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[Escape from New York delayed completion of this post this until after election night. All the better. Now that the great danger has been dodged, let's look to the future. Advisories: 1) I'm talking here aboutpresidentialelections. 2) You really have to see the videos.]
Having made the case against voting for Obama in a previous post, it's only fair for me to suggest the alternative.
I value the right to vote as fundamental. I have seen how people who don't have that right fight for it, and how people who get it for the first time eagerly embrace it, and go to extraordinary lengths to use it. Although I consider electoral politics only one aspect of a thoroughgoing democratic polity and of individual democratic engagement, it would be hard to conceive of a democratic schema, no matter how revolutionary, in which a transparent, trusted voting process was not important. It may be one among many, but a vote is an important political tool/weapon, and a terrible thing to waste.
(I lie. I relapsed once, when a woman friend of mine, clearly desperate for Democratic votes, promised to buy me dinner if I voted for Bill Clinton. Maybe I sold my vote. Or maybe I respondes to the kind of plea Michael Moore made yesterday,1 abandoning all pretense that there might be some actual argument for voting for Obama, and urging his reluctant correspondent to cast that vote simply as a personal favor to Michael himself. At any rate, disappointed as usual from my slip into electoral promiscuity, I realized that, regarding one's vote, whether it's the attractions of my dinner date or the boyish charm of Michael Moore, you shouldn't give it up so easily. Respect Yourself, and all that. So, as often happens in such cases, I'm not counting it.)
I have, though, always made sure to register and vote for some third-party candidate whose politics I could actually support. No matter how few votes that candidate got, I thought it was important that support for alternative – substantively left and at least quasi-socialist – political possibilities be registered and recognized, in a visible and measurable way. This year, given the present contours of the American electoral system, I have reluctantly concluded that, even on these limited terms, voting for an attractive third party is no longer a politically relevant gesture. For countless presidential election cycles, in a kind of American political badminton death-match,2 those who vote third party and those who vote for the Democrat have been volleying the Einstein quip that "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity." Well, though not exactly in the same way, both now have a point, and it's time to play an entirely different game.
It's necessary, first of all, to recognize how thoroughly corrupted, untrustworthy, antithetical to democracy, and generally hopeless for any progressive purposes, our electoral system is.
Liberals and progressives certainly seem to recognize, and complain about, the corrupting effects of money on our elections, but the extent and depth of that corruption have more radical implications than they are wont to admit. Citizens United, which progressives rightly rail about, has brought this into sharp relief, although the problems are prior to, and extend beyond, that decision, and will not be solved by a constitutional amendment directed at annulling it.
Another important decision that liberals never mention was the one Barack Obama made – in direct contradiction to his promise and in contrast to John McCain's keeping of his – to forgo public financing in 2008. This decision by the ostensibly progressive Democrat sanctioned making the presidential race an unlimited private fundraising contest ad infinitum.
And a different decision would have made a difference, creating a bipartisan precedent that would have put severe pressure on subsequent candidates. Obama's decision did the opposite. It effectively eliminated any possibility that a presidential candidate would ever forgo private financing, and took the whole discussion of such an option off the table, rendering it one of those naive leftist plaints to which Serious People need not pay attention. It was a substantive betrayal with significant consequences. You can bet liberals would never cease to criticize McCain, if the decisions had been reversed.
At any rate, as a result of these decisions, and of other laws regarding PACs, Super PACs, 501Cs, and of the inequalities in wealth in our society in general, we now have this year's obscene $2 billon+ auction.3 And an auction it is. There is no straight-faced argument that the billion dollars spent on each candidate does not buy access, influence, and preferential consideration on policies, regulations, and legislation. There is no straight-faced denial that the logic of explicit and implicit commitments made in the private-party, wealthy-donor, fund-raising campaign is entirely different from that of the promises and suggestions made in the public event campaign. There is no straight-faced denial, based on the historical record, about which logic triumphs in the governance.
We now have, it is increasingly obvious, elections by and for the plutocracy, which create governments by and for the plutocracy that make the minimum concessions necessary to prevent complete, militant, and progressively politically-focused public disaffection. The net result is a government of millionaires hired by billionaires. Yes, no matter where s/he starts, if properly vetted by the plutocracy to allow his or her accession to national candidacy, millionaire is where the candidate ends up. The moment s/he is nominated, s/he will probably get a sweetheart book deal, and be a millionaire by the time of the election. Meanwhile, as a result of all that private-party, wealthy-donor hob-nobbing during two campaigns and meeting most of the explicit and implicit expectations gleaned therein, the president knows that, upon retirement, there will be money, lots and lots of money – from speaking fees, more book deals, directorships, etc.
Not that there's anything wrong with a retired president having a comfortable life, which does require some multiple of the median income in our unequal capitalist society. He doesn't have to drive a Chevy. Progressivism, even radicalism, is not asceticism. The matter for concern is the accelerating tendency, tied to the increasingly plutocratic development of the electoral system, for a political career to become a path for dramatically changing one's social, and usually therefore one's political, affinities.
This is true even for liberal Democrats, and it's true especially on the presidential level. It's nice for Bill Clinton that he was able to go from being the son of a struggling single mom to a guy who's worth upwards of $80 million.4 Maybe he "earned" that from…gee, what talent would that be? Or maybe it has more to do with the way he achieved the DLC5 plan of stitching the Democratic Party (and himself) into the agenda of corporate America and finance capital. You decide. And maybe the reason the net worth of Members of Congress increased 25% between 2008 and 2010 and "the economic disparity between Republicans and Democrats has virtually disappeared" has nothing to do with that trajectory of the party.6 And maybe I'm wrong, I'm just guessing here, but I'll bet that, for the same reasons, Obama, like Clinton, will end up a very wealthy man.
So the current presidential election system is not only run by plutocrats, it's become a system for making plutocrats. This did not used to be the case. It's sure not your granddaddy Harry's Oldsmobile; it's Big Daddy Bill's Maserati. Democrat and Republican, from the party to the personal level, through and through, it's a plutocratic system, controlled by and for big money.
The grip of money is not just represented by the plutocratic campaign finance system. That $2 billon gets spent somewhere, and a huge chunk of it goes to television advertising. That means media, from the mega entertainment corporations to the hundreds of local-market television and radio stations to the new internet platforms, have a big financial stake in keeping the electoral contest the way it is. They prefer a horse race in which unlimited amounts of money can be spent on short, scripted spots in a hundred media markets to a campaign that's built from thousands of freewheeling face-to-face local meetings and discussions. They want a campaign that focuses on superficialities – personalities and platitudes – rather than on substantive ideas and policies, one that sticks to the two-party script and avoids raising issues that neither party wants discussed. They certainly do not want any limits on the money the candidates can spend, or the time they can campaign. The Campaign is an entrenched, money-making reality show that the media is very comfortable with, that lasts for 18 months, and that they do not want to cancel.
Meanwhile, in the reality community, one might notice that certain unsustainable contradictions are becoming, well, unsustainable: the entire world capitalist economy – including European social democracy – is imploding and American hegemony is under challenge. These are fundamental problems, and neither Obama nor any other possible Republican or Democratic president has any iota of a smidgen of an idea of undertaking the kind of radical changes that would respond to these crises – which are also opportunities – in a way that would move our national trajectory in a progressive direction. On the contrary, with capitalism reverting to its immiserating, and imperialism to its militarist, core, any major-party president will embrace all that implies. Democrat or Republican, we are going to get more of the same, just nastier: cuts in entitlements, the imposition of a bi-partisan austerity agenda, long-long-term unemployment, expansion of the permanent imperialist "war on terror" across Africa and the Middle East, ubiquitous drone assassinations, unconditional support of Israel (including, quite possibly, an epically criminal attack on Iran). The difference: Maybe the Republican will be "louder" and the Democrat "smarter." Fiddling around the edges. Nobody is even promising anything different. No more "We'll change the way Washington works"; now it's "You can't change Washington from the inside."7
All except the most self-deluded progressives know this. Haven't we already seen that all that will come of holding Obama's "feet to the fire" is warm toes for Barack. Not only Romney and Obama, but both the Republican and the Democratic parties as institutions are fully part of the problem, and from neither will a candidate or a solution that is not pre-approved by the plutocracy ever emerge. As I've said before,8 most progressive citizens know that we have to get off this electoral merry-go-round that is getting us nowhere. So, if you've gone out and voted for Obama, when you see the policies that you end up getting (no "if," you already got them), please consider getting off once and for all before the music starts again. Unless you're content to be ratcheted further right by your fear of the next Big Bad Republican Wolf. (Dole, Bush, McCain, or Romney, it's always the most important election ever, isn't it?) Or, unless you actually think that, in 2016, just in time to save us from the horrible results of 2000-2015, the Dems are going to nominate a more seemingly – let alone, this time I swear, a more really real – "progressive" candidate than 2008 Obama. If so, good luck with that.
Therefore, in American presidential elections to come, aside from withholding our votes from the Democrats, we should all be prepared to vote for a third party, right?
I'm afraid I'm not satisfied with that either.
Progressive pay even less attention, and Democrats positively avoid (John Kerry ran away from these in 2004) other serious questions about fraudulent vote-counting procedures and unreliable electronic voting machines. This, despite the fact that there is significant evidence that the Democrats have had two presidential elections stolen from as a result of these problems.11
The issues surrounding electronic voting machines are particularly important. If you're going to get upset about one guy throwing away 8, or 80, registration forms, realize that that kind of retail fraud pales in comparison to the wholesale changing of thousands of votes that can be invisibly effected by a deliberately hacked, or even just "accidentally" defective, electronic voting systems.
Questions regarding these machines are surrounded by a lot of obfuscation, but it's really quite simple: They are inherently opaque to the user and the election official, and it has been proven time and again that they generate false results and are relatively easy to hack. One recent example: "Tests on an electronic voting machine that recorded shockingly high numbers of extra votes in the 2010 election show that overheating may have caused upwards of 30 percent of the votes in a South Bronx voting precinct to go uncounted."12 Oops. 30% of votes lost! What the hell, it's only the South Bronx.
Do not comfort yourself thinking this is a one-off. There are scores of such incidents. Look through the links below.
According to Black Box Voting, about 90% of votes in all fifty states are now counted electronically. That includes the votes that are cast electronically on DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) touch-screen machines, without a paper audit, and those that are cast using optically-scanned paper ballots. It's important to recognize that it's the counting that counts. To revise Stalin accordingly: It's not the people who vote that count, it's the
Look into the links below for yourself, and, please, take a look at the following 8½-minute excerpt from Hacking Democracy,13 the HBO documentary based on Bev Harris's work at Black Box Voting. In it, you will see an election official from Tallahassee (Leon County), Florida, who had been appointed to oversee the statewide 2000 recount before the Supreme Court stopped it. He was curious about the machines in use, since he had noticed that Volusia County machines had counted backwards to -16,022 votes. As he says: "In the 17 years that I've been an election administrator, my experience is that that kind of subtraction cannot occur accidentally. Someone consciously tried to affect that computer system, and consciously tried to perpetuate a fraud to steal votes." In order to test the Diebold Accuvote machines in question – which a Diebold executive and a senior software engineer had just testified in open hearing could not be hacked through the memory card – he undertook this test:
It's worth noting that the optical scan machine you see in this video is the better system from the point of view of election integrity. With these machines, the original hand-marked paper ballots on which the vote is cast remain available for an audit. Of course, the audit will only be done if the count raises some suspicion, which, as you've seen, it would not. And it can only be done if election officials don't discard the paper ballots, as they sometimes do, illegally. But it is at least possible. With the DRE machines, most of which give no paper receipt, the vote is cast and counted electronically, and there is no voter-verified paper trail against which the electronic results could ever be audited.
The spread of these machines also directly affects what we think we might accomplish with third-party voting. With systems like this in place, third-party votes are not just brave and clear, if futile, markers of political difference. These votes can now become a kind of electronic electoral slush fund, available to be moved around unnoticed. In a close race in a swing state, the public, the press, and the Democrats themselves might notice if a few thousand Democratic votes went missing. But who's going to notice that a thousand or so votes from the Libertarian and Green candidates combined, got shifted to the Republican candidate. The third party share of the vote will go from 3% to 2.5% of the vote, and the Republican will eke out a hard-fought victory.
This has all only been possible since the 2000 election, and the prima facie evidence about this points to Democrats being the overwhelming victims. (Remember, it's virtually impossible to get dispositive evidence, although the testimony of this computer programmer [also discussed in other sources below] regarding Florida 2000 comes damn close.) But anyone who thinks that the Democrats would never do such a thing, or that Republicans are just whining when they notice and complain about such issues, has never met Johnson in Texas or Kennedy in Illinois. When there are 24 instance of electronic voting machines flipping Romney votes into Obama votes in North Carolina, Democrats should not, as this guy does,14 pooh-pooh the problem, based on the election director's assurance that it's "nearly technically impossible" to hack the machines, along with his patriotic insistence that the legitimate questions raised are "irresponsible and unfortunate because they undermine the public's confidence in the electoral process." This attitude, which attempts to shut down important and legitimate questions lest they "undermine the public's confidence" is exactly what caused Gore to surrender in 2000 and Kerry in 2008, and will ensure that we never find out what the hell is going on. The "public's confidence in the electoral process" and in the "nearly" impossible-to-hack electronic voting machines, should be shaken. Unless you also want to pooh-pooh this,15 from Tuesday's election in Pennsylvania,:
Of course, this kind of visible problem is not as insidious as the ones
that remain invisible.
More than a little disheartening, I know. But it's always tough to watch the sausage being made, and this is the mystery meat that's behind the menu of "democratic" platitudes. This is the process we're showing our confidence in when we vote in America today.
It's also important to understand what it means when the Tallahassee voting official says, "Vendors are driving this process of voting technology in the US." It is for-profit vendors who provide their proprietary technology, their testing procedures, and their assurances, which election officials rely on. The Accuvote machine cannot be hacked! We also know what kind of corrupting possibilities such a system involves. Low-paid, harried, election officials and workers in underfunded offices are approached by deep-pocketed companies who want contracts, and who promise to make their work easier. ("You don't even have to count the votes. We'll do it for you, instantly and automatically!") And we know how this contract process works, from the Pentagon on down: the election-machine lobbyists can imply, to low-paid county and state officials who make decisions on voting-machine contracts, that well-paid jobs might be available should they want to change careers at some point in the near future. As can be expected, this creates a web of financial and inertial interests that encourages local election workers to fend off any questions and investigations, and insist that you move right along, there's no problem here, no matter what you don't see that you're entitled to see by common-sense political right, and sometimes even by law.
This is another example of the neo-liberal, privatizing (i.e., capitalist) logic now being instituted everywhere from schools to armed forces: abandoning the principle of adequately funding and staffing public agencies to perform vital public services, in favor of turning public money over to private contractors and their profit margins. Now, it's voting, a core task of democracy, which should be undertaken by public servants in complete transparency, that is being put in the hands of for-profit firms with proprietary technology. It's utterly corrupt and utterly untrustworthy. And it's accelerated by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), passed after the 2000 election – ostensibly to rationalize the voting process, but actually providing incentives for this contract boondoggling.
I am not a technophobe. I build my own computers, and love my smartphone. My son is a software engineer. I also know what kind of complicated code is hidden behind "user friendly" computer interfaces. What's going on there is not accessible to voting citizens and election workers, and should in no circumstance be protected from public scrutiny as "proprietary." That way lies scam.
I also know that, with voting, simpler is usually better. In 2006, I sat I a classroom (that had been used as a polling station) in Ramallah, along with other international observers and representative of every party on the ballot, and watched the vote count for the Palestinian elections. The poll supervisor, a teacher at the school, opened the ballot boxes (which had been observed all day), showed every person in the room each hand-marked ballot, and put them in separate piles, with someone marking the vote count for each party on the blackboard as he went along. If there was an incorrectly or ambiguously marked ballot, everyone saw it, and all the party representatives gave their opinion about how to count it. On some of these, the intent of the voter was obvious; and they were counted accordingly; on others, it was impossible to tell, and they were invalidated. Everyone could see every ballot quite clearly. There was no disagreement. There were over a hundred ballots. It took an hour and a half or so. They weren't doing it for Tom Brokaw. At the end of this process, the result was posted on the door of the classroom for everybody to see. There was no doubt about the outcome. The poignant moment for me was when, in the midst of this process, the woman sitting next to me, representing the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said to me something like: "You must think we are so backward here, counting votes one by one like this. I'm sure you have a more advanced system in America." From the hole I was crawling into in my mind, I replied: "I've sat through two presidential elections in the United States in the past six years, and I still don't know who actually won them. I know, without a doubt, who won here. Please understand, it is I who is learning from you."
The two lessons learned (besides the one about how our government has no lessons about democracy to export – and certainly not by force of arms – to anybody, and, oh yeah, the one about "the only democracy in the Middle East") were: 1) You can have a trustworthy democratic election if you want to, and 2) The simpler the better; the hand-marked paper ballot, hand-counted in the polling station, is the gold standard for a democratic election. Until we have a technology that meets that standard of transparence, leave the video screen for Words with Friends. If the votes are not counted on the spot, in front of observers from the candidates, with the result immediately publicly displayed, it's a good bet there's a scam in progress.
To return to the USA, we won't even go into the fact that elections are administered by a plethora of different state and county bodies, with no consistent criteria, or into the irrationality of the Electoral College, which turns a national election into a few state contests, where some votes count a lot more than others.17 These are persistent constitutional issues that skew the American electoral system even further.
All of this leads me to the conclusion that the only effective tactic for presidential elections within our present electoral system is not voting. I don't, of course, mean privately sitting home and sulking. (I'm not quite going George Carlin. Although he does have a wonderful point about who gets to complain, I prefer his take on the American Dream.) I mean a public, organized boycott that demands the electoral system be reformed in such a way to earn the public's confidence, in a way that gives a consistently reasonable certainty that your vote will count for whom it is cast.
Voting in the present system is like sitting down at a poker table where you have no reasonable certainty that there are 52 cards in the deck, or that they are not marked, and where you do know that the dealer is bought, and is going to count the chips and allocate them to the players behind a screen. Sitting at that table is not a sign of how much you treasure your money/vote, but of how easy it is to get you to waste it. The only thing you achieve, and the only reason the dealer wants you to be. at the table is to give credibility to a process that has none. And the only reason you would sit at the table, knowing all this, is because you want to believe in its credibility, too. As in all confidence games, it's the mark's own belief that gets him taken.
And if the dealer is spending as much money and energy as the plutocracy does to get you to sit at that table, it must be because he really does need that sanction of credibility from you. That is what he is paying for. That, therefore, is the one power you have in the electoral system. And the most effective – indeed, I would contend, the only principled and effective way to use it in the current system is to withhold it.
That's why I think Michael Moore is exactly wrong when he says to his non-voting friend: "Your presence at the polls is what they fear most." No, it is our absence, en masse, from the polls that the ruling plutocracy fears most. They fear their inability to plausibly claim that they rule with the consent of the governed, that the system they build and sustain is recognized as substantially democratic by its own citizenry. Voting for Obama or any other Democrat is not going to give the ruling class the slightest headache, nor, under present restrictive conditions, is voting for a third party. Having the percentage of registered voters drop to 30% or 25%, rather than the 50% or so it is now, and publicly proclaiming why, would give them a migraine – and might also encourage changes in electoral conditions that would make voting for a third-party feasible. It is the only thing I can imagine doing – with one's vote, within electoral politics (mass, militant street action would be even better) – that would make a significant difference.
I'm not now talking, as I was before, about whether, as a progressive, you should withhold your vote until you find an acceptable candidate. I'm talking about a prior, prerequisite decision: whether, as a citizen, to withhold a vote because the general corruption and lack of integrity of the electoral process makes a mockery of casting it.
A boycott for election integrity also has the advantage of being easily understood. If one starts with an honest assessment of how screwed-up the present system is, and promotes a boycott as an act, not of abandoning, but of using the right to vote in another, more powerful way, it could easily appeal beyond right and left, even as it would, I think, tackle questions – such as the elimination of electoral college (by amendment or by a deal among states), strict public financing, opening the process to third parties, fixing a campaign season with media, poll, and announcement limits, establishing absolutely transparent voting and counting procedures under the auspices of public institutions, etc. – that would implicitly move the discourse leftward in a widely attractive way. Of course, it would have to be public, with supporters signing on publicly, and explaining the rationale, personally and in public campaigns. There is such a movement already,18 and I suggest we help it to grow and move in a generally progressive direction during the next four years.
The citizen's vote is the political equivalent of the worker's labor-power, and it should be given only in exchange for a fair deal. Not necessarily maximal, just fair. You can work with dignity and integrity under capitalism, before you demand to take over the means of production, as long as you get a fair wage. But not for a penny a day, and not if you know you might get cheated out of even that. Such insulting nonsense calls for an exercise of the one economic power you have as a worker: a strike. Similarly, a citizen can vote with integrity in any election, even when no candidate is the one s/he really prefers, as long as s/he has a reasonable certainty that his/her vote will be counted for whom it was cast, But without that minimal assurance – well, to wax poetic: There is some shit one should not eat.
Really, WTF are we waiting for? Let's got off the merry-go-round now. Let's use, rather than waste, our right – our power – to vote, in the only way that will make a difference to the plutocracy that now has our electoral quasi-democracy 1000% locked up. Deprive them of the one thing they are spending $2 billion to get from you. Boycott the vote!
Wisdom comes from all around the world, even 80s movies: Sometimes the only winning move is not to play.
Links and notes:
2De Düva,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X2QmLWWxq4. [If you haven't seen it, you must.]
3Open Secrets, http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/index.php?ql3#out.
4Matt Stoller, "Bill Clinton's $80 Million Payday, or Why Politicians Don't Care That Much About Reelection," http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/its-not-about-reelection-bill-clintons-80-million-payday.html
5The Democratic Leadership Council represented the "corporatist" wing of the Democratic Party, formed explicitly to counter the economic populism represented by such Democrats as George McGovern. Bill Clinton was its greatest alumnus. It folded in 2011, since it the Democratic Party had essentially become it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council
6"Net Worth of Lawmakers Up 25 Percent in Two Years, Analysis Demonstrates," http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_51/And-Congress-Rich-Get-Richer-209907-1.html
8"Election Choices: Obama or Not," http://www.thepolemicist.net/2012/10/election-choices-obama-or-not.html
9 "Greg Palast on How the GOP Is Planning to Steal the 2012 Election," http://truth-out.org/news/item/11500-greg-palast-on-how-the-gop-is-planning-to-steal-the-2012-election
10"Virginia GOP Caught Throwing Away Voter Registrations," http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/virginia-gop-caught-throwing-away-voter-registrations/23973/
11Just a few sources:
12"Machine Casts Phantom Votes in the Bronx, Invalidating Real Ones: Report." http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/empire/2012/may/09/reports-find-machine-errors-led-uncounted-votes-2010/
14Steven Rosenfeld, "Republicans Whip Up Fears of Rigged Voting Machines to Delegitimize a Likely Obama Win," http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/republicans-whip-fears-rigged-voting-machines-delegitimize-likely-obama-win
15"Video: Possible voting malfunctions in Pennsylvania," http://www.salon.com/2012/11/06/having_trouble_casting_your_vote_snap_a_photo_and_send_it_in/
16Matt Stoller, "The Fake Election: 10 Arguments The Republicans Aren't Making,"
17Alex Parene, "Let's kill the electoral college so we never have to pay attention to Ohio and Florida again," http://www.salon.com/2012/11/05/lets_kill_the_electoral_college_so_we_never_have_to_pay_attention_to_ohio_and_florida_again/


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BESCOM – Orders and Circulars
Sanction of AO Post to Kolar and Davanagere Circle Office (5-4-2011)
regarding cancellation of Power of Chief Engineers(Elec.) of Zone to transfer Officers within the Zonal Juridisction (2-4-2011)
Additional vehical facility for Subdivision for handling consumer complaints (1-4-2011)
regarding providing in time Medical treatment when non-accidents accurs for field staff(1-4-2011)
Adoptation of cost Centre Approach Model in all 26 O&M divisions and other 20 Accounting Units of BESCOM(28-3-2011)
Regarding Administrative and General expenses (24-3-2011)
Regarding Streetlights of Newly built layouts (23-3-2011)
Regarding Facility of Group Insurance to all employees\Officers of KPTCL and ESCOM's (22-3-2011)
Consumer Interaction meeting Schedule for Apr-2011 and May-2011
Expression of Specific Areas of Interest for training – Reg.(21-3-2011)
Regarding Lights off after 6:30 pm at the Office
signing with Name,Designation and Date (19-3-2011)
Meeting Notice: Staff Meeting to be conducted on 18-3-2011 at 5:00 pm
Re-constitute of Technical Committee for vendor approval (4-3-2011)
regarding Power of Chief Engineers(Elec.) of Zone to transfer Officers within the Zonal Juridisction (3-3-2011)
OM of Renaming post of GM(Corporate Planning) as GM(Corporate Affairs) (21-2-2011)
Regarding Consumer grievience handling (23-2-2011)
Regarding Rules of Using Rented vehicles by Officers (23-2-2011)
Regarding sending Request by employees/Officers to corporate Office only through proper channel(21-2-2011)
Reallocation of Duty and Responsibility (21-2-2011)
Regarding Maintainence of Service Van (21-2-2011)
Directions Regarding Mutual and request Transfer of officers (19-2-2011)
Availability of field Officers at head quarters (17-2-2011)
Directions Regarding Mutual Transfer of employees/Officers 15-2-2011
Regarding Reposting of employees/Officers who are suspended and their Department enquiry is pending (15-2-2011)
OM of Renaming post of GM(Customer Complaints and operations) as GM(operations) (10-2-2011)
Regarding Paper notification of Tenders (09-02-2011)
Workshop on Safety measures (02-02-2011)
Corrigendum: Annual Inventory of T&P articles(31-1-2011)
Regarding Request transfer for officers/employees having old unhealty parents (25-1-2011)
Annual Inventory of T&P articles of Corporate office (21-1-2011)
Changing of Public Information Officer (14-1-2011)
Lecture on heart attack on 21-1-2011 at corporate office (13-1-2011)
Releasing Advance fund to Medical treatment of field staff when non-fatal accident accurs (13-1-2011)
Allocation of Officers/employees due to reorganisation of corporate Office
Lecture/workshop from Diatory management, Bangalore on 13.1.2011
Reallocation of roles and responsibility of all the sections of Corporate office (12-1-2011)
Signing Authority for Power Purchase related issues (6-1-2011)
Signing Authority for Appeal related issues (6-1-2011)
Allocate TA&QC Staff for inspection of materials (6-1-2011)
Following Contract Labour Regulation Act 1970 (5-1-2011)
Relieving of Officers/employees(5-1-2011)
Monitoring of Distribution Transformer Repairs (3-1-2011)
Reallocation of roles and responsibility of all the sections of Corporate office (3-1-2011)
Reorganise of Corporate Office Sections (3-1-2011)
Renaming of Divisions of BMAZ(1-1-2011)
Minor Repairs to Transformers – Regarding Spot Repair (23-12-2010)
Attend to/reply to Consumer Complaint Compulsorily (15-12-2010)
Rules to be followed by Existing Registered Man Power agencies (15-12-2010)
Issue of Location Code to Projects Section, Corporate Office,BESCOM (08-12-2010)
Complaint handling of consumers sent by email
Facility of on Request transfer/posting of BESCOM female employees to take care of below 1 year child (07-12-2010)
Regarding Medical Reimbursement(06-12-2010)
Appointment of Lady Medical Officer for corporate Office (02-12-2010)
Issue of Location Code to Chintamani(C,O&M) (30-11-2010)
Copies of correspondence marked to PS to MD (30-11-2010)
Drawing of 11 kv Dectector from store (27-11-2010)
Placing of Purchase orders for the materials which are not available in Stores(30-10-2010)
Issue of Account Codes(28-10-2010)
Appointment of Junior Medical Officer at Corporate office(13-10-2010)
Pre-check of indents before issue of materials dated 7-9-2010
New connection to tubewell:Pumpsets Cetified by Buro of Energy dated 7-9-2010
Addition of Chintamani Urban and Rural Subdivision areas to Chikkaballapura Division
Maintainence of Consumer Complaints information at HRD section, BESCOM.
Distribution of key Chains: Mukyamathrigala Varshika Ratna Prashasti 2010
Work allocation of ALM, probationary Mazdoors and gangmans
Regarding Payment of Data entry Operators and Attenders dated 24-8-2010
Consultation of Senior Medical Officer at corporate officer, BESCOM
Regarding Capacity (in liters) of Solar water Heaters dated 20-8-2010

subset: commoncrawl


text:
A brief summation and some early morning thoughts on a painful day to be a Gooner
The Game:
We started slowly and continued in that vein. Blackburn parked the bus and scored a lucky goal with their only shot. We created few chances and those we had were squandered.
Luck went against us as it has so often this season, but when effort isn't enough inspiration is called for – in this area we were sorely lacking.
Some Thoughts:
The motivation argument is, in my opinion, complete tosh. Name me one player who wasn't giving 100%.
What was lacking was speed of thought and passing …… Thrust.
Rosicky and Diaby were unable to create and dallied on the ball. Ox was trying too hard and his crossing was abysmal.
Monreal was a worry in an attacking sense. His crossing and shooting was woeful. Early days yet but I already prefer Gibbs.
Coquelin was once again tidy. Whether he can step up to become a regular first team player is doubtful, as is whether he will stay at AFC and accept being a squad member,
Szczesny had one save to make and failed. To parry the ball towards the only B*burn player in the box was unlucky but also poor 'keeping. In my opinion he could have caught the ball – Seaman would have.
When Gerv & Ox switched wings both went from bad to worse. Ox has a future at AFC – he is having second season syndrome but one can see the potential. Gervinho needs to be sold.
Arteta showed why he is no longer a creative midfielder. He hasn't the pace required to blend defence and attack.
Giroud was ineffective. He is not a player who can make his own chances. Faced with a mass of blue he found no space to work and his flicks couldn't find a red-shirt. To continually run hell for leather into the box only to see the cross sail over your head or 5 yards behind/ahead must be enormously frustrating.
Can one blame Wenger? Many will but surely he can expect a star-studded team to beat B'burn, and for his multi-million pound midfield to create just one chance for his centre forward?
AW realised the problem and made 3 changes on 65mins. Has he ever done so previously? Was it an act of desperation or consideration?
This team is so inconsistent, one must look to the manager.
Desperately poor result but we move on.
Written by Big Raddy


text:
Opening statement by IFAD President at the Fifth Global Meeting of the Farmers' Forum
Dear partners and friends,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the fifth global meeting of the Farmers' Forum.
I know that many of you have travelled from afar to be here. On behalf of IFAD and myself, I would like to thank you for making this journey. Your participation in this forum, your experience and advice, are all vital. They contribute to the success of our development partnership and to our shared goal of placing smallholders at the centre of global food security efforts.
2014 is, in many senses, your year. It is the International Year of Family Farming – a year in which the international development community is asked to focus on family and smallholder farms which includes forestry, fisheries, pastoral and aquaculture production. A year dedicated to appreciating how women and men, young and old, work together to keep family farms alive and make rural areas vibrant spaces.
I was gratified to see that the Abu Dhabi Declaration for the International Year of Family Farming reflected a very broad and diverse constituency of the farmers' world. IFAD has always encouraged inclusive and wide-ranging participation – as witnessed by the range of people in the room here today -- and we are glad to see this practice being adopted elsewhere.
In this special year, IFAD will advocate at the national and international levels for support to smallholder farmers and their organisations. In particular, we will make a special effort to press for policy changes that result in improvements in the rural space that benefit smallholders. We will do this not just because this year is an international year, but because this is the core of what we do, this year and every year.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Nine years have now passed since the establishment of the Farmers' Forum. And in this time we have made significant progress. A full 76 per cent of the project partnerships between IFAD and farmers' organizations that were established from 2006 to 2011 are still on-going. Today, there is greater involvement of farmers' organizations as partners in our operations at local and national levels and there is greater support to your own initiatives.
Importantly, we have been able to mobilize additional funds with our partners from the European Commission, the Swiss Development Cooperation and the Agence Française de Développement. These have provided resources for grant funding that help farmers' organisations in Asia and Africa to build their institutional capacity in a wholly independent fashion.
Moreover, partnerships developed through IFAD-funded projects have resulted in greater innovation at the grassroots level. We will continue to be proactive in our efforts to search for and strengthen these partnerships wherever we work.
And we have listened to you.
You called upon us to strengthen our support to women's leadership within Farmers' Organizations, and we have put measures in place to do so. Our Rural Women's Leadership Programme supported by the Government of Norway worked on the capacity-building of rural women leaders in Madagascar, Nepal, the Philippines and Senegal.
You asked for more attention from us on development issues related to small-scale fisheries. We have been supporting your engagement in the recent negotiations of the guidelines on Sustainable Small scale Fisheries at FAO, and you had a special session of the Forum on this sector.
At our last meeting, you also recommended that IFAD strengthen its support to rural youth. Since then, we have appointed youth focal points in each of IFAD's regional divisions, and the number of projects specifically targeting rural youth is increasing. For example, six new grants dedicated to young people are now at the implementation stage in Western and Central Africa.
As I said when we last met, I am personally very committed to creating a world where young women and men choose to build their futures in rural areas. Indeed, rural transformation is at the heart of IFAD's involvement in the post-2015 agenda.
Today, our cities are growing. Healthy cities need healthy rural areas to provide, not only food, but natural resource management, clean water, even carbon sequestration.
But without significant investment in rural infrastructure and economies, there is a real risk that global demand for food will be met by high-input, carbon intensive farms to the detriment of small family farms.
With little opportunity at home, poor rural people will follow a well-trodden path to over-crowded urban areas and abroad, leaving rural areas depopulated.
This is not a future that anyone wants. And it is not inevitable. With the right policies and investments, rural areas can thrive and grow.
Small family farms can be successful businesses that feed the cities, generate employment and stimulate the development of non-farm enterprises.
But a primary condition for them to flourish is having sufficient access to land and water and security of tenure. We are well aware of the challenges many smallholders face in this regard, which is why we pursue our efforts and support yours in promoting the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure.
Rural communities, farms and non-farm businesses alike, also need more investment in basic infrastructure – such as roads, transportation and electricity – and in services, including schools, clinics and financial services.
For small family farms to have a future, we must also change the way that farming is perceived. Farming, irrespective of size or scale, is an economic activity – a business – offering opportunities for income, good nutrition, and employment.
Agriculture must be seen as a dignified profession, a career path – as attractive and rewarding as any other -- providing a reasonable living and a decent lifestyle. Only then will young people choose to stay on the farm.
At IFAD, we recognise that development is not something that is done to people but something that is done by people for themselves.
We appreciate that the millions of small-scale family farmers are by far the biggest on-farm investors in developing countries, and that the conditions must be created for them to benefit from agricultural growth in their countries.
This is why we measure our results not by higher yields alone but by reduced poverty, improved nutrition, cohesive societies and healthy ecosystems.
This is a message I will deliver to IFAD's Governors at this week's Governing Council.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Over the next two days, we at IFAD would like to hear from you. After nearly a decade, what is the next step in our partnership? How could the model of this forum evolve and improve? What do you think needs to change so that IFAD can deliver more and better for smallholder farmers and fishers and their organizations?
As you know, 2014 is a replenishment year for IFAD, when we ask our member states to fund our work. IFAD advocates on your behalf and supports your own advocacy efforts, but in this year we will also need you to advocate to your governments on our behalf.
Today, the world is sitting up and taking notice of something that each of you here in this room has always known – that agriculture is the mainstay of human societies.
This is being recognised in the International Year of Family Farming, and in the African Union's Year of Agriculture and Food Security. And the huge potential of agriculture is increasingly recognised by the investment community.
But with opportunity comes risk. Smallholder farmers, particularly women, risk being excluded or marginalised. Now is the time to establish terms and relationships that are favourable for family farmers, foresters, pastoralists and artisanal fishers, so that they can invest in and grow their own businesses, and so that millions of poor rural people can lift themselves out of poverty.
Working together we can enable others to learn what you already know – investment in agriculture, and smallholders in particular, is not just about food security, it is also about creating jobs. It is about generating wealth; transforming the rural space; creating cohesive societies; and most importantly, it is about empowering rural people and lifting millions of them out of poverty.
I wish you all success in your deliberations during the next two days.
Thank you.


text:
The awesome figure of Otto von Bismarck, the 'Iron Chancellor', dominated Europe in the late 19th century. His legendary political genius and ruthless will engineered Prussia's stunning defeat of the Austrian Empire and, in 1871, led to his most dazzling achievement - the defeat of France and the unification of Germany. In this highly acclaimed biography Edward Crankshaw provides a perceptive look at the career of the First Reich's mighty founder - at his brilliant abilities and severe limitations and at the people who granted him the power to transform the shape and destiny of Europe.
Edward Crankshaw (1909 - 1984) was a British writer, translator, and commentator on Soviet affairs. Born in London, Crankshaw was educated in a non-conformist public school, Bishop's Stortford College in Hertfordshire. He began his career as a journalist at at The Times, a position he only held for a few months. In the 1930s he lived in Vienna, Austria, teaching English and learning German (his competent grasp of German led him to become part of the British Intelligence service during World War II). On his return to England he went back to working for The Times and also began to write reviews - mostly musical - for The Spectator, The Bookman, and other periodicals. Crankshaw wrote around 40 books on Austrian and Russian subjects and after the war began his research in much more depth. Crankshaw's book on Nazi terror, Gestapo (1956), was widely read; in 1963 he began to produce more ambitious literary works, often on historical or monumental moments in Russian Political history.
©1969 Edward Crankshaw (P)2013 Audible Ltd
"Do not be afraid!"
I almost did not buy this after a review for this book that said the author assumes that the reader knows a lot of European history.
Eventually I bought this book and I'm very glad I did. The author only assumes readers (1) know the very basics of Prussia, Junkers, and the formation of German; (2) know the causes of WW1 and the players involved; and (3) know a bit about HItler.
I like the style of this book, because it doesn't focus on every mundane detail of Bismark's life, or spend time analyzing his grandparents like other authors would (I don't care about the grandparents of famous historical figures). Instead, it mostly sticks to explaining and analyzing Bismark's personalty, career and political maneuvers.
Also, unlike many biographers, this author is not afraid to expressly judge his subject or the impact he had on his country. He thinks Bismark was immoral and not quite as far-sighted as most historians seem to think. The author also thinks Bismark actions contributed to leading Germany into WW1 and WW2. In fact, the author probably goes a bit overboard in this direction, but nevertheless this makes for interesting, rather easy, listening.
If you are interested in WW1 and want to get more into 19th century European history, I would suggest this book. Also you should get it if you heard extraordinary claims about Bismark and are interested in learning more about the man.
Listener Since 2014
"Why are there French sentences"
I don't speak french, and would have appreciated a translation when French quotes are used.
"Extremely biased."
This is the first biography of Bismarck that I have read. I found the author to be very biased against Bismarck and that throughout the book that I am not sure I learned anything about the chancellor.
"very biased"
Bismarck was only a villain according to this book. I'm sure I wouldn't like to share a pint w/ the guy, but I expect a more even-handed painting of history.
I doubt Bismarck was as effeminate as he made him sound.
"RD cool H"
Very informative I learnt a lot about this man Bismarck it make me understand more about Europe, up to the present day today about the struggles of Europe fear of Russia
Report Inappropriate Content
If you find this review inappropriate and think it should be removed from our site, let us know. This report will be reviewed by Audible and we will take appropriate action.


text:
Keighley 16 Bank Top Harriers 14
Keighley edged into the second round after their least convincing display in several weeks, although credit should be given to a spirited performance from the visitors.
The hosts started well and scored their first try after only two minutes through winger Alex Young in the left corner.
However, Bank Top – who play in a division below Keighley – replied after 13 minutes when winger Dan Oldfield crossed to level the scores.
They then took the lead for the first time through their other winger, Mike Hustler.
The home side hit back to regain the advantage before the break with a good try from second rower Matthew Mount.
Breaking clear around halfway, he beat the full back on his way to the line, leaving a simple conversion for Jamie Donnelly, which put the home side two points clear at the turnaround.
Ten minutes into the second period, a good break from Donnelly sent Daz McNulty clear to the posts and Donnelly's goal put Keighley eight points clear.
Bank Top were still not finished though and scored a try through prop James Rhodes, which was improved by stand-off Adam Mitchell, as Keighley were left hanging on for the final ten minutes.
The hosts are at home again on Saturday at Crossflatts to table-toppers Halifax Irish in the Pennine League Championship Division (2pm).
Andrew Bennett Memorial Trophy Queens A 22 Keighley A 4 Keighley A travelled to Leeds to play unbeaten Queens A and started well but were unable to break down a well-organised defence.
With man of the match Danny Lunn showing the way, the visitors kept the hosts out until the last ten minutes of the first half.
Then Queens took a 6-0 lead after a good kick through beat the Keighley defence. The away side almost levelled after a break by Chris Gott set up a chance for Chris Spencer to put Ian Spencer through but the chance went begging. Queens made them pay by scoring again to make it 12-0 at half-time.
Keighley pulled a try back after the break, scored by the impressive Chris Spencer after Josh Ireland and Ian Barnes had made the hard yards for him to score in the corner.
Despite the best efforts of all the team, Keighley could not break down the Queens defence again and fell behind to two late tries to go down 22-4.
Keighley A are away to West Leeds on Saturday.
l Cowling were on the end of a big defeat at Queensbury A as they went down 74-10 in the Pennine Supplementary Cup.
The South Craveners turned up with only 14 men but were a credit to themselves and their coach (former Queensbury player Darren Greenwood) as they battled all the way.
The score was only 30-10 to Queensbury playing down the hill but they turned on the style in the second half to walk away with it.
Silsden were unable to raise a side in their Andrew Bennett Memorial Trophy match at Kippax.


text:
Meet the Chef Behind The Best Southern BBQ at Tin Rooster [ADVERTORIAL]
Behind every great meal is a great Chef. At the Turning Stone's Tin Rooster at Exit 33, it's Chef Joseph, who's not only a great Chef, but an even better person.
Chef Joseph's love of cooking came from his grandfather. 'He was a cook in World War II. He gave me that love of cooking and creating food for somebody and seeing the happiness on their face when they ate it.'
You mean something like this…
It's hard to believe this is Chef Joseph's first time cooking BBQ. 'I'm a fine dining chef. I was in New York City for 11 years. I worked in San Juan and actually came here from the St Regis hotel in Aspen, Colorado. This is my first shot at BBQ. They asked and I said 'why not.' Cooking is cooking.'
The staff at Tin Rooster is as good as the food and it's because it's more like a family. 'It's a respect thing. A Hello and goodbye goes a long way.'
Chef Joseph not only cares about his staff's personal life, he care about their ideas and creativity in the kitchen. 'Otherwise they're just robots. I don't want a robot. I want to build somebody who can take my position. Without letting them have some creative freedom, have a voice and an opinion, he's never going to be able to grow. You have to keep growing and strive for more.'
If I didn't already love my job and the people I work with, I'd consider becoming a chef at Tin Rooster where its all about family, teamwork, great food and respect. All the ingredients needed for a great restaurant.
Subscribe to Big Frog 104 on
Tin Rooster serves up fresh, southern BBQ Wednesday through Sunday and has live country music every weekend. See the full Tin Rooster Menu.
NEXT: Customer Reviews
Tin Rooster Serves Up Best Southern Style Food in CNY [ADVERTORIAL]


text:
It's a loss, but people just need to inject some sedatives and calm down.
It's a back to back game. Against the Raptors, I know, but they have been pretty good lately. They have beaten the #1 team in the West too just recently. OKC, on the road.
Just wished that Vogel stuck a little more to what was working. The bench with Danny and CJ Watson in there just kept the game close and even grabbed back the lead.


text:
On Dec 21, 2007 11:48 AM, Andrew Sullivan <ajs(at)crankycanuck(dot)ca> wrote: > On Fri, Dec 21, 2007 at 12:40:05AM -0500, Tom Lane wrote: > > > whether there is a useful policy for it to implement. Andrew Sullivan > > argued upthread that we cannot get anywhere with both keys and encrypted > > function bodies stored in the same database (I hope that's an adequate > > summary of his point). > > It is. I'm not a security expert, but I've been spending some time > listening to some of them lately. The fundamental problem with a system > that stores the keys online in the same repository is not just its potential > for compromise, but its brittle failure mode: once the key is recovered, > you're hosed. And there's no outside check of key validity, which means > attackers have a nicely-contained target to hit. > > > I'm not convinced that he's right, but that has to be the first issue we > > think about. The whole thing is a dead end if there's no way to do > > meaningful encryption --- punting an insoluble problem to the user doesn't > > make it better. > > Well, one thing you could do with the proposal is build a PKCS#11 actor, > that could talk to an HSM. Not everyone needs HSMs, of course, but they do > make online key storage much less risky (because correctly designed ones > make key recovery practically impossible). So the mechanism can be made > effectively secure even for very strong cryptographic uses. ISTM the main issue is how exactly the authenticated user interacts with the actor to give it the information it needs to get the real key. This is significant because we don't want to be boxed into an actor implementation that doesn't allow that interaction. If simply calling out via a function is enough (which, to be perfectly honest, I don't know), then we can implement the actor system and let actor implementations spring to life in contrib, pgfoundry, etc. as the community presents them. merlin
Next: From: Tom Lane Date: 2007-12-21 18:57:44 Subject: Re: function body actors (was: [PERFORM] viewing source code) Previous: From: Andrew Sullivan Date: 2007-12-21 16:48:26 Subject: Re: function body actors (was: viewing source code)
Next: From: Pedro Belmino Date: 2007-12-21 18:09:06 Subject: Postgres.bki Previous: From: Andrew Sullivan Date: 2007-12-21 16:48:26 Subject: Re: function body actors (was: viewing source code)


text:
It only takes a minute to get started. Fill out our simple sign up form and login to the website.
This step is up to you but will greatly raise your chances of having members look at your profile. Write about yourself, your hobbies and upload your nicest photo of yourself.
Use our website's advanced search to spot members who match your desired requirements. Or just browse through listings and spot people that seem interesting.
Discovered someone who appeals to you? Send a note to them or just a wink and see if anything happens. With a little luck you'll be on your way to a once in a lifetime experience.
It'll only take 30 seconds


text:
(CBS/AP) ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Police say a 20-year-old woman from Anne Arundel County faces charges in the death of a motorcyclist after she hit him while texting and driving, according to CBS Baltimore.
PHOTOS: Md. woman accused of texting in fatal crash
Elizabeth Haley Meyers of Severn, Md. was charged Monday with negligent manslaughter by motor vehicle, criminal negligent manslaughter, reckless driving, negligent driving, failure to yield the right of way and text messaging while driving.
Prosecutors say Meyers was trying to drive across Route 3 in Gambrills on March 10. Officials say she drove into the path of 30-year-old Jonathan Wesley Roberts of Aylett, Va. Roberts died at a local hospital.
The Anne Arundel County state's attorney, Anne Colt Leitess, reportedly said she can prove Meyers was texting while driving.
"We have an eyewitness who was walking in the area. He saw her driving with one hand on the wheel and the other hand looking down and texting. We also have cell phone records, which confirm she was texting at the time."
Meyers is being charged just days after Maryland's new distracted-driving law took effect, which makes it illegal to text and talk on a handheld phone while driving, according to distraction.gov, a government website that advocates against distracted driving.
Meyers faces the possibility of up to 10 years in prison and fines if convicted, reports CBS Baltimore.


text:
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text:
Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based Aero Toy Store announced Tuesday the grand opening of a Las Vegas sales center, located at McCarran International Airport. The sales and completions company owns FBOs and sales centers in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., and Montreal, Canada.
The new 19,500-sq-ft facility includes 4,500 sq ft of office space and a 15,000-sq-ft hangar to showcase the company's new and pre-owned aircraft. Aero Toy Store specializes in long-range, widebody aircraft such as Bombardier Challenger 604s and 605s, Global Expresses and Gulfstream IVs and Vs, but the inventory includes small to midsize jets as well.
"Las Vegas is important because of its proximity to the West Coast, areas like Los Angeles and Seattle," said Ben Shirazi, COO of Aero Toy Store. "The location gives us a good foothold in the area."
Aero Toy Store is also the exclusive provider of Pininfarina Edition aircraft. The Italian company provides specialty automobile designs for Ferrari, Maserati and Alfa Romeo.
Shirazi explained that many customers are not satisfied with standard completions work and interior design. Modern customers want the "sexiness" associated with having an automobile or airplane designed by Pinafarina or Versace, he said. A Pininfarina Edition Learjet 60 is on display here at NBAA.
In addition, the company is displaying a Boeing Business Jet, a Bombardier Global Express, a Challenger 601 and 604 and a Cessna Citation VI. All the aircraft are for sale, Shirazi said.


text:
AN epic play about war and its consequences has won a prestigious new award for drama.
Cannibals by Rory Mullarkey is the second play to win the James Tait Black drama prize awarded by Edinburgh University.
The play charts the story of a young farmer's wife forced to flee her home during a war. Its win was announced at an event at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh last night, for which the National Theatre of Scotland produced readings from extracts of all three shortlisted plays.
Loading article content
Cannibals, which is Mullarkey's first full-length play, is set in a remote region of Eastern Europe and is about Lizaveta, who is forced to leave her home when her husband is killed by a soldier fighting in an unnamed war. She then becomes a victim of human trafficking.
George Aza-Selinger, literary manager at the National Theatre of Scotland, said the opening scene was "one of the most heart-rending and truthful depictions of love that I have ever read", adding: "Cannibals is a play of soaring originality, authenticity and ambition."


text:
|2013-10-09, 18:07
|Link #64
Yuuki Aoi
Join Date: Jul 2004
I have a problem. That was the most ridiculous first episode I've watched this season: second-rate writing, second-rate animation, silly and cumbersome premise. But despite all that, I will definitely watch episode two. Entertaining.
Generally lesser-known seiyuus, with one big exception: the loli teacher is played by the great Yajima Akiko, who is 46 and has played Shin in Crayon Shin-chan since 1992. She was also good as Ayumi in Glass Mask (2005), and as Mari in Blue Drop (2007).
EDIT: List from 2channel of anime in which a girl falls from the sky:
Sora no Otoshimono
Onegai Teacher
Ano Natsu de Matteiru
Castle in the Sky
Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls
Sengoku Collection
NouCome (this show)
Last edited by Kaoru Chujo; 2013-10-09 at 18:22.
|2013-10-09, 19:11
|Link #66
Join Date: Mar 2007
That evolution sequence was way longer than I expected.
I did laugh at:
1. 1+1=2
2. E=mc^2
I like the two female classmates introduced so far, and we'll see how the rest of the cast is. It will definitely decide whether the show is enjoyable or not. The premise is completely ridiculous kinda like Nyaruko and Kill la Kill. Which is not a bad thing.
I like the meta choice at the end:
1. Watch
2. Don't Watch
For now I'm a (1).
|2013-10-09, 20:26
|Link #68
User of the "Fast Draw"
I do think that choice sequence at the start lasted way too long. We get it, funny jokes about various choices that could have been made.
The rest was alright. This guy has one tough time having to make really rough choices between two options you normally would refuse on both counts.
This could be a fairly fun series though. Lead gets put in crazy situations, but in this case the girls are also pretty weird in their own right. Maybe not equally as weird as him getting random choices, but a pretty strange group. And we haven't even met all of the Reject 5 yet .
Guess I'll take choice one here .
|2013-10-09, 20:51
|Link #69
Join Date: Jul 2012
Could some moderator move the thread to Current Series, please?
|2013-10-09, 22:09
|Link #70
Spinning round and round~
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Singapore
Age: 25
I have to say that this is by far the most nonsensical first episode I have ever had the privilege of seeing. I was incredibly bemused by the first-half of the episode, but it did manage to be entertaining (if a little too over-the-top). I'll probably watch this to get disconnected from reality.
|2013-10-10, 01:52
|Link #72
worshipping the pantyhose
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Manila, Philippines
Free avatar for anyone:
Thinking of making more :P
Very amusing anime, and choice #1 for me as well Though... I seriously think there's a joke somewhere that the loli teacher acts very much her age but the twintail housewife is very childish
|2013-10-10, 02:37
|Link #73
Robo Rampage
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: Aboa Qu
The consensus that I'm seeing so far is that this was simply much too funny to believe. I think for me the clincher that made this show hilarious was the operatic background music that turns up to ridiculous volumes whenever one of the multiple choice questions appears. It sounded like a choir of the gods paying tribute to the epicness of his decision whether or not he has to ask to touch her boobies or not.
The second thing that just nailed this episode for me was the vividness of the characters body language, and the little personality quirks that tell you so much about the character with just little things. The fact that before he comes into class, the girl is staring anxiously at the door, and the moment he walks in she's all smriks and and put downs. Or the introduction of the other girl, with that little moment where she declares "pose." This show has a good understanding of show don't tell.
So yeah, between this and M~E~G~A~N~E~B~U this season has been a strange victory for shows with seemingly pure shit premises.
|2013-10-10, 09:11
|Link #77
Join Date: May 2007
Location: gs series
Age: 28
meet kanade a high school student with a condition where only he can see & hear from his head that make a choice between 2 options yet per delay his heads hurt.
so he must a pick a choice & do it anyway give from doing shove your face on perv mags, ask someone to touch my body, & go shirtless being real japan man.
give part of school reject 5 include white hair bit very bad liar & female who full items with her mom former idol now news reporter.
yet only person know his side-effect choice option is a small teacher so after day in school being forced get hug by "maid".
then made choice for beautiful girl to fall from sky did happen yet this blonde female came to "save" kanade?
|2013-10-10, 14:59
|Link #80
The Shermain
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: NY
Age: 38
I agree that the choice sequence lasted way too long... By them time the "Get up and walk" choice came, I was like "When the hell is this going to end and get to the actual story?"
Really felt like they were milking things.
|comedy, harem, school
|Thread Tools


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Hi guys, Is there a way I can separate things in PostgreSQL? Putting tables in a disk partition and indexes in another one????? Regards, MaRcELo PeReiRa PHP/SQL/PostgreSQL __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
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On 7/27/06, Eliott <eliott100(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote: > Hi! > > I hope I'm sending my question to the right list, please don't flame if it's > the wrong one. > > I have noticed that while a query runs in about 1.5seconds on a 8.xx version > postgresql server on our 7.4.13 it takes around 15-20 minutes. Since we are > using RHEL4 on our server we are stuck with 7.4.13. The enormous time > difference between the different builds drives me crazy. Can you please help > me identifying the bottleneck or suggest anything to improve the dismal > performance. > The query is the following: > try turning off genetic query optimization. regarding the rhel4 issue...does rhel not come with a c compiler? :) merlin
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University of Wisconsin chancellor search finalist Nicholas Jones, the current dean of the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering, is no stranger to UW or Badger sporting games.
Jones said he gained exposure to UW and its sports secondhand when he worked as the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department Chair at the University of Illinois.
Sports aside, Jones said his work experience at both private and public institutions has taught him great lessons because he can compare and contrast the ways they operate.
He said the biggest challenge facing UW's new leader in the next decade is figuring out how to sustain and grow its academic programs while continuing its educational missions with diminishing revenues.
"I spent quite a bit of time in fundraising, which I see as a good way to support a school's educational mission," Jones said of his experience as the Dean at Johns Hopkins. "I see great potential in working with the University of Wisconsin Foundation… they are a big possibility for Madison."
While the expectations for UW to be a contributor to the state's economy are very reasonable given the investments the university receives, the university is much more than a generator of jobs, according to Jones.
"It has a mission that transcends simply job creation and there are many more things that the institution does," Jones said. "Certainly contributing economic vitality is important and should be a focus but other missions of the university are important as well."
One of these missions is liberal arts education, Jones said.
Jones said he has been a big supporter of liberal arts education while working as a dean of at the Whiting School of Engineering. He said the best engineers are those who have a depth of technological education combined with the breadth of a liberal arts education.
But the liberal arts are important even in addition to the role they play in educating a competent workforce, Jones added.
"I think the liberal arts is a critical core of the university in their own right," he said. "The mission of liberal arts education is critical to our society as a tool to continue to question and improve our understanding of ourselves, and that's exactly the sort of things one should learn coming out of the university."
In order to resonate with the wide range of cultures on campus, Jones said he plans to make the most he can out of existing structures. He also said he wants to collaborate with student government in its various forms and getting to know students as much as possible.
"I will get out constantly to talk with students," Jones said. "I'm not the sort of person who likes to sits in an office all day."
He hopes to engage students in more intimate settings like inviting a group of students for coffee, dinner, or perhaps ultimate frisbee.
Jones described his leadership style as collaborative, asking a lot of questions and listening to a lot of answers for those questions. He described himself as a believer of "teams."
"My job is to trust, empower and support my team and my constituencies because for an institution like UW-Madison, you simply can't manage such a large, complex organization in any way other than taking full advantage of all of the talents that exist there," Jones said. "The notion that you are the boss and you rule from the top is kind of crazy."
Jones came to the Unites States from his native New Zealand to earn his masters and doctoral degrees from the California Institute of Technology in 1981 and 1986.
He said he was fortunate to have studied in the U.S. and called it a "transformative" experience that opened up a new world for him.
"I was able to…look way beyond where I grew up and I learned some great personality lessons from [that experience]," Jones said. "I think the opportunities these days for students to take advantage of everything the world has to offer is tremendous and it's something I strongly supports and endorse."
He said he believes the Wisconsin Idea effectively contributes to the community and the state.
"Madison is an extraordinary place and it has a great future. I'm just glad to be a candidate and hope that I may be a part of that future," he said.
Jones will visit the campus on March 5.


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Annual General Meeting will take place in Glasgow on the 29th October
2011. The opening of the AGM will be opened by guest speaker Michael
Matheson MSP, Minister for Public Health. Where: Touchbase, Glasgow, G41 1EEDate and Time: Saturday 29th October 2011Registration: 9.15am - 9.45amAGM: 9.45am - 12.15pm
There are still a few limited spaces available for anyone wishing to attend. Please download the booking form and return to email@example.com to book your place.
ENABLE Scotland,INSPIRE House,3 Renshaw Place,Eurocentral,N Lanarkshire,ML1 4UF.Tel:
01698 737
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ENABLE Scotland is a partner in the Scottish Consortium for Learning Disability
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N.O. chowhounds hit Miami over Easter. In addition to the traditional stone crabs sitting outside at Monty's in Coconut Grove, and the new tradition of picking up superb stone crabs at Publix's for munching at the flat, the higlight of the trip was Indomania. Thanks to the recommednations on this board, we had a wonderful meal of divine peanut sauces, grilled shrimp, lamb stuffed filo, and spicy braised beef. Next time, we will skip lunch to have enough room for the rijsttafel.
Also high on our list was Sardinia -- probably the best mozzarella and tomato salad I have ever had, especially accompanied by the flat bread with goat cheese and honey. Other highlights include the oxtail stew and roasted lamb.
Lastly, thanks to this board for the Cuban recommendation -- Las Culebrinas (Coconut Grove). While the beautiful building felt like the artic, and the 80s pop station inspired some haunting memories, the tapas are not to be missed. We only had two -- calamari with spanish sausage (but it also had shrimp and scallops) and garbonzo beans with sausage and Spanish ham. The flavor was amazing, and went nicely with the sangria.
Thanks again for the help.


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« Project List - February 13, 2007 | Main | Project List - February 20, 2007 »
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
Sweet! I'm in.
Cool! Be sure to stop by Melissa's and leave a link in the Spartacus post thread. :)
Completely off-topic, and I'm embarrassed to even be asking this but... When did you return to blogging? I thought you hung up the keyboard for good a while back.
Um... I'm not sure. Sometime in January?
I don't really feel "back" though, since mostly it's just one to-do list and maybe one post a week. Most of my writing energy is selfishly going into my own journal and working on my manuscript. It's awkward - either I duplicate what I write offline, or I have to decide where to focus my energy. Plus it's also no longer convenient, physically, to blog - doing so at work feels mildly dangerous, and I rarely go online at home because of dial-up.
So I'm just sorta-kinda back. ;)
Good to see you, though!
It's great to see you sorta-kinda back!
The comments to this entry are closed.


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ASK A QUESTION What is "hacerlo"?
I have a few sentences and I'd like to see if you can tell me what they say: Durante todo el ano nos gusta dar caramelos a los alumnos en el autobus. Necesitamos su permiso para hacerlo. Por favor firme a continuacion si se piede dar a su nino dulces.
Thank you very much.
- Posted Oct 24, 2009
- | Edited by Nick-Cortina Oct 25, 2009
- | 15521 views
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- Capitalized letters. - Nick-Cortina Oct 25, 2009 flag
4 Answers
Throughout the year we like to give candy to the students on the bus. We need your permission to do so. Please sign below if candy can be given to your child.
I'm guessing that at the end, the words "si se piede" should be "si se puede"
And if you are trying to say it in Spanish, you might try:
"A lo largo del año nos gusta dar caramelos a los alumnos en el autobús. Necesitamos su permiso para hacerlo. Favor de firmar a continuación si se puede dar dulces a su niño."
During the year, we like to give candy to the students while in the bus.We need the parents permision to do so. Please let us know if we have your permission to give candy to your child.
Just copy and paste it into the translate box. It appears to be some sort of permission slip. Hacerlo comes from Hacer (to do, or to make). lo is simply a direct object pronoun, these are often attached to the infinitive form of a verb. In this instance it means "it." Para hacerlo means "to do it."
This is the machine translation
throughout the year we like to give candy to children on the bus. We need your permission to do so.
Please sign below if he loses to give your child sweets.....................................The last sentence is pretty bad. Is not understandable.


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An earlier version of this story said Alibaba vendors receive their money in 14 days and $27 million came from U.S. government incentives. TheStreet regrets these errors.
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Investors have done well with Chinese Internet companies such as Baidu (BIDU), Qihoo 360
(QIHU), Sohu.com (SOHU) and a select group of others. However, JD.com may be a different story, once you dig beneath the surface.
JD.com, formerly known as 360buy.com, filed last week to raise $1.5 billion in an initial public offering, the first Chinese company to go public since certain accounting firms were suspended. These include Shanghai-based Pricewaterhouse Coopers Zhong Tian, which was the auditor of JD.com's 2011 and 2012 financial statements included in the company's F-1 filing, similar to an S-1 filing for an American company going public.
The $1.5 billion figure is a placeholder used by underwriters Bank of America and UBS, and may change, subject to demand.
JD.com has big name investors, including Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, with a 5% stake, and Tiger Global Management, with a 22% stake, and is trying to position itself as the Amazon.com (AMZN) of China (Amazon already operates a Chinese unit, Amazon.cn). Nonetheless, aspects of the company's financial statement give cause for concern, especially as other Chinese companies, including Alibaba Group Holding, 24% owned by Yahoo! (YHOO), get ready to go public later this year.
JD.com could not be reached for comment for this story, and an Alibaba spokesman declined to say when or if the company would go public, only that it was still evaluating its options.
Revenue growth at Beijing-based JD.com has been exceptionally strong, with the company surpassing $8 billion in revenue for the first 9 months of 2013, on the back of 35.8 million active customer accounts, similar to Amazon's model. Like Amazon, JD.com also has a third-party business, which generated $3 billion in sales.
However, the similarities to Amazon don't stop there. For the first 9 months of 2013, the company claimed a profit of 60 million Reminibi ($10 million USD), but $36 million came from Internet income, and $27 million in Chinese government incentives. JD.com, which has a strained relationship with vendors, does not pay its third-party sellers for up to 60 days, making money off the float between the time of the sale and actually paying the vendor. Conversely, Alibaba pays its partners within 3-5 days, holding the money only to make sure the buyer is happy, according to sources.
Alibaba, via its Taobao and Tmall units, had $160 billion in gross merchandise value in 2012. On Singles Day in Nov. 2013, Alibaba did more than $5.7 billion in payments volume, setting a new record.
JD.com has been struggling to grow its third-party unit business, which accounts for the bulk of the company's profits, similar to Amazon. Unlike Amazon, however, which essentially has no competition in the United States, JD.com competes with Alibaba's Tmall.
Consumer electronics is an intensely competitive business, with companies such as Amazon, Best Buy (BBY), hhgregg (HGG) and others selling their wares to consumers, all with exceptionally low margins. Approximately 85% of JD.com's sales come from consumer electronics. Consumers have been largely loyal to brands such as Apple (AAPL) or Samsung, so it's difficult to see margins getting better over time. Remember, Circuit City filed bankruptcy just a few short years ago, as the company faced the same issues.
JD.com has noted that it's becoming a consumer goods company, similar to Amazon or Alibaba. However, JD.com appears to be more like Best Buy starting up its BestBuy.com initiative, not a typical Internet e-commerce company. With consumer electronics, there are fewer items, and thus inventory management is much simpler, than say, managing women's sweaters or men's boots. This will severely impact the company's cash haul. JD.com had $1.44 billion in cash and cash equivalents at the end of Sept. 2013 but it also had $1.745 billion in accounts payable at the same time, so the company really has a negative cash situation.
An earlier version of this story said Alibaba vendors receive their money in 14 days and $27 million came from U.S. government incentives. TheStreet regrets these errors.


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Michael Medved: Want money for buses? Kill the train
A Seattle group said it will file a citywide initiative to raise money for bus service following the rejection of a King County measure to prevent bus cuts in exchange for a sales tax hike and an increase to car-tab fees.
Initial returns tallied Tuesday night showed King County Proposition 1 failing 55 percent to 45 percent and that didn't change in Wednesday afternoon results.
"Tomorrow (Thursday) I will transmit legislation to the King County Council to reduce service by 550,000 hours and eliminate 72 bus routes," said King County Executive Dow Constantine.
Friends of Transit said Wednesday that by the end of the week, they will file an initiative that would increase Seattle's property tax by $0.22 per $1,000 of assessed value between 2015 and 2021. The group estimates the tax hike would generate $25 million a year for transit services.
It needs over 20,000 signatures to get the measure on the November ballot.
But radio talk host Michael Medved might have a solution. In an appearance on 770 KTTH's David Boze Show, Medved outlined a solution to the transit funding problem.
"I have a way where they can have so much money for buses. They can have triple the number of buses. They can have buses everywhere. They can serve free lattes on the buses. They can do whatever they want with the buses. They can have buses to heaven. They could do all of it," said Medved. "All they have to do is kill the damn train."
Medved said they should stop the light rail projects in their tracks before any more money is spent.
"The stupidity now is, the big argument for continuing building the trains, like the East Link Light Rail, is that we've spent so much money on it already in planning it, and planning the new stations, and new tracks, and lousing up I-90 – we've spent so much money on it, we can't possibly waste the money we've spent so far. Except, the money that we're supposed to be spending is about 30 times what we've spent so far."
"When you're in a hole, you stop digging," said Medved.
Constantine said he welcomes any efforts to protect service. He said the idea of cities buying bus service is not a new concept. "We already have a number of cities and businesses contracting for service."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.


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As the fallout continues over Miss California Carrie Prejean's racy photos hitting the net, Access Hollywood has learned that the directors of the Miss California pageant will be holding a press conference on Monday.
At press time, it was unclear what would be announced at the conference, but Access has learned Prejean will not be there.
"The press conference will address many issues surrounding Miss California USA," the Miss California Organization said in a release to Access. "Participants in this press conference include: Keith Lewis and Shanna Moakler- — Co-Executive Directors of the Miss California USA Pageant, Chelsea Gilligan — the current Miss California Teen USA [and] Tami Farrell — 1st Runner-Up to Miss California USA 2009."
Additionally, Access has learned Donald Trump, who owns the Miss USA organization, will hold a follow-up press conference on Tuesday.
Racy photos of the beauty queen surfaced on TheDirty.com on Monday, which showed Prejean posing without a shirt, something which may possibly violate her contract.
According to page 15 of her Miss USA contract, obtained by Access Hollywood, she was barred from being "photographed in a state of partial or total nudity."
Prejean's contract with Miss California USA also prohibits nudity, stating on page five, "appearing in public or permitting myself to be photographed in a state of partial or total nudity or in a lewd, compromising or sexually suggestive manner constitutes a violation of this provision (this includes photographs of images that may appear on any Web site, such as MySpace of Facebook)."
As previously reported on AccessHollywood.com, after Prejean's photos surfaced online, her spokesperson told Access that the beauty queen was 17 or under when the pictures were taken.
Prejean's spokesperson also said the photos were shot by a friend or family member to be used in a portfolio. Her spokesperson told Access that Prejean directed the photo session and someone else actually shot them.
In addition, Prejean penned a handwritten note to Access, reiterating her age at the time of the photograph.
"The photo in question was taken was I was a minor, several months before the 2005 pageant," the note, dated May 5, 2009, read. "The photo was not meant for disclosure to the general public."
Prejean told Access she felt targeted because of her stance on traditional marriages, saying, "I am a Christian, and I am a model. Models pose for pictures including lingerie and swimwear photos."
During the question and answer portion of the Miss USA competition, Prejean said she believed that marriage should only exist between a man and woman, which many believed cost her the crown of Miss USA.


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Bartlesville, OK — Junior forward Lucas Corderio of Oklahoma Wesleyan University has been named MCAC Men's Soccer Offensive Player of the Week for the week ending Sept. 8.
Corderio (Sao Paulo, Brazil) scored a pair of goals for the 14th-ranked Eagles in a 3-2 loss at Biola University last week.
Oklahoma Wesleyan is 3-1 this season.
OTHERS NOMINATED: Rob Jackson (Bellevue University).
Another POW honor for OKWU came through Luka Stojanovic.
Freshman goalkeeper Stojanovic was named the MCAC Men's Soccer Defensive Player of the Week.
A native Belgrade, Serbia, Stojanovic picked up the shutout in the No. 14 Oklahoma Wesleyan's 2-0 win over The Master's College last week. He grabbed four saves in the win.
OTHERS NOMINATED: Alan Carr (Bellevue University) and Alejandro Olmos (Waldorf College).
– MCAC Release


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NEASC Recommendations are Shaping Changes at MHS
February 13, 2013 •
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Dear Members of the Manchester High School Community,
As you may be aware, a Special Progress Report was submitted to the New England Association of Schools and Colleges on February 1, 2013. This report was in response to the feedback we received from NEASC upon submitting a Two Year Progress Report in October, 2012. On Wednesday, February 13, I gave a presentation to the Manchester Board of Education which summarizes the Special Progress Report. The Board of Education presentation and the actual written report are available by following the links below.
Following the NEASC visit in 2009, Manchester High School was placed on warning for the standard of School Leadership and Organization (since renamed School Culture and Leadership in the 2011 revision to the standards). The first two recommendations addressed in the Special Progress report connect directly to progress made in these areas at MHS. I am happy to report that there is a noticeable difference in the climate of the school. I believe that faculty, staff, and students enjoy coming to MHS as evidenced by the fact that members of all groups are working together — making suggestions and developing creative solutions that will only continue to improve the climate at the high school.
While I am quite pleased with our work to date, there is a significant amount of work still to do, including 45 of the initial 58 recommendations still classified as "in progress." These recommendations exist in all areas and include work around review and revision of the school mission statement, development and communication of a vision for the future of MHS, revision of existing curriculum to make explicit connections between what is taught and the school-wide academic expectations, promotion of collaboration within and across departments, and implementation of a revised advisory program.
Two key recommendations which drive our work are:
- Provide opportunities for all students to engage in the authentic application of knowledge and skills through problem -solving and higher order thinking activities across the content areas.
- Resolve scheduling issues that will provide more heterogeneous grouping practices for all students and increased opportunities for collaboration within and across departments
These recommendations will be addressed through additional changes, including pilot academies and teams that are planned for the future. As soon as 2013-14, a Medial Careers Academy or an Academy of Art and Design could be an option for students at MHS. These are still in the planning phase but at least one should roll out in the next year. Additionally, we will take a close look at our ninth grade teams and consider adding teaming for some students in grade 10.
Additionally, as we move forward, we need to keep in mind potential revisions to the graduation requirements of the state of Connecticut. There are proposals to increase the credits required to 25 (MHS is currently at 22) with specific areas in which these credits must be attained. This information, including the NEASC recommendations, are driving factors in our School Improvement Plan.
Please feel free to contact me should you have questions.
To see the NEASC Special Progress report, click here
To see the slide show presented to the board of education, click here


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Rocklin Coffee with a Cop on July 9th
The Rocklin Police Department is conducting another of its "Coffee with a Cop" informal gatherings this week.
The get-together is all about getting to know the Rocklin Police Department by talking with one of its police officers. It's asking questions of significance or posing law enforcement-type hypothetical situations. It's bringing up law enforcement issues of concern to you. Or it's about just listening. The dress is casual as is the meeting.
The third Coffee with a Cop with the Rocklin Police Department will be held on Tuesday, July 9th, from 7:00 - 8:00 AM Lonetree Blvd. area of the city at Kona Coffee. The address is 6843 Lonetree Blvd.
Come talk with a department representative. All Rocklin residents and all others are invited to attend and to share conversation.
Rocklin, Roseville Yellow Pages -Automotive | Business | Community | Education | Finance | Health | Home Improvement
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Placer County News Headlines$866 Million Budget for Placer County ApprovedThe Placer County Board of Supervisors has approved the county's final 2017-18 budget of $866.2 million, an increase of 6.2 percent from the previous
Free Dementia Training on Sept. 27 for Families of Loved Ones Roseville, CA- The number of Americans living with Alzheimer's disease is expected to triple - from five million today to more than 16 million by 2050 - unless a cure is found
Step Up for Down Syndrome Walk October 8thSacramento, CA - Join the Down Syndrome Information Alliance as we unite for a common cause and raise funds at the 2017 Step Up For Down Syndrome Walk
Roseville City School District partners with Tommy Apostolos FundRoseville, Calif. - Accidents happen, which is why local nonprofit, Tommy Apostolos Fund, is launching its newest program, "Kids' Care Kits."
Sacramento Metro Chamber Small Business Development Center UpdatesSACRAMENTO, CA - In less than three years after assisting its first client in December 2014, the Sacramento Metro Chamber's Capital Region Small Business Development Center
Recovery Happens Event in Auburn September 23Auburn, CA- This annual event celebrates people recovering from substance use or mental health concerns, highlighting their success stories
New Social Host Ordinance in AuburnAUBURN, Calif. - The Auburn City Council unanimously passed a civil social host ordinance during their city council meeting.
Versatile Hyundai Ioniq: Has EV and Hybrid modeRoseville, CA - Anyone interested in purchasing the all-new 2017 Hyundai Ioniq better be proficient at decision making
Roseville Gas Price Hikes Slow Heading into AutumnRoseville, CA- Coming off recent upticks in prices, Roseville area residents have seen prices remain relatively stable this past week.
WJU Baseball adds experience and leadership to staffROCKLIN, Calif. - William Jessup head baseball coach Jake McKinley is pleased to introduce the new coaching staff for the Warriors, bringing years of experience and leadership
Roseville Club to Host Tennis Sectional ChampionshipRoseville, CA - The United States Tennis Association (USTA) Northern California Adult 55+ Tennis Sectional Championship will be arriving on Sept. 21-24
Our Most Vulnerable Residents: Expanding Medical Care & HousingThe Placer County Board of Supervisors recently approved two new components of the Whole Person Care pilot program: a medical respite unit that will provide interim care for at-risk clients leaving the hospital, along with a new agreement to purchase housing units
NEWS: In Case You Missed It


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Take a little break for the B-Sides. Listen to two new cover songs performed by Iron & Wine. Released yesterday is their rendition of Little Feat's "Trouble," which you can listen to here. And also hear their take on George Michael's "One More Try," which appears on a new singles series from Suicide Squeeze records. Or, listen below.
"Trouble" by Iron & Wine "One More Try" by Iron & Wine
Environmental artist Nicole Dextras posts photos of her incredible mobile garden dress, writing "the basic intent of my art is to challenge the prevalent colonial mindset that assumes that the natural world is either a resource for us to exploit or a recreational playground for our amusement." [Soiled & Seeded]
Wine stains can ruin clothes or tablecloths, but one artist is inspired by these purple stains to create some unique portraits. [Colossal]
This is a priceless reaction from a young kid after taking his first sip of root beer. [Videogum]
This week Conan takes his late night show to Chicago, and in a city known for its blues music, Conan takes it upon himself to sharing this art with first grade children. Take a look at the blues songs they create together, where the kids provide inspiration with what annoys them. [Team Coco]
Joshua Witchger is an online assistant at Sojourners.
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"Links of Awesomeness: June 13, 2012"