text:
Julian Assange | Sam Adams Awards | Oxford Union
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Assange participated via video link from the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
JULIAN ASSANGE: So I would just firstly like to say congratulations to Tom Fingar and the very important talk that he gave, of course well made and politic, though I think there are nuggets in there that are quite important to understand.
I was involved in 2007 and 2008 at looking at what was happening to Iran. Now, from that process I am fully aware of some of the pressures that were on Tom. A lot of people did a lot of good work, perhaps the most important was Tom Fingar's, in trying to correct the movement towards war with Iran based on lies. It is incredible to think back at those times that it was only in 2003 where the worst modern deception of the Western world occurred, where we went to war in Iraq based on lies in 2003 and over 100,000 people were killed and millions of Iraqi refugees displaced as a result. Just three years later, the drums for war with Iran were being whipped up not just in the United States but also in this country, and it's thanks to journalists like Sy Hersh and professional truthful insiders like Tom and our sources and the sources for journalists that that war hasn't happened yet.
For example, at the beginning of 2008 we published Iraq's classified rules of engagement for the U.S. Army. In those rules there was a section that was apparently designed, or at least permitted, for border skirmishes to start up, permitted U.S. troops to go into Iran under a variety of circumstances, and at the time there were disputes in the Gulf with ships approaching one another, a very heated moment, and the U.S. mainsteam media and the White House ramping up any little small incident. One of our sources provided us with those classified rules of engagement. We published them in a deal that we set up with the New York Times to get greater impact for it, and as a result the Iranian government held a press conference and said, "Don't you dare. Don't you dare come over into our territory like that." We then got hold of the next edition of these classified rules of engagement and that part had been removed from it. The procedures had been tightened up. And if you look back in the history of war, something between 20 and 50 percent of all wars have started as a result of these border skirmishes. That source has never been revealed. I assume that he or she is happy to have contributed to history and to human rights in that way and he goes about his business.
As opposed to what is sometimes put about, WikiLeaks is not an organization that hates intelligence agencies. Far from it. At its very base, the idea of intelligence is an optimistic one. It's that one can understand the world, one can apply intelligence to understand. The problem is the corruption of those agencies, and that corruption comes about because of secrecy. When Tom spoke about, in somewhat glowing terms, the improved process that he put down, and I believe him that that is a significant improvement from what was there before, it all rests upon one thing. It rests upon the abilities of people in those agencies to get out information to the public when those processes are not followed. We might have depoliticized analysts working in intelligence agencies who are to all intents and purposes mere robots, perfect machines with perfect accuracy. They are tasked, they engage in the task, they analyze, they pass up information higher up the food chain. And what if, in Tom's case, for example, his National Intelligence Estimate, there was not a threat that it would be released, because our sources say that in fact the White House knew that if it did not release a version immediately, another version would be released, and the White House would have to get – would then come in second, and its opponents would have their spin on it, so the White House wanted to get their spin on it first. It's only through this pressure of producing analytical product to the public that these sorts of agencies are kept honest and don't become simply robots that are, in effect, perhaps this is drawing the bow too far, but some kind of Hitler's willing executioners, mere people who act as robots who are told to carry out a task and do it. That is not enough. It is not enough to agree to carry out a task for superiors. That is the Nuremberg defense. We must all look to ourselves and understand whether what we are doing is right and just not just according to the views of our superiors but according to the long view of history, according to human rights and to our feelings of compassion, if we have any.
Now the push to war with Iran is far from over. The push for war with Iran is far from over and the debate now is occurring in the public sphere as well as in various maneuvers by different intelligence agencies, the machinations that are happening in Syria and so on. Now I want to look at some of those. Our cables revealed, for example, that this country, the United Kingdom, engaged in a conspiracy to kill off Press TV, the Iranian state TV station, the Iranian equivalent to the BBC, from being able to broadcast into the United Kingdom. They cut off its satellite feed, which is one of the Sky satellites to this country, the death penalty, effectively, for a national broadcaster. What does that mean? Well, it means that the Iranian government can't get out its view. Iran is surrounded by 45 military bases that are hostile to it on every side. There is no border that Iran does not have that is not already hostile or will probably shortly become so. That produces an atmosphere of intense fear. It produces an atmosphere where they think that there is a war. And as a result, we all know that Great Britain in World War I, in [7:58 ____ ] for example, and in World War II there were similar abuses. Iran's fears means that the sort of human rights abuses that we claim about, the human rights abuses that are correctly looked into in Iran, have very little chance of resolution because the leadership of that country is so terrified about being invaded.
Now, I want to draw this back to something that is personal to us and personal to WikiLeaks. The Internet has become the most important device for revealing the truth, at least since the beginning of the printing press. It has become the number one antidote to TV. Democracies are always lied into war. The Iraq war was a result of lies. The increased involvement in the United States in Vietnam was a result of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, another lie. It's not just lies by intelligence analysts, it's lies by the big media machine. And what is in the big media machine? Well, it's the various institutions that get too comfortable and too close to the table of power, the very table that they are meant to be reporting on and policing and getting into the historic record. When Tom spoke about process and removing political bias from analysts, there is also cultural bias. What is the cultural wind and is culturally accepted? That also flows into analysts. Now, producing cultural bias is something that we must watch more closely. It's not just about what facts are reported on the BBC News. Those are important, but there are mechanisms of propaganda which go under the surface. They're not direct factual claims, and those are things like Hollywood movies.
Now I've seen this directly. When we looked at intelligence reports at low level coming out from Iraq in 2003 reporting what was happening there with the Badar Corps or [10:08 ____ ] or Iranian influence, the full package of culture bias that exists in the United States for people who are not properly educated in assessing what they are understanding came with them. Eventually those reports and analysts did learn more about what was happening and by the middle of 2003 were in fact sometimes passing out true reports of what was happening, that there is going to be a sectarian crisis in this country – that was known by Marines G-2 intelligence, for instance, halfway through 2003. Completely denied by the political leadership. So it's not enough to produce accurate reporting, because if political leadership won't let it out, what are you going to do? No, analysts must be responsible not to political leadership. Analysts must be responsible to the public and they must be responsible to the historical record.
Now, we have something here which is a recent acquisition of WikiLeaks, although we have been following the matter for some time, and this is the script to a tens of millions of dollar budget Dreamworks movie. What is it about? It is about us, nominally. It is about WikiLeaks the organization. It is a mass propaganda attack against WikiLeaks the organization and the character of myself and our activities and so on. But it is not just an attack against us. It is an attack against Iran. It fans the flames to start a war with Iran, and it's coming out in November. It's being filmed now. Benedict Cumberbatch is playing me. This movie has British involvement and people in Britain should be concerned about it. How does it open? Well – and this has not been previously disclosed before – the opening scene is in a military complex in Tehran. The camera comes in, closes up on a file, and it is a design for a nuclear bomb marked with nuclear symbols. There's notes and whispers all around and they are in Farsi, they're in Persian. There's an older scientist speaking. A high-speed camera will measure the explosive charge we have designed to trigger the chain reaction. It is then revealed by the camera four scientists in white coats walking in a windowless corridor. The youngest, "Simsana" – remember that name, "Simsana" — writes on the file: "The dimensions of the payload are consistent with a Shabab missile." Okay. That's the opening scene. Iran is working on an atomic weapon. The opening scene of a film about WikiLeaks. How does this have anything to do with us? Well, we'll come to it.
The next scene concerning Iran is in Cairo where that Iranian nuclear scientist is meeting a U.S. CIA agent, Kate. Closeup again on the handwritten diagram of a nuclear bomb, the same diagram as we saw in the opening. And "Siman" says, "I copied it from memory. They're testing the explosive in the next six months." Now, remember what Tom's National Intelligence Estimate found. Iran did not have a nuclear program. All sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies feeding into that report said that was the case, with high confidence, and has been reconfirmed every year since that point. The senior diplomat who's also at the table with the CIA agent says, "Shit! We thought they were at least three years away from a bomb. Another lie." Tom's report does not say that they're three years away from a nuclear bomb. So it's a lie upon a lie, a great big budget thing that's going to be pushed out in November. The Iranian nuclear scientist then says, "If it works, they won't hesitate to sell the technology, and even if one of these things" – sorry – "If it works, they won't hesitate to sell the technology, and even if one of these things gets into the wrong hands, they'll sell it anyway."
So that's the reality of where we're at. Not merely a war of intelligence agencies, but a war of corrupt media, corrupt culture. That war, we have got to understand, people who have appeared on this panel have been involved, sometimes with great sacrifice, at revealing the truth about important parts of the world, how the world is unfolding, how the world is shaping, the nature of institutions – they have revealed it, heroically in many cases, to the historical record, to our civilization as a whole, to you.
You have to understand that where there's great powers at work – I don't mean shadow conspiracies, I mean enormous cultural powers, enormous industrial powers, the vast network of corporations that interact with government agencies around the world selling them products, shipping their logistics from one place to another. The National Security Agency, for example, now has approximately 70% of its expenditure pass through Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, etcetera. This produces a lobby that pushes in particular directions. How is it that such a lie got into a script about WikiLeaks? How is it that in the light of that National Intelligence Estimate that anyone could think that it was tolerable, acceptable, to foist that lie upon the public, that it would make it all the way through the Hollywood system, that distributors would pick it up? Because they perceive that that is where the power lies in the United States. They perceive that it's perfectly okay to slander an entire nation, that it's perfectly okay to beat the drums of war like that, because people in that system want the war. They want it.
We have to understand that everything that we see, read and hear is produced for a purpose. It's produced as a result of incentives. And other material is not produced. There are disincentives to not produce it. We walk almost sleepwalking, almost blind, every time we open a newspaper and read an article. That particular journalist wrote about that for a particular reason. They felt that their editor would accept that, that they wouldn't have to argue with him. The editor felt that the proprietor would accept it. The journalist felt that the people that they deal with in their community would like it and in fact might even pat them on the head and take them to a fancier cocktail party or perhaps even give them a better position in Oxford. All these things influence how our society, our civilization, is documented.
Now, working against that trend and against that current of corrupt powerful organizations producing a distorted perspective of the world has been the Internet. For the first time in history, that has allowed one person with some truth to speak to every single person who wants to hear that truth. It is the great antidote. There is a war on for control of the Internet. That war takes place on the one hand by producing incredible propaganda and hyping up threats about how the Internet is dangerous. On the other hand, it involves introducing mass surveillance systems to surveil all of the Internet. You know, different countries see the effects being brought by the Internet and the political liberations being brought by the Internet and powerful groups in those countries feel fearful and they feel destabilized, and as a result they want to find some way to control it and to know it. The knowing part of it comes from surveilling every transborder communication that occurs, between Great Britain and the United States, between almost every country in Latin America and the rest of the world because their communications have to pass through the United States to reach Europe, pass through the United States to reach Asia, and sometimes even pass through the United States when one Latin American country talks to another simply because the communications infrastructure has been passed that way. This is collectively the greatest transfer of wealth that has ever happened, the greatest theft of information that has ever happened from every single one of us who uses the Internet into the bowels of secret agencies.
Now if those secret agencies were working on our behalf, perhaps we could accept it. If as soon as possible that material would enter into the historical record, would enter into the record of our civilization, where we could all individually make decisions using that information to produce a better, more harmonious world, then perhaps it would be tolerable. But it is not tolerable in its current form, and so it is up to decent people, good people, still working inside of government, inside of private contractors that are engaged in these sorts of behaviors, to get it out to the public, to get it into the historical record, either by doing it anonymously, which is of course what we favor, stay in there 30 years, work with us for 30 years getting out this sort of information, or by going public and standing up and fighting to describe the truth of what they're seeing.
Thank you.
QUESTION FROM THE AUDIENCE: I would like to ask you to comment briefly on how governments turn to this noun "cyberterrorism" and how they deal with these networks like Anonymous and its operations and what you think about it.
JULIAN ASSANGE: As I said before, the Internet has become this generation's, the Internet generation's, primary tool of emancipation. Now, there's a lot of effort been put into trying to stop the Internet working as the way it was meant to work, which is to be a universal communications medium with which we can all communicate with each other across the world to share our knowledge of the world and together deal with the most significant problems that we have at an individual level, at a group level, and at international level. The crackdown against the Internet, I think, is futile. I mean, we can see a lot of people whipping up further to try and get money for various so-called cyberterrorism outfits. We hear a lot about cyberterrorism. How many times have you heard about cyber peace building? We hear lots of talk about cyberwar and cyberdefense – I mean, this is a hype. It always comes from somewhere. It doesn't just pop into a journalist's brain. It comes as a result of organizations lobbying to influence the public opinion and influence the public record.
What is fantastic and unavoidable is that the Internet generation is developing its own culture and its own consensus and its own political view, and it is so much better informed than anything that existed before, so much more nuanced, so much more sophisticated. Young people are vastly more worldly and sophisticated than even ten years ago as a result of the Internet. Their views about what is wrong and what is right are being internationalized as a result of education about how we are all living our lives. All those people, all those young people, these people in this audience at Oxford, are going to go into the CIA, they're going to go into MI6, they're going to go into GCHQ, they're going to go into the National Security Agency, they're going to go into Whitehall, they're going to be inside all these organizations before they even know it. They're going to be the technicians that control the great databases of the National Security Agency, the great databases of the CIA, and those people can act to reveal information to the rest of the world fairly easily, through us or through others. Sometimes there's risk involved but they can be worked out and you can work through it. They can act to sabotage. This is a new pre-revolutionary moment just like when you had industrialization and as a result you developed skilled workers, and once skilled workers developed a political consciousness as to their own power and position in society, they could act to change their society. The Internet generation is in exactly that same position, perhaps in a much more advantaged – even more advantageous position, because the Internet is also involved not merely in the control structure of these great and powerful institutions, but it is involved intimately in spreading our culture, spreading our knowledge about the world. It is a replacement media and it is unignorable. These institutions will be reformed as a result of young people going into them. There is no other option. You cannot hire a technician who has not been educated by the Internet. You cannot hire any educated person now who has not been educated by the Internet, who has not been influenced by the Internet, who has not started to absorb the culture on the Internet, who doesn't have friends that they've made and developed over the Internet.
For background, see here, which is a takedown of this Guardian piece.


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I'm programming a plugin API interface for an application. The plugins are loaded as shared libraries at run time. They have access to the application API through an interface, such as the following:
class IPluginAPI
virtual bool IsPluginsLoaded(void) = 0;
virtual bool IsHookingEnabled(void) = 0;
// And about 50 more methods
Plugins can request to 'listen' on certain events (such as
MouseScroll etc.). These functions make up a total of >300 different events. Normally I would have done something like this:
extern "C" void SetEventHooks(APITable& table)
table.MouseClick = &PluginMouseClickEvent;
table.MouseMove = &PluginMouseMoveEvent;
Whereas the
SetEventHooksfunction resides within the plugin library and is called from the application, and the plugins can listen to functions of interest by pointing to their functions. This is not the method I want to use, but I want to offer some kind of abstraction instead. This is what I had in mind:
// Interface IPluginAPI supplies a 'SetEventHook` method such as
void SetEventHook(HookID id, void * callback);
In this case
HookID is a strong typed enum which contains all function IDs:
enum class HookID
// ...
So the plugin would use this function to listen to events:
pluginAPI->SetEventHook(ID::MouseClick, &myCallback);
The problem with this approach is that it is not type-safe and I cannot use templates directly (since this is done at runtime as libraries). I don't want to expose 300 different functions either for each event (e.g
SetHookMouseMove(void (*)(int, int)) and so on). My last idea, is that the plugins have a utility template function which makes this type safe, but I'm not sure how to implement this in a simple way (and without boilerplate code):
template <typename T>
SetEventHook(HookID id, T callback)
if(typeof(T) == decltype(/* function type of the ID */))
gPluginAPI->SetEventHook(id, callback);
else static_assert("INVALID FUNCTION TYPE");
So to put it simple; how can I enable my plugins to hook to certain events in a dynamic type-safe way without exposing a complete function table and/or >300 methods for each event?
NOTE: I used function pointers for simplification, but I want to use

subset: commoncrawl


text:
to the new website for,
The Royal British Legion, Randalstown
This web site was set up by the Secretary
of the Branch, Comrade Robin Murray.
The words of Laurence Binyon.
The Exortation
They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condem.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them
The Command
When you go home tell them of us and say,
"For your tomorrow we gave our today"
If you have any questions or enquiries relating to Randalstown RBL,
e-mail email@example.com


text:
Talence, town, Gironde département, Aquitaine région, southern suburb of Bordeaux, southwestern France. It is a centre for jet-aircraft production and has light industry and wine making. An extension of Bordeaux University (now Bordeaux University I), with housing for 30,000 students, was erected there in the 1960s and has since become a major educational and research centre. Pop. (1999) 37,210; (2005 est.) 40,700.
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text:
SKILL LEVEL: Intermediate (Level 3)
SIZE: Small, Medium, Large Finished Foot Length 9 (10, 11) in. (23 (25.5, 28) cm), after feltingNote: Pattern is written for smallest size with changes for larger sizes in parentheses. When only one number is given, it applies to all sizes. To follow pattern more easily, circle all numbers pertaining to your size before beginning.
CORRECTIONS: None
15 sts + 19 rows = 4 in. (10 cm) in St st worked in rnds (k every rnd), before felting. When you match the gauge in a pattern, your project will be the size
specified in the pattern and the materials specified in the pattern will be
sufficient. The needle or hook size called for in the pattern is based on what
the designer used, but it is not unusual for gauge to vary from person to person.
If it takes you fewer stitches and rows to make your swatch, try using a smaller
size hook or needles; if more stitches and rows, try a larger size hook or needles.
Making a Gauge Swatch
kfb (knit into front and then back)
An increase worked as follows:
1. Knit the next st through the front loop, but do not remove the st from your left hand needle.
2. Knit the same st once more, this time inserting your needle through the back loop of the st. You will have created 2 loops (sts) on your right hand needle.
3. Drop the st from your left hand needle - you have increased 1 st.
1. Sole is worked back and forth in Garter st (k every row).
2. Sts for the sides are picked up along one side of the sole, the cast-on edge, and then along the opposite side of the sole. The sides are then worked in rnds.
3. The heel and sides are worked in Garter st worked in rnds (k 1 rnd, p 1 rnd). The toe is worked in St st worked in rnds (k every rnd).
4. When knitting in the round on dpn, your sts do need to be divided fairly evenly onto the needles. If you are working with a set of 5 dpn, your sts should be divided among 4 needles. The total number of sts will not always be evenly divisible by the number of dpns that you are using - this is not a problem! Simply divide your sts as evenly as possible, you will still create a symmetrical 'tube' of knitting.
Learn to Knit instructions: http://www.lionbrand.com/learnToKnit.html


text: The City of Monmouth welcomes you! Founded in 1831 and incorporated in 1852, the Maple City is located in the western portion of Central Illinois and is the county seat for Warren County. In the 181 years since its founding, many important events have occurred in our City including the founding of Monmouth College by Scottish Presbyterians in 1853, the birth of Wyatt Earp in 1856, visits by Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in 1858, and the creation of Western Stoneware Pottery in 1906 when seven local potteries joined together to form a business that is still in existence today.With a current population of 9444, Monmouth celebrates not only its diversity of population but also its blending of agricultural, academic, industrial, business and cultural influences. In addition, our City has the good fortune to have a dynamic medical center to meet the needs of many of our citizens as well as residents in surrounding areas. Recently, many new businesses have made their home in Monmouth with plans for additional building already in progress. We are incredibly proud of what our City has to offer and look forward to additional economic development as our community continues to grow and prosper. Whether you are moving to our great City or simply visiting for a short time, we hope you find Monmouth as remarkable as we do. Additional information for residents is available on this website or you may phone City Hall for any questions or concerns you may have.Again, welcome to Monmouth!--Mayor Rod Davies


text:
The game has not been announced and is apparently being prepped at EA's Los Angeles studio. Mercenaries was previously developed by Pandemic Studios. There is no longer any Pandemic Studios. About two dozen or so former Pandemic developers, Bitmob reports, are working on the project at EA LA.
Mercs Inc. looks to be a "multiplayer sandbox game" — no word whether or not it has a single player campaign.


text:
"I deeply appreciate the opportunity to address this conference – yours is the first service organization that I've addressed as Secretary of Defense.
"My own life in public service began when I served two years as an Army intelligence officer, that was over 40 years ago, where I learned what it meant to work together to achieve a common mission.
"So I have a deep and abiding respect for the United States Army and all it has done to defend our great country, for the past decade and for the past 236 years of the Army's history."
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta
AUSA Annual Meeting Special Session
Oct. 12, 2011
"It's a privilege to be with you, the members and the leadership of AUSA, who are no question the Army's most passionate advocates and champions.
"We are all so deeply grateful for what you do for our soldiers, active duty, guard, and reserve, our civilian employees and, most importantly, our Army families.
"So thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for all of the great sacrifices you make on behalf of this great Army."
Secretary of the Army John McHugh
Keynote Address
AUSA Annual Meeting Opening Ceremony
Oct. 10, 2011
"I am extremely happy to have the opportunity to talk to all of you as the 38th Chief of Staff. In the early days of my tenure, it is particularly important to me as we move forward.
"I want to thank all of you in this room for your support to our soldiers and our families.
"Today I could not be more proud to be a soldier, serving alongside the great men and women that willingly serve our country.
"We are all in this together.
"Together we will sustain the Army and ensure a balanced Joint Force to provide flexibility and capability to the greatest nation in the world.
Gen. Raymond Odierno
Army Chief of Staff
State of the Army Address
AUSA Annual Meeting Eisenhower Luncheon
Oct. 11, 2011
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text:
Chicago Man Arrested for Trespassing Near Taylor Swift's Rhode Island Mansion
Looks like Taylor Swift's Rhode Island beach house has maybe already attracted some trespassers!
E! reports that just a month after picking out her beach mansion, a trespasser has been arrested on the private road leading up to her latest real estate acquisition.
Authorities spotted the man emerging from the water around 2:15 a.m. today, after going for a swim in the freezing water! While police cannot confirm that he was, in fact, trying to meet Taylor, his proximity to her mansion while trespassing on a private road seems troubling.
The man taken into police custody is 22-year-old Lucas H. Vorsteveld from Chicago, who initially told police that he was just out for a walk.
According to the Westerly Police Department, Lucas was arrested "without incident," and a rep from the department told TMZ that they have a "zero tolerance policy for trespassers."
Lucas is currently out of police custody, but he has a summons to appear in court on May 24. Hope he has a friend to stay with on the East Coast, or he's up for an even longer swim from Chicago!
It must be so stressful having fans rush your idyll summer getaway. We hope this works out for Taylor! At the very least, it looks like the local police (and her security staff!) are looking out for her.


text:
By David Gewirtz
A reader recently asked us:
All my rules are coming as (client only) rules and I can't run all of them. The system has turned off some of them for lack of space.
How can I change them into server-based rules?
Let's answer this in two parts. First, let's understand the difference between client and server rules.
Server-based rules
If you run Outlook as your email client and you get your email through an Exchange server, server-based rules are those rules that run on the Exchange server, not on your local computer.
This can be a big win because rules can run even when your computer is off, when Outlook is closed, and can process messages before you download them.
I like these a lot because I have a number of server rules that run to file mailing lists and other expected email, and so, if I'm traveling and want to check my inbox on my iPhone, I don't have to sift through all sorts of other messages -- nor do I have to worry whether I left Outlook open on my desktop when I left.
Some rules can't be run on the server. For example, if you have a rule that requires printing, it can't run on the server. It'll be called (client only).
Client-only rules
In general, client-only rules apply to data that's only on the client. One of the more bizarre client-only limitations is category. Categories live, in general, on the client so if you're attempting to assign a message to a category, it'll suddenly become a client-only rule.
Microsoft lists the following conditions that cause a rule to be client-only:
- Through the specified account
- Assigned to category category
- Uses the form name form
- With selected properties of documents or forms
- Sender is in specified Address Book
- On this machine only
There are also specific rule actions that will force a rule to be client-only:
- Move it to a folder (see note below)
- Print it
- Assign it to the category category
- Reply using a specific template
- Flag message for action in a number of days
- Flag message with a colored flag
- Play a sound
- Run a script
- Start application
- Mark it as importance
- Display a specific message in the New Item Alert window
- Display a Desktop Alert
Now, I have a bunch of server-based rules that move messages to folders. The key here is that if the folder you're moving the message to exists on your PC only, then it becomes a client-only rule.
Some of these (like printing) make sense. Others, like flagging the message, assigning it to a category, or marking importance should really work on the server as well. Hopefully, in time, they will.
Size of rules
A very serious limit that Outlook imposes (and, which, personally I think is ridiculous) is the storage limit for rules is 32K. I've seen this a lot with users and the issue is that you probably need to find better ways to generalize your rules. I hit it myself once when I tried to manage junk mail by listing all of the email addresses of spammers in rules -- but then I moved them to the Junk mail filter and I freed up a ton of space.


text:
Google in China
By Charlene Li
I was quoted today in a Mercury News/AP article about Google's practice of not including Web sites blocked by the Chinese government in its new Chinese language news service. This practice was unearthed by a Dynanmic Internet Technology, Inc. report that compared US-based searches to China-based searches. DIT found that Google was not including banned news sites in its index.
The question is, should Google have excluded sites from its index, knowing that had they included the sites, that their own site would be subject censorship? Some people would consider Google a hypocrit, since its pledge to "Do No Evil" flies in the face of such an action.
I look at it a different way. Had they included the index, they would have come under government scrutiny and the service that they provide -- which can include other dissenting voices from sites not blocked by the Chinese government -- would have been jeopardized. In any case, even if they had included the banned sites, users would not have been able to see the results because of the censorship.
The pragmitist in me says that Google did the right thing -- this time. But it does raise the theoretical question of where the line should be drawn, something which I think Google has to struggle with continually, as does any publisher. Remember, a search index may be a computer driven algorithm, but its imbued with human values -- what sites to include in the index lies at the core of that engine. As long as people at Google still make those choices, they will have to continually adjust where and how they define what's acceptable -- and what's "evil".


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Backstage Pass with Bassists Jeff Campbell, James VanDemark and other guests
(Rochester, New York) -- Rochester's Eastman School of Music (ESM) plays host to the 2013 International Society of Bassists Convention, June 2 through June 8. Backstage Pass host Julia Figueras welcomes ESM Bass Instructor Jeff Campbell, ESM Professor of Double Bass James VanDemark, and international guests for a celebration of the music for the lowest member of the string family on Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 1 p.m. on Classical 91.5/FM-HD 91.5-2.
Recently selected as the winner of Guitar Center's National Singer Songwriter 2 Competition, Philadelphia native, Campbell moved to San Francisco in 2004 specifically for the newer Rock scene he had heard was developing. After a few years of trying to balance learning the West Coast Music Scene with his day job, the job was cast aside in favor of full time touring, writing and recording for a living. Campbell's onstage experiences have found him sharing the stage with John Mayer, members of Counting Crows, Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead and opening for Grammy-winning band Train.
James VanDemark, one of the most brilliant virtuosi ever to perform on the double bass, was hailed by the New York Times at his Lincoln Center recital debut as "an exceptionally gifted string player and a musician of taste, intelligence and the best spontaneous musical instincts, with an unerring sense for exact intonation." The San Francisco Chronicle praised his "wonderful facility for making really musical phrases, relaxing, building, shading with unlimited subtleties – and a capacity to dig into whole pages of rip-roaring coloratura and make every note count." VanDemark began his musical studies at the age of 14 in his hometown of Owatonna, Minnesota, making such rapid progress that just 18 months later he made his solo debut with the Minnesota Orchestra.
Backstage Pass is a live, hour-long radio series that is committed to highlighting performing artists – giving Classical 91.5/90.3/FM-HD 91.5-1 listeners the opportunity to hear local and visiting musicians performing live. The series is made possible in part by a grant from the Gouvernet Arts Fund at Rochester Area Community Foundation. You can also watch this edition of Backstage Pass online at: http://interactive.wxxi.org/backstage-pass.
Pictured: James VanDeMark
Credit: ESM
WXXI is the essential, life-long educational media resource for the Greater Rochester area. WXXI puts the community first with programming that stimulates and expands thought, inspires the spirit, opens cultural horizons and promotes understanding of diverse community issues. Log on to wxxi.org for more information about our services and programs.


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May 25, 2016
MIAMI (AP) -- A South Florida man has been sentenced to life in prison for beating and strangling his girlfriend.
A Miami-Dade judge sentenced 33-year-old Juan Carlos Portieles on Tuesday after a jury convicted him of first-degree murder.
The Miami Herald reports that Portieles turned himself into police in October 2009, telling detectives he had killed 18-year-old Jaclyn Torrealba after an argument. Portieles, known as DJ Seasunz in the Miami nightclub circuit, had driven around for hours with Torrealba's dead body, which was still in his car when he turned himself in.
Portieles' attorney agreed that his client killed Torrealba but argued the murder was not pre-meditated.
Prosecutors argued that the way Portieles killed Torrealba -- with his bare hands -- would have taken time, meaning Portieles thought about his actions.
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UN: Syria blocks monitors from site of killings
BEIRUT Syrian troops blocked United Nations observers Thursday from reaching the site of a new mass killing where the opposition claims regime forces slaughtered at least 78 people including women and children, the chief of the U.N. monitoring mission said.
Syria denied the opposition claims as "absolutely baseless." Syrian state TV denied obstructing the observers work and said the monitors had successfully reached Mazraat al-Qubair - a farming area in the central Hama province and site of the latest killings.
The reports came just weeks after more than 100 people were killed in one day in a cluster of villages known as Houla in central Homs province, many of them children and women gunned down in their homes. U.N. investigators blamed pro-government gunmen for at least some of the killings, but the Syrian regime denied responsibility and blamed rebels for the deaths.
The Houla massacre brought international outrage and a coordinated expulsion of Syrian diplomats from world capitals.
A resident of Mazraat al-Qubair said troops shelled the area for five hours Wednesday before government-aligned militiamen known as shabiha entered the area, "killing and hacking everyone they could find."
Leith Al-Hamwy told The Associated Press by telephone that he survived by hiding in an olive grove about 800 meters (yards) from the farms as the killings were taking place. But he said his mother and six siblings, the youngest 10-year-old twins, did not.
"When I came out of hiding and went inside the houses, I saw bodies everywhere. Entire families either shot or killed with sharp sticks and knives," he said.
Al-Hamwy said the gunmen set his family home on fire and his family burned to death. Around 80 people in total died, he said, many of them children, and 18 homes were either destroyed by the shelling or burned down.
Syria's main opposition group in exile, the Syrian National Council, also said 78 people were killed in Mazraat al-Qubair when government-aligned militiamen converged on the village from neighboring pro-regime villages. Some of the dead were killed execution-style, others were slain with knives, the SNC said. It said 35 of the dead were from the same family and more than half of them were women and children.
"Women and children were burned inside their homes in al-Qubair," said Mousab Alhamadee, an activist based in Hama.
Gen. Robert Mood, the head of the observers mission in Syria, said U.N. patrols headed to the village of were stopped at Syrian army checkpoints and in some cases turned back. He said some patrols were also stopped by civilians and added they had received information from residents of the area that the safety of observers was at risk if they entered the village.
The mission "is concerned about the restriction imposed on its movement as it will impede our ability to monitor, observe and report," Mood said in a statement.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned the Syrian government for "simply unconscionable" violence, accusing President Bashar Assad of intensifying a crackdown that has already killed thousands.
"The regime-sponsored violence that we witnessed again in Hama yesterday is simply unconscionable," she said in Turkey. "Assad has doubled down on his brutality and duplicity, and Syria will not, cannot be peaceful, stable or certainly democratic until Assad goes."
The exact death toll and circumstances of the killings overnight in Mazraat al-Qubair were impossible to confirm. The violence is bound to reinforce the growing belief that a peace plan brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan is unraveling as the country spirals toward civil war.
Both Homs and Hama have been centers of opposition to Assad's rule during the 15-month uprising.


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Don't forget to join in the fun to win a MixMyGranola gift certificate! There's still time! Contest ends March 3, 5PM PST. :)
Here's a quick, easy and tasty recipe for those of you out who like fried fish fillet. As a child, I remember feasting on crispy fish fillets during our summer outings to various tourist locations in the Philippines. My grandfather played host to these trips for the international students (mostly Koreans) in the school he used to head and I, of course, would not miss any of it. And some of these students have children my age. It was so funny in the beginning because us kids could not understand each other — they were still learning English and so we were all just nodding, smiling, laughing, playing and eating! The language barrier did not keep us from enjoying each others company.
So where was I.. yes the fish! One of my favorite packed lunch order at the Korean restaurant that catered for us was the spicy fish fillet with steamed rice. I have distinct memories of tastes of food from childhood and this is one of them. I have been so desperate for decades to find this taste or replicate it until I stumbled upon the basa fish and this simple concoction. It sounds ridiculous that I have been craving this for more than 10 years! I'm so relieved to "find" it once again and be able to satiate this craving. I cooked and ate this two days in a row! It was that bad.
I have to tell you something else: it tastes so close to McDonald's Chicken McNuggets! I promise I was not hallucinating. So FYI, this could be a good alternative McNuggets fix.
Here's another accidental discovery that accompanied this dish: I ran out of flour and resorted to using cornstarch for dredging. It gave a really nice, crackly-crispiness that I have been looking for a very long time. Perfect!
As for the fish, you might be wondering how in the world I decided to pick basa fish. I didn't know this fish until it called out to me at the Chinese supermarket. This was sold frozen and although I don't usually buy frozen fish, I was curious to try it. The meat is white (compared to the orange-coral-red-ish color of salmon) with thick flakes, compared to the finer tilapia meat. It keeps its shape during pan frying and is not as delicate as some fish fillets. I makes perfect sense for making fish sticks. It won't fall off your fingers or fork as other fish varieties would.
You can also try the following recipe with the fish of your preference. Don't forget to let me know if it worked out for you!
Crispy Basa Fish Fillet Sticks
- 10- to 12-ounces basa fillets, cut to your desired "stick" size
- 4 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper powder
- olive oil, for frying
- For the dredge: 3/4 cup cornstarch, 1 tsp pepper
1. Marinate fish in lemon juice, salt, pepper and cayenne pepper powder for 15 minutes.
2. One by one, take fish sticks from the marinade and dredge in cornstarch and pepper mixture. Tap the excess cornstarch off the fish.
3. Fry in medium to high heat with enough oil to cover the surface of the frying pan. Cook for 3-5 minutes each side depending on thickness, until golden brown. If the fish slice is thick, cook on all 4 sides.
4. Serve on its own or with ketchup and/or rice.


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- Partnership scope: Global
- Date start: 1 Jun 2003
- Date end: 1 Dec 2010
- More information: http://www.iclei.org
Partnership implemented in
- United States of America
Additional information
Local Integrated Resource Management for the better management of cities and towns
Government of Hungary - 3Patak KHT
Major Groups:
International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) (Germany)
Local Government Managers Association (LGMA) (Australia)
The Australian Centre for Regional/Local Gov't Stu (Australia)
International Institute for Administrative Science (Belgium)
City of Bourgas (Bulgaria)
Int�l Council for Local Envt�l Initiatives (ICLEI) (Canada)
City of Johannesburg (South Africa)
Potchefstroom Universiteit (South Africa)
City of V�xj� (Sweden)
Swedish Institute for Ecological Sustainability (Sweden)
International City Managers Associations (United States of America)
UN System:
UNEP-DTIE/IETC (Kenya)
Other intergovernmental organizations:
European Commission DG Environment (Belgium)
Partnership Overview | ObjectivesThe development of management tools that integrate resource management is a crucial step in helping local government achieve sustainable public administration. The official Local Government Dialogue Paper for The World Summit on Sustainable Development Accelerating Sustainable Development: "Local Action Moves the World", published by the UN Economic and Social Council, 14. December 2001, (E/CN.17/2002/PC.2/6/Add.5) identifies Integrated Resource Management as a key "strategy for the future" to strengthen local government by public mechanisms for local sustainable development.
The partnership will support a global pilot program of Integrated Resource Management, starting from concept and program development through to pilot implementation in various municipalities throughout the world. The programme shall be driven by local government in partnership with supranational and intergovernmental organisations and support from national governments. The partnership will bring together skills, experience and capacity from the full spectrum of environmental management and from the other resource management fields, namely financial and human resource management. Being international in scope, the IRM concept will be implemented under different regional and national conditions. The main objectives of the Implementation Partnership "Piloting Integrated Resource Management" are to:
* demonstrate the applicability of IRM at the international level, as identified in the official UN Local Government Dialogue Paper.
* support the integration of resource management approaches which facilitate sustainable development
* demonstrate the value of IRM as an implementation tool to support "Local Action 21"
* develop a management tool which enables sustainability to drive priority setting
* establish capacity world wide in IRM by launching a network of regional hubs/centres of excellence
* exchange experiences in resource management approaches at an international level.


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Including a CMS, or Content Management System, in your website allows you to directly edit your text content so you can keep your content fresh and up-to-date and easily create and maintain blogs. We deploy Orchard CMS and Wordpress CMS solutions.
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Images: Fort Devens Energy Day [Image 2 of 3]
Photo by Cpl. Thomas Belton
Lt. Gen. Raymond V. Mason, the Army's logistical (G-4) representative gives a speech about energy conservation efforts by the Army to reduce risk to troops in combat. Mason talked about the Army's overall strategic plan to reduce waste and energy use. (Photo by Cpl. Thomas J. Belton)
This work, Fort Devens Energy Day [Image 1 of 3], by SGT Thomas Belton, identified by DVIDS, is free of known copyright restrictions under U.S. copyright law.
Date Taken:11.05.2013
Date Posted:11.12.2013 12:05
Photo ID:1050832
Size:2.61 MB
Location:FORT DEVENS, MA, US
Hometown:AYER, MA, US
Hometown:DEVENS, MA, US


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A Portland-based timber industry group Friday withdrew its administrative protest of a restoration forest management project that includes a 6.75-million-board-foot timber sale on public lands near Butte Falls.
The American Forest Resource Council also asked environmental groups to follow suit with other timber sales on U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service lands, noting the appeals and litigation are costing Oregonians jobs.
"We made our point," council President Tom Partin said in a prepared statement. "We are confident that the BLM is now aware of AFRC's concerns.
"We have acted in good faith by withdrawing our protest," he added. "We challenge those holding up the BLM sale program with appeals and litigation — Cascadia Wildlands, Center for Biological Diversity, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Oregon Wild and the others — to withdraw their appeals and litigation now. Our forests and our communities depend on our cooperation."
He estimated the groups have used appeals and litigation to stop at least 25 BLM timber sales containing more than 90 million board feet of timber in southern Oregon.
"Every million feet of timber supports 38 jobs," he said. "That's almost 3,500 Southern Oregonians who are suffering from underemployment at a very bad time in our state's economy."
Joseph Vaile, program director for the Ashland-based Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, countered that his group and others aren't opposed to logging, providing it is done in a manner that is sustainable and doesn't degrade the environment.
"We look at each project individually, based on the criteria of protecting old growth, clean water and wildland habitat," he said. "We have far more agreement with federal agencies projects than disagreement. I think there is a lot of common ground moving forward."
Partin noted that no timber harvesting would have been stopped by the council's protest. The withdrawal ensures the BLM would expend no resource on a formal response, he said.


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Minutewomen Place 36th at Paul Short Invitational
Sept. 28, 2007
Bethlahem, Pa. - Senior Christina Derosa (Sound Beach, N.Y.) and sophomore Shiyi Zan (Ottawa, Ontario) lead the Minutewomen to a 36th place finish Friday at the Paul Short Invitational hosted by Lehigh University.
DeRosa placed 21st out of the 317 runners participating. She finished with a time of 21 minutes and 17 seconds. Zan was the second Minutewoman to cross the finishline for UMass, finishing 147th with a time of 23 minutes and two seconds.
Rounding out the top five for UMass were freshman Lauren Stocker (Westfield, Mass.), freshman Kristin Darling (Miller Place, N.Y.), and junior Beth Harlow (Melrose, Mass.) finishing 149, 284, and 290 respectively.
The Minutewomen will be back in action Saturday as they head to Boston for the New England Championships.
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A man arrested for a recent attempted armed robbery has now been linked by Havelock police to several vehicle break-ins.
20-year-old William Pugh of Havelock was arrested by police for an armed robbery July 6th in the area of Cedar Ridge Lane. During the investigation of the attempted armed robbery, investigators were able to develop information linking Pugh to a series of car break-ins back on May 31st in the Poplar Street, Fox Hall Road, and Pineview Street areas.
Pugh is charged with 4 counts of felony breaking and entering of a motor vehicle and 4 counts of misdemeanor larceny after breaking and entering. He's in the Craven County detention center under a $25,000 bond.


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CLEVELAND – Mike Brown's second shot with the Cleveland Cavaliers ended Monday after one season, as owner Dan Gilbert fired the only coach who has guided the team to the NBA Finals.
Brown had been rehired in April 2013 by Gilbert, who regretted dismissing him in May 2010. But after the Cavaliers went 33-49 and missed the playoffs, Gilbert decided it was time to make another change.
"This is a very tough business," Gilbert said in a statement. "It pains all of us here that we needed to make the difficult decision of releasing Mike Brown. Mike worked hard over this last season to move our team in the right direction. Although there was some progress from our finish over the few prior seasons, we believe we need to head in a different direction."
Brown, 44, had four years remaining on his $20 million contract. He was fired by the Los Angeles Lakers in November 2012, after a 1-4 start to his second season with the team. Brown went 272-138 in his first stint with Cleveland.
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In addition to firing Brown, Gilbert announced he is making David Griffin full-time general manager.
Griffin had been the interim GM since Feb. 6, when Gilbert fired Chris Grant one day after the Cavaliers lost to a Lakers team that finished the game with five eligible players.
Gilbert said Griffin would lead the search for Brown's successor.
Silver rebukes Sterling again
LOS ANGELES – League commissioner Adam Silver has issued a new rebuke to Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling — this time over comments about Hall of Fame player Magic Johnson in an interview.
Sterling repeatedly disparaged Johnson's HIV status and dismissed his business and charity work in an interview that aired Monday with CNN's Anderson Cooper.
Sterling apologized in the interview for the racist remarks that earned him a lifetime NBA ban and a $2.5 million fine from Silver last month.
But when the subject turned to Johnson, Sterling repeatedly referred to the former Los Angeles Lakers superstar having "AIDS."
Sterling told Cooper: "He acts so holy. He made love to every girl in every city in America, and he had AIDS, and when he had those AIDS, I went to my synagogue and I prayed for him. I hope he could live and be well. I didn't criticize him. I could have. Is he an example for children?"
Cooper said Johnson would appear on his CNN show Tuesday.
The commissioner's statement said he apologizes on behalf of the league to Johnson, who "continues to be dragged into this situation and be degraded by such a malicious and personal attack."


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ATLANTA -- With a big win in his home state of Georgia, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich picks up at least 23 delegates. The remainder of Georgia's 76 delegates will be divided up under state party rules.
RELATED | See all Super Tuesday results
Shortly after the announcement, Gingrich tweeted, "Thank you Georgia! It is gratifying to win my home state so decisively to launch our March Momentum. #MarchMo #250gas #SuperTuesday"
PHOTOS | Newt Gingrich HQ in Cobb County
PHOTOS | Behind the scenes of 11Alive's coverage
Gingrich spoke to a crowd at the Renaissance Waverly Hotel in Cobb County shortly before 9 p.m., chastising the members of the "elite media" who counted him out of the Republican race.
"We survived the national elite's efforts to kill us in the summer because of you," Gingrich said. "There are a lot of bunny rabbits that run through. I am the tortoise."
RELATED | Gingrich looks ahead after Georgia win
MORE | Gingrich to receive Secret Service protection
According to NBC, of the 10 states up for grabs Tuesday, Rick Santorum won primary fights in Tennessee, Oklahoma and North Dakota.
After a fierce fight, Romney won in Ohio. Most of Romney's Ohio support came from the urban areas around Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Dayton. The bulk of rural Ohio voted en-masse for Santorum.
Mitt Romney also won Massachusetts, Virginia, Vermont, Idaho and Alaska, for a total of six primary victories.
Speaking on CNN, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin said she wouldn't rule out a run for president if the GOP campaign came down to a brokered convention.
Ron Paul came in second in Alaska, but did not win any of the Super Tuesday primaries.
Locally, one of the biggest ballot measures was Sunday liquor sales. Voters approved Sunday sales in Henry, Cobb, Coweta, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Forsyth, Hall, and Rockdale counties, and the cities of Austell, Marietta, Powder Springs, Conyers and Monroe.
A controversial sewer tax was overwhelmingly approved in the City of Atlanta. The penny sales tax will pay for court-mandated sewer improvements. The tax will last for four years.
Voters approved a SPLOST measure in Coweta County.
Marietta voters passed a school bond measure to build a new theater at Marietta High School.
Doris Devey defeated Donald Brown for the mayor's office in Hiram.
In Gwinnett and Walton counties, a Republican runoff is underway for State Representative in District 107 between Tom Kirby and Paul Smith.
Flowery Branch voters will get to go back to the polls on April 1 for a runoff since none of the three candidates for Post 3 received at least a 50 percent plus one vote. Jason Covert, who received 119 votes will face Fred Richards, who ended up with 122 votes in the runoff. The third place candidate was Pat Zalewski, who received 29 votes.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)


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Quick and easy to use, this pom pom tree allows you to make pom poms and tassels from 1' to 7'. Embellish hats, scarves, afghans, or even slippers with them. See dozens of pattern ideas on LionBrand.com!Made of plastic. Comes with easy-to-follow instructions.
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Mastercard and Visaon our SECURE SERVER
We also accept


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Alexander Steen stole the puck from goaltender Jonathan Quick behind the net and scored shorthanded in overtime to give the Blues a 2-1 win over the Kings. Steen also opened the scoring just over nine minutes into the game for St. Louis. Brian Elliott made 28 saves in the victory. Game Two of the best-of-seven series is tomorrow night.
T.J. Oshie returned the lineup for the Blues last night in their Game One win over Kings. Oshie underwent left ankle surgery on April 16th. The 26-year-old had seven goals and 13 assists in 30 games this season. He took the place of rookie Vladimir Tarasenko in the lineup. Oshie was a minus-one in just over eight minutes of ice time.


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Chopstix Fine Asian Dining
Location & Contact:
Monday: 11am - 9pm
Tuesday: 11am - 9pm
Wednesday: 11am - 9pm
Thursday: 11am - 9:30pm
Friday: 11am - 9:30pm
Saturday: 11am - 9:30pm
Sunday: 11am - 9:pm
Type of Meals Served:
Our one-of-a-kind, family-owned restaurants are proudly serving up great oriental dishes for Tucson. Appetizers include Chicken Lettuce Wraps and the Salt & Pepper Calamari. All of our dinners are prepared from fresh ingredients and every individual dinner is prepared to order.
Not Accepted
Great food! Big portionsReport Comment
January 08, 2013 by Bri
Service was incredibly slow, served appetizers with main dish. My husband and I were both sick within 15 minutes of leaving the place. The only reason we were there was because Mantis ( very good) across the street was closed for the Chinese New Year. Do not waste your money at this placeReport Comment
January 23, 2012 by Ami


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|I like!
I've been testing out some TouchTec gloves sent to me by AT&T and I really really like them. Sure they sent me gloves to try out but I am completely free to have my very own opinion. I like them. A LOT. Why? They're Smart Phone friendly which means you can easily use your smart phone WHILE wearing them. How? TouchTec leather, I don't know the logistics and science behind that name but you can check it our right here if you need to know.
What I do know is I can wear them outside and call my husband on the phone without removing my gloves. This is very cool because I have the odd bad luck of 'losing' my keys after I've locked the door to my house. Simultaneously locking us OUT of the house and keeping us from going anywhere. Handy I know! Now I can call and keep warm(er).
I can also snap photos of kids outdoors having fun in the snow and keep my hands warm and toasty int he process. I COULD even text my now 20 year old son if I needed too. I suppose for a lot of people these would be considered texting gloves. They work wonderfully for that but to me they are a LOT more useful in the calling and photo taking areas of life.
Want to try a pair for yourself?
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Trying out Rafflecopter for giveaways--hope you like it, I do!! Super easy to use just log in with email or Facebook and follow the super easy directions. You can earn up to TWO entries for this giveaway--
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the legal bits--I was given gloves to try out by AT&T--the opinions and thoughts are entirely my own


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I live in a rural area of Indiana where it is very hilly (Yes there are hills in Indiana! The whole southwestern part of the state is very hilly.). There is a group of bicyclists that like to ride the hilly curvy roads in my area, which is understandable because it's very scenic. What I don't understand is how they manage to not get hit by cars all the time. These roads are narrow and winding. The crests of the hills are quite sharp. Visibility is very bad. I'm a slow driver, so I've never come close to hitting anyone, but the average driver would have very little time if any to react if they came over the crest of a steep hill or around a sharp curve and there was someone on a bike right in front of them.
I grew up in a rural part of Michigan and can remember riding a bike when I was a kid. Someone came up with the idea of "bike flags" and my parents got us some. This was back in the 70's. Whatever happened to these? As safety minded as everyone is these days, I can't believe they're not mandatory. I'm thinking about dusting off my old Schwinn touring bike and doing some riding again, but there's no way I would ride a bike in my area without a bike flag! Why doesn't anyone use these anymore? Is it "not cool" or something?


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Veteran Services
Veteran Services Office
Michigan Technological University maintains a full-time Veteran Services Office. The role of the Veteran Services Office is to certify semester enrollment and monitor academic progress, to be reported to the VA. The VA Certifying Official is knowledgeable on each educational chapter offered through the VA and can give general information; however, the certifying official is not an employee of the Department of Veteran Affairs and does not have access to veteran records. Specific information must be obtained by contacting the Department of Veteran Affairs at 1-888-GI-BILL-1 (1-888-442-4551). To inquire about what services are available for veterans at Michigan Tech, please call 906-487-2319, email@example.com, or stop by the Student Service Center, 103 Administration Building.
Academic Advising
Academic advisors at Michigan Tech are an important resource in guiding a student through their academic career. Students should meet with their advisor to ensure they are on the right path towards graduation.
Counseling Services
Michigan Tech maintains a full-time counseling staff that can address the needs of veterans. Coordination and referral to support services off-campus, including a psychiatrist, can also be done through the Counseling Services Office. To inquire about what services are available, call 906-487-2538 or visit their website.
Disabilities Services
Michigan Tech is committed to ensuring that all qualified individuals with disabilities have the opportunity to take part in educational programs and services on an equal basis. The aim is to provide this opportunity in an integrated setting that fosters independence and meets the guidelines of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. For more information contact 906-487-2212 or visit their website.
Financial Aid Assistance
Other sources of financial assistance may also be available. Students may inquire about these opportunities by calling the Financial Aid Office at 906-487-2622 or visit their website.
Military Education/Transfer Credit
Credit may be available for armed service education and training. Military education programs include, but are not limited to:
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Principles of Remedies Law
ISBN13:by Weaver, Russell L.; Shoben, Elaine W.; Kelly, Michael B.
West Academic
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The Texas electricity grid is often looked at as the paradigm for wind energy for an electricity grid. And in many ways, that's absolutely true. Texas achieved another milestone on Thursday night, Continue reading "Texas Electricity Hits New Wind Milestone on Thursday" »
Category Archives: Texas Electricity News
Champion Energy Wins Customer Satisfaction Award for 2015
After falling to Green Mountain Energy last year in the annual J.D. Power & Associates award for customer satisfaction, Champion Energy has regained the top spot in the coveted customer survey. Congratulations Champion Energy Services! This marks Champion Energy's 5th finish Continue reading "Champion Energy Wins Customer Satisfaction Award for 2015" »
Energy Future Holdings to Sell ONCOR
As I've stated for years, the bankruptcy of Energy Future Holdings has been inevitable. It was coming ever since the bottom dropped out of the natural gas market due to innovations in fracking. And finally, it looks like we can finally see how the Texas electricity market might look once the inevitable finally happens and we survey the surviving landscape. Continue reading "Energy Future Holdings to Sell ONCOR" »
Texas Electricity and Technology Upgrades
For years I've been writing about the folly of the PUC in pushing for huge changes in the Texas electricity model out of fear of running out of energy. The combination of the Texas population boom in recent years and the lack of investment in new energy generation plants has led to plenty of fear mongering and poor decision making, specifically the raising of the market cap. There have also been rumblings about overhauling the Texas electric market into a capacity market, which would be about the worst idea in the history of bad ideas.
However, throughout all of this noise, many people (including myself) have been attempting to stress patience and caution with any major changes to the Texas electric marketplace. And more or less, we've been proven correct. The "shortage" of generation has proven to me mostly mythical, with many studies showing that Texas has more than enough energy to meet the market reserve for coming years. There's many reasons for this, but one of the mostly often ignored ones has been the improvements made in technology. We may be be growing as a state, but every year energy conversion technology gets better and better, and as a result people are actually using LESS energy, or using it much more efficiently, than in years past.
A perfect example of advances in technology would be the new Tesla battery that was announced recently. Sure, it's a home battery, but what if we're talking about these batteries on a larger scale? Batteries that efficient could solve much of the problems we have with wind power in Texas…namely that it blows when we don't need it (the winter) and not when we desperately need it (the summer). Batteries this efficient could be a step in long term storage of solar energy to be used when we desperately need it in Texas. Granted, Oncor is slow to move on these developments, but the technology itself proves that we don't need to recklessly change an energy market that WORKS, saves people money, and isn't really in any immediate danger of not being able to keep the lights on for Texans.
Demand Response Programs and 2015
Now that the new year has been rung in, and everyone is getting back to their regular daily lives, it is time to focus back in on Texas electricity in 2015. I previously wrote about Critical Peak (or Demand Response) programs last July. Now that we've rung in 2015, lets take a quick look at the programs. With lots of people shopping for electricity ahead of the summer heat and higher electricity bills, Demand Response programs might be a good way to save money.
In short, a Demand Response program is a plan where when the electricity grid is threatened by potential rolling blackouts (when electricity demand exceeds supply), customers can reduce their only electricity consumption and receive a rebate from their electricity companies. Commercial electricity customers have had the opportunity to do this for years, but only recently has Demand Response become available for residential electricity customers.
Lots of companies offer their Demand Response plans in different ways. Some people offer bill credits, others offer specific demand response plans a customer must order. However, some demand response plans, like Direct Energy, offer their Demand Response programs a little differently. At Direct Energy, customers simply enroll in a Demand Response plan program the same way they'd enroll for something like auto bill-pay. Any plan, and any customer in Oncor and Centerpoint qualify except for pre-pay customers. So if you're already a Direct Energy customer, simply enrolling in their plan and lowering your electricity consumption on days when you get a notice that it is a Peak Event. By doing that, customers will get a 5% bill credit on their next bill. As far as Demand Response programs go, it's the easiest and most seamless one on the market today.
Learn more and enroll below:
Excellent DMN Article Highlights Confusion in Texas Electricity Shopping
In a recent article in the Dallas Morning News, Mitchell Schnurman does an outstanding job of highlighting several of the existing challenges with navigating the Texas electricity market. As someone who has operated a website for electricity in Texas for five years that prioritizes consumer advocacy, I've long been beating the drum that the best way to maximize customer savings is through customer education. Unfortunately, it is shocking just how many people really don't understand how our electricity market works. This is an article that really helps drive home that necessity.
The Texas electricity market can be confusing, and things like minimum usage fees or the differences between fixed and variable plans can be easily overlooked or ignored by customers shopping for different plans available in the market. That is until their bills hit their mailboxes. Schnurman is correct, many of the fees that customers will be tagged with are hidden in paragraphs of legalese and contract fine print and can be difficult to identify if someone isn't well informed on exactly what to look for when comparing electricity plans.
For example, I work in this space. I know that when I'm shopping for an electricity plan, I need to look first at the plan's kWh rate, as well as the length of the contract term (I don't shop for variable plans). Then I need to check the contract cancellation penalty (just in case I decide to leave). Next on the list is the minimum usage charge, both how much that charge is and the electricity thresholds where that charge activates. Next I check the EFLs (electricity facts labels) to see if the electricity company has any other listed items for which they can charge, as well as the plan's Terms of Service. After that, I check out company reviews from previous customers and see if anything stands out, such as poor customer service or a company with lots of complaints for not mailing out bills consistently…anything that might be a red flag. Finally, I would see if there are any benefits, such as sign-up bonuses or rewards programs that might sweeten the deal.
That's a lot of steps for shopping for an electricity plan, and I'm certain that a majority of folks shopping for electricity do not go through as rigorous a research protocol as myself. But they should. It's just like buying a car, the customers that come in the most informed have a better chance of walking away with a much better deal on an automobile. Which is what makes some of the comments by Kenneth Anderson frustrating in the DMN article.
We're almost 15 years into deregulation in Texas, and many people still don't know the difference between the TDPS (companies who are responsible for maintaining the poles and power lines) and REPs (the electricity companies who bill you each month). And while the PUC has a point in talking about not wanting to do anything (such as an apples to apples plan to allow easier electricity comparison) to deter the competition of the market, there are certainly things they can be doing to increasing the knowledge base of Texas shoppers. For example, they could change the rules for how plans are presented, highlighting and forcing companies to put the information that most directly impacts a monthly bill front and center when trying to sell their plans, instead of burying it pages into an EFL or the Terms of Service, specifically Minimum Usage charges and thresholds. Many electricity companies in the past have billed customers based on the historical usage of their addresses, as opposed to their actual usage. Having that information front and center for customers to look up to understand an address's past usage and how it relates to computing a minimum usage charge would be helpful as well.
The point is, that there are a number of ways to make this process easier to understand for customers and better equip them for taking advantage of everything the Texas electricity market offers. And this can all be done without endangering the competition that makes this market greater. In fact, in my opinion, it is the deep pockets of electricity companies and their substantial lobbying budgets that prevent many changes, not the fear of curbing competition between providers. But regardless of the cause, the best solution is for Texas consumers to educate themselves and find the best deals.
Green Mountain Energy Wins 2014 J.D. Power & Associates Award!
Green Mountain Energy has nabbed the top score in the J.D. Power & Associates annual customer satisfaction survey for Texas electricity! Congratulations Green Mountain! This is the first time in 4 years a company has beat out Champion Energy Services for the top spot in the survey.
Additionally, the survey also shows that customer satisfaction for Texas electricity has increased dramatically over last year as well. From the article:
Despite an extremely severe winter and correspondingly high electricity bills, satisfaction with retail electric providers has improved dramatically from 2013, driven in part by improved communications, according to the J.D. Power 2014 Retail Electric Provider Residential Customer Satisfaction Study released today.
Overall satisfaction increased 24 points from a score of 682 to 706 from 2013 to 2014. The survey also highlights the increase in the quality of communication between customers and their electricity companies based upon the customer recall of communication. This is great news, as it illustrates that electricity customers are doing a better job of reaching out to their customers in this digital age.
Green Mountain Energy scored a 762, followed by Champion Energy at 759, Cirro Energy at 736, and StarTex Power at 735. Bounce Energy rounded out the top 5 with a score of 730.
I'll be back later with an article examining some more of the key findings in the survey and what it represents to Texas electricity customers.
Critical Peak Rebate Programs. What Are They?
Critical Peak Rebate programs are likely to become a new hot trend in the world of Texas electricity. So what are critical peak rebate programs, and what do they mean to you? Lets take a look. Continue reading "Critical Peak Rebate Programs. What Are They?" »
Reliant's New Unlimited Electricity Plan: A Closer Look
Recently Reliant Energy announced a new electricity plan for Texans, the Reliant Predictable 12 Plan. As the Houston Chronicle outlined, the plan calls for customers to sign a one-year electricity contract at a flat, monthly rate, regardless of electricity usage. This kind of plan is normal in other industries, specifically cell phone service providers, but it is the first of its kind in the Texas electricity space. I'm no stranger to questioning some of Reliant's past electricity plans, so I figured it was worth the time to take a closer look at this new "unlimited plan."
The Plan
On the surface, the plan is pretty straightforward. Customers will pay a flat fee to Reliant every month to receive unlimited electricity service. So whether they use five or five thousand kWh in a month, their bill will be the same. The appeal (or the demographic Reliant claims to be appealing to) might be older folks on a fixed income, or perhaps younger college graduates who have to make very careful budgeting plans each month. Customers visit Reliant's website, input their address, and select the Reliant Predictable 12 Plan. They will be then be given a monthly estimate, presumably based upon the historical usage of the building in question, and possibly some other factors. Easy enough, right?
The Results
I'll caveat this portion by saying two things: 1) The price given by Reliant when I input my address is very likely just an estimate of my monthly rate 2.) It's impossible for me to know what anyone else's estimates would be without putting in their addresses. That being said, what I can certainly do is analyze that plan with my own address. I live in a two-thousand square foot town-home, fairly new construction, and with a 2 year old A/C unit that is on the lower end of energy efficiency. Here were my results:
Your Predictable 12 amount is $150.00 per month.
|Average Monthly Use
|5000 kWh
|4000 kWh
|3000 kWh
|2000 kWh
|1000 kWh
|500 kWh
|Average Price Per kWh
Now, lets explain what that means. The math is simple, just multiply the kWh by the Average price to get your monthly average. The first thing that should jump off the page is that the 1000 kWh plan is LITERALLY the exact same price per month as the 500 kWh user. Use 500 or 1000 kWh? Who cares, pay Reliant $150. In fact, if you stretch the math onward, you'll see that 4 of the 6 possible rates per usage come out to…exactly $150. The other two come out at $160. So basically, Reliant is going to make sure they are making $150 a month on these customers, whether they're living in a 1 bedroom studio the size of a broom closet or a 5,000 acre compound with a private zoo.
I suppose this should immediately disabuse anyone of the notion that this kind of plan makes sense for a budget conscious retiree or recent college graduate. The .3 rate they quote for someone using 500 kWh is more than three times the cheapest plan available on Power To Choose, and double the most expensive fixed rate plan in the 500 kWh range. In fact, it's more than twice as expensive as all but one of the five Reliant plans listed on Power To Choose. Personally, I don't think it's very budget friendly to charge double or triple rates just so you know exactly what your monthly bill will be, but that's just me.
And it gets worse. Again, I can only compare this bill to my own historic electricity usage but I pulled my bills to make a comparison. Thanks to Reliant's easy math, my yearly bill on their plan would be $1800. But looking at my past 12 bills, I can immediately tell this is a bad proposition. Over the past 12 months, I had exactly one bill that was higher than $150. My bill for last July clocked in at $157. So one bill, in the hottest month of the year, topped the $150 Reliant would look to charge me every month. Of course, I also had 7 bills less than $100, including 5 bills under $60. The total cost of my last 12 months of electricity was $1148.45. That's $651.55, or 36% less expensive than Reliant's Predictable 12 Plan. That seems like a pretty expensive premium to pay just to know exactly what your electricity bill will be each month. Anyone who can afford that probably isn't worried about budgeting their monthly bills in the first place because they are affluent, and the irony is they can still get a better deal simply by doing nothing.
Other Considerations
The price tag alone isn't the only thing to consider. As we've demonstrated above, despite being tagged as a "budget friendly" plan, this isn't a plan that makes sense for anyone who is financially concerned about their budget. On the lower end of the spectrum, the plan is extremely expensive.
There are also a couple energy efficiency points. First off, it appears that Reliant is estimating the monthly rate at least in part on past usage. But what happens if someone were to spend money outfitting their home with new energy efficiency appliances? Any possible energy savings or improvements would be lost on their bill simply because the plan doesn't take into account actual usage. And in this day and age we're making improvements on the energy efficiency of home appliances and electronics by leaps and bounds. But none of that would matter to any customer on this electricity plan.
Another energy efficiency point to consider is responsible conservation. This plan doesn't exactly encourage customers to be on their best behavior. It doesn't really matter if they would leave their electricity on all hours or run their A/C at 65 degrees in the middle of August…because no matter what the bill is going to be the same. So in that regard if someone is looking to raise a dozen penguins in their home year round, well, this is the electricity choice for you! That's hardly a positive considering the state of Texas is facing an uphill battle to build new electricity generation plants even as our population continues to boom. Of course, Reliant likely doesn't care about that since their parent company, NRG, currently owns a huge percentage of Texas's electricity generation and can only make more money from any electricity shortages.
I think it's safe to say that Reliant Energy's Predictable 12 Plan probably isn't the best option for anyone even remotely concerned with their monthly electricity bills. For all but the largest users of electricity, the rates are extremely high. Anyone who can afford $1800 a year on electricity service probably doesn't have to concern themselves much with their monthly utilities budget. However, for a small niche of customers wealthy enough to want to build snowmen in their living room year round this plan might make good sense. But an average customer like myself can save more than $600 a year just by paying for the electricity I actually use.
PUC to Vote on Important "Small Fish" Texas Electricity Exemption Rule
ERCOT is set to vote on an amendment to a rule that is commonly known as the "Small Fish Swim Free" market exemption. As much as that might not sound like a big deal, this vote actually should have huge ramifications for the entire industry of electricity in Texas, from the generators all the way down to the average residential electricity customer. So what is this "Small Fish" rule, and how does it affect day to day market behavior and retail consumers? Let's take a look.
The Small Fish Rule states, in short, that unless an energy generation company represents at least 5% of the total market generation they are deemed by the Public Utility Commission of Texas to "legally" be seen as not having any "market power." As a result of this Small Fish exemption and legally being seen as not having "market power," qualifying generation companies can operate according to a different rules than companies such as NRG or Luminant. Specifically, a "Small Fish" company can choose to do things differently, legally. This in turn can cause a chain reaction in elevating the per-unit cost of electricity to retail electricity companies or other firms purchasing power. If an advantageous situation arises where a Small Fish can affect the outcome of the price of wholesale power, it is possible for them to use their actual (although not legally recognized) market power on a moment's notice. And unbeknownst to all other market participants, raising their offer curves from cost can bump up prices to the price cap of $5000. You can see how the ability to do either could be very powerful if one company had the ability to change the whole-sale electricity prices thousands of dollars at will, depending on the circumstances.
The existing law is dependent on the concept that someone with less than 5% of the total installed capacity indeed has no market power. In other words, nothing they do can affect the whole electricity market in total, particularly in resource adequacy or pricing. Of course, on the face of it, this is a somewhat absurd comment. In today's ERCOT, 5% of the energy generation on the market comes out to just over 4,000 megawatts of capacity. That's a very robust amount of capacity, and significantly more capacity than the difference between Texas being put at risk for rolling blackouts and operating with ample breathing room.
To put things in perspective, lets consider an analogy to a gas station after a hurricane. You can have less than 5% market share of a cities gasoline market and during normal times it's pretty meaningless. But then a hurricane comes in and devastates the city and suddenly demand shoots up, and then you offer your gasoline at $10 a gallon because you know people will pay for it. Most of the time it's meaningless but then sometimes it's critical. The point is, the notion that something as "small" as 5% of a market has "no power" is a roundly incorrect one. Often times, the amounts of megawatts between $100 and the price cap of $5000 is often in the hundreds of megawatts so the ability to influence prices whenever a generator feels it's opportunistic to them is a large advantage in a times where markets are supposed to becoming more fair for everyone. Of course, this is only a problem if it's actually occurring with any kind of frequency. From an article in Platts:
In a presentation about the NPRR to the committee, Patrick de Man, speaking for Raiden Commodities, said that on 17 days from June through early September, such a "small fish" had raised the price on a substantial part of its fleet capacity near the systemwide offer cap, which has been $5,000/MWh since June 1. De Man did not name the "small fish" in question either in his presentation or in his discussion, out of concern that it might be considered in violation of federal antitrust laws. A Platts analysis showed that on nine of the days cited in de Man's presentation, GDF Suez, which has about 3,957 MW of capacity spread across ERCOT's Houston, North and South hubs, priced between 564 and 1,332 MW of electricity between $4,900 and $5,000/MWh. De Man said that locational marginal price spikes correlated strongly with the times that the "small fish" in his presentation raised prices on substantial portions of its capacity near the systemwide offer cap. "How can it be a competitive and efficient market if there's one party who is pushing prices around like this?" de Man asked.
In other words, during the hottest times of the year, one electricity generator listed as a "small fish" was consistently raising their prices near the maximum offering cap allowed, in turn effecting the pricing for everyone when they deemed it was advantageous for them. When speaking with several people who work in trading, they readily admit off the record that this kind of thing happens, that it makes their job nearly impossible to value the price of electricity, and that its most certainly market abuse. Markets need to be fair to create competition and attract capital deployment. When they are in fact not fair, then that said market breaks down. This is what is occurring right now in Texas. In fact, the former Independent Market Monitor, Dan Jones, agrees with the statement about abuse. From the same Platt's article:
Dan Jones, who heads Potomac Economics' independent market monitor operation at ERCOT, said his staff would consider the type of activity described in de Man's presentation "economic withholding." "But per [PUC] rules, it's not market power abuse, because you have to be an entity that has market power, and by the rule, entities that don't have 5% [of total capacity] do not have marketwide market power," Jones said. Jones noted that his State of the Market Report for 2012, issued in June, mentioned that a "large 'small fish'" could be "pivotal."
So let's recap: The traders think it's market abuse, and the former man in charge of making sure there are no abuses believes it would be abuse if it was performed by anyone with 5% of the market. He also went on record saying that a "small fish" could absolutely be, in his own words, "pivotal."
So what is left to debate here, exactly? And none of this above even touches on another strategy that can be used in this situation, physical with-holding. Physical with-holding is a strategy Enron used in California to increase prices by making available units unavailable creating shortages in capacity thus driving up prices, and some traders I have talked with have actually filed complaints with the IMM and the PUCT only to be told that any behavior out of one entity in question is not up for discussion as they have immunity. But we'll look closer at physical with-holding in another article.
There is plenty more we can examine about this situation. For starters, if this is a punishable offense (regardless of the "small fish" rule or not) then why aren't any guilty parties being punished? By implementing this amendment, it removes the possibility of any of these energy generators from effecting prices in the way they have in the past. It makes the point moot. And besides, why shouldn't smaller generators have to play by the same rules as the larger generators? What positive purpose does the exception serve anyway? All in all, it just makes sense to create a level playing for all parties, and thus create even more transparency in the Texas electricity marketplace to make sure everything is operating above board.