text:
New York City leaders – from Mayor Bloomberg on down – know exactly what needs to be on the agenda today, as state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver brings his members back to Albany to mull some legislative loose ends.
Now if only Silver would listen.
The speaker has been stalling for months on Bloomberg's sorely needed plan to overhaul Gotham's waste-management system. The plan would rely on barge traffic and waterfront processing plants to dispose of the city's garbage, saving city streets an estimated 5.6 million truck-miles annually.
Not surprisingly, the scheme enjoys overwhelming support – especially in poor and minority areas in the outer boroughs, where residents now contend with daily convoys of pollution-spewing garbage trucks.
Practically the only pols against it are three liberal Assembly Democrats from the West Side: Richard Gottfried, Deborah Glick and Linda Rosenthal – Silver allies, all.
The three are suffering from a severe case of Not In My Back Yard syndrome.
A key part of Bloomberg's plan, you see, is to construct a recycling station on the Gansevoort Peninsula in the West Village – on land slotted to be part of the Hudson River Park. But building it requires a revision to the state's 1998 Hudson River Park Act – and, while the state Senate passed the revision months ago, the Assembly has balked.
Why? Because the West Side Three – acting out of pure selfishness – simply don't want that kind of facility in their tony little corner of the city.
And so Silver – bowing to their wishes – has refused to allow a vote.
The speaker claims that he just wants the city to explore all its options – specifically, a hypothetical alternative site some 20 blocks north.
Never mind that Bloomberg's plan is the result of an exhaustive five-year process that successfully established a fair distribution of the trash burden among the boroughs.
Or that it passed a comprehensive review from the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Never mind, either, that Silver's "alternative" would require huge extra funding – which is nowhere to be found.
Meanwhile, any tinkering at this point could sink the plan altogether – which seems to be exactly what Silver and the West Side Three want.
That would be a tragedy for everyone – except the wealthy Manhattan liberals whom the three lawmakers represent.
As it stands right now, most of Manhattan's trash is essentially dumped on poor and minority communities, particularly in New York's outer boroughs – which hold the vast majority of processing plants and which desperately need relief from truck traffic and pollution.
Hence the equity of the mayor's plan.
Not only does it exploit New York's underused waterways, it's also great for the environment, for children's health, for racial and economic fairness.
These are things Manhattan liberals are supposed to love . . . when they don't block their riverfront views, that is.
Gottfried, Glick and Rosenthal may be looking out for their constituents' parochial interests. But Silver has no excuse.
As speaker, he's got an obligation to rise above his members' selfish whining and do what's right for all New Yorkers.
Can Silver bring himself to do that?
New York should soon have an answer – possibly as early as today.


text: Dr Joshua Francis is a paediatric infectious diseases specialist from Darwin in the Northern Territory. His work is largely focused on Indigenous and global child health, with involvement across the Top End and in Timor-Leste. Josh has established strong links between health services in Timor-Leste and the Northern Territory for the provision of clinical services, training opportunities for Timorese and Australian clinicians, and collaboration in clinical research with a focus on rheumatic heart disease, tuberculosis and clinical microbiology.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
This message, directly from Frederick Douglass, defined his mission in producing The North Star newspaper. It appeared in the first issue that was published on December 3, 1847:
To Our Oppressed Countrymen: We solemnly dedicate the "NORTH STAR" to the cause of our long oppressed and plundered fellow countrymen. May God bless the offering to your good! It shall fearlessly assert your rights, faithfully proclaim your wrongs, and earnestly demand for you instant and even-handed justice. Giving no quarter to slavery at the South, it will hold no truce with oppressors at the North. While it shall boldly advocate emancipation for our enslaved brethren, it will omit no opportunity to gain for the nominally free, complete enfranchisement. Every effort to injure or degrade you or your cause – originating wheresoever, or with whomsoever – shall find in it a constant, unswerving and inflexible foe.
We shall energetically assail the ramparts of Slavery and Prejudice, be they composed of church or state, and seek the destruction of every refuge of lies, under which tyranny may aim to conceal and protect itself.
While our paper shall be mainly Anti-Slavery, its columns shall be freely opened to the candid and decorous discussion of all measures and topics of a moral and humane character, which may serve to enlighten, improve, and elevate mankind. Temperance, Peace, Capital Punishment, Education, – all subjects claiming the attention of the public mind may be freely and fully discussed here.
While advocating your rights, the NORTH STAR will strive to throw light on your duties: while it will not fail to make known your virtues, it will not shun to discover your faults. To be faithful to our foes it must be faithful to ourselves, in all things.
Remember that we are one, that our cause is one, and that we must help each other, if we would succeed. We have drank to the dregs the bitter cup of slavery; we have worn the heavy yoke; we have sighed beneath our bonds, and writhed beneath the bloody lash; – cruel mementoes of our oneness are indellibly marked in our living flesh. We are one with you under the ban of prejudice and proscription – one with you under the slander of inferiority – one with you in social and political disfranchisement. What you suffer, we suffer; what you endure, we endure. We are indissolubly united, and must fall or flourish together.
We feel deeply the solemn responsibility which we have now assumed. We have seriously considered the importance of the enterprise, and have now entered upon it with full purpose of heart. We have nothing to offer in the way of literary ability to induce you to encourage us in our laudable undertaking. You will not expect or require this at our hands. The most that you can reasonably expect, or that we can need not be ashamed. Twenty-one years of severe bondage at the South, and nine years of active life at the North, while it has afforded us the best possible opportunity for storing our mind with much practical and important information, has left us little time for literary pursuits or attainments. We have yet to receive the advantage of the first day's schooling. In point of education, birth and rank, we are one WITH yourselves, and OF yourselves. What we are, we are not only without help, but against trying opposition. Your knowledge of our history for the last seven years makes it unnecessary for us to say more on this point. What we have been in your cause, we shall continue to be; and not being too old to learn, we may improve in many ways. PATIENCE and PERSEVERANCE shall be our motto.
We shall be the advocates of learning, from the very want of it, and shall most readily yield the deference due to men of education among us; but shall always bear in mind to accord most merit to those who have labored hardest, and overcome most, in the praiseworthy pursuit of knowledge, remembering "that the whole need not a physician, but they that are sick," and that "the strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak."
Brethren, the first number of the paper is before you. It is dedicated to your cause. Through the kindness of our friends in England, we are in possession of an excellent printing press, types, and all other materials necessary for printing a paper. Shall this gift be blest to our good, or shall it result in our injury? It is for you to say. With your aid, co-operation and assistance, our enterprise will be entirely successful. We pledge ourselves that no effort on our part shall be wanting, and that no subscriber shall lose his subscription.
All images included in blog posts are from either Accessible Archives collections or out of copyright public sources unless otherwise noted. Common sources include the Library of Congress, The Flickr Commons, Wikimedia Commons, and other public archives.
Related Posts
- Flu Dead Buried in Full Army Uniforms (October 1918)
- More Women's History: The Woman's Tribune, 1883-1909
- American Slavery in 1848: An Evil with no Redeeming Features
- Men for Women's Suffrage (1911)
- A Remarkable Case of Alleged Fugitives from Slavery


text:
PG&E's incoming CEO once ran another utility for less than one day. He got $44 million
The next chief executive of PG&E Corp. has spent the better part of three decades working for large electric companies, so he comes to his new job with a wealth of experience — and baggage that is already generating criticism in California.
In his most recent role as CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Bill Johnson's advocates have credited him with slashing debt, reducing operating expenses and achieving strong safety records.
But detractors say Johnson, 65, lacked a sufficient commitment to renewable energy, allowed lavish spending on aircraft and poorly handled the ongoing fallout from a major coal ash spill that happened before he arrived.
At the Tennessee utility, Johnson was the nation's highest-paid federal government employee, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel, with total compensation of $8.1 million for the 2018 fiscal year.
He may be best known for a different part of his resume: serving as CEO of North Carolina's Duke Energy Corp. for less than one day after the company merged with another utility he led, a flash-in-the-pan tenure that reportedly earned him severance of $44 million.
Experts' reactions to Johnson's recent hiring at PG&E, California's largest and most challenged utility, have been mixed.
One analyst told The Chronicle after Johnson's new role was announced Wednesday that he was a "safe choice" given his extensive background. But Travis Miller, a utilities analyst for Morningstar Research Services, was "a bit surprised" given Johnson's lack of California experience.
"PG&E has a lot of stakeholders to win over, and this selection doesn't seem to check the boxes that many stakeholders were hoping for," Miller said. "Certainly there's no doubt that Bill Johnson has proven to be a good utility operator and a good financial steward."
The Tennessee utility and PG&E said Johnson was not available for an interview. In a statement when his appointment was announced, he said he was "humbled to take on this new challenge and am dedicated to meeting the high expectations that our customers, regulators and legislators have for PG&E."
When he takes the reins at PG&E, expected later this month, Johnson will have the challenge of leading the utility through its reorganization in Bankruptcy Court, where it sought protection three months ago because of its mounting wildfire liabilities.
Johnson will also be running the huge California energy company, which has 24,000 employees and serves 16 million people, as it tries to avoid being blamed for causing any more major disasters.
Some of the company's toughest critics question whether PG&E can make the necessary safety improvements now when Johnson's predecessors were unable to stop the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion, many of the 2017 Wine Country wildfires and, most likely, the 2018 Camp Fire from implicating the company.
"Anything's possible, don't get me wrong," said Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, a statewide utilities watchdog. "But it's hard to have a lot of confidence when his ... predecessors have failed."
Johnson started his career in law and moved into the utility sector when he joined Progress Energy Inc. in Raleigh, N.C., in 1992. He had various roles at Progress, eventually working his way up to CEO in 2007.
When Progress merged with Duke Energy, another North Carolina utility, in 2012, Johnson was set to be the CEO of the combined company, and he was — very briefly. Hours after Johnson assumed the Duke Energy role, the board ousted him because he "wasn't right for the job," the Wall Street Journal reported days later.
While Johnson was CEO at Progress, the utility botched an attempted repair of a nuclear power plant in Florida, according to various news reports. Johnson's replacement at Duke Energy later indicated the nuclear plant fiasco was one reason the board pushed him out, the Tampa Bay Times reported in 2012.
Johnson left Duke Energy with a $44 million severance package, according to the Times. Duke Energy declined to comment to The Chronicle on Thursday.
Months after his employment ended in North Carolina, Johnson was hired to run the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federal agency that provides electricity to businesses and local power companies serving 10 million people in seven states.
At the authority, he helped reduce operating and maintenance costs by $800 million annually and cut billions of dollars in debt, according to spokesman Jim Hopson.
Hopson described Johnson as a "very inclusive" leader who excels at motivating companies while "explaining those motivations to employees, especially when the hard decisions have to be made."
"He is not bashful about making difficult choices," Hopson said. "But he is very sensitive to the fact that those choices impact individuals, both inside and outside the organization. He really understands that."
Yet Johnson faced a fair amount of scrutiny in Tennessee, too.
High-priced corporate aircraft purchased by the agency on his watch prompted calls for Johnson's resignation in 2018 amid claims he was "out of touch" with mandates to spend taxpayer money responsibly, according to a report in the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Additionally, a contractor for the Tennessee Valley Authority has been accused of letting workers involved in the cleanup from a 2008 coal ash spill be poisoned. Though the spill happened years before Johnson came to the agency, critics said he mishandled the still-unfolding fallout.
Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said Johnson should have aggressively held the contractor responsible and "work(ed) with the people who have suffered the hardship," but did not. After Johnson announced in 2018 that he would retire from the Tennessee utility, a Knoxville News Sentinel columnist said he "has not spoken to the failures of TVA to monitor" the contractor working on the cleanup.
Hopson defended Johnson and the Tennessee utility against the critiques. He described the aircraft spending as appropriate for the agency's work in a service territory that includes parts of seven states, and an audit did not find that the uses of the aircraft were inconsistent with federal rules, he said.
The agency is not directly part of the coal-ash cleanup lawsuit and is concerned about the workers' claims but believes they should be heard in court, Hopson said. Hopson also sought to distance the controversy from Johnson, noting he did not join the company until several years after the cleanup started.
Some clean energy advocates have been worried about the prospect of Johnson running PG&E since they first got wind that he was the company's leading candidate for the CEO position. After the appointment was confirmed by PG&E, the executive director of Vote Solar quickly released a statement calling the Tennessee Valley Authority a "renewable energy laggard" under Johnson's leadership.
In naming Johnson as the incoming CEO, PG&E said he had led retirement of more than half of the Tennessee utility's coal generation, allowing for a similar decline in carbon emissions. But much of that appears to be due to an expansion in nuclear power generation that occurred during Johnson's tenure — solar and wind remain a relatively small source of power at the agency.
Hopson said that's because solar and wind are difficult to use as power sources on a large scale in the region. But Smith, of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, dismissed that explanation.
"The notion that, somehow or another, solar doesn't work in the Tennessee Valley is a joke," Smith said. "That is completely not true."
Other Southern utilities situated in similar environments have far better renewable profiles, and before Johnson became CEO, the Tennessee utility was "a leader in the region," Smith said.
"It was under Johnson's leadership that that all got throttled and pulled back," he said. "He either does not understand the technology or does not believe in it. ... It's not that there's something unique about the Tennessee Valley. There's a lack of vision by Bill Johnson."
PG&E, which is also overhauling its board of directors, has not shown any concern about Johnson's renewable energy record. The utility is expected to be a key player in helping California meet its ambitious climate change goals.
"We believe that Mr. Johnson, along with the newly constituted board, will help PG&E address California's evolving energy challenges and deliver what our customers expect from their energy company," PG&E spokesman James Noonan said in an email.
PG&E has also said that the Tennessee agency earned its best safety records with Johnson in charge, and "has been a perennial top decile safety performer in the utility industry."
Johnson is eligible for a $12.8 million retirement package, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Some of that was included in his $8.1 million total compensation for the 2018 fiscal year, Hopson said.
PG&E did not reveal how much it will compensate Johnson, saying the details will be disclosed in public documents at a later date. More than half of Johnson's incentive pay will be "directly tied to safety performance and metrics," Noonan said, an arrangement that the company believes "significantly exceeds industry standards."
Total compensation for Johnson's former CEO Geisha Williams, was about $8.6 million in 2017, the most recent year for which information is publicly available.
Williams left the company in January, just before PG&E announced it would file for bankruptcy protection later that month. The CEO role has been filled on an interim basis since then by John Simon, who was previously PG&E's general counsel.
In light of the company's decision to hire Johnson, Simon's "immediate focus will be to ensure a seamless management transition," Noonan said in an email. PG&E expects to disclose more about Simon's future in the coming weeks, he said.
As he steps into his new position, it's not clear how PG&E will restructure in the coming years — or if it will be able to win over skeptics who distrust the company after its involvement in several disasters over the last decade.
"The burden of proof is on him," TURN Executive Director Toney said. "He's coming into a bad situation that has been bad for a long time, and people are going to look at him to win back their trust from scratch."
J.D. Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: email@example.com Twitter: @thejdmorris


text:
Sperm whales are found in many areas around the world, but it's actually very rare to see groups of sperm whales around Southern California. They usually prefer deep, off-shore waters and have denser populations near continental shelves. For more about sperm whales and California, see this website:
For more about sperm whales in general, see this Wikipedia article:
For the same reason other whales come here: a deep ocean near shore that has a lot of food available.


text:
Starting the show on Abunai! 2008, this duo has done several shows on both Anime 20XX and Abunai!. They provide entertainment in the comedy panel as you watch them suffer taking down one bad anime after another. The way this panel works is simple: name an anime and they have to tell you why it sucks! Hosting the show requires extensible knowledge of series and movies throughout the years. It also seems that the audience likes to see them suffer, providing many laughs in return.
Not required.
The usual rules apply.
'Whole Weekend' and 'Saturday Only' visitors.
Saturday 22:00 - 03:00.


text:
The Carleton patio furniture collection features durable cast aluminum and North American brand powder-coat paint. This luxury collection features a hand applied finish with comfortable and stylish Sunbrella® fabric cushions. The collection includes patio conversation sets, and dining sets. Canadian made outdoor cushions shown are Cast Ash. The dining group picture cushions shown are Cast Ash.
CabanaCoast features a complete line of luxury patio furniture for residential and commercial use. Their outdoor furniture is both contemporary and classic in style, with unexpected, trendy and eye-catching designs. The combination of style & quality of CabanaCoast´s patio furniture will easily help you transform any outdoor space into an oasis.


text:
This item is sold out
The J heel is the new Lanvin signature of the season. Its curved design reflecting the J of Jeanne Lanvin combines femininity and elegance. A unique architectural shape ensuring comfort and stability. • Python leather ankle boots • Dark green • Elastic sides for slipping the boots on and off • Heel height: 80 mm • Lambskin leather lining with Lanvin logo • Calfskin leather sole
COMPOSITION • Main material: 100% python curtus brongersmai leather • Lining: 100% lambskin leather • Sole: 100% calfskin leather PRODUCTION • Made in Italy
Exclusive Lanvin packaging
Your orders will be packed in elegant Lanvin packaging in the brand's signature sea blue.
Inside the box, each item is carefully wrapped in soft silk paper. Each box is chosen according to the size of the items and tied with black ribbon. The package is identical to that used in our boutiques, and it is perfect for your Lanvin gifts.


text:
firstname.lastname@example.com ~~~{660) 973-6349
Signed in as:
Tree Bird Feeder Video March 2019
This is video of the 2018 version. The new feeders have a little more red on them but still mostly wood.
Get 10% off your first purchase when you sign up for our monthly E-newsletter full of great deals, and interesting birding information!
Proudly Made In The USA
Copyright © 2018 Tree Bird Feeders, LLC - All Rights Reserved
Contact: 660-973-6349 or firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Baseball instills the values of everyday life, such as building character, drive and a strong work ethic. Fortunately this career, like no other, you can start working at it at the age of five as long as you keep it fun. The instructors at these academies also work as guidance counselors, talking with different colleges about their students on grades, Sat scores and scholarships. In today's age sports and schooling work hand in hand, from going to school just to play the sport to maintaining grades in order to play that sport. As a teacher in Baseball, I feel it's more important to start at an early age so when it's time to go to college there are no surprises. At Stevie Hine's Sports each student /athlete will arrive with particular strengths and goals. My staff and I will aim to compliment and develop each player according to those assets best enabling them to prepare for a successful future. The Academy is all about professional training for amateur athletes. Its components include a series of drills and training in the technical, physical and mental aspects of the game.
Stevie Hine's Sports provides that with a clubhouse type of atmosphere. An instructor who has at least 8 years experience will teach each student, some have up to 15yrs. This provides inspiration for the students to work harder and also it gives the students the opportunity to talk about the different situations on the professional levels.
The mission of Stevie Hine's Sports is to provide professional instruction to amateurs as well as collegiate players in a total comprehensive/development program. Its objective is to open up new doorways for young athletes. Its purpose is to provide a truly comprehensive program for each student/athlete regardless of skill level. SHS settles for nothing less than a complete fulfillment of their potential as an athlete and person.
Private one on one instruction with a professional instructor.
Steve Hine is a local guy who played for the Red Sox, Texas Rangers, Team USA as well as the Bridgeport Bluefish.


text:
Blah Blah, selfie this, blah blah, selfie that. I cannot really bear hearing this word all the time!… but what is a selfie, actually?
The Oscars selfie by Ellen Degeneres, The Obama Selfie (do I really need to explain?) and then even Miley Cyrus did it. Eventually, for the guys Sara Tommasi also happily complied to the trend by showing us her glorious boobs!
I don't know what you're thinking at this point, but I'm not gone crazy, and Rockfoto didn't suddenly become a gossip outlet.
Here we talk photography, so I felt the urge to give you my very own explanation of what a selfie is (and what it's NOT!).
A definition of selfie
Selfie is the english neologism to indicate the very common practice of the self portrait.
Ok, but since self portraits were common even in the early days of photography why do we bother now?
That's a nice smoking question. So let me see if I can churn out a believable answer.
The never ending battle: Self portrait vs Selfie
At this point we realized self portrait has always been there for us, so what's the difference between a self-portrait and a selfie?
Let's dig a bit more under the surface of things, we're going back to the birth of self-portrait itself!
I'm quoting Wikipedia here, what better could you expect from your semi-illiterate host?
A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Although self-portraits have been made by artists since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting themselves as either the main subject, or as important characters in their work. With better and cheaper mirrors, and the advent of the panel portrait, many painters, sculptors and printmakers tried some form of self-portraiture. Portrait of a Man in a Turban by Jan van Eyck of 1433 may well be the earliest known panel self-portrait.[1]
Keep in mind that the daguerreotype (basically photography's grandma) was born in 1839 approx. So we have spent the past 400 years getting conscious about the self-portait, before turning it into a real self-photograph.
Then from 1839 up to 2014, some more 175 years, to finally reach the concept of selfie, in all of its glory!
Was Andy Warhol right ?
Probably so, I believe there are many reasons for the wide popularity of the selfie in present times. But if I were to find a liet motif, I couldn't help but find it in the (in)famous Andy Warhol quote:
In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.
So, let's keep focused here for a little more, for a self-portrait to finally reach the Selfie level, we need the following ingredients:
- The right stance, or pose, the dumber the better, of our self-subject
- The gear, which is now totally commonplace, of a smartphone with a working internet connection
- A way of sharing, or propagate the shots, please choose your social network of choice between Facebook / Twitter or Instagram
It may have escaped your scrutiny that these ingredients aren't required for a self portrait to happen, not in any way, for the community to consider it a piece of Art.
So that we can safely recognize that the difference between a selfie and a self portrait can be summed up in the following:
A self portrait is to Art what a selfie is to our desire of increasing our self esteem
Still not convinced?
Well, then I feel forced to shove down your throat some very convincing visual examples, shall we?
Please compare the following photographs and tell me, can you tell which one is the selfie and which one is the self portrait of the two?
This is not in any way a contest, you won't really win anything, except my ever lasting appreciation.
So please voice your toughts in the comments below.
My dear readers, see you soon and let me wish you the best photographic light ever!
ATTENZIONE: Acquistando i prodotti che propongo all'interno dei miei articoli sul sito Amazon.it contribuirete a mantenere vivo questo blog, facendomi diventare ricco sfondato, giusto perché si sappia eh.


text:
KLSM CPA Firm PLLC
Professional Tax and Accounting Solutions
5 Tax Tips for the 2016 Filing Season
|Posted on December 27, 2016 at 9:00 AM
1. Locate a Tax Professional 2. Get Organized - Request or obtain a tax organizer from your tax professional to help organize your receipts for the 2016 filing season. 3. Charity - If you plan on making a charitable contribution, be sure to give to an qualified 501(c)(3) on or before December 31, 2016 and obtain a donation letter. 4. Major life changes - Notify your tax professional of any major life changes such as getting married, having children, moving for a job, purchasing a house or going back to school. These are a few of the major life changes that can impact your tax filing status, allowable deductions, and tax credits for which you may qualify. 5. Retirement - Talk to a tax professional about your retirements plans as you may want to consider contributing to an IRA or adjusting your contributions to a 401(k).
Categories: Tax Tips


text:
I'm not sure who declared it—or why. No lives were lost, but it took its toll on me and accelerated my aging process dramatically.
It was February for sure and I think it was 1986. I was at the Pasadena Convention Center with our small consumer woodworking show. It was our second or third show in Pasadena.
The show had 100 or so exhibitors and attracted about 8,000 to 10,000 visitors who wanted to see all the small tools and gadgets to make woodworking easier and more fun.
The show opened on Friday at noon with a typical light crowd. The meat of the crowd didn't usually show up till after 5pm.
Now it was about 3pm or so and the local Pasadena Fire Marshal came storming into the office right off the exhibit floor to tell me "he was closing the show." To answer my pleading "Why?," he said, "There's a law against visitors being next to operating machinery."
"What are you talking about?" I agitatedly asked. "That's nonsense, there is no such law." Now, at that point, we had done shows in Los Angeles, Orange County, and even in Pasadena and never heard anything like that before.
He was unmoved and told me he didn't have to show me the actual law. He was closing the show—and he did.
If I never felt panic before, I certainly did now. He got on the PA system and announced the closure and told all the visitors they had to leave.
That's when the onslaught of exhibitors came crowding into our office area wanting to know what was going on and threatening to sue or lynch me.
I called a lawyer, who told me a fire marshal or a policeman can't carry a law library with them and there wasn't much we could do to countermand his order. We could go to court next week, but that wouldn't solve the immediate problem.
You may recall my blog on 2-22-17 and one of the "Three Experiences That Changed My Life" was the Phoenix Fire Marshal wanting to close the Arizona Home Beautiful Show. I was able to get him to waive his order by opening up the stands in the coliseum so people could sit and watch the Dancing Water Show.
That was my first encounter with an arbitrary fire marshal, but he was a lot easier to deal with. This second encounter in Pasadena was a lot more difficult.
I put a call in for the convention center manager, but he was nowhere to be found. I told the exhibitors we would have a meeting Saturday morning before the show opened at 10am. At that point, I didn't have the slightest clue what I was going to tell them.
Friday evening was a gut-wrenching, tension-filled couple of hours. Not sure I slept much at all. Very early Saturday morning I finally connected with the convention center manager, who told me he had been aware of the situation, had talked to the fire chief and had a compromise solution to offer.
If we had each exhibitor with operating machinery set up some kind of barrier to keep visitors at least three feet away from the machinery, the fire marshal would allow us to open the show.
We got a lot of short pipe and drape and were able to keep our show attendees three feet or more away from the machinery. It wasn't pretty and the visitors wanted to get up as close as possible but at least we got the show opened.
That wasn't quite the end of it, however. I was issued a summons to appear in court for "obstructing the order of a fire marshal."
The eventual outcome was dismissal of the charges if I paid about $3,500 in court costs, plus about $5,000 in lawyer fees. What's a few more gray hairs?
Some months later we were at the Long Beach Convention Center doing another woodworking show and here comes the fire marshal. I groaned and said, "Here we go again!"
He told me he was thinking of closing the show because we had very crowded aisles and he heard I was likely to cause trouble. I guess he and the guy in Pasadena were buddies.
After an hour or so of negotiations with the convention center manager and the fire marshal, we convinced him there was no real problem and he could go home for the weekend.
Then there was Cincinnati, where the fire marshal insisted we put turnstiles at the entrance so he could count the number of people entering. The inference of course was that at some point he would close off new entrants.
He didn't think he would stand there himself but come by every so often to check. If that wasn't bad enough, the real kicker was he had no turnstiles to count the number of people leaving the show. Another fiasco!
About 1987 we moved our much larger woodworking machinery show from L.A. to the Anaheim Convention Center and everything seemed to work out quite well.
Right before our second show in 1989, the fire department asked for a meeting with us and the center management. They said they wanted a form from all the exhibitors who had operating machinery as well as a $30 fee to cover their administration.
Now we had about 800 exhibitors in this show for the trade and trying to alert out exhibitors and have them comply at this late date seemed to be difficult, at best.
Most important of all, would the form or the fee make anything safer or less harmful. No answer! So we distributed the forms and we paid the fee.
Truth be told, our shows, which included demonstrations of operating machinery, were a bit of a puzzle to fire officials. There were no standard procedures and they just didn't know what to do.
This was not a war we wanted or enjoyed.
Producing trade and consumer shows was a fun and exciting business much like the definition an Air Force pilot told me about flying the first jet fighters; "Hours of boredom, punctuated by moments of shark terror."


text:
Realtime Access Map
Thermal stability of Ag-exchanged clinoptilolite rich mineral
MetadataShow full item record
Thermal stability of clinoptilolite rich mineral from Western Anatolia, Turkey and its Ag-exchange forms was investigated. Parent mineral of different sizes were heated up to 1000°C with heating rate of 2 and 10°C min -1 using differential thermal analyzer (DTA) and thermogravimetric analyzer (TG). Ag exchange was conducted both in conventional constant temperature waterbath and microwave at 40, 60 and 80°C. The exchanged minerals were then characteized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffractometry (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), DTA and TG. The particle size and heating rate do not have significant effect on the thermal behavior of the parent mineral and no structural changes were observed with Ag exchange, only decomposition temperature was lowered. It was finally concluded that, Ag-exchanged clinoptilolite rich minerals were less thermally stable compared to parent mineral that does not affect their use for possible applications.


text:
Gazpacho bowl
€18,00 €0,00
Every piece is slipcast in my studio. After drying a couple of days I finish the edges really gently because they are very delicate at this stage. Afterwards they are fired once at 1060 degrees celsius. Than I glaze them with a brush and fire them again at 1040 degrees celcius. For this particular colour I glaze them with 3 layers. This way you have this wonderful deep coral colour.
Since these pieces are handmade you will notice some differences in the form and glazing. Every piece is unique. The picture is an example of the piece(s) you buy.
Size: D 170mm H 45mm
Material: Clay
Dishwasher safe but preferable hand wash.
Price per bowl


text:
This 1986 post 43 is a classic sport fishing yacht. The boat is a true battle wagon fishing machine. Great Canyon boat for the north east or a great Bahama boat for Florida. Powered by a pair of Detroit 671 TIB at 485 HP each the boat cruises at around 20 Knots and burns 22 GPH. The bridge seats 8 people and has a great view there is also a full tower. The electronics includes a Garmin 2010 GPS/Plotter/Depth sounder and a backup GPS, a VHF radio and a Single side band radio.
The cabin has 2 zone A/C and 2 staterooms. The salon has a couch and chair along with an ice machine and wet bar Bose's stereo system and flat screen TV. The galley is down a couple of steps with a full size refrigerator, brand new electric stove all the counter tops are new granite. The guest stateroom is on the starboard side with bunk beds the master stateroom has a center line queen and cedar lined cloth closets. Under the steps is the electrical panel
The engine room is clean with great access to the engines. The boat has a 8KW generator that needs some work. There are 2 fuel tanks holding a total of 550 gal.
311 Channel Drive
Point Pleasant Beach, NJ 08742
United States


text:
I've never understood why Formula 1 is classed as a sport. Or, if it is, why chess is not so classified, given that both are sedentary activities characterized by periods of sustained concentration. Or, it's a question of quick reactions as well as concentration, why are marathon sessions of Street Fighter 2 played from the comfort of one's sofa not seen as a sporting activity?
Is there a real distinction between sports and games (albeit with the possibility of an intersection between the two sets), or is just a question of historical happenstance which activity acquires which label?


text:
V2 Mango JUUL Compatible Pods
Simply insert the pod into your device, inhale and instantly discover the smoothest vaping experience available today. These pods are draw activated, eliminating the need for buttons and settings. Designed to give you a complete, smooth vaping experience with zero harshness and zero maintenance.
V2 Pods are not affiliated with or endorsed by JUUL Labs, Inc. Any mention of JUUL is merely to identify the compatibility of these pods and is solely for informational purposes.
JUUL is a registered trademark of JUUL Labs, Inc. Bitvape is not associated with JUUL or JUUL Labs in any way.


text:
Tag: Fangirl
Quote of the Week
Upcoming Books: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
I am a big fan of Rainbow Rowell and this October, her next book Carry On will finally be available to read! So here is what Rainbow has told us so far... - It is being released on Oct. 6, 2015 -There are no Advanced Reader Copies. Nobody can read it until the release date! - It was… Continue reading Upcoming Books: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
Shannon's Adventures in Publishing
This week I went on an adventure to London to work in Publishing & Marketing for a week! It was my first time getting a train on my own and the longest I'd ever spent in London so it was super scary. Back in April I shared an interview with my cousin who is… Continue reading Shannon's Adventures in Publishing
A review of Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell... Book: Fangirl Author: Rainbow Rowell Pages: 480 (Paperback) Genre: Young Adult Age Recommendation: 12+ Published: 30/01/2014 Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books ISBN: 9781447263227 ★★★★★ "Underneath this veneer of slightly crazy and mildly socially retarded, I'm a complete disaster." Cath and Wren are identical twin sisters who have always done everything together.… Continue reading Fangirl


text:
Roses Gabor - Rush
- Artist: Roses Gabor
- Track: Rush
- Producer: MNEK
- Album: None (Promo Single)
Some people prefer to take things slow with a new partner, gradually edging closer as trust develops. Roses Gabor? She doesn't f**k around. On Rush, her first feature since 2012's buzzworthy Stars, the UK songstress extends a bold and direct invitation to a man she's been eyeing: "I don't wanna waste your time / Meet me on the floor like it's the last night." MNEK mans the mixing boards, evoking the exhilaration of new romance with reverb-soaked cymbal crashes and ebbing, flowing synths. Now that Gabor's made her return to our pages, are you craving more? Then stay tuned; while she doesn't have any larger projects on the horizon, we'll keep you posted on her plans as further details emerge.


text:
Most Americans who dislike the Ku Klux Klan oppose the white supremacist group's hatred of other races. But not Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Senator who has been tabbed by President-elect Donald Trump for attorney general. The KKK fell out of favor with Sessions when he found out some of them smoked marijuana.
The story came out 30 years ago when President Ronald Reagan nominated Sessions as federal district judge for Alabama. As the Senate Judiciary Committee vetted the 39-year-old lawyer, they uncovered allegations that he had made several racist remarks while serving as U.S. attorney in Mobile, Alabama.
One of his strangest comments: he thought the Ku Klux Klan "were OK until I found out they smoked pot." Sessions apologized for making that remark, but that wasn't enough to convince the committee. His nomination was rejected.
Afterward, he became attorney general of Alabama and then clinched one of the state's senate seats, which he has held since 1997. During Trump's campaign for president, Sessions helped craft Trump's stance on immigration - including his pledge to deport illegal immigrants and to impose a moratorium on Muslims entering the country.
So civil rights activists have reason to be concerned with Trump's pick for attorney general.
And so do cannabis activists. Sessions apologized for his remark about the KKK, but his hatred of marijuana is as fervent as ever. That's a huge problem because as attorney general, Sessions would have the power to enforce federal cannabis prohibition unless Trump specifically orders him not to.
Right now, medical marijuana is legal in 29 states - more than half the country - and recreational cannabis has been legalized in eight states, plus Washington, D.C. But the federal government still prohibits medicinal and recreational use, so those legal states operate in a gray area. Those states and members of their cannabis industries are vulnerable to DEA raids and litigation if the next attorney general decides to enforce federal laws.
And Sessions has an appetite for doing just that. The senator is so backward on marijuana reform that he doesn't even want people talking about it.
"You can't have the President of the United States of America talking about marijuana," Sessions said during a Senate meeting last March. "You are sending a message to young people that there is no danger in this process. It is false that marijuana use doesn't lead people to more drug use. It is already causing a disturbance in the States that have made it legal."
Sessions is basically a talking time-capsule of the 1970s War on Drugs. The notion that marijuana leads people to abuse harder drugs has been debunked. And despite fears that loosening drug laws would increase consumption, states like Colorado haven't seen a spike in drug use following legalization.
But he isn't budging on the issue. Recently, he hosted a Senate hearing on marijuana that the Drug Policy Alliance dubbed a prohibitionist party. At the hearing, Sessions presented prohibition as a moral crusade, not just a matter of public health and criminal justice.
He called on his colleagues to spread the message "that this drug is dangerous, you cannot play with it, it is not funny, it's not something to laugh about... and to send that message with clarity that good people don't smoke marijuana."
So he's opposed to cannabis, as well as stoner comedies and Senator Ted Cruz, who loves making pot brownie jokes. No wonder Sessions received an F in NORML's congressional grades.
Will he be confirmed by the Senate?
But if history repeats itself, Sessions might not get a chance to do the job. He has already been rejected once in his political career by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Back in 1986, the Republicans held a 53-47 majority in the Senate. So Reagan's own party rejected the the appointment of Sessions. Since then, he has butted heads with Republican colleagues on many issues, including policies regarding ethnic minorities.
It's unlikely that the next Senate Judiciary Committee would reject Sessions based on his cannabis stance, but his position on race could once again rally opposition within his own party.
In the meantime, cannabis advocates are calling on Trump to reassure medical marijuana patients that the appointment of Sessions won't jeopardize their health.
The medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access is worried about the senator's candidacy for attorney general. "[T]he nomination of Jeff Sessions as the next attorney general of the United States is a tremendous cause for concern to medical cannabis patients and their families," said executive director Steph Sherer in a press release.
"President-elect Trump needs to reassure the more than 300 million Americans living under some sort of medical cannabis law that his attorney general will honor his campaign pledge to respect state medical cannabis programs," said Sherer.
"[M]edical cannabis is a critical therapy used by millions of patients to alleviate symptoms of epilepsy, chemotherapy, HIV/AIDS, chronic pain, and more," Sherer added. "We urge President-elect Trump to continue his support for medical cannabis by encouraging Sessions to act in the best interest of medical cannabis users nationwide and respect state medical cannabis programs."
h/t New York Times, CNN
Banner image: wikipedia.org


text:
Notice: Undefined variable: blocks in /home/307602.cloudwaysapps.com/uxqgmtzdwy/public_html/wp-content/themes/mx-theme/atw_app/classes/event-helper.php on line 51
LocationSummit High School
2855 NW Clearwater Dr
Bend, OR 97702
Map It
May 25th 2019
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
$15 General Admission
Central Oregon School of Ballet presents the classic fairy tale Cinderella! Two shows only, May 25th and 26th, 2019 at Summit High Auditorium.
Fall in love with Cinderella all over again as our heroine rises from oppressed servant girl to fairy tale princess!
This show will feature Professional Guest Ballet Dancers from Seattle and Bend as well as the talented students of COSB. Experience this story through the language of classical ballet with beautiful new choreography, hand painted sets and gorgeous new costumes. This production features a vibrant cast of characters! From the hilarious antics of the wicked Step Sisters, to the romance of Cinderella and her Prince this production is sure to delight you and your family.
Warning: count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable in /home/307602.cloudwaysapps.com/uxqgmtzdwy/public_html/wp-content/themes/mx-theme/mx-sections/row-panel-gallery.php on line 3


text:
Speedclaw - Official Website
Beast In The Mist
Review by Felix on July 9, 2019.
Once again, I received an e-mail that told me something about a "highly anticipated" new album of a band I did not know before. Speedclaw from Croatia? Who? However, I have learnt that Croatians can play football very well (please don't mention the downfall of the German team) and so I thought they will also be able to play metal. The e-mail gave me further hints. "Speedclaw still embody all the energy of the early '80s", for example. Well, very early eighties, because the energy of the band is combined with a certain naivety. Sometimes speed metal in its purest form lacks evil, although a certain viciousness is mostly welcome. However, the dudes focus on the traditional speed metal tools. This means that the songs are guitar-dominated, riff-oriented and, naturally, driven by fast-paced drumming. But they lack this quantum filth that speed formations like Baphomet's Blood integrate almost perfectly.
The playtime of the EP is longer than that of some so-called full-lengths. Already this fact indicates that the single tracks are based on a good foundation. Maybe the final kick is missing, but everything, the riffs, the solos, the vocals and so on, is well executed. I am no big fan of Maiden-esque instrumental parts and some of the tracks offer, among other things, exactly this kind of sections, but this is not to say that Speedclaw do their work in a flawed way. It's just a matter of taste whether or not one likes the more devastating form of speed metal.
Naturally, there is still room for improvement. "Rising of the Claw" starts with a good riff and straight up-tempo rhythms, but it derails during the meandering instrumental part. The loose and aimless guitars tell me to go to the fridge and get something to drink, because there is no need to give special attention to this section. Anyhow, this unfittingly relaxed sequence does not really bother me. These guys are still at the beginning and they have the potential for a future development. Their clearly structured songs mirror the thoughtful approach of the musicians and so tracks like "Beast in the Mist" or "Aggression Strikes" just make fun. The mixture consists of roughly 75% speed and 25% traditional metal and the warm yet vigorous vocals, the abrasive guitars and the cleverly arranged tempo changes constitute the main pillars of the material. Not to mention the production. "Beast in the Mist" sounds very professional, clean and robust. Even the stereotyped artwork does not suck. Thus, if you like to get a couple of good, speedy songs from the country of the vice world champion, try to find the beast in the mist, rescue the girl from its clutches, make love to her and listen to this output. Meanwhile, I will look for a physical copy of the EP.
Rating: 7.5 out of 1062


text:
We are a team of young and energetic photographers, videographers, content editors and general creatives who spend our time doing what we love. We have chased the sun all over the world, filming some of the most beautiful and elusive sites the world has never seen.
However, no job is too small or too close to home. South Florida is the perfect background for any footage you need, whether it is a home for sale, a car, or a boat on the water.
All of our high-quality footage is shot, edited and delivered at the most competitive prices and our standard time is 7-10 business days. We will literally go to the ends of the earth to capture your vision.


text: confrences Conferences and Conventions ADIPEC 2012 11 to 14 November 2012Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirateshttp://www.adipec.com Leaders of the Future Summit: Bridging the Gender Gap in Oil and Gas Industry 1-3 April 2012Westin Abu Dhabi Golf Resort and Spa Hotel, Abu Dhabi, UAEwww.leadingoilandgas.com/ City Gas Asia 2012 14th February – 15th February 2012Park Rotana Abu Dhabi, UAEwww.dmgeventsme.com/gasforum Developing, Operating and Maintaining Efficient City Gas Distribution Networks. Energy needs in Asia are on the rise; with growing populations and thriving economies, it's no wonder that countries here in Asia are investing in natural gas as a clean and cheaper alternative to conventional fuels.Natural gas can be used in a wide range of sectors, from transportation to household, to industrial and commercial use, and is believed to be the most important energy source for the future.However, setting up, operating and maintaining a gas distribution grid poses several challenges, from strategic planning, construction, operations, maintenance and monitoring to refurbishment of existing infrastructure to distribute natural gas safely and cost-effectively to residential, industrial and commercial areas.City Gas Asia 2012 is dedicated to help regional operators, distributors and regulatory bodies overcome the strategic and technical challenges in designing and implementing gas networks by providing them with a platform to discuss and share successful strategies and solutions for the development of city gas grids. Global Pipeline Construction, Integrity & Maintenance Conference Global Pipeline Construction, Integrity & Maintenance Conference13th – 15th November 2011Burj Khalifa Armani Hotel, Dubai International Plant Maintenance & Reliability Conference13th – 15th November 2011Burj Khalifa Armani Hotel, Dubai QEnergy and GMCS attended both of these Knowledge Expansion conferences Photos will be uploaded soon Middle East Gas Forum 31st October – 2nd November 2011Park Rotana Abu Dhabi, UAEwww.dmgeventsme.com/gasforum Lootah BCGas/QEnergy/GMCS were "Associate Sponsors" for this informative forum.


text:
Get involved with Wildcats Girls' Football Clubs
Have fun, make friends, play football.
The FA have developed an initiative designed to inspire girls aged between 5-11 to be involved in football. Wildcats Girls' Football Centres provide girls with regular opportunities to play football and take part in organised sessions in a fun and engaging environment. In 2018, over 800 centres took part, getting over 20,000 girls' playing football.
The sessions take place on a weekly basis, either after school or at weekends, subject to each local organiser. They provide a safe environment where girls who don't currently play the game can have fun engaging with sport, make new friends, develop fundamental skills, try a variety of sessions and create foundations for a lifelong love of sport.Each Wildcats Girls' Football Centre is run in conjunction with local County FAs utilising qualified coaches and local facilities to offer girls a location nearby where they can get involved. If you would like more information about Wildcats Centres please contact email@example.com
Wildcats CENTReS in Cambridgeshire
Bar Hill
Day: Monday
Time: 6-7pm
Venue: Bar Hill Village Green
Contact: Jairo Marin
Day: Saturday
Time: 10-11am
Venue: Burwell Sports Centre
Contact: secretary@
Day: Saturday
Time: 9-10am
Venue: Cambourne Fitness & Sport Centre
Contact: email@example.com
Day: Tuesday
Time: 6pm - 7pm
Venue: Cromwell Community College 3G
Contact: email@example.com
Day: Thursday
Time: 3.30-4.30pm
Venue: Cottenham Primary School
Contact: Simon Rose
Day: Sunday
Time: 12-1pm (5-8 year olds)
1-2pm (9-12 year olds)
Venue: Trumpington Meadows Primary School
Contact: secretary@


text:
A consortium of seven California State University campuses proposes to continue an international research training program at prestigious Universities and Research Institutes in Thailand, Argentina and Great Britain. The different locations provide outstanding opportunities for training in public health, clinical, and basic research on subjects relevant to health disparities and global health, focusing on issues related to cancer, HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular disease, or multi-resistant infections. The objectives of this program are: 1. To increase the numbers of students belonging to groups underrepresented in biomedical, behavioral, clinical and social sciences research that pursue advanced degrees in basic sciences, biomedical or clinical research fields. Our training program is committed to developing a cadre of researchers that develop deep understanding and a passion for health disparities issues which could potentially produce future leaders in this field;2. To make these students aware of minority and international health problems and to prepare them to seek novel approaches to address them;3. To inculcate in these students the importance and opportunities of international collaboration in research to address health issues and health disparities from a global perspective;and 4. To contribute to the reduction, and eventual elimination of health disparities among racial and ethnic minority groups in the U.S. To achieve these objectives 8 to 10 students/year will participate in 10-12 weeks summer research experiences in which they will: a. receive training in experimental research, design, data collection, analysis and interpretation of data, use of current literature and the different venues to publish results;b. become familiar with the cultural characteristics affecting the scientists and population in the foreign location;c. be provided with opportunities to communicate their research results in the form of publications or submissions to scientific conferences (oral or poster presentations), as well as to orally present their research in laboratory meetings at the foreign site and the consortium campuses;d. be mentored to ensure that they complete the degree they are pursuing at the time the training takes place and pursue advanced degrees or other health-related careers. The foreign laboratories have been carefully selected to ensure the highest quality research training in subjects relevant to the goals of NIMHD, and to place them in environments with different kinds of health disparities and ethnic and racial mixes. The typical trainee will have completed at least 2 years of coursework in an appropriate major, a GPA of 3 or higher, high interest in a scientific research career, and will not have completed a terminal degree. At least 75 percent of the students selected will be undergraduates.
Students belonging to groups under-represented in biomedical, behavioral, clinical, and social sciences research will receive training in public health, basic, or clinical research on subjects related to health disparities and global health. These students will be part of the future cadre of researchers that thoroughly understand health disparities issues.
|Jani, Saumya; Jackson, Alexis; Davies-Sala, Carol et al. (2018) Assessment of External Guide Sequences' (EGS) Efficiency as Inducers of RNase P-Mediated Cleavage of mRNA Target Molecules. Methods Mol Biol 1737:89-98
|Montaña, Sabrina; Schramm, Sareda T J; Traglia, German Matías et al. (2016) The Genetic Analysis of an Acinetobacter johnsonii Clinical Strain Evidenced the Presence of Horizontal Genetic Transfer. PLoS One 11:e0161528
|Murray, Jordan K; DiStefano, Anthony S; Yang, Joshua S et al. (2016) Displacement and HIV: Factors Influencing Antiretroviral Therapy Use by Ethnic Shan Migrants in Northern Thailand. J Assoc Nurses AIDS Care 27:709-21
|Ramirez, María Soledad; Xie, Gang; Traglia, German M et al. (2016) Whole-Genome Comparative Analysis of Two Carbapenem-Resistant ST-258 Klebsiella pneumoniae Strains Isolated during a North-Eastern Ohio Outbreak: Differences within the High Heterogeneity Zones. Genome Biol Evol 8:2036-43
|Jackson, Alexis; Jani, Saumya; Sala, Carol Davies et al. (2016) Assessment of configurations and chemistries of bridged nucleic acids-containing oligomers as external guide sequences: a methodology for inhibition of expression of antibiotic resistance genes. Biol Methods Protoc 1:
|Davies-Sala, Carol; Soler-Bistué, Alfonso; Bonomo, Robert A et al. (2015) External guide sequence technology: a path to development of novel antimicrobial therapeutics. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1354:98-110
|Li, Michael Jonathan; Murray, Jordan Keith; Suwanteerangkul, Jiraporn et al. (2014) Stigma, social support, and treatment adherence among HIV-positive patients in Chiang Mai, Thailand. AIDS Educ Prev 26:471-83
|Reyes-Lamothe, Rodrigo; Tran, Tung; Meas, Diane et al. (2014) High-copy bacterial plasmids diffuse in the nucleoid-free space, replicate stochastically and are randomly partitioned at cell division. Nucleic Acids Res 42:1042-51
|Traglia, German M; Chua, Katherina; Centrón, Daniela et al. (2014) Whole-genome sequence analysis of the naturally competent Acinetobacter baumannii clinical isolate A118. Genome Biol Evol 6:2235-9
|Tran, Tung; Andres, Patricia; Petroni, Alejandro et al. (2012) Small plasmids harboring qnrB19: a model for plasmid evolution mediated by site-specific recombination at oriT and Xer sites. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 56:1821-7
Showing the most recent 10 out of 25 publications


text:
Some items are no longer available. Your cart has been updated.
This discount code cannot be used in conjunction with other promotional or discounted offer.
Your cart is empty.
— Regular price Sale price USD $119.00
Men's Vintage Work Cotton Polyester Beret Hat-Solid Colored Fall Winter Brown
— Regular price Sale price USD $119.00


text:
CCHD Celebrates National Infant Immunization Week!
The Cascade City County Health Department is celebrating National Infant Immunization week April 16th-23rd. Since their licensure, immunizations have proved to be a vital weapon in fighting disease. Hundreds of communities across the nation and the world will be celebrating the role immunizations have in protecting our communities and most importantly, our families.
Come celebrate with CCHD! Parents can stop in at the City County Health Department to get their children immunized, no appointments are needed. CCHD Public Health Nurses are immunization experts who receive continued education throughout every year. They will be available to answer questions about vaccinations and help parents determine if their kids' shots are up to date.
Vaccines are among the most cost-effective public health tool in preventing disease and death. They not only protect the individual, but they protect entire communities by preventing and reducing the spread of infectious diseases. Among children born between 1994-2013, vaccines will prevent an estimated 322 million illnesses, 21 million hospitalizations, 732,000 deaths over the course of their lifetimes.
"Immunizations protect our children from diseases that were so prevalent in the past. Most parents today have never seen the effects that vaccine-preventable diseases have on a child, family, or community" says Jill Furan, CCHD Public Health Nurse.
The City County Health Department offers immunizations on a walk-in basis. All forms of payments and insurances are taken. No child will be denied vaccinations for an inability to pay.


text:
Rosery Florist Ltd. 74 Larch St, Sudbury, ON P3E 1B9
Visit our other web site
Toll Free: 800-838-4889 Local: 705-673-7161Email Us
Visit our other web site
Bouquet of Mixed Cut FlowersIntercat-3910
This elegant bouquet features white orchids in stunning design. Bouquet is tied and wrapped, ready for the recipient's favorite vase.
All items featured on this site represent the types of arrangements we offer and may vary depending upon availability in certain regions. Substitution Policy


text:
Map of Narrows Kentucky KY
Narrows Kentucky KY Map professionally designed by GreatCitees.com. Feel free to remix and share.
Non-commercial works only please.
We also have maps for nearby towns:
Sulphur Springs, KY
Ellmitch, KY
Fordsville, KY
Sunnydale, KY
Jingo, KY
Askin, KY
Rosine, KY
Adaburg, KY
Aetnaville, KY
Dukehurst, KY
Combs Ford, KY
Windy Hill, KY
White Run, KY
Taffy, KY
Jugville, KY
Falls of Rough, KY
Whitesville, KY
Dogwalk, KY
Rob Roy, KY
Baizetown, KY
Narrows, Kentucky KY Souvenir Shirt
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License
| © 2008-2020 TownMapsUSA.com


text:
Suffering with a LEAKY TAP?
Panty liners and a pair of clean knickers. Not quite the items you'd imagine you'd find in your handbag 20 years ago, but here you are, crossing your legs tightly as you queue for the next available toilet cubicle. And you don't quite know how much longer you can last…
1 in 3 women suffer from urinary incontinence.
It's a subject that is rarely discussed in public, yet most women are aware of it and accept their fate of suffering from leaks. But is incontinence inevitable?
What is incontinence ?
Incontinence is defined as the involuntary release of urine or faecal matter. There are numerous forms of incontinence. Some may be more familiar to you than others, and some you may not have even considered a problem.
•Do you find yourself leaking a little when you're giggling with the girls? That's Stress Incontinence.
•Do you feel the need to go to the toilet the second you get home? That's Latch Key Syndrome.
•Do you sometimes get sudden urges to go to the toilet? That's Urge Incontinence.
•Do you leak a little during intercourse or masturbation? That's Coital Incontinence.
Essentially, whether you've got a leaky tap or a burst pipe – it's incontinence and it is preventable.
Who suffers from incontinence?
The word incontinence often gets us thinking of little old ladies in care homes who leak whenever they cough or laugh. Although somewhat true, incontinence doesn't just affect the elderly. In fact, leaking urine can be influenced by the strength of a person's pelvic floor.
The pelvic floor is a hammock-shaped group of muscles that supports all your pelvic organs, including your bladder and bowel.
If the pelvic floor muscles are strong, you'll find it easy to control your bladder and bowel. If they are weakened, you may find yourself leaking a little here and there. Throughout life, these muscles can naturally deteriorate. That's why it's so important to learn how to improve and maintain the strength of your pelvic floor.
STRESS INCONTINENCE is very common amongst mothers.
This is where you find yourself leaking when laughing, coughing, lifting or doing anything that puts extra pressure on your pelvic floor. Unfortunately, most mums think that leaking is just part of the package of motherhood, but this is not the case! Incontinence is common, but it is not normal! 45% of mothers still suffer from urinary incontinence 7 years after giving birth. And, those who suffered from urinary incontinence after childbirth are likely to still be incontinent 12 years later! Yet it is not necessary.
Incontinence is easily prevented and even reversible!
You may also find yourself experiencing bladder leakage as you approach the menopause. During the menopause, your oestrogen and collagen levels plummet. Collagen is the vital protein that keeps the pelvic floor strong and supportive and, without it, the muscles become weak and may not function as they used to. Weakening of the muscles can lead to a loss of control of the bladder or even a pelvic organ prolapse! 50% of women over 50 will experience some form of pelvic organ prolapse, and these chances increase if you undergo a hysterectomy. The good news is that you can easily improve and maintain the strength of your pelvic floor!
How to treat incontinence
Recognising the importance of the pelvic floor before any signs of weakness is the best possible circumstance. Your pelvic floor muscles are really pushed to their limits during pregnancy and the menopause, so strengthening your muscles beforehand can really give you the upper hand.
The easiest way to strengthen those vital muscles is by performing Kegel exercises.
A Kegel (pelvic floor exercise) is a contraction of your pelvic floor muscles. Just like any other muscle, your pelvic floor muscles need a workout too, to help them stay strong and supportive.
To perform a Kegel, follow these steps:
1.Squeeze your anus as if you're trying to hold in wind.
2.Tighten the muscles around your vagina.
3.Squeeze both areas and lift them upwards towards your navel.
4.Make sure you're not pushing downwards as this can damage the muscles.
5.Perform 10 fast (2 second) Kegels and 10 slow (10 second) Kegels 3 times per day.
Already suffering from bladder leaks? You don't have to tolerate it! Kegels can also help you to regain strength and control of your bladder and/or bowel, so it's never too late to start practicing
your Kegel exercises as they'll help you :
•Re-tone your pelvic floor
•Control your bladder and bowel movements
•Prevent pelvic organ prolapse
•Improve intimate sensations
It's best to begin with gentle, short pelvic floor squeezes that you can gradually build upon. If you're struggling to tell whether you're doing your Kegels correctly, don't worry, you wouldn't be the only one – nearly 50% of women don't know how to perform a pelvic floor contraction correctly.
You can always try a gadget that can help you to engage your pelvic floor muscles too!
Whether you are currently suffering from little leaks or not, it's important that you recognise the importance of the pelvic floor muscles in controlling bladder and bowel functions. Motherhood and menopause do not have to involve a mountain of sanitary pads to keep you dry. As normal as the 'sensitive bladder' adverts make it seem, incontinence is far from normal and you do not have to suffer.
Take control of your bladder health today.
For further information and products to help with your bladder health visit www.kegel8.co.uk/mamalife
Kegel8 are also offering £20.00 off your purchase of a KEGEL8 ULTRA 20 ELECTRONIC TONER. Enter MAMALIFE at checkout.


text:
How to dress your baby for outdoors
What is it about?
How to dress your baby for outdoors? Hard to decide what your toddler should wear today?
App Screenshots
App Store Description
How to dress your baby for outdoors? Hard to decide what your toddler should wear today?
Do you have a problem selecting the right clothes?
Meet BabyWeather app. The first outfit planner app for babies helps new parents to avoid the stress of dressing up their loved ones. Whether it is sunny, cloudy, raining, snowing or warm outside, BabyWeather suggests the ideal clothing for your baby from newborn till toddler ages. Your "what to wear today" suggestion is based on the actual weather conditions and forecasts of your current location or any other spot in the world. No need to worry about weather reports: with BabyWeather 's personal clothing recommendation you can go outside for a walk or to the playground with your baby in the best clothed way.
- Different outfits for your baby according to the actual weather conditions
- Outfits for babies from newborn till toddler ages
- Gender settings: girl, boy or unisex
- Tips and tricks for baby dress up
- Wardrobe for your baby with the most essential clothes
- Recommendation for "Real feel" temperature
- Real-time weather conditions
- Current location, wherever you are in the world
- Search for specific places by city names for multiple spots all around the world
AppAdvice does not own this application and only provides images and links contained in the iTunes Search API, to help our users find the best apps to download. If you are the developer of this app and would like your information removed, please send a request to [email protected] and your information will be removed.


text:
From the new year, LUL wants station staff to wear red tabards with the slogan "here to help".
The idea came out of a London Travelwatch review of the impact of staff cuts and ticket office closures, which found that staff were not visible enough.
More staff, not an add-on to our uniform, is the answer! Why should we dress like clowns to cover up for staff shortages? LUL has ignored unions' objections.


text:
Headless Recap
Back in May 2017, Kathy Griffin made a choice. To be fair, she was not alone in making this choice. Ultimately though, she is the one who released the pictures and dealt with the fallout. Of course, this is about the pictures of her holding a "bloodied" mask of Donald Trump's face.
At first, it seemed to be something that would play well with her fans. According to Blind Gossip, there were a lot of supporters immediately after the pics went viral. A source told them: "She was thrilled that the photo was getting so much play and that it was making every publication. Some of her friends were calling her and texting her about how awesome it was. She was laughing and shouting, "Yes! Yes!" every time it was the top item on a website. She thought it was really edgy and funny and a hugely successful stunt." But all good things must come to an end.
Then Trump supporters saw the photos and the controversy kicked in. According to Blind Gossip, Trump fans started calling her nasty names and even threatening her. From their source: "She started crying. She was really worried about her personal safety." The source continued, "She does not think she was wrong. She was just scared about all the threats and wanted to make them stop. That's why she backed down." Right after the controversy began, there was unexpected fallout.
Her comedy tour was suddenly canceled. Venues around the country stopped booking her and found ways to end the contracts that had been in place. CNN fired her from her New Years Eve gig that she had done with Anderson Cooper. The Secret Service along with the FBI began investigating her for a possible threat to Trump's life. Her life was in shambles.
Comeback Feuds
As the controversy roiled on, Anderson Cooper condemned the photo scandal on air. This, of course, did not sit well with Kathy, and the friendship that had once seemed so solid disappeared. While there has been hope for a reconciliation, especially in the wake of his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt's death, that does not appear to be the case.
When she was asked about mending the friendship, Kathy basically said it's on Anderson to do that; "I don't think he has really any interest in it. And I'm, like I said, after going through something like this, I'm, like, done chasing people. I'm down to three friends on a good day, and so I just kind of want to go where I can make people laugh. I really loved him, and I really loved doing that [New Years Eve] show, and it was a lot of fun." Given that Anderson is really tight with her former boss and current enemy, that is not surprising.
Anderson's current best friend is Andy Cohen, who is a frequent target of Kathy's attacks. The two worked together when Kathy had her reality show, My Life on The D-List, her talk show Kathy, and on many comedy specials that Bravo aired.
Cohen vs Griffin Round 1
In all fairness to Kathy, her feud with Andy Cohen seems to have started with him. When TMZ asked about replacing Kathy on the CNN New Years Eve show, he replied with "Who? I don't know her."
With those shots fired, Kathy retaliated with her own. She wrote on Twitter, "Even when it's on tape, there are doubters? He is NOT kidding w paps. Was my boss for 10 years. Treated me like a dog. Deeply misogynistic," but Kathy did not stop there.
Cohen vs Griffin Round 2
Anyone who knows or has been a fan of the feisty red head will tell you, Kathy Griffin is not one who knows when to stop. As the controversy about her pics subsided and people began talking about what she was saying about Andy Cohen, she dropped a nuclear bomb. In a Twitter video she posted she alleged: "Right before we went live, Andy Cohen privately asked me in an office in Embassy Row — which is the production company that does that s— show — if I wanted to do blow,"
Again she was not done with him just yet. "You guys know I'm no prude but I'm like, kind of a straight edge — I thought he was kidding the first time, Just so you know, Jimmy Kimmel or Seth Meyers never asked me to do blow before going on their show. No one from 'The View' has ever asked me to do blow before a show." Kathy is notorious for not drinking and food being her only vice.
With shots fired, Andy Cohen was forced to answer the allegations. He tweeted his denial: "I am completely stunned by this story. It is 100% false and totally made up," and Bravo, the network he is employed by sent out a message. "This is completely false and we are not going to credit it with any more attention."
The denial angered Kathy. She tried to prove Cohen's douchiness by sharing a letter from a former one night stand. The man only identified as Forrest wrote: "It was clear to me then that his interest in me was momentary, and I felt used," this scandal never took off though.
Cohen vs Griffin 2019
Most of 2018 was silent on the Cohen/Griffin feud. The streak of silence ended when an interviewer asked her about Andy Cohen. Kathy's answer will lead to another round between these gossipy divas. Kathy answered: "Andy Cohen treated me like a dog. He was, like, one of the worst bosses I ever had. The guy decides the entire slate at Bravo and he gave himself a talk show that magically gets renewed every year."
Andy Cohen has yet to respond to the new accusations. But it is going to be so good!


text:
My chess set was a challenge.
By Rob Smallwood.
It commenced, as many things do, with an accident. A small glass chess set, kept in the kitchen, suffered an assault by a panic stricken cat which being nosey, a genetic feature we are all familiar with, took flight with the dog in pursuit .
The idea to make an original chess set therefore came as a direct result of, forgive the pun, a CATastrophe. My working life started at 15 as an apprentice jockey, weighing around 6 stones, in a rest and recuperation racing stables where a horse with the racing name R 44, owned and named after one of Mr Raymond`s (Teezy Weezy) fragrances, became my charge and I called him Jim.
My father had other ideas. Being a Chartered Engineer and one of the two finest engineers I have ever known, enrolled me as a draughtsman apprentice with the BSA making guns and motorcycles and I hated every minute of it. Eventfully I was reading the Birmingham Evening Mail and spotting an advert which intrigued me for youths-in-training with the Post Office Telecommunications (GPO). I joined them and completed their excellent training scheme before moving on to join GEC.
My working background therefore is mainly in electronics and telecommunications. As a Project Engineer with GEC being responsible for several power station systems including the Nuclear Oldbury On Seven, several hospitals, government MOD sites and the National Exhibition Centre Birmingham, I was invited by my stepfather to take over his precision grinding company which offered a service mainly to the aerospace industry.
We were approached one day by a company called Cambridge Microfab who sent us samples and asked us if we could meet their specification. The specification was to centreless grind small sample spindles to one tenth of one-thousandth of an inch and a four micro-inch finish, which is as smooth as glass. We were judged the top potential supplier and helped by being Rolls Royce approved. I ran the business for 25 years before retiring to Northern Cyprus with my wife Sheila who had acted as my excellent secretary for ten years and even better wife for 53 years.
So it was from this background I decided to make my chess set and prompted by my 11 year old grandson, over on holiday from the UK, who spotted a small chess set made from glass in our kitchen. He said give me a game grand-dad so we started playing , and thinking he can`t be brilliant , after five moves I surrendered my Queen and played for stalemate which I managed to achieve.
Some months later we went to the UK and while we were away the catastrophe occurred. The idea to make a replacement chess set began to take root and many options were considered including size, shape, configuration, materials and above all it had to be unique. Being a precision engineer and working in the unfamiliar fired clay presented a challenge since the medium in itself is an in-exact science as is precision centreless grinding where 1000 of an inch out of tolerance is to an engineer, not acceptable. After 12 months with all the templates for the individual chess pieces made so they would match and most pieces completed, disaster.
An emergency stop on the way to see my pottery mentor revealed all smashed on the rear floor. So, back to square one, but not quite since I now had twelve months of experience under my belt and the result 12 months later was worth waiting for.
Categories: Entertainment, Hobbies, Reviews


text:
Characterization of an automated thermometric microfluidic titrator
We fabricated and characterized an automated microfluidic system, demonstrated as a thermometric titrator. The device was tested using HCl (strong acid) and NaOH (strong base) with concentrations of 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 M, and with varying volumes of mixing chamber. The system was able to measure temperature change as low as 1.0 x 10-3 °C with with every addition of titrant, and was able to determine the endpoint with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.16 M.
How to Cite
C. Valgomera, D. A. Bruzon, and G. Tapang. Characterization of an automated thermometric microfluidic titrator, Proceedings of the Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas 36, SPP-2018-1C-05 (2018). URL: https://proceedings.spp-online.org/article/view/SPP-2018-1C-05.
Physics Education


text:
Universal Spoken Term Detection with Deep Learning
The overwhelming majority of state-of-the-art ASR systems follow the same path since about thirty years. The speech signal is rst transformed into carefully \hand-crafted" features; usually generative models are then used to estimate likelihood of subword units (typically phonemes); dynamic programming methods are then applied to recognize the word sequence under various constraints, such as lexical constraints or language model constraints. This type of approach in several independent steps has great advantages: for e.g., we have very good a priori on the type of processing happening in the human ear, and it is natural to design features reproducing this processing. In the same order of idea, modeling words with phonemes allow the model to be resistant to some invariances, would be harder to get with speech features alone. And nally, decomposing the problem in several sub-problems has also a great advantage in terms of computational cost. However, some researchers have already questioned this type of approach: any problem solved in several steps, even carefully chosen, has good chances to be sub-optimal. Various eorts for nding speech features have been pursued. In certain cases, generative models have been replaced by discriminative approaches, leading to hybrid Neural Networks-Hidden Markov Models methods or Conditional Random Field-based methods. Still, a major question remains: is it possible to design a end-to-end speech system? That is, designing a system which would be trained discriminatively in a end-to-end manner, learning itself the right features for decoding any sequence of word? While this approach is certainly very challenging and seems to shortcut a lot of current research in speech, we strongly believe computers have reached a suffcient processing power to begin research in this new direction. Following research which has been achieved in image and text processing (LeCun et al., 1998; Collobert et al., 2011), we are interested in applying deep learning methods for speech processing. Deep learning algorithms have the hability of learning several layers of features representing the data, which an increasing level of abstraction. They are particularly interesting in the context of speech, as it has been shown with Graph Transformer Networks (Bottou et al., 1997) that it is possible to learn these features through a dynamical programming cost. Our ultimate goal is to show the viability of deep learning methods at several levels of speech processing, basing ourselves on good a priori found by the speech community, but going slowly towards an end-to-end system. As a rst modest step, we investigate in this project deep learning techniques to develop a novel end-to-end grapheme-based spoken term detection system.
Application Area - Exploitation of rich multimedia archives, Machine Learning
Idiap Research Institute
Hasler Stiftung (Hasler Foundation)
Dec 01, 2011
Nov 30, 2014


text: tips and tricks 30/08/2018 announcements, tips and tricks print from a usb stick by: sun xuwei 09/08/2018 announcements, tips and tricks material profile manager interface introduction the following window is the main interface for the material profile manager. the interface includes several function areas whic by: sun xuwei 27/07/2018 tips and tricks comparison for three different extruders by: sun xuwei 25/06/2018 tips and tricks tiertime print queue by: sun xuwei 28/05/2018 tips and tricks introducing the tiertime task by: sun xuwei 05/03/2018 tips and tricks 9-point calibration method by: sun xuwei 07/07/2017 tips and tricks model calibration – xyz axial xyz axial calibration is used to improve dimensional accuracy for a specific model. when a printed object is found to be deviating from its theoretica by: sun xuwei 11/05/2017 tips and tricks model calibration – vertical calibration in our latest version of up studio, we brought back one of its most wanted features, vertical calibration. its main purpose is to ensure all three axe by: sun xuwei


text: Can I do a contemporary kitchen in the middle of suburbia? "Contemporary is the watchword for North American kitchen design, according to the 2015 Kitchen & Bath Design Trends report from the National Kitchen & Bath (NKBA)." Are all these kitchens in urban loft-style homes? No, actually they are your neighbors. "The rise of contemporary and transitional kitchen designs have been swift. Both styles have increased in specifications by more than 15 percentage points in just four years." –NKBA We are doing sleek, modern kitchens in all styles of homes. This clean, linear … [Read more...]


text:
Tony Abbott will no doubt continue his public war of words against the "great big new tax", but he would quietly approve of the new de-facto minister for carbon pricing in the Australian cabinet – Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland.
Tusk is exactly the sort of prime minister of Poland that you would imagine Abbott would be, if he had an "inski" at the end of his name. Tusk doesn't want to push on climate change because he wants the rest of the world to act first, he says carbon policies are a threat to an economy that relies so much on coal, he doesn't like building wind and solar farms because he says it merely supports technologies that come from western European countries. Presumably, he doesn't approve of washing machines or TVs either.
Tusk doesn't have the National Party in tow, but he does have the Peasants Party, and it's hard to spot the difference. Both assert that climate change and clean energy policies are "dangerous" for a country that relies so heavily on coal – more than 90 per cent, even more than Australia.
Tusk, in fact, has done more than anyone to hold up more ambitious climate change policies of the progressive nations on the continent – he has been able to veto moves to lift European emissions reduction targets, veto a proposal for a more ambitious continent-wide renewable energy target, and veto moves to rid the massive overhang of phantom credits that has swamped the EU carbon market.
He has, single-handedly, made the EU climate policies all but useless – a fact that is celebrated in Poland. "It's a toothless tiger," a senior Polish diplomat said recently of the ETS. "Nobody will dare to chop this tree down, but we will be shaking it until it loses all its leaves." That's a sound-bite right out of the Abbott vestibule.
Australia has now bought into that political mess and hitched a ride on European carbon cavalcade by aligning its carbon trading scheme with Europe. This is not to say that Australia's decision to drop the carbon floor price and link to Europe's was the wrong one. But like so much of the debate that has characterized the climate change policy arena, it is one borne out of expediency and compromise, and possibly for the wrong reasons.
In the current domestic context, it is seen as smart politics. It effectively neutralises the business lobby, defuses the political debate, and invited Abbott to take the bait and adopt an even more extreme position. Mr "No" obliged. He now has even less room to manouvre. The political pundits that make their living in Canberra are duly sated, at least for the moment.
But unless the government's budget numbers are to be blown out of the water, then Canberra needs to hope that pressure can be brought to bear on Poland's PM, and that at least two of those troika of policies that he has so far neutered can make progress– at the very minimum it needs the massive overhang of surplus credits to be removed or delayed. Otherwise, once the fixed price period ends in 2015, its own carbon price will fall to a similarly useless level as Europe's.
This may satisfy "business", but it underlines the critical importance of the "complementary" policies that will be the next target of the unrelenting forces opposed to change, unless it comes with a hefty compensation package. Chief among these is the Renewable Energy Target. A lower carbon price means there is no hope at all of substituting gas for coal. Without the RET, a low carbon price means that Australia will do not much transitioning at all.
But the low carbon price means that renewable energy certificates (RECs) will be more expensive to bridge the difference in the upfront capital costs of wind and solar farms. (The difference between the current cost of coal and renewables is made up from a combination of the carbon price and the RECs price. If one falls, the other rises). That does not make much difference to consumers, but it could be tempting for energy utilities to pay a penalty price on the RECs rather than go to the trouble of building something useful. The RET needs to be retained, and it escape clauses need to be strengthened.
Because of their own frustration with the EU ETS, leading European economies have taken their own additional measures to effect a transition to a low carbon economy, and to ensure that they remain competitive with the Asian economies and their Asian counterparts, who are dominating the clean energy markets. England has introduced an additional carbon price for its energy sector, on top of a renewable energy target and generous feed in tariffs. Germany has accelerated its exit from nuclear and is pushing for the most ambitious transformation to a renewables-dominated electricity grid. Ireland, Spain and the Scandinavian countries all have supplementary measures to add to their low carbon opportunities.
And that's the tricky position for Australia. It is located in the heart of the Asia-Pacific region, which is competing so vigorously to champion clean energy technologies, and gain the dominant role in what the head of GE last week described as a $6 trillion market. Asian countries that are considering emissions trading schemes are unlikely to introduce schemes that are so patently compromised as that of Europe's – the Californian scheme that comes into effect in a few months has an effective floor price and no permits from international markets for that very reason.
These were all considerations when Australia went through the laborious process of designing its own scheme that was supposed to draw from the experiences and lessons of Europe. That explains the "cautious" welcome given to Combet's announcement by advocacy groups. Actually, they think it's pretty stupid, but are so thankful of having a carbon price at all, and so terrified by what Abbott might do to it, that even a compromise is acceptable.
So now we've exported sovereignty over carbon pricing to Poland, in a continent in the midst of a recession. If any media organizations in Australia had any money it would be worth opening a bureau in Warsaw. An Australian reporter is likely to see some familiar faces checking in to lobby in the corridors of power – Mitch, Greg, Matthew, Oh, look, there's Jennifer. And the Peasants Party should invest in a new set of napkins – the luncheon menu is set.
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of Renew Economy, and is also the founder of One Step Off The Grid and founder/editor of The Driven. Giles has been a journalist for 35 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.


text:
Signup for the annual LCMGA annual business meeting and breakfast. The breakfast is paid for by the LCMGA. Have breakfast and listen to the 2018 schedule of events, etc. Start time 9:00 am
- Home
- Our League
- Details
- Calendar
- Members Only
- Contact Us
- Login


text:
On February 3, 2015, Resolution No. R-150-15 was passed and adopted, creating the Miami-Dade County Public Private Partnership Taskforce. The powers and duties of the P3 Taskforce are: (1) to make recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners in regards to Miami-Dade County's ordinances, resolutions, regulations, implementing orders, and administrative practices that will advance public private partnerships; and (2) to identify potential projects that address critical infrastructure needs in Miami-Dade County that are suitable for a public private partnership arrangement.
The P3 Taskforce is currently working on a P3 legislation draft for the County, which develops a P3 competitive structure. Any entity seeking to respond to a P3 bid issuance would have to comply with the procedures and requirements as recommended by the Taskforce.
In developing the P3 legislation, the Taskforce is unable to adopt the State of Florida's P3 procurement model because the State of Florida's P3 projects are mostly transportation focused, and the County anticipates diverse projects to be undertaken. Moreover, the Taskforce cannot look to the County legislation for guidance, as the County does not currently have legislation that specifically addresses P3 procurement. As such, the Taskforce will consider elements such as County staff feedback, recommendations from the public, and P3 models from other agencies in formulating its recommendations and findings.
Since the Taskforce seeks to draft the most comprehensive recommendations possible, a number of County ordinances will be affected. Specifically, County Code Section 2-8.1, which governs the procurement of goods and services, would be amended.
The "Cone of Silence" regulation, which restricts communications during the solicitation process, is one area that warrants modification.
The "Cone," as it is known, prohibits certain oral communications regarding a particular RFP, RFQ, or bid, from the issuance of the solicitation until staff makes an official recommendation. Although written communications, copied to the Clerk of the Board, are permitted, in-depth negotiations between staff and qualified firms are not.
Simply put, traditional procurements for goods and services are a two-step process. First, bidders submit written proposals in response to a detailed scope and second, at a later date, bidders give oral presentations on their proposals. In these scenarios, the "Cone" is an essential restraint to prevent unnecessary and excessive influence by competitors allowing for an "apples to apples" comparison between bidders.
Alternatively, P3 proposals are extremely complex and differ significantly from proposer to proposer, even though their aim is to provide for the same need. Respondents will submit vastly different proposals, which include infrastructure, operations, technology, and financing components for the same solution. Therefore, P3 proposals require an "apples to oranges" comparison because the proposals proffered cannot be practically compared even though they provide the same solution.
As such, the "Cone" hinders there being an in-depth dialogue and comparison between P3 bidders' proposals. The only real interchange that takes place during the "Cone" occurs at oral presentations. Due to the FL Sunshine Law, those presentations occur in a public setting with competing proposers in attendance, waiting to make their presentations, and taking notes for future reference.
With respect to P3s, the "Cone" should be modified to allow for a final third step: closed discussions and negotiations should be added between the selection committee and individual proposers during the evaluation process. Additionally, modifications should be made to permit the submission of confidential information to be considered by a selection committee at that time.
Implementing such measures will protect the interests of both the County and the proposers, ensuring that the public gets the best deal.


text:
Pukara Estate Olive Oil
Regular price
Pukara Estate we stock a range of olive oils that are versatile and flavoursome and perfect for enhancing your favourite dishes. Whether you choose our lemon infused olive oil or our premium olive oil, you will not be disappointed. Store pick up only.
TAGS: gluten free gourmet Pukara Estate


text:
privacy policy template for small bussiness
Content Analytics is committed to protecting your privacy. This Statement of Privacy applies to the Content Analytics Website, services, and governs data collection and usage. By using the Content Analytics Website and services, you consent to the data practices described in this statement.
Collection of Personal Information
Content Analytics may collect personally identifiable information, such as your e-mail address, name, address or telephone number. Content Analytics also collects, as part of its service to you, personal information of third parties and/or your employees. Content Analytics also collects anonymous demographic information, which is not unique to you, such as your ZIP code, age, gender, preferences, interests and favorites.