widow. It is very Amis-y. But, with my science fiction hat on, I was struck by the quotation from Alexander Herzen's From The Other Shore (1848–1850) from which the novel takes its title:
The death of the contemporary forms of social order ought to gladden rather than trouble the soul. Yet what is frightening is that the departing world leaves behind it not an heir, but a pregnant widow. Between the death of the one and the birth of the other, much water will flow by, a long night of chaos and desolation will pass.
Your Chance To Second Guess Me
The list of submissions for this year's Arthur C Clarke Award have just been published at Torque Control. As with last year, there is a prize for guessing the shortlist of six novels (due to be announced at the end of March). No one managed to guess all six last year – in fact, four out of six was the best – so will the judges be able to completely confound fans again this time?
Of course, the guessing already started a while ago. Last week I put Lavie Tidhar on the spot on Twitter and asked him to predict the shortlist. He came up with the following six: Embassytown, The Islanders, Ready Player One, By Light Alone, The Company Man and Wake Up And Dream. He added that he'd be glad with hitting three out of six. Well, as it turns out, he can only have guessed a maximum of four of the shortlist since Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and The Company Man by Robert Jackson Bennett weren't submitted. It is possible that other novels which people might have thought were contenders weren't submitted either; having heard Martin McGrath advocate for it, I would certainly have liked to have seen City Of Bohane by Kevin Barry. Fans of children's literature will also notice that not much was submitted. No Blood Red Road by Moira Young, for example.
But there you go: the field is big, it isn't neatly distributed and the very concept of science fiction is often in the eye of the beholder. There were sixty novels submitted this year which is huge amount to read and covers the vast majority of the field. It is also more than enough to produce an excellent shortlist (go on, I dare you to guess it). However, one of the big strengths of the Arthur C Clarke Award is the fact it aspires to be completely comprehensive, to cover as much of the UK science fiction field as humanly possible, so I hope all publishers will continue to take a broad view of what constitutes science fiction in the future.
Another Year Of Reading Women
Last year I set myself the challenge of reading and writing about one science fiction novel written by a woman each month.
- Moxyland by Lauren Buekes
- Glimmering by Elizabeth Hand
- Arslan by MJ Engh
- Mission Child by Maureen F McHugh
- The Flood by Maggie Gee
- Maul by Tricia Sullivan (further discussion at Torque Control)
- Woman On The Edge Of Time by Marge Piercy
- Golden Witchbreed by Mary Gentle
- The Two Of Them by Joanna Russ
- Kindred by Octavia Butler
The eagle-eyed will notice that that isn't twelve novels. I ran out of steam and vowed to continue this year instead with another batch. Here is what I assembled over Christmas:
Some of those were languishing on my shelves, some were kindly donated by Ian Sales of SF Mistressworks and were picked up from Amazon (and only available secondhand or imported, obviously). Since the Clarke Award shortlist has now been decided (and will be announced at the end of the month), I've got the time to think about other fiction so here is the schedule for the year:
- March: Spirit by Gwyneth Jones
- April The Lathe Of Heaven by Ursula K LeGuin
- May: A Plague of Angels by Sheri S Tepper
- June: Hav by Jan Morris
- July: Cyteen by CJ Cherryh
- August: Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen
- September: The Female Man by Joanna Russ
- October: A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski
- November: Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin
- December: Shikasta by Doris Lessing
If any one would like to join me in reading any of those books in those particular months, I would welcome the conversation. And I think we are still due a discussion of Spirit over at Torque Control, aren't we? In addition, I will be trying to read and review more books by women in general and my review of Blood Red Road by Moira Young is forthcoming at Strange Horizons.
But it isn't just about what I review. As reviews editor for the BSFA, I also have a big say in what other people review and the books that are covered in Vector. Niall Harrison will be repeating the SF count again this year and, as part of this, I've tallied up the coverage of books by men and women in Vector. The ratio is very poor. So it is all very well talking the talk but I've clearly taken my eye off the ball and I need to be much more proactive in 2012 in ensuring speculative fiction by women is visible in Vector.
Here The Life Of Rivers Begins
They rise from the granite, sun themselves a little on the unsheltered plateau and drop through air to their valleys. Or they cut their way out under wreaths of snow, escaping in a tumult. Or hang in tangles of ice on the rock faces. One cannot know the rivers till one has seen them at their sources; but this journey to the sources is not to be undertaken lightly. One walks among elementals, and elementals are not governable. There are awakened also in oneself by the contact elementals that are as unpredictable as wind or snow.
Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain
Abolish The Hugo Best Editor Categories
It is Hugo nominations time and last night on Twitter there was a bit of a conversation about nominating Devi Pillai for Best Editor Long Form. This was kicked off by this post by NK Jemisin entitled 'Give my editor a Hugo'. In addition, to Pillai's work on her own books, she also put forward this list of other works:
- The Way of Shadows, Beyond the Shadows and Shadow's Edge (the Night Angel trilogy) by Brent Weeks
- The Heroes and Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
- Blameless, Changeless, Heartless, etc. (the Parasol Protectorate series) by Gail Carriger
- Blood Rights by Kristen Painter
- Theft of Swords by Michael J Sullivan
- Cold Magic (the Spiritwalker Trilogy) by Kate Elliott
- Working for the Devil (the Dante Valentine series) by Lilith Saintcrow
- Warrior and Witch by Marie Brennan
- The Fallen Blade by Jon Courtney Grimwood
I have only read three of those novels: The Heroes and Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie and The Fallen Blade by Jon Courtney Grimwood. I love the Abercrombies, I think the Grimwood is the worst thing he's ever published. It also strikes me as a novel with substantial issues around structure, pace, point of view and consistency, things I would expect and editor to take a firm hand with and things that would disuade me from nominating Pillai for an editorial award. At this point Jonathan Strahan made the inevitable comment: "The problem is, and this is why I suggested my proposed Hugo rules change, you can't know if it is or isn't. You're assuming."
He's right. I haven't seen Grimwood's original manuscript, I have no idea of the work Pillai did on subsequent drafts, all I have to go on is the finished text. Only two people know for sure, I just have to rely on the evidence. In some cases the evidence seems overwhelming such as with Theft of Swords by Michael J Sullivan which appears to be not only a very bad book but cursorily edited in order to make a quick buck. But it remains an assumption (as editors will delight in telling you if you make any such inference).
There is more than a little hypocriscy to Strahan's position though. He has been nominated for Best Editor Short Form for the last four years and has not declined these nominations. Yet he believes them to be meaningless, that the people who vote for category are incapable of making any judgement about them. Only authors and editors themselves would be able to nominate, meaning each editor would have two nominations at the maximum. That doesn't make for a viable award. So I hope if he is nominated this year, Strahan will stick to his principles and decline. In an ideal world, all editors would do the same and the awards would be abolished since what they seek to reward is so clearly incompatible with a popular vote.
Strahan's own prefered rules change is to give the Best Novel award to both author and editor. This is embarrassing. It is, however, entirely in keeping with the philosophy of the Hugos: awards for all and contorted categories that exist nowhere else. In the rest of the literary world, awards for novels are awards for authors as should obviously be the case. Implicit in an award-winning novel is the idea that the editor has done well to acquire and publish it and they will undoubtably be congratulated by their peers for this. Similarly for magazines and anthologies, success for them implies success for the editor. But it is self-servingly ridiculous to try and formalise such industry praise within a fan award such as the Hugos, particularly since doing so would in no way avoid the problem of fans having to make assumptions. Both categories need to go and not be replaced.
A Trip Down Memory Lane
In 1994 I bought my first issue of Interzone. It was half price from a cardboard box of back issues in a secondhand book shop on Camden High Street, just before the canal. The bookshop is long gone but the experience was formative. For my birthday that year, I asked for a subscription to the magazine and I remained a subscriber for the next twelve years. This obviously wasn't my first exposure to speculative fiction but it was my first sustained, systematic reading of the genre and it was my first exposure to SF criticism. I have forgotten the names of many of the reviewers who introduced me to writing about SF but some like John clute and Nick Lowe, writing about fiction and cinema respectively, have stuck with me ever since.
That same year, I also asked for a copy of the second edition of the Science Fiction Encyclopedia, edited by Clute and Peter Nicholls. My uncle duly bought it for me and, out of ignorance and hunger, I decided to read this bloody big book cover to cover. Now, I wouldn't necessarily recommend this but it is hard to think of a better crash course in the history of the genre, its possibilities and the possibilities of writing about it.
So it was a slightly strange experience to find myself last week in flat not five minutes walk away from that lost bookshop, having dinner with Clute, Lowe and Graham Sleight, the managing editor of the third edition of encyclopedia. Strange but extremely enjoyable. The upshot of this meal is that I will be writing some of the cinema entries need to update the encyclopedia from 1992 to 2012. The first three of these have already been published: Pandorum, Avatar and Moon. Those last two were co-authored with Lowe which feels more than a little surreal to write. I will continue to work with him on ensuring that the essential films and directors are covered but, for the moment, I am mostly going to be concentrating on children's animated science fiction of the last decade or so.
My 2011 BSFA Award Short Fiction Ballot
So, I've now read the five shortlisted stories for the BSFA Award and thanks to everyone else who read them and commented, it has been informative for me and hopefully enjoyable to you. If you are a BSFA member or are attending Eastercon, please do read the stories as it would be nice to have a high turnout for the vote. They are all available online but we also hope to make them available again as a printed booklet for members. Once you've done so, I'd welcome any more comments here as the deadline approaches.
I've set out my ballot below with links to each of the discussions. I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with my rankings but I wonder if anyone would disagree that, considered as a whole, it isn't a particularly strong shortlist.
In terms of coverage of the field, it is broad in some directions and narrow in others. There are two science fiction stories: one set on another planet in the far future, one set on an alternative Earth in the near past. Then there are three fantasies that are all set in Britain and deal with a protagonist facing the intrusion of a single example of the fantastic: a magic clock, animated oil rigs and a satyr. Only one of the stories – and ironically, one of the fantasies – is set in the near future. There is a marked absence of the core tropes that people associate with science fiction and fantasy. Not a criticism, of course, but as someone who doesn't read a lot of genre short fiction, I wonder how representative it is.
1) 'Covehithe' by China Miéville
The clear winner for me and the only shortlisted story that looks anything like an award-winner. It's Miéville, innit?
2) 'Afterbirth' by Kameron Hurley
I liked this a lot but I primarily liked it as a companion piece to God's War. However, it seems to have worked for Aishwarya Subramanian and Fernando Hugo, even though it was their first exposure to Hurley.
3) 'The Copenhagen Interpretation' by Paul Cornell
A fun setting that I'd like to read more of but only in a broader context. Here it is a bead on a necklace and I want to see the whole thing, particularly if the ending really did attempt to conceal a huge paradigm shift.
No Award
I can't actually remember if the awards have a No Award option but, if they do, this is where it would go.
4) "The Silver Wind' by Nina Allen
A huge disappointment from an author I admire. In the comments, Niall Harrison articulates the virtues I would usually associate with Allan but I can't find them here.
5) 'Of Dawn' by Al Robertson
A familiar story badly executed at unneccessary length. British SF writers really need to get out of this rut but perhaps there is no incentive since this style of story obviously continues to prove popular.


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Lisa Clark
Assistant Professor of Music
Voice / Vocal Pedagogy / Lyric Diction
Ralph Center for the Arts #154
- M.M. in Voice, Florida State University
- B.Mus. in Voice, Northwestern University
Areas of Instruction
- Applied Music – Voice
- Vocal Pedagogy
- Lyric Diction
- Aural Skills
- Opera Coaching
Originally from South Bend, Indiana, Lisa Clark earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Northwestern University and a Master of Music degree from Florida State University. She recently appeared as a soloist with the Evansville Bach Singers as Merab in a concert of Handel's oratorio Saul. She has performed the role of Clara in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess with the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre, as well as debuting the role of Eliza in the world premiere of Joseph Baber's opera, River of Time. Other local performances include the debut of Jim Rodgers' outreach operaEvery Time I Feel The Spirit in Woodford Co., KY, and UK Opera Theatre's outreach production of The Freedom Trail. She has performed with the Chicago Lyric, San Francisco, and Cincinnati Opera as a member of the chorus in Porgy and Bess. Ms. Clark has performed as a soloist with the Evansville Symphony Orchestra, Chicago's Apollo Chorus, and has toured with the American Spiritual Ensemble, including a performance in Washington, D.C. at the renowned Kennedy Center. Ms. Clark is featured on the American Spiritual Ensemble's 2009 album, entitled Spirit of the Holidays. Other performances include the role of First Lady in a production of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte with the Intermezzo Young Artist Program, Mrs. Gleaton in Carlisle Floyd'sSusannah, Fiordiligi in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte with the Florida State University Opera Outreach program, and as Ida B. Wells in a production of Tazewell Thompson's Constant Star with the Lexington Actor's Guild. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Kentucky under the supervision of Dr. Everett McCorvey and serves as an Assistant Professor of Voice at Kentucky Wesleyan College.

subset: commoncrawl


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Why We Created the ESSENTIAL NEUROLOGIC EXAMINATION:
Neurologic problems such as stroke, dizziness, headache, back pain, tremor, neuropathy, and shingles are commonly encountered. As a result, many healthcare professionals must be able to perform an accurate neurologic examination.
Developed At:
The University of Miami Gordon Center for Research in Medical Education by neurologists and educators from multiple medical centers and critiqued by hundreds of learners prior to its release.
Target Populations:
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- Medical students at all levels
- Nursing students and nurses
- Physicians in training and practice
- Physician assistants


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Hi everybody
The Times has launched its new green travel awards and two of the judges are Sawday's people – Toby Sawday and Richard Hammond, the editor of Special Places to Stay: Green Places.
You are invited to nominate your favourite 'green space', whether it's a hotel, cottage, park, restaurant, walk, or even a green taxi company. If it's green and it's a space, it can be nominated.
The judges will be looking at both the social and the environmental impact of each nominated 'green space'. Suggestions about places in the UK are particularly welcomed, though the awards will also include some places in Europe and further afield.
And the first 20 nominations each month will receive a copy of Special Places to Stay: Green Places.
For more info, visit www.timesonline.co.uk/greenspaces
Subscribe to this blog in a reader
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As credit managers in the journey to bring revenue to our organizations while monitoring the accounts receivable investment, we have many "detours" along the way. However, like any trip, there are opportunities that we can either recognize, ignore or perhaps not even realize when they come our way.
Certainly the risk elements that so many of us know – the "C's" of credit – are critical to getting to "yes." You probably know the "C's" of Credit – Character, Capacity, Capital, Conditions and Collateral. These risk characteristics, in some form, will lead us to mitigation tools which can minimize risk. In addition, if you deal in global credit (maybe not today, but perhaps your organization buys/expands into international markets tomorrow), you will also encounter the additional "C's" of global risk, Country, Culture and Currency.
I have realized in my own treasury and accounts receivable experience an area often under-emphasized: the "soft skills" that are critical components in reaching "yes." These techniques involve understanding how effectively we communicate, listen, react and reflect before taking action. Do we successfully consider the needs of the "other" person in the path to get us to our goal – not just the customer – but in our organization?
We all know the "Golden Rule:" "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." This rule assumes others want to be treated like you. Dr. Tony Alessandra developed the "Platinum Rule:" "Treat others the way they want to be treated." It's not so much what I want, but accommodating the feelings and needs of others (and not just customers), but those in our own organization that are in the line of getting to "yes:" sales, marketing, IT, HR, manufacturing, purchasing, to name a few.
At the upcoming CreditScape conference in Sonoma this September, I look forward to your sharing input regarding this approach to "Yes."
This is just a surface view of the idea of "how to get to yes in your credit decisioning process.. Each of these points and more will be discussed in-depth at the upcoming CreditScape Summit and Workshops in Sonoma, CA on September 22-23, 2016. Come to CreditScape, learn from experts and peers who have done this, share you own experiences with others. For more information, visit www.CreditScapeConference.com.
Paul Beretz, CICE (Certified International Credit Executive), is Managing Director of Pacific Business Solutions, a company he created in 1999. In addition, he is a founding partner of Q2C (Quote to Cash) Solutions. He brings over 30 years of global, corporate experience in finance and management with industries such as telecommunications, semi-conductors, forest products, chemicals, plastics and consumer products among others. His expertise includes analyzing opportunities and providing resolutions in the order-through-collect cycle for manufacturers, distributors and service companies located worldwide.
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Anvato Brings 360 Degree Video Capabilities to OTT Customers
Mountain View, CA — April 14, 2016 — Anvato, the complete TV Everywhere and OTT platform provider, today announced support for immersive 360 degree video content on Anvato's Media Content Platform (MCP). Content owners, programmers and other OTT service providers can further enhance their video offerings by streaming 360 video in virtual reality (VR) with an Anvato player, or they can syndicate videos to 360-enabled sites like Facebook and YouTube.
Anvato's MCP leverages massively parallel video processing, treating 360 videos as segments (as opposed to single files) which results in lower latency and rapid delivery of video files. This process also results in much faster processing of the content, dramatically reducing the amount of time between video ingest and playback. Anvato's 360 video outputs are playable using our powerful player SDK, and are processed and played without buffering. Scene-dependent adaptive bitrate streaming allows the playback component to optimize the experience in all fields of vision.
"MCP is the first end-to-end turnkey OTT platform that enables 360 video as part of the distribution architecture, without the need for separate workflows to process 360 content," said Alper Turgut, CEO of Anvato. "Our mission is to make it easy for programmers to deliver OTT video, and to help them deliver the most advanced and exciting user experience possible across all platforms, including immersive 360 video."
Deployed by many of the leading brands and more than 200 TV stations in the United States, Anvato's Media Content Platform is a turnkey software-based TV Everywhere/OTT workflow that enables television programmers, content owners and service providers to reach their audiences on any device. From signal to screen, Anvato offers a single, all-encompassing solution that ensures playback and monetization across all screens. Customers can deploy Anvato solutions within a matter of weeks, enabling live or on-demand TV programming on any device in a highly cost-effective manner.
Anvato will showcase MCP and these advanced capabilities at NAB 2016, booth #SU9606CM, taking place in Las Vegas fromApril 18-21. To schedule a meeting or for more information about Anvato solutions, please visit www.anvato.com or email firstname.lastname@example.com.
About Anvato:
Anvato is the most efficient and complete platform to power the TV Everywhere and OTT offerings for broadcasters and pay TV operators, for both live and video-on-demand. Since its industry-leading turnkey technology streamlines video ingest to playback, Anvato can uniquely guarantee the highest-quality and most-efficient delivery of the right content and advertising on all devices. Customers include NBCUniversal, FOX Sports, Scripps Networks Interactive, Media General, Univision, E.W. Scripps, Gray Television, and CBS Local Media. Anvato is headquartered in Mountain View, CA, and winner of Best of NAB 2014 and 2015 awards. For more information, visit www.anvato.com


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Western Sahara: Security Council renews MINURSO mandate for 6 months
PUSL.- At today's meeting of the Security Council (SC) on Western Sahara, the extension of the mandate of MINURSO (United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara) was adopted with 13 votes in favour and two abstentions (Russian Federation and South Africa) for six months.
All members of the SC support the efforts of the UN Secretary-General's personal envoy, Mr. Horst Koehler, and the performance of MINURSO and Colin Stewart.
The approved text was written by the United States, which was disappointed with the two abstentions and emphasized the need to accelerate the process to reach a mutually acceptable and realistic solution that results in the self-determination of the Saharawi people.
France, Morocco's historical ally said that a realistic political process is needed and that Morocco's proposed autonomy plan is a credible solution. They voted in favour, but they prefer a one-year rather than six-month mandate, arguing that they are more stable mandates. Read more


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SANE Program
Our Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) staff offers compassionate medical care and expert forensic evidence collection for victims of violence.Make a Donation
Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) nurses are registered nurses who have advanced education and clinical preparation to help meet the needs of victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, strangulation, elder abuse and child abuse, and neglect. They are trained to provide medical treatment, collect and maintain the chain of evidence, provide emotional support and make arrangements for any follow-up support that may be needed.
Ascension Saint Clare's Hospital has ten specially trained SANE forensic nurses. Having SANE nurses offers victims of violence prompt, compassionate medical care and comprehensive forensic evidence collection, in addition to helping preserve the victim's dignity and reduce further psychological trauma.
SANE Program Statistics
- 29528_SANE_DATA.pdf 93.4 KB


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Carol Bosshardt
Giving Back......
Bosshardt Realty Services, LLC was founded in 1987 with one simple philosophy... take care of the customer. Carol R. Bosshardt, owner and CEO, started the company with 10 agents and the dream of building a clientele based on personal relationships.
Carol was born in Rockford, Illinois, where she learned the art of the real estate business from her mother. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a Bachelor of Science degree in social work, something that allowed her to integrate her mother's teaching and her own foundation in human services with her true passion: working with people.
In 2001, Carol received the distinguished Paul Harris Service Award, and in 2006 received her MBA in entreprenurial studies from the University of Florida.
Carol raised her children in Gainesville where they were educated and flourished in the public school system. Her daughter, Stacey, is an attorney in Washington, DC. and her son, Aaron, is President of Bosshardt Realty Services, LLC.
Despite the growth of the company since it was founded in 1987, Carol still feels that Bosshardt Realty Services, LLC is a family company and prides herself on operating it as such. Family-oriented businesses are a quickly dying breed; it is important to Carol to maintain close personal relationships with employees, associates, and the people they serve. This warm, familiar atmosphere is what sets Bosshardt Realty Services, LLC apart and makes it a great place.
Bosshardt Realty Services, LLC is an active member of these associations:
Gainesville Chamber of Commerce
Gainesville Home Builders' Association
Gainesville/Alachua County Association of Realtors
Florida and National Association of Realtors
Womens' Council of Realtors
University Business Forum
Council of Economic Outreach
Awards & Designations
MBA University of Florida Distinguished Alumnus Award
Real Estate CRS, CRB, CPS,
5542 NW 43rd St
Gainesville, FL 32653
Phone: (352) 371-6100
Fax: 352-378-2737


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CocosPure coconut water is still available at the grocery store, Save On Foods. Here's a recent flier showing CocosPure in the lower, right corner. If it is not available at the Save On Foods near you please ask for it. We want this delicious product available throughout the Vancouver Lower Mainland. Want to know more about Cocos Pure at Save On Foods?
Click here: https://cocospure.com/cocospure-vancouver-moves-save-foods/


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"Accommodation in Salem, MA"
Located in the heart of one of Americas oldest seaports the Salem Inn comprises three historic homes offering accommodations rich in history with a proud tradition of service and comfort. Each building has been meticulously restored and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Centrally located in the heart of historic Salem the citys impressive array of attractions/ restaurants/ and activities are all within easy walking distance. Experience history making hospitality at the Salem Inn. Each of our 42 guest rooms and suites is individually decorated featuring antiques/ period detail/ and homey touches. All rooms include an ensemble of amenities- cable television/ telephone/ private bath/ and coffee maker. Many offer working fireplaces/ oversized whirlpool baths/ or canopy beds. Family Suites complete with equipped kitchenettes are ideal for families or longer stays. The West House/ Curwen House/ and Peabody House each boast an inviting fireplace parlor perfect for planning your days activities or relaxing with a glass of complementary sherry in the evening. BOS-Boston-15 Miles NW
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Lineapelle, the international show for leather and components for footwear and leather goods, has chosen the GDS show in Düsseldorf in early February to communicate through a series of seminars the sustainability and fashion aspects of Italian made leather.
A number seminars organised by Lineapelle will be held during the first day of GDS (February 4, Congress Center Düsseldorf, Room 001), which will highlight companies that Lineapelle represents in terms of environmental sustainability.
In particular the seminars will focus on:
Also, during the seminars in Düsseldorf a preview of the Spring-Summer 2016 fashion tendencies will be shown.
The next edition of the Lineapelle fair will be held in Milan from February 25-27, and this year will include several brands trend catwalks. The exhibition organisers (UNIC) are underlining the shows role as a source for fashion.


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13950 Cerritos Corporate Dr, Cerritos, CA 90703
Phone: 805.529.6866
611 Country Drive Chico, CA 95928
Phone: 530.893.1062
6818 A Patterson Pass Road Livermore, CA 94550
Phone: 925.583.0100
Los Angeles
Multiple Locations
Phone: 805.529.6866
5950 Condor Drive Moorpark, CA 93021
Phone: 805.529.1144
2021 East Locust Court Ontario, CA 91761
Phone: 909.947.9428
4501 Pell Drive Sacramento, CA 95838
Phone: 916.929.4702
San Diego
1462 Corporate Center Drive Suite 110 San Diego, CA 92154
Phone: 323.974.2151
Santa Barbara
820 Bond Avenue, Santa Barbara, CA 93103
Phone: 805.529.1144
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The new minimum wage deal between Gov. Phil Murphy and the state's top Democrats, to be voted on by the Assembly Labor Committee on Thursday, sets aside $10 million in new tax breaks to encourage businesses to hire workers with disabilities, according to draft legislation of Assembly Bill 15 obtained by NJBIZ.
Proponents of the tax credit, such as Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-3rd District, said the measure is necessary to incentivize employers to add and keep disabled workers on the payroll.
"People with disabilities would probably be the first ones laid off" because of a minimum wage increase, Sweeney said at the NJBankers Association Economic Leadership Forum on Jan. 18.
"So creating an environment where it's a positive thing to hire a disabled person, I think is a good thing," he added.
Murphy said he expects to sign the minimum wage bill by the end of January. Both the Assembly and Senate have their last January voting sessions on Jan. 31.
The Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee will vote on the upper house version, Senate Bill 15, at their Jan. 28 meeting, followed by a Jan. 31 full floor vote, according to Senate staff.
Under the proposed tax credit, if a business has to pay a disabled employee more in the current year than they did previous year, because of the wage increase, that employer could count the pay difference as a tax credit against the taxes the employer already owes. The tax credit would be applicable to any wages paid after Jan. 1, 2019.
Under A15, both the state treasury and the Department of Labor of Workforce Development would oversee the program, including the application process and employer record-keeping.
Should the wage increase go through, employees would continue paying the minimum wage of $8.85 for the first six months until July 1, and $10 an hour for the remaining six months of 2019, coming out to $19,604, assuming the employee worked 40 hours a week all 52 weeks of the year.
Then, commencing Jan. 1, 2020, the minimum wage goes up to $11 an hour, with the minimum an employee could earn being $22,880 a year, assuming the employee worked 40 hours a week all 52 weeks of the year.
That $3,276 difference between 2020 and 2019 could be counted as a tax credit for the employer should they hire a worker with a disability. The employer would have until April 15, 2020 – the tax filing deadline – to pay their taxes and get the credits, or they could get the amount incrementally.
The statewide minimum wage would reach $15 an hour for most workers by 2024, under A15, which is sponsored by Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-19th District.
Seasonal workers and employees of businesses with less than five workers will see their wage raise to $15 an hour by Jan. 1, 2026.
Farm workers' wages will increase to $12.50 an hour no later than 2024 and tipped workers will see the minimum rate go up from $2.13 an hour to $5.13 an hour.


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With just three syllables expressed in all-caps, Liam Gallagher made a compelling argument back in May that Oasis might be more entertaining apart than they were together. "POTATO": What an amazing insult. It's petty, but ultimately harmless. When screamed in the schoolyard, it's not likely to get anyone in too much hot water, but on the receiving end, it inexplicably stings.
When it comes to slinging insults, Liam and Noel Gallagher are artisans. And sure, new Oasis music or reunion shows could be amazing, but more amazing than watching one Gallagher tweet that his brother looks like a root vegetable?
Not to make complete light of a fraught situation. Sometimes, it's gotten ugly and physical. Legal battles have ensued. And really, it's never fun when two siblings trade poisonous barbs. But in the age of Twitter, the war has become a seemingly harmless, often hilarious spectator sport. And so, we've compiled an (obviously incomplete) history of the forever feuding Gallagher brothers' fights and traded insults.
1994: During an L.A. concert, Liam changes the words of "Live Forever" to annoy his brother. ("Maybe I don't really wanna know/Why you pick your nose"—scathing stuff.) He also hits Noel over the head with a tambourine and insults the American crowd. Noel briefly leaves the band, but rejoins them later that tour. This becomes a recurring theme for the next 15 years—breakups, begrudging returns, boyfights.
1994: During a now-legendary interview with NME's John Harris, Noel and Liam spend an entire conversation sniping at each other. Most of the conversation is a fight over whether rock'n'roll is about the music or about living a wild, "genuine," spontaneous life. Noel calls Liam a dick and a schlepper. Liam calls Noel a dickhead, a teetotal, a "fuckin' priest," and even declares, point-blank, "you're not rock'n'roll." They repeatedly shout "fuck off" and talk about how they hate each other. An excerpt about Liam getting thrown off a ferry:
Noel: If you're proud about getting thrown off ferries, then why don't you go and support West Ham and get the fuck out of my band and go and be a football hooligan, right? 'Cause we're musicians, right? We're not football hooligans.
Liam: You're only gutted 'cause you was in bed fuckin' reading your fuckin' books.
Later, Liam tells Noel to "stick your thousand pounds right up your fuckin' arse 'till it comes out your fuckin' big toe." In 1995, audio of that interview was released as a bootleg dubbed "Wibbling Rivalry"—easily one of the best Oasis records (though, technically, the listed artist is "Oas*s").
1995: Liam invites a large group of people he'd just met at the pub to the studio where the band was recording (What's the Story) Morning Glory?. Noel, who was trying to record, tells everyone to leave and ends up hitting Liam over the head with a cricket bat—a significantly more dense object than a tambourine. Naturally, the cricket bat was eventually sold with a certificate of authenticity ensuring its contact with Liam's skull. The brothers hugged it out, though.
1996: Just before the band's "MTV Unplugged" taping, Liam—who barely attended rehearsals—claims he has a sore throat and backs out of the show. Noel sings instead, and during the performance, Liam heckles his brother about his singing while drinking champagne in the balcony. As the taping winds down, the show's producers ask the band to perform their first song one more time. Liam, suddenly feeling much better, attempts to join the band on stage. Noel, of course, tells him to "piss off."
1998: Liam and Noel enter a wrestling ring. Noel rips off Liam's unibrow, slaps him around with it, and then applies it to his brother's upper lip, giving him an oversized mustache. Liam begins chucking beer bottles at Noel, and Noel retaliates by shoving a beer bottle down Liam's throat. Then, prop comic Gallagher runs out to the ring and smashes both of their heads with an enormous hammer. "This is a sad day indeed for fans of Beatles imitators everywhere," says the commentator. Small technicality: This is "Celebrity Deathmatch." Watch the devastating events unfold at the 10:30 mark:
2000: During touring downtime in Barcelona, the Gallaghers are drinking (obviously). At some point, Liam decides to question the legitimacy of Noel's child. Noel leaps onto his brother, hits him repeatedly, and splits his lip open in the process. Noel leaves the tour, but ultimately returns to the band yet again. "I've never forgiven him because he's never apologized," Noel said five years after the incident. Liam would eventually apologize.
2002: Liam walks off stage in Japan. Noel would later describe the incident as a "diva fit," saying Liam threw his tambourine to the ground "like a woman" before bouncing. Note that once again, a tambourine plays a crucial role in the two brothers' ongoing feud.
2002: Liam reportedly kicks a police officer in the chest and is involved in a fight with multiple people. He's so badly beaten in the incident, he loses several teeth. Noel's reply: "All I'm bothered about is that he can still sing."
2005: In an interview, Noel claims that he has mindfucked his brother: "He's actually frightened to death of me. I can read him and I can fucking play him like a slightly disused arcade game. I can make him make decisions that he thinks are his but really they're mine."
2008: Noel reacts to Liam's interviews: "I don't know who the guy is who's in these interviews, he seems really cool, because the guy I've been in a band with for the last 18 years is a fucking knobhead."
2009: Noel on Liam in an interview with Q: "He's rude, arrogant, intimidating, and lazy. He's the angriest man you'll ever meet. He's like a man with a fork in a world of soup."
2009: Noel quits Oasis for real and releases a statement: "I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer." Two years later, he details his falling out with Liam during a press conference for his new band, High Flying Birds. Noel discusses what transpired before they were supposed to go on stage at the Rock en Seine festival:
[Liam] was quite violent. At that point there hadn't been any physical violence, but it was a bit like WWE wrestling, and he was like the Macho Man Randy Savage—he was like oooh yeah and all that going on—and it's like, "Fucking hell." ... Liam does the "Fuck you and fuck you and fuck you" and he kind of storms out of the dressing room. And—I'm glad it never ended like this—on the way out he picked up a plum and he threw it across the dressing room and it smashed against the wall. Part of me wishes it did end like that, that would have been a great headline: "Plum Throws Plum and Finishes Fuckin' Oasis."
Then he kind of leaves, he goes out the dressing room. For whatever reason he went to his own dressing room and he came back with a guitar and he started wielding it like an axe. I'm not fucking kidding. And I'm making light of it because it's kind of what I do, but it's a real unnecessary violent act, and he's swinging this guitar around, and he nearly took my face off with it. It ended up on the floor and I put it out of its misery. … There were people who were in the band, not saying anything, kind of looking the other way. It wasn't even a big dressing room. And I was like, you know what? I'm fucking out of here. And at that point the tour manager came in and said, "Five minutes!" … I kind of got in the car and I sat there for five minutes and I just said fuck it, I can't do it anymore.
Following the press conference, Liam sues Noel for libel, specifically taking issue with Noel saying "he didn't turn up to the V Festival gig because he had a hangover. He claimed he had laryngitis, but whatever." After Noel apologizes, the lawsuit is dropped. Liam also denies Noel's claims that they argued over Liam wanting to advertise his clothing label in the tour program.
2010: During an acceptance speech at the BRIT Awards for an award honoring (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, Liam thanks everyone in the band except Noel. For almost any other band, that's shady as hell; for Oasis, that's practically a compliment.
2011: Liam calls Noel's band the "High Flying Turds." When Noel announces their debut album, Liam tweets, simply, "SHITBAG." ("SHITBAG" doesn't quite have the same satisfying gestalt of "POTATO," but it gets the job done.)
2013: Liam calls Noel a "geezer" and "one of the biggest cocks in the universe." (On quick read, it's easy to see how that last part could be misinterpreted as a compliment.)
2015: Liam attends a High Flying Birds show and says nothing of turds (as far as we know). Peace between Gallaghers seems to be a possibility!
2016: After declaring "FUCK OASIS," Liam tweets a photo of Noel alongside the word "POTATO." Noel, like the rest of us, tries to make sense of this, responding, "I guess it was about him staying relevant."
In a wildly memorable interview, Liam gives Noel the business for living in a £17 million house and befriending Bono and Damon Albarn. "Lots of people say I need to chill out about Noel," Liam adds. "Not until they stop Twitter. That cunt will always get it from me." Let's all pray he's telling the truth.
October 2016: At the premiere of the Oasis documentary Supersonic, Liam says he's open to an Oasis reunion. Then, when asked if Noel will also be in attendance, he replies: "Oh no, he won't be here. He's in one of his really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really big houses. Probably eatin' tofu while havin' a fuckin' face peel, isn't that right, man of the people?"
April 2017: Damon Albarn buried the hatchet with his former rival Noel Gallagher with a new Gorillaz collaboration called "We've Got the Power." Albarn said in an interview, "I thought it might be cute, the idea of us singing about the power to love each other." Liam, of course, wasn't having it. "That gobshite out of Blur might have turned Noel Gallagher into a massive girl but believe you me next time I see him there's gonna be war," he tweeted.
June 2017: Liam Gallagher made an unannounced appearance at the One Love Manchester benefit concert, which raised money to support the victims and families affected by the bombing at Ariana Grande's Manchester concert. At the time, rumors ran rampant about a potential Oasis reunion. Alas, Noel didn't show up. Liam called his brother a "sad fuck," adding, "Fuck the reunion mate it ain't about Oasis it's about people helping other people and he's once again shown his true fucking colours." (See those below.)
July 2017: Liam offers his response when asked if he'd like to see Noel open for U2:
August 2017: In a wide-ranging interview that included his disdain for salt water ("Fuck the sea. I ain't going in that."), Liam called Noel "a fuckin' stalker" and a "working class traitor." He also questioned Noel's U2 allegiance: "I never heard him play one fuckin' U2 song. And believe you me, I was there at the beginning and the fuckin' end."
September 2017: Four months after being slammed by Liam for not appearing at One Love Manchester, Noel headlined a benefit concert at Manchester Arena (the site of the bombing). Noel broke down into tears, which prompted Liam to respond, "NG broke down in tears cmon you seriously ain't buying that he doesn't give a fuck. Don't buy into his PR stunt he doesn't give a fuck if the same thing had have gone of in Edinburgh he'd been up there like a shot ahem."
October 2017: Noel was asked about his brother's Manchester criticisms. "He needs to see a psychiatrist," he said. "I don't say that as a joke. Because young Mancunians, young music fans, were slaughtered, and he, twice, takes it somewhere to be about him. He needs to see somebody." Liam responded, "As for seeing somebody I bet you and the mrs have got a few on the go you pair of chameleons."
November 2017: The High Flying Birds' performance on "Jools Holland" becomes noteworthy when a member of the band clips scissors into the microphone. Liam was asked about the addition to his brother's band, and soon enough, he put out a call for a unique band member of his own. "Im looking for somebody to peel some spuds live on stage tnight at this gig in Bethnal Green," he wrote. "Must have own peeler." Sure enough, potato peelers started showing up at Liam's shows.
When asked about the scissors, Noel admitted he knew it would drive his brother nuts. "It's almost like she's snipping away at the last ribbons of Liam's sanity," he said.
November 2017: During his segment of Pitchfork's "Over/Under," Noel was asked to rate Twitter. After calling it "the playground of fucking idiots," it was pointed out that Trump is a regular of the platform. "And so is my fucking brother," he replied, "and quite literally, I'd put the pair of 'em in a driverless car each so it fuckin' ran into each other."
December 2017: Days before Christmas, Liam claimed he had spoken to Noel's team and that the two sides had reached a "truce." "It's all good—season of goodwill and all that, you know," he told the Sydney Morning Herald. He even tweeted a Christmas greeting to his brother:
January 2018: Liam tweets, "Fuck the truce." Clearly, he was upset with his brother over some recent interviews he'd given. In one, Noel said he wasn't interested in reuniting Oasis. "I don't particularly want to be a stadium rocker when I'm 50, I think it's undignified." Liam responded, "It's a lot more undignified to be supporting the undignified in stadiums RHCP U2 blah."
In another interview, Noel took shots at artists like Liam, Richard Ashcroft, and Ed Sheeran who enlisted an "army of songwriters" to work on their songs. He also claimed that he, Paul Weller, and Johnny Marr were the only British rock solo artists to write their own songs. Liam responded:
January 2018: Liam gets nominated at the 2018 BRIT Awards, and Noel does not. "So the creepy 1 gets blanked at the Brits," he wrote. "oh well was looking forward to hurling abuse at him and his poshos from across the room." He later claimed that he was invited to host the show, but declined: "I ain't setting there table cooking the food then doing the dishes fuck that I'd rather be stung by a heard of goats."
February 2018: The potato peelers versus scissors feud reaches its natural tipping point: potato peelers were officially banned from the 2018 Parklife Festival, where Liam was set to perform.


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Stamp Duty in the Contracts Regarding the Price Changes in Accordance With the Foreign Exchange Ban in Turkey
The Decision 85 of President (''Decision'') is published by Presidency of Republic of Turkey on the date of 13.09.2018, in respect of the exchange of the contract prices agreed in foreign currency to Turkish Lira. As a rule, contracts containing a certain amount of money are subject to relative stamp duty unless the exception is stipulated in the Stamp Tax Law or special laws. In this framework, in 22.11.2018, a special Circular was issued by the Revenue Administration regarding the stamp duty application on the papers issued within the scope of the relevant Decree. According to the relevant Circular; "If The Papers issued for the re-determination of the foreign currency price of the contracts in TL currency under the scope of President's Resolution No. 85 carry all of the following terms, the stamp duty ("Paper") will not be required: Arrangements have to address only the price without making any changes in the other articles of the contracts (party, extension of time, addition of new business etc.) The total amount of contract prices; which is determined in the Turkish lira after amendments, must not exceed the amount of price that is calculated by multiplication of the price determined in foreign currency in the first contract and exchange selling rate proclaimed Republic of Turkey Central Bank on the date of the preparation of the Paper regarding re-determination of the price in TL, There has to be a reference to the first contract" On the other hand, in accordance with the Circular; even if arrangements have not been made to other sections of the first contract, The Paper must be subject to stamp duty on increasing amount; if the amount of TL currrency version of the old contract's price, according to the exchange selling rates Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey on the date of re-determination, coincided with less cost than new regulated price on the Paper; and if the tax rising from the first contract was not paid from the maximum amount. Also; If the stamp duty rising from the first contract was paid from the maximum amount, the stamp tax shall not be required from The Paper due to the increased cost, provided that the paper has the above mentioned qualities.Read more
The Analysis Of The Communiqué On The Limits Of The Foreign Exchange Prohibition In Terms Of Employment Contracts
On 13.09.2018, with the Presidential Decree no. 85, some provisions were added to the ''Decree No. 32 on the Protection of the Value of Turkish Currency'' and accordingly ''the prohibition of the determination of contract price or other contractual obligations in foreign currency or foreign currency indexed, in some type of contracts between Turkish Residents''(''The Foreign Currency Prohibition'') has been regulated. Thereafter, "The Communiqué on the Resolution No. 32 on the Protection of the Value of Turkish Currency'' (the "Communiqué'') prepared by the Ministry of Treasury and Finance has been published in the Official Gazette on 06.10.2018. With the Communiqué; there are some exceptions to this restriction on the determination of foreign currency or foreign currency indexed price. These exceptions are based on the sub-types, the parties and execution place of the contractual obligations of the contracts listed in the Decision regulating The Foreign Currency Prohibition. In this text, the Communiqué is analyzed in regard to Employment Contracts. With the Communiqué, the following Employment Contracts are stated within the scope of Foreign Currency Prohibition: The Employment Contracts signed by and between public institutions and organizations and third party institutions The Employment Contracts signed by and between Turkish residents and Commercial airline companies operating in passenger, freight or mail transportation; Companies providing technical maintenance services for air transport vehicles, engines and parts thereof; Operating license to perform ground handling services at airports within the scope of the civil aviation legislation, the field or the authorized public or private legal entities with business founded by concerned organizations and institutions in the status and companies directly or indirectly capital of at least 50% of the partnership owned shares ratio However, The Employment Contracts that are performed abroad; or The Employment Contracts where the employee is not a Turkish citizen; The Employment Contracts that are signed by non-Turkish residents' Turkish branches, representative offices, liaison offices; Turkish companies in which a non-resident person directly or indirectly holds 50% or more of the share capital; and free zone companies, only for their activities in the free zone has been excluded. In the same Communiqué, there are some provisions that determine the scope and limits of the aforementioned Foreign Exchange Prohibition in terms of the settlement date, price type and date of the contract; and there are some regulations on the exchange rate and increase rates that should be taken into account in the calculation of the re-value. In the Communiqué, there are examinations related to residential requirement in Turkey. According to these examinations; In terms of associations and extensions on abroad, belonging Residents in Turkey: Branches, agencies, offices, liaison offices, operated or managed funds, Companies with over fifty percent of shareholdings; and Companies with direct or indirect ownership are within the scope of the prohibition and they are determined as resident in Turkey. Concerning the Price: The prices included in the negotiable instruments to be regulated within the scope of contracts that cannot be determined in terms of foreign currency or foreign currency indexed within the scope of the prohibition. Contracts indexed to the precious metals and/or commodities whose price is determined in foreign currency in […]Read more
Simplification of Procedures for Acquirement of Turkish Citizenship
With the "Regulation on the Amendment of the Regulation on the Implementation of the Turkish Citizenship Law" ("Amendment Regulation"),published in the Official Gazette on 18.09.2018, a number of regulations have been introduced and the relevant procedures have been facilitated for foreigners to acquire Turkish citizenship. In accordance with the Amendment Regulation, there have been some alterations to the Regulation on the Implementation of the Turkish Citizenship Law ("Implementing Regulation") Article 20, entitled "Acquisition of Turkish citizenship, necessary documents and procedures". According to the amended provision, the amount of capital investment required to acquire Turkish citizenship has been reduced and the number of people who need to be employed has been reduced. Briefly speaking, the exceptional acquisition of Turkish citizenship is regulated in Article 12 of the Turkish Citizenship Law and concerns the status of citizenship for persons who do not have the right to acquire Turkish Citizenship on the basis of birth or paternity principle. According to the related article; Persons who: establish industrial facilities in Turkey; have provided or are thought to provide an extraordinary service in scientific, technological, economic, social, sportive, cultural or artistic fields; on the condition that the competent Ministry has put forward a justified offer for them; despite not working in Turkey, will invest in accordance with the rules (scope and amount) which will be determined by the President; or persons who have received resident permits as their foreign spouse, the minor or dependent foreign child; Turkuaz Card holders and their foreign spouse, the minor or dependent foreign child; are considered mandatory to be accepted to citizenship; are considered as immigrants may acquire Turkish citizenship by the decision of the Council of Ministers (President's decision, according the Amendment Regulation) provided that they do not face an obstacle in terms of national security and public order. The conditions required for foreigners to apply in order to acquire Turkish citizenship are regulated In Article 20 of the Implementing Regulation, and some capital conditions are required to be provided and proved. With the Amendment Regulation dated 18.09.2018, which was issued to amend this article of the Implementing Regulation, the previously determined capital amounts were reduced. To sum up the conditions that make it possible to benefit from the exception and the amendments that are brought to these conditions with the Amendment Regulation, we may emphasize that: Previously, the Ministry's proposal and the decision of the Council of Ministers for the acquisition of citizenship within the scope of the exemption would be required; with the amendment, the Turkish citizenship may be granted, under the same exception, citizenship shall be granted with the decision of the President. One of the conditions for the acquisition of Turkish citizenship under the exception is to have a certain amount of fixed capital investment. In accordance with the Amendment Regulation, minimum fixed capital investment amount of $2.000.000 has been reduced to $500.000 and The Ministry of Industry and Technology has been appointed to replace the Ministry of Economy as the competent authority who will determine the abovementioned amount. Another exception for the acquisition of Turkish citizenship is the purchase of an entailed real estate. […]Read more
Illegalization of Foreign Currency As a Way of Protection of the Turkish Currency Value
The Decision 85 of President (''Decision'') is published by Presidency of Republic of Turkey on the date of 13.09.2018 for the purpose of protection of the Turkish currency's value. As a result, setting the contract value in foreign currency or indexed to foreign currency has been rendered against the law. The Decision is applicable for some specific type of of contracts and it only applies where both parties are residents in Turkey. According to the Decision, the Ministry of Treasury and Finance has the authority to make exceptions to this rule. With regard to the current contracts that contain prices in foreign currency or indexed to foreign currency, the contracting parties have to amend the price and agree on a new value set with the Turkish Lira. The Decision comprises: Contracts of bargain or sale for chattels or real estates, Leases of chattels or real estates without any exception for car rental and financial leasing, Contracts of leasing, Labor contracts, Service contracts and Contracts ofconstruction In the decision, there is only one criteria related to the contracting parties; the Decision is applicable only if the parties are residents in Turkey. According to the Turkish Civil Code, a real person's residenceis the place in which he/she is settled in with the intention to stay permanently. A legal person's (entities)residence is the place from where the business is managed (e.g. head office), if there is no other provision in the company's certificate of incorporation. Concerning the price, there is no mention of a specific currency (USD, Euro, etc.) and the ban is applicable for all types of foreign currency and all values that are indexed to any foreign currency. Besides, contract values (e.g. service prices, leasing prices, commitment prices) and the other payment obligations arising from the contracts (e.g. conventional penalties, security prices, deposits) are under the scope of this ban. As a result of this decision, the future contracts that are under the scope of the decision and the relevant contracts which are signed before the effective date of the Decision have to be determined or revalued in Turkish Lira within 30 days from the effective date of the Decision. On the other hand, regarding the due debts -set in foreign currencies- which arise from the abovementioned type of contracts; it is generally accepted that the value can not be changed to Turkish Lira if such due debt has become a matter of dispute. In cases where the due debt is not disputed, such amendment shall be made in accordance with the Decision. In the Decision, there is not any criteria related to the revaluation of prices for the previously signed or any specified exchange rate for denomination to Turkish liras. The parties are required to determine a new price in Turkish Lira with their free wills, as a conclusion of the negotiations. Furthermore, there is no regulation regarding the consequence of a fruitless negotiation. (i.e. the case where the parties fail to come to an understanding with regard to revaluation) However, it is common opinion that in such cases, the Parties can request the determination of a new price by […]Read more
E-Commerce's Effects on Trademark and Stakeholders
INTRODUCTION Changes in the recent years in the intellectual property law can be seen due to the improvements in e-commerce and internet in various aspects. One can also mention that intellectual property law is a complicated one when compared with the different areas of law. The reasons can be stated by pointing out the abstractness of the particular area of law and difficulties in identifying the intellectual property rights infringements. The developments did not only bring new aspects and discussions to the legal world but also put the companies and individuals into a situation which is totally tough to cope with. Huge corporations are already affected by the growth of online commerce, yet small or medium-sized establishments have taken a major hit compared to the big ones since it is harder for them to be aware of the issues created by the rise of e-commerce. In this sense, they need to make an effort to sort out the problems in order to use the most of their budget for advertising or expanding their business. On the other hand, small or medium-sized producers may not even know that their intellectual property rights are infringed in some part of the world. Problems of similar topic for the biggest establishments can be seen in the situation of feeling not safe even though everything is done to prevent infringements. This questioning is a big part of this article since the cases examined are related to eBay and its trade mark infringements; such as Rolex v eBay caseand Louis Vuitton Malletier v eBay case, Tiffany v eBay case. eBay is not the only company in the e-commerce area and will not ever be since there are already Amazon, Alibaba, Taobao and many of them. It appears that before the mutual trust is obtained in several specific intellectual property areas, it is shaken again due to the developments in technology. Furthermore, specific infringements in online commerce include dissimilar type of illegal acts, and selling counterfeit goods,sales of parallel import goods and infringement of trade mark contracts, keyword ad triggering, search engine problems, meta tags, cybersquatting and domain and Internet Service Providers (ISP) problems can be given as some examples to that issue.[1] As can be seen, the area of trade mark infringements in online commerce and stakeholders' damages is quite a broad area, and hardships in the enforceability of their rights make it wider. In this article, a brief background for the purpose of trade mark rights, the definition of counterfeiting and cases against eBay in different jurisdictions, France, the USA and Germany, are investigated in order to demonstrate intellectual property right holders' damages. 2. PURPOSE OF TRADE MARK RIGHTS In this part, the aim of the specific intellectual property right is analysed because of that it is crucial to understand why it is being used currently all over the World and it creates the grounds of this work. Although the first thing comes up minds when a trade mark is mentioned is the protection of stakeholders' rights, it can be seen with the changes in business and principles of advertising that the main objective of […]Read more
Amendment to the Turkish Commercial Code No. 6102
Introduction Official Gazette 30361 was published and entered into force on 15 March 2018. It included lots of crucial amendments which has a really high effect on the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law and Other Laws. The amendments law did not affect only Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law but also the Turkish Commercial Code Law numbered 6102[1](the "TCC"). The most significant amendment introduced to the Turkish Commercial Code is: As per the new rules, simplified legal proceedings will apply to commercial disputes with a value not exceeding TRY100,000. Amendment The effect of the amendment law on the TCC will lead to major changes in terms of the Turkish legal procedure. The written legal procedure was applied to all commercial disputes before the amendment law without any exceptions. After the new regulations, if the commercial disputes the value of which do not exceed TRY 100,000 (approximately 15,000 Euro), the simplified legal proceedings will apply for the purpose of quickness and effectiveness of the litigation process. Main Differences Between Simplified and Written Legal Procedure There are two types of legal procedure which are the written and simplified in civil proceedings under Turkish Law. Although the written procedure is the main type, the simplified procedure has a significant role on Turkish Civil proceedings. The main difference between the two types of legal procedure is the number of the petitions' submission. In other words, there are two rounds of written submission in the written procedure such as pleading, response and rebuttal, rejoinder. However, as the name implies, the simplified procedure is simpler and faster. Since the parties can file only pleading and response petitions in the simplified procedure this rule provides quickness and effectiveness of the litigation process. Other difference between the two types of procedure that are not as important as explained above is: The evidence or information about evidence that is not in their possession must be submitted within the exchange of petitions period. Differences of the written and simplified procedure in civil proceedings under Turkish law make a difference in terms of the time of submitting evidence. For instance, if the simplified procedure will be applied to any dispute, evidence or information about the evidence must be submitted with the pleading or response petitions. Overall, there is no doubt that the amendment law enhances the quality and speed of the judicial system of Turkey to provide a good environment for investors. [1]Law no. 7101 Amending the Law on Insolvency and Bankruptcy and Other Laws (the "Amending Laws").Read more
An Obligation Originating From a Right: Usage of Trademark
On one hand, a registered trademark vests its proprietor broad authorities and exclusive rights; on the other hand it imposes some obligations to its proprietor. The most important of these obligations is the usage of the trademarkand it is foreseen in the Turkish Industrial Property Code. (''IPC'') Conditions of trademark usage and situations that may be considered as usage of trademark are specified in IPC Art.9. Cancellation of a trademark due to the breach of usage obligation, is regulated in IPC Art.26. According to these articles, "Proprietor's non-use of a trademark in Turkey staidly for five years from principal register date or recessing usage of trademark for five years continuously"are valid reasons for the cancellation of a trademark. The term "non-use of a trademark"means using a trademark beyond the scope of IPC Art.9 or in defiance of IPC Art.9. In accordance with the abovementioned article, these are the conditions for a trademark to be evaluated as a used-trademark: Usage of a trademark by its Proprietor Usage of a trademark in regard to goods and services for which the trademark is registered Not recessing the usage of a trademark for more than five years without any valid reason Using a trademark in Turkey Using a trademark staidly and severely Under the scope of IPC, there is no necessity for setting a trademark over goods tangibly in order for usage of a trademark. For instance, using a trademark for invoices related to goods and services which the trademark registered for, or using a trademark for publicity via media is enough for a trademark to be considered as used. Howevere, it is crucial to state that the usage of a trademark for only a part of the registered classes or groups of goods and services does not infer that usage of trademark obligation is fulfilled for all the registered classes and groups. Exceptional situations which are accepted as usage of a trademark, under the scope of IPC Art.9, 2nd para. , are as follows: Usage of a trademark with different factors or elements without any transformation of its distinctive character Usage of a trademark on products and packages just for exportation Usage of a trademark by 3th persons who are authorized by Proprietor ''Usage of a trademark with different factors or elements without any transformation of its distinctive character''means usage of a trademark in different colors, shapes and dimensions or usage with insignificant additions or reductions. In that case, using a trademark by adding or reducing different factors is possible according to IPC Art.9 para. 2-a on condition that the distinctive character of the signs of the trademark is preserved and that the alteration does not cause a confusion in a way that the consumers may think there is a different trademark at hand. Although using a trademark in Turkey is a necessity for usage of trademark obligation, according to IPC Art.9 para. 2-b, using a trademark just for exportationis denoting "usage of trademark" in case of using trademark on products and packages. In such case, there is no obligation for releasing the products to the domestic market, however the trademark have to be […]Read more
Artificial Intelligence, Data Security and GDPR
Among the prominent features of artificial intelligence and machine learning, which are now being used in many sectors, the most important one is the ability to analyze data much faster from programmatic tools and from human beings as well as to learn how to manipulate data on its own. In recent years, profiling and automated decision-making systems, which are frequently used in both public and private sectors, have brought benefits to individuals and corporations in terms of increased productivity and resource conservation, as well as bringing about risks. The decisions made by these systems which affect the individual and the complex nature of the decisions, cannot be justified. For example, artificial intelligence can lock a user into a specific category and restrict it to the suggested preferences. Hence, this reduces their freedom to choose specific products and services, such as books, music or news articles. (Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, WP251, p.5) GDPR, which will come into force in Europe in May, has provisions on profiling and automated decision making, to prevent from being used in such a way as to have an adverse effect on the rights of individuals. GDPR defines profiling in Article 4 as follows: Any form of automated processing of personal data consisting of the use of personal data to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to a natural person, in particular to analyze or predict aspects concerning that natural persons performance at work, economic situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behaviour, location or movements.(WP251, p.6) Profiling is used to make predictions about people, using the data obtained from various sources on those people. From this point of view, it can also be considered as an evaluation or classification of individuals based on characteristics such as age, gender, and weight. Automated decision-making is the ability to make decisions with technological tools (such as artificial intelligence) without human intervention. Automated decision-making can be based on any type of data. For example, data provided directly by the individuals concerned (such as responses to a questionnaire); data observed about the individuals (such as location data collected via an application); derived or inferred data such as a profile of the individual that has already been created (e.g. a credit score). There are potentially three ways in which profiling may be used: (i) general profiling; (ii) decision-making based on profiling; and (iii) solely automated decision-making, including profiling (Article 22) The difference between (ii) and (iii) is best demonstrated by the following two examples where an individual applies for a loan online: a human decides whether to agree the loan based on a profile produced by purely automated means(ii); an algorithm decides whether the loan is agreed and the decision is automatically delivered to the individual, without any meaningful human input (iii). (WP251, p.8) The important questions to be encountered here are: How does the algorithm access this data? Is the source of data correct? Does the decision of the algorithm cause legal effects on the person? Can the individuals have some rights over the decision based on automated process? What measures should the data controllers take in this case? Nowadays, most […]Read more
Employee Invention Fee
At the present time, it is a known fact that people who deliver solutions about problems in the technical area are usually employed in R&D departments. According to Turkish Industrial Property Code ("IPC"), technical inventions which are made by these people, are bifurcated as: Free inventions Service inventions Pursuant to IPC Art.113, Service inventions are the inventions made by an employee as a part of her/his work at a firm or public administration or the inventions made by an employee during the employment relation, based on experience and operations of a firm or public administration. According to the second paragraph of the same article, every other invention except the service invention is accepted as free inventions. Judicially, when an employee makes any service invention, she/he is liable for making written notification to the employer without any delay. After that notification, the employer is able to claim full or partial ownership of that service invention. In the case that the employer claims ownership, the employee may demand a fair amount of fee. In general; the economic assessment of the invention, the position of the employee and the contribution rate of firm/public administration relative to making invention are taken into account during the evaluation of the fee. Moreover, the fee which is paid for the invention to the employee working at public administration, is determined by IPC Art. 113, para 5, indicated as "the fee has to be more than one-third of the incomes acquired from the invention. However, if the invention is used by the public administration's itself, the fee cannot be more than ten times the monthly net fee of the employee. " On the other hand, there is no legislation about the invention fees for the other employees, except IPC Art.113; and in IPC, it is said that fee tariff regarding employee inventions and arbitration process will be drawn up by regulations. Therefore, in 29th of September 2017, "Regulation In Respect of Employee Inventions, Inventions Made In Higher Education Institutions and Inventions Occurred In Administratively Supported Projects" ("Regulation") enters in force. In this Regulation, Article 10 and the rest are related to the determination of invention fees. Like as IPC, according to that Regulation, Economical value of service invention Assigned position of the employee Contribution rate of firm/public administration relative to making invention are taken into consideration while determining fee amounts. Moreover, some formulas, ratios and coefficients regarding invention fee tariff are prescribed in the Regulation. Therefore, in case of full ownership claim by the employer and fee demand by the employee, a one-off encouragement award and a separate fee evaluated according to formulas in the Regulation would be paid by the employer to the employee. Besides, in case of partial ownership claimby the employer, a fee would be paid to the employee in exchange for the usage of invention by the employer. Furthermore, demanding a fee in exchange for the ownership of invention right of the employee is reserved each time. At the time employee request a fee in exchange for his/her invention, it is eligible to assure payment by writing a receipt, for providing a basis to employee's assignment […]Read more


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Main > Work > Bragging Board > Hardship Waiver Approval for a Widow of a U.S. Citizen
Relying on bad advice from well-meaning relatives and the Advance Parole document that never should have been issued in the first place, a widow of a U.S. citizen with an approved I-360 petition and a pending I-485 travels abroad. She safely returns to the U.S. and is paroled in. Several months later USCIS denies her I-485 on the ground that her departure has triggered a 10 year bar and that she now needs a waiver of inadmissibility to overcome it. That's kind of like a traffic cop waiving for you to cross the street on a pedestrian crossing, then giving you a citation for jaywalking, and then ordering you never to set foot in his town again.
I do what I need to do. I file an I-601 waiver application and a motion to reopen the denied I-485. The entire case hinges upon the new law and the USCIS memo that provides relief to such applicants who, in the absence of a qualified U.S. citizen relative, otherwise, would not have been eligible for a hardship waiver. The new law and the USCIS memo interpreting it predates the I-485 denial letter. We can safely assume that the officer who issued that I-485 denial didn't have a clue that such a memo even existed. Maybe he was on vacation and missed it. Or maybe he just didn't give a damn.
New section 204(l) of the Act changes the governing law with respect to an alien who is seeking an immigration benefit through a deceased "qualifying relative." Section 204(l) now permits the approval of a visa petition or refugee/asylee relative petition, as well as any adjustment application and related application, if the alien seeking the benefit:
Is at least one of the following:
See new section 204(1) of the Act, as amended by § 568(d) and (e) of the DHS Appropriations Act, 2010, Public Law 111-83 ("Public Law 111-83"), 123 Stat. 2142, 2187-88 (2009) and the Service's Policy Memorandum of December 16, 2010 (PM-602-0017).
Although section 568(d) of Public Law 111-83 does not expressly define the term "qualifying relative," the USCIS Policy Memorandum of December 16, 2010 infers that "qualifying relative" means an individual who, immediately before death, was:
Section 204(l) of the Act applies to any immigrant visa petition, refugee/asylee relative petition, or application adjudicated on or after October 28, 2009, even if the petition or application was filed before that date. Section 204(l) allows the approval of a pending petition or application, despite the death of the qualifying relative, if the alien seeking the benefit of section 204(l):
Is at least one of the following:
My client satisfied all these eligibility requirements. She resided in the United States when U.S. citizen spouse died. She continued to reside in the United States on the date of decision on her visa petition and continued to reside in the United States at the time of her application. She was the beneficiary of an approved I-360 petition as a widow of a U.S. citizen, an immediate relative visa petition.
An adjustment applicant whose case is governed by section 204(l) of the Act may apply for a waiver or other relief from inadmissibility. In this case, the applicant submitted her I-601 waiver application.
According to the Service Memorandum, the new section 204(l) provides that the new approval authority applies not only to the visa petition, but to an adjustment application and "any related applications." Section 568(d)(2) of the FY2010 DHS Appropriations Act specifies that section 568(d)(1) does not waive grounds of inadmissibility. But the provision does remove "ineligibility based solely on the lack of a qualifying family relationship" as a basis for denying relief. The USCIS has determined that section 204(l) does give USCIS the discretion to grant a waiver or other form of relief from inadmissibility to an alien described in section 204(l), even if the qualifying relationship that would have supported the waiver has ended through death. Therefore, the applicant was eligible for a waiver of inadmissibility even though her U.S. citizen spouse through whom she could seek this relief was deceased.
According to the new section 204(l) of the Act, it is not necessary for the waiver or other relief application to have been pending when the qualifying relative died. Consequently, section 204(l) of the Act permits the approval of a waiver or other relief application despite the death of a qualifying relative if:
My client clearly satisfied all these eligibility requirements at the time of her I-485 denial. Regardless, following the I-601 and my motion to reopen, it still took the USCIS one year and a half to reopen her I-485, approve the I-601 waiver, and issue her long-awaited "green card."


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Monthly Archives: June 2009
Hello Baby!
Hello Baby and Hello New Stuff!! I finally had a chance to do the Mojo Monday sketch this morning — I think it still counts, even if it is Mojo Tuesday! I inked up two brand new sets for this sketch. Both of which can be purchased when the new catalog goes live tomorrow, July … Continue reading
Toasting the Old Catalog
The end is near! The end of the catalog that is… June 30th is the last day to order from the current Stampin' Up catalog AND the Occasions Mini Catalog! Ack! Don't let these items get away. So with that, I toast the Spring-Summer 2009 catalog and the mini catalog. Farewell catalogs, we loved you… … Continue reading
Happy Anniversary to My Parents!
My parents celebrated their 44th wedding anniversary last weekend — quite an accomplishment! The card that I made them had to use yellow, of course, since that is my mom's favorite color. I used Yo-Yo Yellow, which is her current favorite. I'll have to get her opinion of Crushed Curry, one of the brand new … Continue reading
A Dog-gone Cute Stationary Set!
My friend Mike gave me the most beautiful box right at the end of the school year. His husband Rob had taken photos of Biscuit and modge podged them all over the outside. It is absolutely amazing! I figured the very least that I could do was to make them a cute doggie stationary set. … Continue reading
So Swirly
Would you believe that I didn't notice the So Swirly Jumbo wheel was on the Last Chance list until a couple of days ago? Maybe I was in denial or something… I love this wheel! It adds such a touch of elegance, so quickly! My friend Erin asked if I could design some Thank You … Continue reading
Mojo Monday with New In-Colors!
Great sketch for today's Mojo Monday #92! I love all of the scallops. I decided to treat myself and play with some of the yummy new in colors coming out from Stampin' Up on July 1st. They went just perfectly with the tropical drinks in this set. And do you know what the best part … Continue reading
Wild About Stampin'!
I decided to try a new sketch challenge this weekend. Six Stampin' Up demonstrators just started a new weekly sketch challenge blog, called Stamping 411. The sketch looked clean and simple, which is pretty much my style, so I gave it a try. I really liked that they gave the dimensions of each piece on … Continue reading
Happy Father's Day, Steve!
Just wanted to give a big shout out to my husband! Eve and I both made him Father's Day cards. I'll show you hers first. She was very creative, and used a black Stampin' Write marker to ink up only the tools on two of the stamp sets she used, so the words would only … Continue reading
Circle Circus
Wow! Kristina Werner picked some truly elegant colors for Color Inspiration #55. And look at those shoes! Colors like these need an elegant stamp set, and what could be better than a brand new set that will be available in the upcoming catalog? I love this new stamp set, Circle Circus. The designs are amazing, … Continue reading
Happy Father's Day!
Happy Father's Day to my dad! I am so excited to be able to celebrate with him this year. And I can't wait to see the look on hos face when he opens his present. (You remember, the big framed tree I showed you.) I decided to make a card that matched! I even used … Continue reading


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P.E.T.E stands for Personal Embouchure Training Exerciser, a tool created by Ken Titmus and Terry Warburton. This tool is designed to help a brass player strengthen the embouchure muscles away from the instrument. The P.E.T.E. is based on two different types of exercises, one which uses a simple pencil and another that used a large button. Titmus and Warburton have combined these two exercises into a a single tool.
The P.E.T.E. isn't cheap, listing from anywhere from around $40 to $70, depending on which model you get. There's been a lot of buzz online lately about the value of the P.E.T.E., though, and I decided to check it out and see what all the fuss was about. Continue reading The P.E.T.E – A Review


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A couple days ago, President Bush implicitly compared Barack Obama to pre–World War II appeasers of Hitler. That in itself is bad enough, but yesterday a right-wing talk radio host named Kevin James appeared on Chris Matthews' show. After James yells "Bush good! Obama bad!" for about five minutes, Matthews decides to ask Kevin James what "appeasement" is. He asks him what, specifically, Neville Chamberlain did wrong.
And obviously, James doesn't know. He tries to respond by shouting his talking points over and over again, but he clearly has no idea what he's talking about. He doesn't know what appeasement is, and he doesn't know what Chamberlain did. All he knows is that "appeasement" is the Republican word of the day to attack Obama with.
It's very funny to watch, but unfortunately, it's also all too typical of our political discourse today. Context doesn't matter. History doesn't matter. Accuracy doesn't matter. Just get your talking points and keep shouting them. Don't worry if you don't even know what they mean. That's not the point. The point is to make lots of noise and make the other side look bad.
This is also, to digress a little from politics, all too typical of American education. Kevin James isn't just some guy who dropped out of high school or something. According to his Wiki entry, he has a BA and a law degree, and used to work as a prosecutor. (God help any defendant, guilty or innocent, who had to face a blustering ignoramus like that in court.) How does anybody with an education like that manage to be completely ignorant of such a key turning point in 20th century history?
Oh, and here's a special Unintentional Comedy Bonus: the slogan of his home radio station, KRLA 870 in Los Angeles, is "Intelligent. Conservative. Talk Radio." Two out of three ain't bad, I guess.
Friday, May 16, 2008
The sad state of our political discourse
Posted by kuri at 11:45
2 comments:
- Anonymous5/16/2008 4:40 PM
Great clip. This guy is a tool.ReplyDelete
He's one of the worst I've seen. I just wish more TV hosts would actually challenge people like that more often. Usually they just let them get away with it.ReplyDelete
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