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Umair Haque has a post getting a fair amount of attention on "How to Fix Venture Capital." It is in response to Fred Wilson's post about needing a New Path to Liquidity.
I don't mean to be too annoying to our esteemed colleagues in VC, but isn't it just like a VC to worry about the endgame rather than the beginning? I suppose they would say of me that it's just like an entrepreneur to look at the beginning rather than the endgame. Let's look at the two, but I think the beginning is the more important phase than staying the course later and Google provides a perfect example.
The VC liquidity complaint is that you can't take a company public and the M&A game is no great shakes either. Why can't you take a company public? Two reasons. First, the economy has closed the IPO window for the time being. Underwriters like it to be frothy so the stock goes up from wherever they price it. It also helps if the newly public company can make its numbers in a good economy. The window has not really been open very wide for some time, but there were at least some IPO's in recent years (I was fortunate to participate in one such at Callidus). The IPO Window is a temporary problem though, and can't be viewed as symptomatic of the whole industry.
The second problem is that companies have to be a lot larger, a lot more predictable, and a lot more profitable to go public. Figure circa $100M per year, very profitable (or growing like a Google in its heyday), and there needs to be reason to believe the first public year's numbers are almost a mathematical certainty.
For some types of companies, the mathematical certainty thing is extremely hard. You either need a tremendous number of small transactions (the Web 2.0 model) or you need a SaaS model that will average your transactions over a broader window than a quarter. For others, profitability is problematic.
But there is another problem here. That $100M revenue number is a very high bar for a small company. It means they have to run for a lot more years. In the old model, it worked something like this:
– Build a product first year.
– Get to $1M and fine tune the second year.
– Double every year after until you go public or get bought.
Note that to reach $100M, the progression is 1,2,4, 6, 16, 32, 64, 128. Figure on 6 or 7 years of selling after 1 year of building and you have 7 or 8 years. That's too long for an industry (VC) built on 5 to 6 years until liquidity. The extra years can drag the firm's IRR down and make it less attractive versus just buying the old S&P500 index fund for the limiteds.
It gets worse: not every company is a $100M a year business. Umair says the biggest issue is companies selling too soon because they were pushed by VC's to do so. Given my IRR remarks, maybe. Umair lists Myspace, Skype, Last.fm, del.icio.us, and Right Media as examples of companies that sold too soon. I have to bring up Pointcast in counterpoint: a deal that didn't get sold soon enough. They didn't take a News Corp offer for $450 million and were bankrupt 2 years later.
Deal or no deal? What of Umair's examples?
Well, MySpace reported $10M in profit on $550M for fiscal 2007. It was founded in 2003, so it definitely blew past the growth hockey stick I gave above. How did it compare to Google? It was incorporated in 1998 and they raised a little over $1M for their initial capital, and they started selling ads in 2000 and their S1 was filed in 2004. FWIW, Google's progression was $86M in 2001, $347M in 2002, and $961M in 2003. But, the profit went from $11M to $186M to $342M during the same period.
Therein lies the rub: Google was ridiculously profitable from the beginning. MySpace is just getting to Google's earliest profit level as they are 5x larger. That tells us it would take ridiculously more capital to get there with MySpace than a Google. Even today it is unclear for many whether Social Networks have really discovered their business model and hence ultimately what their value might be. All companies are not Googles, and no amount of stumping about resolve to stay the course and not sell out will change that. When you're bleeding capital out every pore and your eyeballs, you sell.
Why was Google so much more successful? The answer to that lies in the beginning, and not in the endgame, for it is clear that Google was extremely successful right from the start. When you're tripling every year and wildly profitable, it's easier to sit back and let it ride, or at least, as Paul Graham puts it, to have the balls to ask for an extremely high valuation. But how do you get into that position to start with?
Let's ask another question: Is Google just a total fluke and not repeatable? One prominent VC said to me, "We've built our business on the idea that we can have a Google in every fund but it seems clear the entire industry gets one Google per decade." He went on to say that many of his colleagues felt the answer was to wait longer before getting involved. If Google was so successful so early, maybe the answer is to conserve cash and wait for small companies to demonstrate traction before investing. Apparently they were almost flirting with the LBO end of the spectrum.
Hence we have a model today where "pro" VC's largely don't invest in a guy and slideshow, or even perhaps a kid and class project as the Google guys had. They want product and some customers. Let the Angels worry about investing before that stage. I've written before about how the decline of VC fund returns tracks pretty closely their decision not to play in seed funding. Is there a cause and effect, or is it all just a function of how the economy is behaving? Returns are still under a lot of pressure, so it behooves us to figure it out.
Something else to think about: Google had significant technology, and hence significant competitive advantage and barriers to entry. After their initial $1M'ish investment, which got the original product together, Google followed up just a year later with John Doerr at Kleiner and Michael Moritz at Sequoia splitting a $25M equity financing for Google. That's quite an early round of investment and it put Google in the driver's seat in terms of pressing home the advantage of their technology as rapidly as possible. Note that this investment came before the company had any revenue whatsoever–they didn't start seeling ads until 2000!
What's changed?
In 1998, when Google got their first $1M, VC's were making twice as many seed investments in software as they do today. See my post for the data. Note that even in 1998, seed investments were half what they had been and Google started out with Ram Shriram's money before they could get to KPCB and Sequoia.
Google raised $25M before they had a dime in revenue at a time when they were the 5th or 6th search engine into the game.
Although Google seemed "me-too" as a late comer to the Search game, in fact they were highly differentiated. It looked different from the start to users, and it had some radical technology innovation behind the scenes.
Entrepreneurs today have to go Angel. I read recently that the average Angel investment is $250K. Certainly the sweet spot is under a million and probably $500K or less. Given that Google spent $1M to get to their same place in the world, what does having half as much capital in a later (more expensive) time do to the startup world? It means you're going to build something much easier than Google. There is even some thought of trying to get results for 1/10 that in the Y Combinator model. What can you build for $25K? What if the market is actually efficient enough to figure out that means it isn't worth as much? DOH! I hate when that happens!
Worse, Angels are often much higher maintenance than professional VC's. This anecdote from Stowe Boyd is not atypical among entrepreneurs I talk to:
"Today I had lunch with a smart, seasoned entrepreneur who told me about a 4-inch deal binder he had been forced to create for angel diligence. As I said to him: Run. Hide. Any angel who wants that much security in an early-stage deal is to be avoided like a banker." Ugh.
Picture how much eye-off-ball time is needed when you're preparing 4-inch binders to raise $256K every 6 months to keep your deal going. Compare and contrast that to raising 18 months of runway in the old model. A good friend who helps entrepreneurs raise money and is herself a former VC said her husand had to call on 60 different investors before he got funded. In the old days 12 or 15 meant you had the wrong idea and should move on. Not hard to guess who got more done that mattered to the business: it was the entrepreneurs in the older time.
With so little capital to build a product, we see endless simple me-too plays. It's not that hard to build a Web 2.0 property. Yay! It's not that hard to rip-off a Web 2.0 property. Boo! Did you see how easily Google copied 37Signals with Huddletalk? Get ready for a big steaming cup of FAIL if you think building trivial products for no money down is going to be a winning model. You're going to pay for it in the noise and confusion when 10 others copy your idea or variations of it in no time flat. Fast Follower strategy is now going to be Fast Pillaging Horde on your Trail. Yikes!
So we get a lot of vitamins, because it costs too much to build painkillers. Software for business, where an ROI is easier to measure than with Twitter, is almost by definition going to cost 2-3x more to build. The IT gatekeepers will simply insist that more of the basics are covered before they'll look at it.
How To Fix Venture Capital?
Umair writes that it's just a matter of conviction. As he says, "rediscovering the purpose to put true, durable, meaningful conviction behind investments." Aw, come on, though. Given Google's numbers, conviction was easy once they got rolling. Profitable and $80M in 2001? Tripling every year and even more wildly profitable? Sure we'll stay in with those results. I'm with Paul Graham in saying that Umair is wrong, although I love his passion.
The real conviction came at the beginning, when Doerr and Maritz put $25M to work before a dime of revenue was visible, and when Sriram gave some kids $1m to build a prototype. Real conviction is building out a big expensive technology vision. That's right, a technology vision. Google's 2001 financials tell an interesting story. In 2001, they spent as follows:
Cost of Revenues (Data Center Ops): 16% of revenue
Research and Development: 19% of revenue
Sales and Marketing: 23% of revenue
General and Administrative: 14% of revenue
When was the last time you saw a company with $86M in revenue spending so much on R&D? For comparison, here are Salesforce.com's numbers when they were doing $94M in revenue, a similar size:
Cost of Revenues: 15% (SaaS can be delivered at a similar cost to Search, it seems)
R&D: 10% (half what Google was spending and more what the world thinks is in line)
Sales & Marketing: 60% (clearly hugely inefficient, hence the whole "Sales 2.0" and Freemium movements)
G&A: 22% (also much less efficient than Google. Perhaps this is a function of SOX.)
What if the problem today is that there is not enough capital available to invest in difficult technology? What if you need to build a product that will cost $2M to get to an interesting level of traction? Worse, what if it costs $5M? What if you need $25M like Google did? You simply can't get there on Angel financing and the VC's aren't there either. So the deals never get started.
Think of it this way: If you had a chance to spend 2x on innovation versus 2x on sales and marketing versus the competition, which one do you think provides the more lasting advantage? Which one is strategy and which one is merely tactics? If you're a VC, which one do you prefer to spend your capital on and does your current investment strategy really reflect that thinking?
This is not an excuse to ignore profitability, BTW. We started out looking at how unprofitable MySpace is compared to Google. Part of finding your product/market fit is profitability. Too much emphasis on growth without regard to profit may be questionable. People are fond of talking about how far Google got before a profit, but it doesn't look that way to me at all compared to MySpace.
To fix VC, start at the beginning. With portfolios, you want some counter-correlation anyway. If everyone follows the same model, you are prone to the same risks. Put seed back on the table. Look for those big ideas that are worth a more expensive seed. Revel in the idea that not many are getting funded that way so perhaps there will be little competition. That lowers your cost to sell dramatically when there is less noise. It also speeds adoption when customers find out you have the only game in town. At the same time, consider Paul Graham's advice. Spread the net with smaller investments to cover more bases until you get the breakout. It seems to me that VC's today are stuck in the unhappy middle ground. If they're all there, their deals are all highly correlated, and they going to regress t the mean. Not a happy place.
Fred, you're right, VC's need to reinvent the game. But consider the beginning as much as the end.
You just might find another Google.
Related Articles
Prototype Invest is a new firm R/W Web is talking about whose mission is to take equity and create the initial prototype for startups. Sounds like others are having a problem finding seed money to build their prototype.
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TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The owners of the Keystone XL pipeline confirm the Republican/Fox 'News' lie about the number of jobs it will produce; Italian cruise ship crash threatens to become an environmental disaster as well; Two offshore oil disasters for Nigeria; PLUS: Despite concerns from the U.S. Coast Guard, it's full speed ahead for drilling in the Arctic ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!
Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at firstname.lastname@example.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.
IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Peak coal: a 'crisis in the making'; 'Congress is effectively controlled by climate change deniers'; Unlocking the secrets behind fracking; Bulgarians protest fracking; Scientists link farm pesticides to mass death of bees; Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' ... PLUS: 'Half a degree': good news for the climate ... and much, MUCH more! ...
- Fox Regular Hoenig: "Greens" "Love Animals But They Hate People" (Media Matters.org)
- Italian Cruise Ship Crash Threatens Environmental Disaster:
- Warnings of ecological timebomb after Italy ship wreck (AFP):
Ortelli said there were 2,380 tons of fuel on the ship, which had just started its cruise when it ran aground. "This is the second worry, after human lives," he said, as crews began putting down anti-spill booms. - What impact will the Costa Concordia disaster have on the environment? (Guardian UK):
The fate of the Costa Concordia cruise liner highlights the wider impact of the cruise industry.Sergio Ortelli, the mayor of the small Tuscan island of Giglio where the cruise ship grounded last Friday, said on Monday that "this is an ecological timebomb".
- TWO Offshore Oil Disasters for Nigeria:
- Chevron oil rig catches fire off Nigeria coast: The company is still investigating the fire, which occurred near its North Apoi oil platform, where two workers are missing (Guardian UK)
- Nigeria on alert as Shell announces worst oil spill in a decade: The oil company says up to 40,000 barrels of crude oil was spilled 75 miles off the coast of the Niger delta (Guardian UK)
- Niger delta oil spills clean-up will take 30 years, says UN (Guardian UK)
- Nigeria's oil disasters are met by silence (Guardian UK)
- Nigeria: The Curse Of Oil (Leadership Magazine):
Important as oil has been to the economy, research has shown that the gains are infinitesimal to the pains it has caused Nigeria. But can Nigeria get out of this oil curse without bleeding? Very unlikely. - Occupy Nigeria Success: Nigerian Government to Restore Some Fuel Subsidies:
- Under Pressure, Nigerian Leader Relents on Gas Price (NY Times):
Nigeria swallowed a hard lesson on Monday that has been inflicted on governments of developing nations the world over for years: try cutting subsidies for gas and the populace will erupt in rage.Faced down by thousands of demonstrators, demands for his removal and a weeklong general strike that paralyzed his fractious country, President Goodluck Jonathan abruptly gave in, partly restoring the fuel subsidy that — more than an Islamic insurgency in the north or a long-running conflict in the south — seemed to crystallize the frustrations of the people and draw them to the streets in outrage.
- Nigeria unions suspend strike after fuel price cut (Reuters)
- Nigerian police shoot protester dead amid fuel demonstrations (Telegraph UK)
- Analysis: Nigeria's Perfect Storm
- Nome, Alaska Finally Receives Fuel Delivery:
- Fuel transfer runs smoothly in iced-in Alaska city (AP):
A Russian tanker that went on an ocean odyssey of 5,000 miles to deliver fuel to the iced-in city of Nome was offloading the gasoline and diesel in what officials say is smooth sailing so far, with one possible problem avoided. - Full Speed Ahead on Dangerous, Hazardous Arctic Oil Drilling:
- Shell's Arctic Drilling Plan Clears Hurdle (NYT Green):
An appeals board of the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday rejected four challenges brought by Alaska Native entities and environmental groups like Earthjustice to block Clean Air Act permits covering airborne emissions from industrial operations. - EPA Board Rejects Appeal on Shell Arctic Permit (ABC News)
- Even Owner of Keystone XL Doesn't Agree With GOP-Fox News Jobs Lies:
- VIDEO: Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline is Not a Jobs Plan, But an Oil Export Plan (NRDC via Think Progress Green)
- Big Oil's Money Trail to Congress Looms Large for Keystone (Climate Central)
- Keystone Inspector Alleges Shoddy Work on Original Pipeline (Canadian Press)
'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...
- What will we do about coal's 'crisis in the making'? (Coal Tattoo):
[It's] a "crisis in the making" in Boone County, where coal is such a big part of the economy, yet good coal seams are playing out and competition from other regions threatens future production levels. - AFL-CIO Head Rich Trumka: 'Congress Is Effectively Controlled By Climate Change Deniers' (Think Progress Green):
Speaking at the 2012 United Nations Investor Summit on Climate Risk & Energy Solutions, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka blasted climate deniers in Congress for threatening the free enterprise system and the future of civilization. Trumka began his speech laying out the stark challenge of global warming: a "stable climate is the foundation of our global civilization," and thus "the prerequisite for a profitable investment environment." - Unlocking the Secrets Behind Hydraulic Fracturing (Texas Tribune):
Starting Feb. 1, drilling operators in Texas will have to report many of the chemicals used in the process known as hydraulic fracturing. Environmentalists and landowners are looking forward to learning what acids, hydroxides and other materials have gone into a given well.But a less-publicized part of the new regulation is what some experts are most interested in: the mandatory disclosure of the amount of water needed to "frack" each well. Experts call this an invaluable tool as they evaluate how fracking affects water supplies in the drought-prone state.
- Bulgarians protest, seek moratorium on shale gas (Reuters):
Thousands of Bulgarians protested throughout the Balkan country on Saturday against exploration for shale gas, worried it would poison underground waters, trigger earthquakes and pose serious public health hazards. - Scientists link mass death of British bees to farm pesticides (The Scotland Herald):
Nicotine-based pesticides in widespread use by farmers are implicated in the mass deaths of bees, according to a new study by US scientists.The authoritative, peer-reviewed research undermines the pesticide industry's long-repeated arguments that bees are not being harmed, and piles pressure on UK and US authorities to follow other countries by introducing bans on the chemicals.
- Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' (Telegraph UK):
Loggers in Brazil captured an eight-year-old girl from one of the Amazon's last uncontacted tribes and burned her alive as part of a campaign to force the indigenous population from its land, reports claimed on Tuesday night. - Anti-Labor Koch Brothers Launch $6 Million Solyndra 'Workers' Attack Ad (Think Progress Green)
- New Readily Available And Inexpensive Material Could Remove Carbon Dioxide From Atmosphere At Unprecedented Rate (Think Progress Green):
Scientists have discovered a potentially groundbreaking new weapon in the fight against excessive atmospheric carbon dioxide. According to Science Daily, a group of scientists including chemistry Nobel Laureate George A. Olah have found that polyethylenimine, a common and inexpensive material, can be used to achieve "some of the highest carbon dioxide removal rates ever reported for humid air, under conditions that stymie other related materials." - How to tackle the climate, health and food crises, all at the same time (Guardian UK):
Reducing the soot pumped out by cars and cooking fires and the methane from coal mines and oil wells would rapidly curb global warming, prevent air pollution deaths and boost crop yieldsFrom coal mines to rice paddies and cooking fires to diesel exhausts, 14 highly cost-effective measures could quickly curb global warming and save millions of lives, while also boosting global food production. That is the striking conclusion of a new study published in Science and the most authoritative look yet at the opportunities offered in tackling methane and black carbon - soot - pollution.
The headline findings are striking.
- MORE: To Slow Climate Change, Cut Down On Soot, Ozone (NPR)
- Helping Teachers Stand Up for Science (NYT Green):
The National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit group in Oakland, Calif., monitors legislation and local school board actions that are potentially threatening to the teaching of evolution. It also acts as a resource and adviser for science teachers who encounter problems with students, parents or supervisors on the issue. Climate change educators had no similarly devoted resource — until now.On Monday, the center announced that it was putting climate change under its umbrella as well.
- American Petroleum Institute's Scientific Director Questions 'Any Effect At All' From Greenhouse Pollution (Think Progress Green)
- Cow manure to power new King County plant (MyNorthwest.com):
One of the biggest problems facing dairies trying to stay alive in rural King County is what to do with all the cow manure. But this week, construction began on a new plant in Enumclaw that will convert manure into electricity, cutting environmental costs and helping reduce emissions.
- VIDEO ANIMATION: Time history of atmospheric CO2 (NOAA Carbon Tracker YouTube channel):
- Skeptical Science: Get the FULL DEBUNKING of All Climate Science Denier Arguments
- Part 1: The brutal logic of climate change (David Roberts, Grist) [emphasis added]:
It's simple: If there is to be any hope of avoiding civilization-threatening climate disruption, the U.S. and other nations must act immediately and aggressively on an unprecedented scale. That means moving to emergency footing. War footing. "Hitler is on the march and our survival is at stake" footing. That simply won't be possible unless a critical mass of people are on board. It's not the kind of thing you can sneak in incrementally.It is unpleasant to talk like this. People don't want to hear it.
- Part 2: The brutal logic of climate change mitigation (David Roberts, Grist)
- World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns: If fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world will 'lose for ever' the chance to avoid dangerous climate change (Guardian UK) [emphasis added]:
The world is likely to build so many fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be "lost for ever", according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.
"The door is closing," Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said. "I am very worried - if we don't change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever."- Concise Overview: The IPCC report on extreme climate and weather events (Real Climate)
- READ the IPCC Report: Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
- The Real Global Warming Signal (Tamino)
- No, global warming hasn't stopped (New Scientist)
- Top UN Climate Official Blasts U.S. Climate Policy: Americans Must Realize "This Is Their Future They're Compromising" (Think Progress Green)
- VIDEO: Climate Scientists Michael Mann on "A Look Into Our Climate: Past To Present To Future" (TEDx, YouTube)
- Heads in the Sand: Warning: "Climate change is occurring … and poses significant risks to humans and the environment," reports the National Academy of Sciences. As climate-change science moves in one direction, Republicans in Congress are moving in another. Why?
(National Journal) [emphasis added]:Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, says there's no question that the influence of his group and others like it has been instrumental in the rise of Republican candidates who question or deny climate science. "If you look at where the situation was three years ago and where it is today, there's been a dramatic turnaround. Most of these candidates have figured out that the science has become political," he said.
Groups like Americans for Prosperity have done it."

subset: commoncrawl


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Laws, Regulations and Annotations
Business Taxes Law Guide – Revision 2024
Integrated Waste Management Fee Annotations
The annual Integrated Waste Management Fee imposed by Public Resource Code section 46801 is not due for any portion of calendar year 1993 because the statutory language imposing the fee and providing for its collection were repealed before the annual fee for that year was due. Landfill operators who charged their customers an amount which covered the annual fee for 1993 are not required by the statute to remit such amounts to the Board or to return such amounts to their customers. 12/22/93.
The federal government, its agencies, and instrumentalities are liable for the quarterly solid waste fee imposed by Public Resources Code section 48000, but not for the annual solid waste fee imposed by Public Resources Code section 46801 (now repealed). Effective October 6, 1992, the federal government is liable for the payment of penalties imposed by Revenue and Taxation Code sections 45153 and 45306. 10/07/94.
The removal or "mining" of fly ash several months after disposal at a disposal facility, to be distributed as a soil enhancement, does not exempt the fly ash from the fee. 3/05/98. (M99–1).
Intermediate Cover Placed in Landfills
The fee does not apply to material used as landfill cover in order to comply with the Integrated Waste Management Board's regulations, and such material should not be included in the weight upon which the fee is based. Special types of cover materials are not subject to the fee if their use is approved by the Waste Board. However, new waste used as cover by a landfill operating pursuant to the performance standards set forth in section 17683 of the Waste Board's regulations is subject to the fee. 08/25/89.
Where sewer sludge, which contains a significant amount of liquids when it arrives at a landfill, is spread and dried at the landfill before it is placed on the disposal face, the fee should be calculated based on the dry weight of the sludge that is ultimately placed on the disposal face after the spreading and drying process has occurred. 02/19/93.
The fee does not apply to asphalt which is utilized by a landfill to construct wet weather pads so that the landfill can remain open during the rainy season. 06/05/92.


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MECCA: The 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation suspended Syria in a meeting attended by its staunch ally Iran, in a move hailed early Thursday by the United States as one that sends "a strong message" to Damascus.
A statement issued at the end of an OIC summit in the Saudi holy city of Mecca said participants had agreed on "the need to end immediately the acts of violence in Syria and to suspend that country from the OIC."
The final statement said there had been "deep concern at the massacres and inhuman acts suffered by the Syrian people."
OIC chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told a news conference the decision sent "a strong message from the Muslim world to the Syrian regime."
"This world can no longer accept a regime that massacres its people using planes, tanks and heavy artillery," he added.
It was "also a message to the international community stating that the Muslim world backs a peaceful solution (in Syria), wants an end to the bloodshed and refuses to let the problem degenerate into a religious conflict and spill over" into the wider region, Ihsanoglu said.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that "today's action underscores the Assad regime's increasing international isolation and the widespread support for the Syrian people and their struggle for a democratic state that represents their aspirations and respects their human rights,"
The OIC "sent a strong message to the Assad regime by suspending Syria's membership in the OIC," Nuland said from Washington.
"The United States commends the OIC for its action and commitment to a peaceful resolution in Syria."
The emergency summit of the world's largest Islamic bloc opened late Tuesday with the suspension proposal put forward by a preparatory meeting of foreign ministers, a symbolic attempt to pile pressure on Damascus over its deadly crackdown on a 17-month uprising.
The move by the OIC, which represents 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, is aimed at further isolating Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's embattled regime, but its effect is seen as being largely symbolic.
Syria was suspended from the Arab League last year over its clampdown on the uprising that Assad characterised as a plot by Western and rival powers to overthrow his regime.
The meeting called for the "immediate implementation of the transitional peace plan and the development of a peaceful mechanism that would allow building a new Syrian state based on pluralism, democratic and civilian system."
It also urged the UN Security Council to "assume fully its responsibility by stopping the ongoing violence and bloodshed in Syria and finding a peaceful and lasting solution to the Syrian crisis."
The participants also stressed "the principal responsibility of the Syrian government for the continuation of violence and bloodshed."
Algeria, Pakistan and Kazakhstan had called for the final statement of the summit, to which Damascus was not invited, to also pin blame on the armed opposition for the bloodshed in Syria, accor to informed sources at the summit.
And Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi proposed the formation of a committee grouping his country with key players Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to try to find a settlement to the Syrian conflict, a delegate had said.
Saudi King Abdullah presided over the meeting, attended by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whose country has openly criticised the push to suspend Syria.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Monday criticised the move to suspend Syria's membership of the OIC, saying it would not resolve the conflict and was not in line with the group's charter.
However, a source close to the participants told AFP that the Islamic Republic which had repeatedly voiced support to its Damascus ally met the decision with a "soft reaction."
Iran's president had avoided mention of the Syrian conflict in a 55-minute speech on Tuesday night as did Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in his opening speech, indicating an accommodation between the region's superpowers who appeared on television footage to be chatting warmly during their meeting.
Tensions had been simmering for months between Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia and Shiite-dominated Iran as Syria has emerged as another arena for the longtime rivalry between the two regional heavyweights.
"There has been a clear change in the Iranian position towards Syria," according to a diplomat at the Mecca summit.
In another conciliatory move, King Abdullah, whose country hosts the OIC headquarters in its Red Sea city of Jeddah, proposed Tuesday setting up a centre in Riyadh for dialogue between Muslim confessions.
Iran is the Syrian regime's biggest regional ally and has pledged its full support for Assad.
In a second statement called the "Mecca Pact," the participants proclaimed their support for "Muslim people who are oppressed like the Syrian people."
It underlined the summit's support for "the oppressed Muslim peoples... who face the combat aircraft and heavy guns of the regular armies as is the case of the Syrian people."
The statement backed cooperation between Muslim states, the fight against divisions between Muslims, promotion of "moderate" Islam and the "fight against terrorism and the thinking behind it."
It described as a "crime against humanity" the Myanmar government's handling of minority Muslims and reiterated support for the Palestinians.
The OIC has just shown how irrelevant it is
This is not sectarian issue. World reach at Mars being Muslims. Please stop deivding Muslims NOW.
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From A Recent Pilgrim
by Steve Ray on June 24, 2011
"First and foremost thank you again for a most amazing experience. This was not just a pilgrimage or vacation it was an entire experience and we thoroughly enjoyed it. You and Janet are very special people.
"But I am writing now to share an amazing experience that occurred due to the trip. We had many friends and relatives watching our daily travels as we journeyed with you. One of our good friends told us recently that they as a couple walked away from the church during the scandal that rocked the church.
"But following our trip and seeing the wonderful Footsteps of God they have rejoined the church. Thank you for them. God has truly given you a gift and it is awesome that you share it so faithfully.
God Bless you and Janet!!"


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Stuart Sandler launched the Font Diner foundry in 1996 and has become a major resource for retro design software products. He has created more than 400 original typefaces for the graphic design industry and established a reputation as the premier retro display typography designer inspired by 1950s popular culture.
Sandler added a second division called Mister Retro to the Font Diner umbrella in 2004 that features Machine Wash Image Filters™ and Snappy Hour™ vector images.
In 2006, he expanded his corporation again through a joint venture as publisher of high quality display typefaces at Font Bros before beginning his work in the revival of photolettered cold-type with his acquisition of the Filmotype Library in 2006 with over a dozen digital revivals to date.
In March of 2010, Sandler acquired the exclusive rights to revive and chronicle the history of the famous Lettering, Inc typeface library created by many giants from the golden age of lettering.


text:
Are you looking for a new and exciting challenge?
Do you have experience in sales/customer service with luxury/elite brands,products/services?
Are you looking for a rewarding carer with great ways to move up the ladder?
Then look no further.......I would like to present to you this fantastic opportunity Very Happy
Our company is seeking experienced sales ladies/sales men that have an EXCELLENT customer service background. The indviudal must be HIGHLY motivated and know how to deal with VIP customers to ensure maximum sales for the comapny. Must be confident and well presented.
Opportunites to work with Designer Watches, Perfumes, Exclusive Designer Jewellery, Handbags, Fashion, Make-up & Beauty.
Must have a proven track record with meeting TARGETS & DEADLINES.
English is a MUST and Arabic is highly recommended.
If you are interested in this position, Please kindly email your CV (together with a photograph) to : firstname.lastname@example.com
Locations: Duabi, Abu Dhabi, RAK, Shajrah, Al-Ain
Status: Urgent
Job Category: Sales
Number Of Positions: 15
Contact Details: email@example.com
Other Positions Available:
Receptionist (3)
Team Promoter (4)
Sales Representative
Boutique Supervisor
N.B We are NOT a Rcruitment Agency
Sales Ladies/Men Required Urgently in DUBAI
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Fri Sep 22, 2006 11:20 am


text:
EN6111 Outlet Metered Outlet Switched PDUs 32A 3ph with 12xC13 and 12xC19 outlets. The EN6000 PDU provides a comprehensive management solution with individual outlet power and energy metering at the phase, circuit breaker and outlet level with environmental and access monitoring, to the standard features of the EN2000 series PDU. The EN6000 PDU also features real-time metering and network monitoring of the connected loads to help with capacity planning, load balancing and energy usage optimisation.
The EN6000 features outlet metered and outlet level switching, to allow for sequential outlet power-up to protect against inrush current overloads and allow datacentre managers to specify and define load hardware boot-up order and timing. The remote ON/Off outlet control allows authorised users to power-cycle hardware and control rack-level power access by turning off unused outlets.
The PDU incorporates billing-grade watt-hour metering to provide data on accurate energy usage for billing and PUE level 3 and efficiency calculations. The monitoring is real time for every input power phase and each circuit breaker within the rack PDU itself and advance alarm notification to warn of potential power issues and provide the opportunity to balance loads between phase and circuit breakers to improve reliability and power efficiency.
Enlogic PDUs have a low-profile design and ultra low-profile circuit breakers for space-saving within the rack enclosure. Up to 6 external sensor problems can be attached to each PDU for remote and alarm monitoring. Enterprise-grade network connectivity allows for effective management via HTTP, HTTPS, SNMP or Telnet integration with LDAP/S and Active Directory allows easy integration into your existing directory service. Other features include colour coded outlets and circuit breakers, standard locking IEC outlets and cords, high visibility oLED display and a hot-swappable network management module.
See our range of PDU accessories for additional sensors (access/security, humidity/temperature, smoke and water/fluid), beacons, communications cables, plug-in interfaces and locking power cords.
PDU Level
- PDU Metered: yes.
- Energy Meter (kWh): yes.
- PDU Level Billing Grade Metering: yes.
Outlet Level
- Outlet Metered: yes.
- Outlet level Billing Grade Metering: yes.
- Outlet Level Switching: yes.
External Sensor Compatibility
- Maximum Number of Sensors: 6.
- Temperature Sensor Compatible: yes.
- Temp + Humidity Sensor Compatible: yes.
- 3T + 1H Sensor Compatible: yes.
- Dry Contact Sensor Compatible: yes.
- Fluid Leak Sensor Compatible: yes.
Network Intelligence Module
- Field Replaceable Network Intelligence Module: yes.
- Hot Swappable: yes.
Design Features
- Coluor Coded Outlets: yes.
- Locking IEC Outlets: yes.
- Rewireable Input Cord: no.
- Toolless Mounting Systems: yes.
- Daisy Chain Capable: yes.
- Circuit Breaker Status Monitoring: yes.
Environmental Characteristics
- Temperature Range: -5 to 60C.
- Humidity Range: 5-95% RH, non-condensing.
- Maximum Elevation: 0-3000m.
- Storage Temperature: -25 to 65C.
- Storage Humidity: 5-95% RH non-condensing.
- Storage Maximum Elevation: 0-15000m.


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President Trump, Congressional leaders react to release of redacted Mueller report
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report is out and reaction is split over his findings.
For nearly two years, there's been constant speculation about what would be in the report.
Several Democrats say the investigation remains far from over as President Trump celebrated the report's release.
In it, investigators determined Russia did interfere in the 2016 election, but without help of the Trump campaign.
"This should never happen to another president again. This hoax," the president said of the investigation.
Attorney General William Barr released the report late Thursday morning.
"The evidence developed by the special counsel is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense," Barr said.
The Democratic Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jerry Nadler said he doesn't believe Barr.
"Barr's words and actions have been disingenuous and misleading," Nadler said.
In a statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote, "We believe the only way to begin restoring public trust in the handling of the special counsel's investigation is for Special Counsel Mueller himself to provide public testimony."
Large sections of the 448 page report were redacted for legal, privacy and national security reasons.
Barr said Pelosi, Nalder and other congressional leaders will get to see a more complete version of the report under tight security.
"Together with my upcoming testimony before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, will satisfy any need Congress has for information," Barr said.
Robert Mueller is also likely to testify before Congress within the next few weeks, but it's not clear if he would testify in the House or Senate first.
Lawmakers say they want to go through the report first before moving forward.


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More Iranians are turning to Salafism out of disenchantment with the Islamic Republic's Shiite creeds, creating a clear threat to the regime's rule.
Iran consistently accuses the United States and its allies in the Middle East of provoking tension between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Among these accusations is the notion that the West funds Persian-language satellite television networks whose sole goal is to ignite sectarian conflict. Tehran's paranoid claims aside, many Persian broadcasters inside and outside the Islamic Republic are in fact engaged in a satellite war, and their various propaganda salvos point to a new phenomenon in Iran: the rise of Persian Salafism. The fact that a unique, puritanical interpretation of Sunni Islam is taking root in Shiite-ruled Iran has raised worries among the regime's elite and the traditional Shiite establishment.
Since the early twentieth century, Salafism has been spreading throughout Muslim communities from Europe to Indonesia. Yet few expected it to gain much traction in Iran given the innate antagonism between Sunni and Shia Islam. Traces of it entered the country before the 1979 revolution, but the sect did not gain popularity until fairly recently, after more than three decades of Shiite governance and regime propaganda. Today, it commands numerous active followers in Sunni areas such as Kurdistan and Baluchistan and in large, predominantly Shiite cities such as Tehran and Isfahan.
The Iranian regime views religious pluralism in general as a security threat, but the rise of Salafism -- a sect that regards the state's official religion as heresy -- presents more serious problems. For example, the Bahai faith is also viewed as a threat to Iranian Shiism, but its structure makes it more containable than Salafism. Bahai adherents in Iran are well organized, highly centralized, and apolitical, making them easier to track and less of a direct threat. Yet Salafis are scattered throughout the country and represented by multiple organizations with theological and ideological variations. More important, they are becoming politically active in some Sunni areas, at least in terms of publicly criticizing the government, questioning its religious legitimacy, and accusing it of discrimination against Sunnis.
Since the 1950s, Salafi thought -- in its general sense, which includes Muslim Brotherhood ideology -- has entered Iran from the east and west. Following World War II, Sayyid Gholam Reza Saeedi (1895-1990), an Iranian religious author and translator, traveled to India and acquired extensive knowledge about the international Muslim community and elite. When he returned home, he began to translate works by Abul Ala Maududi -- the main ideologue of Pakistani group Jamaat al-Islamiyah and a prominent Salafi -- as well as other Muslim thinkers (e.g., Muhammad Iqbal). A prolific author, Saeedi played a significant role in introducing Persian readers to Indian Muslim concerns and the challenges of founding a new country, Pakistan. His works opened a new window to Iran's religious world, influencing younger readers who were seeking new ideas on Islam in order to ease their frustration with the religious establishment and confront ideological threats (especially the communist wave that was taking over Iran's intellectual environment at the time).
Meanwhile, other prerevolutionary Iranian thinkers introduced the country to the Salafist ideas of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. In the late 1940s, cleric Navab Safavi formed Fadayan-e Islam, the first Iranian Islamist group to establish relations with the Brotherhood and produce Persian translations of its writings, including the works of theoretician Sayyed Qutb. Another prominent cleric, Sayyid Hadi Khosrow Shahi (b. 1938), translated writings from Algerian, Tunisian, and Palestinian Islamists in addition to Brotherhood works. These and other translators were essentially political activists who sought to raise their countrymen's awareness of Muslim issues outside Iran. For example, the Islamist works they reproduced eventually created a new political question in Iran: the Palestine question.
While these translations were mostly received as ideological efforts to mobilize Iranians against Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi's regime and Western imperialism, Salafi thought also spurred some religious thinkers to fight "superstitions" in Shiism. Haidar Ali Qalamdaran (1913-1989) was heavily influenced by such writings and sought to purify Shiism of various prayers, rituals (e.g., pilgrimages to the shrines of the Shiite Imams of old and their descendants), and beliefs (e.g., the notion that the Shiite Imams had supernatural power and knowledge). He escaped an assassination attempt ostensibly motivated by traditional clerics in Qom and spent his whole life in isolation and poverty. Although he was not a political activist, his views had political implications in later years, such as refuting the legitimacy of the type of religious governance instituted by the Islamic Republic. He and others who criticized Shiite "superstitions" -- such as Muhammad Hassan Shariat Sanglaji (1855-1943) and Sayyid Abul Fazl Borqei (1909-1992) -- were also influenced by the Salafi conception of Islamic dogmas, especially the sect's interpretation of the unity of God.
Under the Islamic Republic -- a regime that legitimizes the exclusive rule of the ayatollahs, makes Islamic law the main basis for legislation, and imposes it on all aspects of daily life -- many youths and other Iranians have turned away from Shiite convictions and embraced atheism, skepticism, Sufism, Sunni Islam, the Bahai faith, evangelical Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and New Age and Latin American mystical trends. Various regime organizations, including the Bureau of Religions and Sects in the Ministry of Intelligence, monitor these religious minorities and work against their proselytization efforts. Even Sufi circles -- which are officially Shiite -- face frequent repression.
In this environment, Salafism has rapidly spread all over the country through the internet, social media, and satellite television. In addition, various underground organizations offer training courses for young volunteers and run exchange programs to introduce Iranian Salafis to Arab Salafis in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. This is one of the reasons why the regime does not allow Sunnis to build mosques in Tehran or other large cities -- it is deeply concerned about Salafis using them to recruit young Shiites who are frustrated with the Islamic Republic's ideology.
There are two major Shiite trends in Iran: the official regime creed, and an extremist version that defines itself largely in opposition to Sunni Islam. While the regime usually dismisses Sunni-Shiite tensions and advocates pan-Islamic approaches to foreign policy and other matters, the extremist Shiites (called gholat or velais) refuse to hide their animosity toward the first three Sunni caliphs (i.e., the Prophet Muhammad's successors, whom Shiites believe usurped Imam Ali's right to rule). These extremists are backed by clerical authorities, and their explicit anti-Sunni propaganda has caused trouble for the regime both inside the country and throughout the wider Muslim world.
In recent years, the gholat have relied in large part on satellite television to disseminate their propaganda, sparking an escalating virtual war between Salafis and Shiites. Today, Salafis use Persian-language satellite outlets such as the Global Kalemeh Network (based in Medina and Dubai and probably funded by Saudis) and Wesal Farsi (based in London and the Persian Gulf) to fight the "Safavid government," as they call the Islamic Republic and its Shiite ideology. They broadcast religious programs, take calls from Iran, and engage in debates with Shiite satellite networks such as al-Kawthar TV, the Global Ahl-e Bait Network (whose programs are hosted by an Afghan cleric), Imam Hussein TV, and Salaam TV (based in Virginia and supported by the Shirazis, a clerical family with significant influence among Gulf Shiites).
Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood also use various websites to fight the propaganda battle, some affiliated with organizations such as Jamaat-e Dawat va Islah-e Iran (the Society of Mission and Reform in Iran). On the other side, extremist Shiites run dozens of their own websites to confront the Salafis. Both sides are very active in social media as well.
Many Iranian youths are disappointed in the Shiism professed by the regime and traditional clergy but wish to maintain their Islamic faith, leading them to convert to Salafism. The Muslim Brotherhood and other Salafi trends tend to focus on the unity of god and the desacralization of all human beings and worldly things -- a unique way of secularizing and rationalizing Islam in order to attract young students, especially those who study science. Unlike traditional Sunnis in Iran and Salafis elsewhere in the world, Iranian Salafis tend to question the Islamic Republic's religious legitimacy and purposefully exacerbate Sunni-Shiite tensions. To be sure, they do not share the global Salafist aspiration of taking over political power, knowing that any Islamic government in predominantly Shiite Iran would be a Shiite government. Yet Iranian Salafis are organizationally connected to potent groups in Saudi Arabia and other countries, and most of their ideology and funding comes from outside the Islamic Republic. Given these factors and the increasing resentment among Iran's Arab, Kurdish, and Baluch population, the growth of Salafism is a clear security threat to the regime.
Mehdi Khalaji is a senior fellow at The Washington Institute.


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Version 2.0 of XML::Simple has just been released. The major version number increment is because this is the first stable version with SAX support, but today's essay has nothing to do with SAX. A new feature in this release is 'strict mode' which you can enable like this:
use XML::Simple qw(:strict);
Let's toss it into a simple test script ...
use strict; use XML::Simple qw(:strict); my $xml =q(<?xml version='1.0'?> <library> <book> <isbn>0596001320</isbn> <title>Learning Perl, 3rd Edition</title> <author>Randal L. Schwartz</author> <author>Tom Phoenix</author> </book> <book> <isbn>1565922204</isbn> <title>Advanced Perl Programming</title> <author>Sriram Srinivasan</author> </book> <book> <isbn>076455106X</isbn> <title>Guitar for Dummies</title> <author>Mark Phillips</author> <author>John Chappell</author> </book> </library> ); my $library = XMLin($xml); foreach my $book (@{$library->{book}}) { print "$book->{title}\n"; print " $_\n" foreach(@{$book->{author}}); }
When we run this script, instead of the expected list of book titles, we get this message:
No value specified for 'forcearray' option in call to XMLin() at ./str +icttest.pl line 26
A closer look at the foreach loop reveals that the test script assumes $library->{book} is an arrayref (which it is) and that each $book->{author} is also an arrayref (which the second is not). Now XML::Simple doesn't know what assumptions your script is making, but it does know that failing to specify an explicit value for the forcearray option can lead to dangerous assumptions just like the ones in our script.
The simplest way to get past this error is to set forcearray => 1. Unfortunately this will have the undesirable side-effect of turning $book->{title} into an arrayref too. A better solution is to set forcearray to a list of the element names which should be forced to an array representation - even if they occur only once:
my $library = XMLin($xml, forcearray => [ qw(book author) ]);
Now if we run the script, it fails again but with a new message:
No value specified for 'keyattr' option in call to XMLin() at ./strict +test.pl line 26
Once again, XML::Simple has detected a common mistake - failing to explicitly enable or disable the 'array folding' feature.
If we wanted to select a particular <book> record by its <isbn> we could have explicitly asked for the array of <book>s to be 'folded' into a hash using <isbn> as the key:
my $library = XMLin($xml, forcearray => [ qw(book author) ], keyattr => { book => 'isbn' } ); print $library->{book}->{1565922204}->{title}, "\n";
But, we actually wanted to loop through all the <book>s in the order they occurred in the XML, so we'll put back the original loop code and explicity disable array folding like this:
my $library = XMLin($xml, forcearray => [ qw(book author) ], keyattr = +> [] );
Now the code runs with no more errors and produces the expected output:
Learning Perl, 3rd Edition Randal L. Schwartz Tom Phoenix Advanced Perl Programming Sriram Srinivasan Guitar for Dummies Mark Phillips John Chappell
Those are the two most common errors, but if we revisit the array folding version we'll use strict mode to catch a more subtle problem:
my $library = XMLin($xml, forcearray => [ qw(author) ], keyattr => { book => 'isbn' } ); print $library->{book}->{1565922204}->{title}, "\n";
This time the script will die with this error:
<book> set in keyattr but not in forcearray at ./stricttest.pl line 26
In fact, without strict mode this version of the script would work exactly as expected. There is a lurking problem though that will leap out and bite us if the XML is changed to include only one <book>. Without 'book' listed in the forcearray list, the lone <book> element would be represented as a single hashref (rather than an array of hashrefs) and would therefore not be 'folded' into a hash keyed on <isbn>. The answer is simple - any elements you want folded should be listed in both the keyattr hash and the forcearray array.
Another type of data error can also be trapped by strict mode. Consider what would happen if you wanted the list of <book>s folded on the <isbn> values, but one of the <isbn>s was missing. Without strict mode, XML::Simple would issue a warning (which you may or may not see) and then leave the <book>s as an array rather than folding to a hash - which would most likely break whatever code followed. With strict mode, your script will die with a fatal error message when the bad data is encountered.
As you can see, strict mode is not magic - it can't tell you when your code is wrong, but (like 'use strict') it can trap common causes of problems. An obvious question is "why not just enable this behaviour when 'use strict' is in force?". The problem of course is that most people are already including 'use strict' in their scripts (you are doing that right?) so upgrading to version 2.0 would appear to break many scripts. Instead, the developer can upgrade and then enable XML::Simple's strict mode one script at a time - fixing any problems as they are detected.
Edit: s/30/26/g - dvergin 2002-12-09


text:
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — It certainly wasn't an ideal way to start an important road trip.
The Washington Wizards squandered an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter and eventually lost in overtime to the lowly Sacramento Kings.
you are watching: Thomas' triple double lifts Kings to OT win
Isaiah Thomas had his first career triple double with 24 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists to help the Kings beat the Wizards 117-111 in overtime on Tuesday night.
DeMarcus Cousins and Rudy Gay each added 24 points for the Kings, who rallied in the fourth to send the game into overtime and simply outplayed the Wizard in the extra period to snap a two-game losing streak.
Veteran center Marcin Gortat felt the Wizards let up late in regulation and it cost them a victory.
"We were up five points (with 24 seconds left) and celebrating like we had already won the game," said Gortat, who had a physical battle all game with Cousins, the Kings highly aggressive young center. "We loosened up way too much. We got punished for being too cocky.".
It was a rare loss for the Wizards, who had won 10 of 13 games before falling to the Kings for the fourth straight time at Sleep Train Arena.
see more : Coronavirus: Why lawmakers can't agree on an economic rescue package amid pandemic
After being quiet through three quarters, it was Gay and Cousins delivering big time for the Kings in both the fourth period and overtime.
Cousins, who finished with 14 rebounds, had 12 points in the fourth quarter and opened the overtime with two quick baskets and finished with seven points in OT.
Gay made numerous clutch shots late in the game and continued that trend in the fourth quarter. He had 10 points in the fourth and six more in overtime.
"To turn it around, go up by 11 points and give the game away, it hurts," said Drew Gooden, who scored 18 points in a reserve role. "They executed down the stretch and we couldn't get any rebounds. DeMarcus Cousins is a load.".
Bradley Beal had 19 points and Gortat also had 19 points and 14 rebounds for the Wizards. They had won six of their previous seven road games. John Wall had 14 before fouling out in overtime.
The loss prevented Washington from moving within a game of Chicago, which has the fourth best record in the Eastern Conference. The Wizards (35-32) drop to sixth in the East, one percentage point behind Brooklyn (34-31).
"Give (Washington coach) Randy Wittman and that team a lot of credit. They are one of the surprising teams in the Eastern Conference and they are trying to get a home-court advantage in the first round," Kings coach Michael Malone said.
see more : Hermine makes landfall, first hurricane to strike Florida in 11 years
Gay broke a tie with a jumper and Thomas made a pair of free throws to give Sacramento a 115-111 lead with 13 seconds left. Thomas clinched the victory with two free throws in the closing seconds.
Thomas, a 5-foot-9 guard who was a second-round draft pick three years ago, became the Kings starting point guard early this season and has responded by scoring 20 or more points 42 times this season. The triple-double was the first for Sacramento since Cousins had had one against New York on Dec. 28, 2012.
"That was big and it's great for Isaiah," Gay said. "I'm proud of him for the fact that he effected the game in every successful category today. Size doesn't matter. He plays with fire.".
Trailing by five points in overtime, Ariza hit a 3, Wall converted on a fastbreak layup and Beal made a 3-pointer, giving Washington a 109-107 lead. But consecutive baskets by Cousins and Gay put the Kings ahead by two with 1:01 left.
Beal made both free throws to put the Wizards in front 100-95. But a Thomas' three and a running shot along the baseline by Gay tied the game at 100 with 5.6 seconds remaining. Beal missed a jumper in the final seconds.
Washington started the fourth quarter with eight straight points to take an 81-70 lead. Cousins helped bring the Kings back, scoring eight consecutive points, the final two on a dunk that cut the Washington lead to 86-81 midway through the fourth.
NOTES: The Washington starters shot 5 of 20 in the opening quarter and the Wizards trailed 30-19. … Prior the game, the Kings signed Royce White to a second 10-day contact. He was not activated for the game. White, who was drafted by Houston in 2012, has been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and has never played an NBA game. … Webster had a four-point play late in the third quarter. … The Kings are 4-2 in overtime games this season, while the Wizards are 4-7.
Source: https://geojemarathon.com
Category: News


text:
9 Notable Women Lawyers Who Rule
Legal systems are never easy to navigate, as the U.S. vertical hierarchy of courts, jury options and appeals processes attest. In dealing with Indians and the United States' judicial system, with its purported goal of integrating the principles of 567 nations (counting the U.S.), tribal law, state law, federal law, the inherent and reserved rights of Indigenous Peoples and treaty obligations, establishing and defending the rights of Natives is a job that requires the best minds of the times. The field requires the ability to understand complex relations and theory, the strength to stand by their principles and the maturity to respect other people's points of view. The nine women profiled here have taken up the task.
Angelique Townsend EagleWoman
EagleWoman, Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation, is associate professor of law and James E. Rogers Fellow in American Indian Law at the University of Idaho College of Law. She says she hopes her just-released book, Mastering American Indian Law, (with co-author Stacy Leeds) will bring American Indian law to a wider audience, a goal in keeping with her mission to "educate future lawyers on the relationship between tribal entities and the U.S., which is not taught correctly."
One highlight of her career, she explains, was going to D.C. with her tribe to see the background documents in DeCoteau v. District Court, argued before the Supreme Court in 1975. The tribe lost the pre-ICWA case when the Supreme Court ruled that the tribe's reservation had been disestablished by allotment and the county could therefore take children from a mother who had left them with a relative on the grounds of abandonment.
EagleWoman says diversity has been decreasing in law schools, making this the perfect time for American Indians to apply. "Native law professors across the country are ready to teach and mentor. They are waiting for you to reach out to us."
Carole E. Goldberg
Goldberg says one of her most important contributions to American Indian law is her work on Felix S. Cohen's Handbook of Federal Indian Law. She is the only person to have served on the board for the 1982, 2005 and 2012 editions of that treatise. "The handbook has been the most widely used reference source for judges, for practitioners and for scholars looking to understand federal Indian law. It is known since its first edition in the 1940s for offering an interpretation of federal Indian law that places inherent tribal powers at the center of understanding the field."
Goldberg is Jonathan D. Varat Distinguished Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law. In 2007, she was appointed to serve as a Justice of the Hualapai Court of Appeals and in 2010 President Obama appointed her to the Indian Law and Order Commission. She co-authored Defying the Odds: The Tule River Tribe's Struggle for Sovereignty in Three Centuries and co-edited with Kevin Washburn and Philip Frickey Indian Law Stories. She is working on a book that will showcase the results of her research on the administration of criminal justice in Indian country.
Cynthia Gomez
Gomez, Tule River, has served as chief justice for the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians Tribal Court and assistant secretary of environmental justice and tribal governmental policy for the California EPA. She is now tribal advisor to California Gov. Edmund G. Brown and executive secretary of the state's Native American Heritage Commission. She says that as the governor's advisor, she is able to support "recognition of our tribes as unique sovereign nations and their ability to govern and enforce their tribal laws." Her most important contributions have been "helping the tribes I worked with move toward enforcement of tribal policies."
Gomez says of current legal challenges, "Tribes are and have always been fighting for tribal sovereignty and tribal jurisdiction. In California, we're dealing with the implications of Public Law-280, which has created some difficult challenges for us, including lack of funding for tribal courts. PL-280 was devastating, to California at least. But what will be important in the future is water rights, balancing state needs and the reserved water rights of some tribes. That is very complex."
Heather Kendall-Miller
Kendall-Miller, Denaina Athabaskan and a tribal member of the Native Village of Curyung, is a staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund specializing in tribal rights and subsistence. She serves on the boards for Harvard University's Honoring Nations Program and The Wilderness Society. Kendall-Miller was lead counsel for both appeals (to the U.S. Circuit Court and to the U.S. Supreme Court) of the landmark cases State of Alaska v. Native Village of Venetie and Katie John v. Norton.
Asked what the most important current challenges and issues faced by Native lawyers, she said, "Climate change presents a daunting challenge to Native Americans whose customary and traditional way of life is intimately connected to the land. We also face challenges preserving our rights in the courts in part because the current Supreme Court has little regard for tribal sovereignty, Indian canons of construction, or treaty rights.
"The Supreme Court's recent cases like Baby Veronica and the Voting Rights Act case show little understanding of Indian issues and caution against having cases litigated there if at all possible."
Stacy Leeds
Leeds, Cherokee, is the first American Indian woman to serve as dean of a law school (University of Arkansas). She has served on seven tribal courts, including as chief justice on the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court, as a director of the Tribal Law and Government Center at Kansas Law School, a director of the Northern Plains Indian Law Center at the University of North Dakota School of Law and a commissioner of the Secretarial Commission on Indian Trust Administration and Reform. Leeds co-authored Mastering American Indian Law, published at the end of August.
One major legal issue facing Indian Country, Leeds says, "that we're fighting the battle of external legitimacy when it comes to both the federal government, the state and international forums recognizing the powers of our governments." She views her work on the trust reform commission as having "the potential to be the most impactful [she has done] because of the recommendations we [will] set forward to overhaul and reform the way our property system and the trust responsibility of the federal government play out."
Arlinda Locklear
Locklear, Lumbee, was the first Native American woman to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court. In Solem v. Bartlett, 1984, "the court clarified the law with regard to the standard for disestablishment of Indian reservations in such a way that hopefully will be protective for reservations." Oneida Indian Nation v. County of Oneida, the second Supreme Court case she argued, was also important. "The frustration of that was it didn't result in an actual benefit to the Oneidas at all, [although] it was a legal principle victory."
An expert in the area of federal recognition, Locklear says the Supreme Court's Carcieri ruling "has delayed by years any ability of the Interior Department to actually place land into trust. Tribes must demonstrate the department has authority to place land into trust for them," essentially requiring them to repeat the arguments they made to get federal recognition. "That's been one of the worst things that happened in a long time." She is hopeful that the BIA's proposed new rules for recognition will lead to meaningful reform. "The process that we've been using since 1978 is an abomination, insulting to tribes and causing the government not to recognize legitimate Indian tribes," she says.
Angela Riley
Riley, Citizen Potawatomi Nation of Oklahoma, is director of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center and co-director of the Native Nations Law and Policy Center. Riley says of her work, "Being on my tribe's Supreme Court, working as an evidentiary hearing officer for Morongo, and serving as a member of the United Nations Indigenous Peoples' Policy Board have been incredibly rewarding and deeply valuable experiences. They provide an opportunity to put my education and training to use to advance Native governance and facilitate Indigenous Peoples' rights around the globe."
Riley wishes she could be more optimistic about Indian rights in the U.S. "America is struggling… with how to reconcile the role of Indian nations within a liberal democracy. Indian nations' status within the United States is a political one. Tribes' sovereignty predates the formation of the U.S. Constitution. I have found that many people don't understand the historical or legal complexities of the field. Without that understanding, there is a tendency to diminish Indian sovereignty."
Fawn Sharp
Sharp is Quinault Nation president; "The warrior lawyers of our generation are working to reverse the 400-year trend of steady encroachment and diminishment of our powers and authority," she says.
Among today's most important challenges, she says, are employment issues. And, "domestically on the tribal front we see many of our tribes looking at amending their constitutions to include civil and human rights. I think that's critically important. I also see international laws, the publication of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as important…. We're witnessing a new era where we're starting to have direct relationships with our tribal nations and other nations as we figure out how we can advance what we know culturally, morally, politically to that universal stage where it's accepted as a universal principle that transcends national borders."
Sharp was formerly managing attorney and lead counsel and staff attorney for the Quinault Indian Nation, an administrative law judge for the Washington state Department of Revenue, a Quinault Tribal Court Associate Judge and counsel for Phillips, Krause & Brown.
Christine Williams
Williams, Yurok, is chief judge of the Northern California Intertribal Court System and of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians as well as vice president of the California Indian Law Association. The Intertribal Court was founded by four tribes to "try to leverage each tribes resources… for the benefit of all four tribes while maintaining each tribe's sovereignty and their sovereign right to develop their own justice system," she says.
Williams identifies jurisdiction as a major concern in the field. "Jurisdiction is a huge issue that we face every day, especially being in a PL-280 state. We share a lot of jurisdiction with our county partners and that takes a lot of relationship building.
"There was a time … that I wanted to retrocede. [But] that is much murkier for me now." After working successfully with the California state legal system and seeing the report on domestic violence in Indian Country, she says, "Those tribes in non-PL-280 states weren't really in a position to better address that than we were in PL-280 states …. I'm not sure that tribes in non-PL-280 states are any better off."
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Ron Paul on TechnologyRepublican Representative (TX-14); previously Libertarian for President |
PAUL: I don't think we should go to the moon. I think we maybe should send some politicians up there. In 1962 and studied aerospace medicine: actually had a daydream about maybe becoming the first physician to go into space. That didn't occur, but the amount of money we spend on space, the only part that I would vote for is for national defense purposes. Not to explore the moon and go to Mars. I love those ideas. But I also don't like the idea of building government business partnerships. It should be privatized, and the people who work in the industry, if you had that, there would be jobs in aerospace. And I just think that we don't need a new big program. Health care or something else deserves a lot more priority than going to the moon. Space technology should be followed up to some degree for national defense purposes, but not just for the fun of it or for science.
Ron Paul is one of the folks to have spoken up on Assange's behalf. Paul made quite a statement on the floor of the House, when he asked his colleagues what had caused more deaths--"lying us into war or the release of the Wikileaks papers. In a free society, we're supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it."
Paul's point is important. Nobody has died as a result of the Wikileaks disclosures, but maybe we've forgotten that the whole Iraq War was based on fake evidence manufactured by the Bush-Cheney White House and the Brits.
Infrastructure, in a capitalist model, is an asset worthy of maintaining to ensure continuity of revenue. In a government-controlled model infrastructure is nothing but a cumbersome liability. Privatization should be used to encourage maintenance and safety, and where private companies truly invest and bear the upfront costs in return for ability to collect tolls or usage fees in some form. But public/private partnerships that look more like corporate welfare must be avoided.
Infrastructure, in a capitalist model, is an asset worthy of maintaining to ensure continuity of revenue. In a government-controlled model infrastructure is nothing but a cumbersome liability. Privatization should be used to encourage maintenance and safety, and where private companies truly invest and bear the upfront costs in return for ability to collect tolls or usage fees in some form. But public/private partnerships that look more like corporate welfare must be avoided.
Wealth is transferred from the poor to the politically connected rich through the inflationary process. The pseudo-strength of the dollar allows endless money creation to pay the bills to police the world. In the US, the process manifests in the decline of living for the poor, the middle class, and the elderly.
The limits of our policies will be exposed by military failures, the loss of political support, and a rejection of the over-inflated US dollars used to pay our bills. The cost of runaway military spending essentially brought down the Soviet Union and soon will bring down N. Korea. We are doing the same thing.
A: Some of them. But I trust the Internet a lot more, and I trust the freedom of expression. And that�s why we should never interfere with the Internet. That�s why I�ve never voted to regulate the Internet. Even when there�s the temptation to put bad things on the Internet, regulation of bad and good on the Internet should be done differently.
The computer age is now upon us, and this technology could easily eliminate completely the privacy that should be cherished by all freedom-loving individuals. Like nuclear power, computer technology can enhance or standard of living or destroy our freedom completely. It is just a matter of time until we have a mandatory national ID card.
Opponent's Argument for voting No:
[Rep. Waxman, D-CA]: This bill will cripple National Public Radio, public radio stations, and programming that is vital to over 27 million Americans. We are now voting to deny the public access to one of our Nation's most credible sources of news coverage. This bill does not save a penny. This legislation does not serve any fiscal purpose, but it does serve an ugly ideological one. This legislation is not about reforming NPR. It is about punishing NPR. It is vindictive, it is mean-spirited, it is going to hit the smallest stations in rural areas particularly hard. Public radio is indispensable for access to news that's hard to get, especially where broadband service is limited.
Veto message from President Bush:
This bill lacks fiscal discipline. I fully support funding for water resources projects that will yield high economic and environmental returns. Each year my budget has proposed reasonable and responsible funding, including $4.9 billion for 2008, to support the Army Corps of Engineers' main missions. However, this authorization bill costs over $23 billion. This is not fiscally responsible, particularly when local communities have been waiting for funding for projects already in the pipeline. The bill's excessive authorization for over 900 projects and programs exacerbates the massive backlog of ongoing Corps construction projects, which will require an additional $38 billion in future appropriations to complete. This bill does not set priorities. I urge the Congress to send me a fiscally responsible bill that sets priorities.
Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act of 2007 - Amends the Internet Tax Freedom Act to make permanent the ban on state and local taxation of Internet access and on multiple or discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce.
Related bills: H.R.743, H.R.1077, H.R.3678, S.156.
A BILL To ensure that amounts credited to the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund are used for harbor maintenance. This Act may be cited as the 'Realize America's Maritime Promise Act' or the 'RAMP Act'.
IN GENERAL- The total budget resources made available from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund each fiscal year shall be equal to the level of receipts plus interest credited to the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund for that fiscal year. Such amounts may be used only for harbor maintenance programs. GUARANTEE- No funds may be appropriated for harbor maintenance programs described in such section unless the amount described in paragraph (1) has been provided.
A bill to prevent the Federal Communications Commission from repromulgating the fairness doctrine. Amends the Communications Act of 1934 to prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), notwithstanding any other provision of any Act, from having the authority to require broadcasters to present opposing viewpoints on controversial issues of public importance, commonly referred to as the Fairness Doctrine.
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2012 Governor, House and Senate candidates on Technology: | Ron Paul on other issues: | |||
TX Gubernatorial: Annise Parker Julian Castro Mike Rawlings Rick Perry TX Senatorial: David Dewhurst John Cornyn Jon Roland Kay Bailey Hutchison Paul Sadler Ted Cruz Retiring to run for other office: Running for President: TX-14:Ron Paul(R) Running for Mayor: CA-51:Bob Filner(D) Running for Governor: IN-6:Mike Pence(R) WA-1:Jay Inslee(D) Running for Senate: AZ-6:Jeff Flake(R) CT-5:Chris Murphy(R) FL-14:Connie Mack(R) HI-2:Mazie Hirono(D) IN-2:Joe Donnelly(D) MO-2:Todd Akin(R) MT-0:Dennis Rehberg(R) ND-0:Rick Berg(D) NM-1:Martin Heinrich(D) NV-1:Shelley Berkley(D) NY-9:Bob Turner(R) WI-2:Tammy Baldwin(D) |
Lost Primary 2012:
IL-16:Donald Manzullo(R) NJ-9:Steven Rothman(D) OH-2:Jean Schmidt(R) OH-9:Dennis Kucinich(D) PA-4:Jason Altmire(D) PA-17:Tim Holden(D) TX-16:Silvestre Reyes(D) Retiring 2012: AR-4:Mike Ross(D) AZ-8:Gabby Giffords(D) CA-2:Wally Herger(R) CA-6:Lynn Woolsey(D) CA-18:Dennis Cardoza(R) CA-24:Elton Gallegly(D) CA-26:David Dreier(R) CA-41:Jerry Lewis(R) IL-12:Jerry Costello(D) IL-15:Timothy Johnson(R) IN-5:Dan Burton(R) KY-4:Geoff Davis(R) MA-1:John Olver(D) MA-4:Barney Frank(D) MI-5:Dale Kildee(D) NC-9:Sue Myrick(R) NC-11:Heath Shuler(D) NC-13:Brad Miller(D) NY-5:Gary Ackerman(D) NY-10:Ed Towns(D) NY-22:Maurice Hinchey(D) OH-7:Steve Austria(R) OK-2:Dan Boren(D) PA-19:Todd Platts(R) TX-20:Charles Gonzalez(D) WA-6:Norm Dicks(D) |
Budget/Economy Civil Rights Corporations Crime Drugs Education Energy/Oil Environment Families/Children Foreign Policy Free Trade Govt. Reform Gun Control Health Care Homeland Security Immigration Infrastructure/Technology Jobs Principles/Values Social Security Tax Reform War/Iraq/Mideast Welfare/Poverty Main Page Profile TX politicians Contact info: Campaign website: www.ronpaul2012.com Email Contact Form Fax: 1-703-563-7330 Fax Number: 202-226-6553 House mailing address: 203 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515 House Phone: (202) 225-2831 Mailing Address: 8000 Forbes Place, Suite 200, Springfield VA 22151 Official Website Phone: 1-703-563-6620 Phone number: (202) 225-2831 Supporter website: www.ronpaul.com/ Texas office: 122 West Way, Suite 301, Lake Jackson, TX 77566 Texas Phone: (979) 285-0231 Toll-Free Phone: 1-855-886-9779 |


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NAMM 2012: Suddenly, everyone's making proper analogue synths again, and not to be left out, Waldorf has announced the Pulse 2, an unexpected successor to an instrument that was originally released in 1996.
Click here for a gallery of Waldorf Pulse 2 images
This monophonic synth sports three oscillators, a filter, an arpeggiator, an 8-slot modulation matrix and much more, and is backwards compatible with the original Pulse. Here's the full skinny, taken from the Waldorf website.
Waldorf Pulse 2 official info
Sometimes they do come back, and this time, it's with even more brute-strength power onboard. You are looking at a completely analog synthesizer that accurately delivers what synthesizer enthusiasts around the world truly crave. Pulse 2 is the reincarnation of it's legendary ancestor, the Waldorf Pulse, that dominated the electronic music of the 90s.
Three analog oscillators in combination with a true analog cascading filter is what Pulse and Pulse 2 have in common. But we didn't stop there. The filter circuits now also offer Highpass and Bandpass modes. We added analog Filter FM and Ring Modulation along with paraphonic modes that allow up to eight voice chords.
Like the Blofeld Synthesizer, the Pulse 2 is housed in a sturdy metal desktop case. Besides its large LCD display, 8 stainless steel knobs are available to surf through its clearly arrayed parameter matrix, set master volume and edit display accessible parameters.
- 3 analog oscillators + 1 noise generator
- Pulse width modulation
- Hard sync
- Filter FM from Oscillator 3
- Ring Modulation from Oscillator 3
- XOR Osc Mode
- 8/4 Voice Paraphonic modes
- Cascade Filter
- 24dB/12db Lowpass, 12db Highpass/Bandpass filter modes
- Powerful Arpeggiator
- 8-slot Modulation Matrix
- External analog signal input
- Stereo line out
- Headphone out
- Backwards compatible with classic Pulse
- 128x64 character backlit LCD